Menendez brothers explain how they got found out by police after parents murders

9 October 2024, 19:05 | Updated: 10 October 2024, 17:24

How did the Menendez brothers get found out? Erik Menendez explains why they didn't get caught. Picture: Ted Soqui/Sygma via Getty Images, MIKE NELSON/AFP via Getty Images

By Katie Louise Smith

How did the Menendez brothers get found out? How did they get caught? Erik Menendez has revealed exactly what happened in Netflix's new documentary.

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After watching Ryan Murphy's Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, a dramatisation of the infamous true crime case, viewers have been asking several questions about the actual true story behind the murders.

Hot on the heels of the series, Netflix have now released The Menendez Brothers, a documentary that features interviews with the brothers themselves who tell their story in their own words.

In the doc, Erik Menendez explains exactly how he and Lyle were able to avoid becoming prime suspects in the immediate aftermath of their parents, José and Kitty's, murders. Prosecutor Pamela Bozanich then goes on to explain the evidence that ultimately led to them getting caught months later.

Ryan Murphy's series covers a lot of these details, but here's how it actually all happened in real life according to Erik, Lyle and those who worked on the case.

How did the Menendez brothers get found out? How did they get caught?

The Menendez brothers were found out two months after they murdered their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez. Picture: Getty

Did the Menendez brothers murder their parents?

On the night of the murders, police found Lyle and Erik outside of their house, hysterical. They had called the police to report the murders but they were not arrested or treated as suspects.

Speaking about the murders in The Menendez Brothers doc, Erik recounted the night it happened and admitted that he and Lyle only managed to get away with it at the time because of a policing failure.

"There should have been a police response and we would have been arrested," Erik said in his own words. "We had no alibi. The gun powder residue was all over our hands. Under normal circumstances, they give you a gunpowder residue test. We would have been arrested immediately."

He continued: "There were shells, gun shells in my car. My car was inside the search area. All they had to do is search my car. They were searching everything."

"And if they would have just pressed me, I wouldn’t have been able to withstand any questioning. I was in a completely broken and shattered state of mind. I was shell shocked," Erik continued.

Watch The Menendez Brothers documentary trailer

The police did not immediately suspect the brothers because there was no immediate or clear motive for two young boys living in Beverly Hills murdering their parents. They were free to leave before later being brought in for witness statements.

Erik then spoke to detectives about what he witnessed. He lied, telling the detectives that he saw a lot of smoke and that there was a dark yellow haze through the room.

"I told the detectives that I saw smoke which would have been impossible if I didn’t do it," Erik confessed. "It’s pretty incredible that we were not arrested that night. We should have been."

How did Lyle and Erik Menendez get found out? How did they get caught? Picture: Getty

Prosecutor Pamela Bozanich, who has already caught a lot of criticism for her remarks in the documentary, slammed the police for failing to look into the brothers. "Statistically, if you had a domestic homicide, you would be an idiot police officer not to consider other family members," she says in the doc.

Suspicion about the brothers was only raised after they went on their well-documented spending spree. In the doc, both Lyle and Erik explained that it was all just a ruse to hide how they were really feeling.

"The idea that I was having a good time is absurd. Everything was to cover up this horrible thing of not wanting to be alive," Erik shared. Lyle added: "I was not enjoying myself as a playboy, and I was actually sobbing a lot at night, sleeping poorly, very distraught at times and kind of adrift throughout all those months."

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story trailer

When did the Menendez brothers get arrested?

After the police began looking into the brothers as potential suspects, Bozanich began searching for stronger grounds to move forward with the investigation. She asked investigators to either find the murder weapons or find out where the brothers had bought the guns.

Eventually, investigators discovered that the brothers bought the guns using Lyle Menendez's roommate's stolen ID card. (In the Netflix series, Erik is seen showing his "fake" ID which bares the name of Donovan Goodreau – the real life ex-roommate of Lyle).

This discovery, along with Judalon Smyth's report about Erik confessing to his therapist Dr. Oziel, was enough to arrest the brothers on suspicion of murdering their parents.

The brothers were arrested on in March 1990. Lyle was arrested on March 8th and Erik was arrested three days later.

Read more: Where Is Dr. Oziel Now? Menendez Brother's Therapist And What Happened In Real Life

Netflix's Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story explains how they got caught by police. Picture: Netflix

The brothers then discussed their arrests, with Lyle saying: "They could have called me and told me to come into the police station. It was a staged arrest for a media circus."

Lyle was arrested outside the Menendez house, and Erik was arrested as soon as he stepped off the plane after returning to Los Angeles. Both of their arrests are depicted in the Netflix series and images of how it happened in real life are shown in the documentary.

On top of everything else, sheriff deputies discovered a 17-page letter in Erik's cell that Lyle had written to Erik. The letter contained details that Lyle couldn't express in person. "Because they had that note, they had a confession that we were responsible for my parent's deaths," Lyle explained.

Instead of destroying the letter, Erik kept it because it was "precious" to him that Lyle had opened up to him about his own pain.