Menendez Brothers' Tragedy Brought Back Into Culture Focus As Netflix Airs A Documentary And A Series. The Shocking Facts That Were Obscured Before By Culture's Mockery Of Them—Now In Stark Light

If They Are Released For A Changed Sentence And Time Served, They Could Have A Tremendous Impact For Sex Abuse Survivors With PTSD; Their Father Raped A Member Of Menudo, Who Has Now Come Forward

”By watching a tragedy, the spectators had to feel compassion, thus cleansing their soul of the feeling of pity and terror the tragedy inspired, and perhaps more private sorrows.”

—Giacomo Cavallo,

“What Is Greek Tragedy?” —Quora

Part 1.

On Netflix, there is a documentary called “The Menendez Brothers,” which I’ve watched twice in the last week.

I’m very interested in this case, lately. I think it bodes well for a cultural re-assessment of the effects of severe childhood abuse.

The Los Angeles district attorney, George Garcón, has recommended a re-sentencing of the brothers, in light of recent new evidence, and “changing times” regarding how we view sexual abuse of males. If a judge rules to reduce the sentence to manslaughter, (22 years max) they could be freed right away for time served (34.5 years.) Gascón stands accused of political angling for re-election, using the post-Netflix series explosion of interest in the case.

He denies there’s anything political about his actions.

This is a case where a vast number of family members—direct relatives of the murder victims—have steadfastly campaigned for the brothers’ release from prison.

Now that, we can be certain, is a trauma story like very few. One prosecutor, who went to school with them, said on a show that she has never in all her years prosecuting murder, seen that.

Tourists are flocking to the house where the murders took place, after watching the Netflix series “Monsters,” ( which I will return to.)

Here’s the trailer:

Article here.

When Murderers Help A Society Confront Itself

We were told, at the time, it was a story about “Beverly Hills,” or some zip code.

A crime of greed. They were after their inheritance, etc.

I do, actually, have memories from the 90s of this not sounding right, at all, but I never looked more closely.

The prosecution lied.

(Something is very wrong with our justice system, that these characters—prosecutors— make a fortune lying, destroying people’s lives. Still they never seem to get disbarred.)

One has to assume they hate children, and/or were abused themselves?

The documentary (NOT the series) is a crash course in how the system works, to conceal sexual abuse—protect abusers, scapegoat and sacrifice victims, for media profit.

But also, it reveals how (this is my personal interpretation) the brothers were sent to prison for life in part because it was part and parcel of the “woke” of that era—the 90s—to deny incest and sexual abuse of males, especially handsome, white, affluent “jocks” like Lyle and Erik.

Now the Menendez brothers are re-emerging in the culture, their story re-considered, as we—all of us—are invited to take a closer look at our own de-sensitization, and quickness to turn a deaf ear to victims whose truths we have not made space for in our collective moral narratives.

Not Sharon Osbourne—but that should surprise nobody.

There’s Always A Reason

I now realize the version that got “planted” in our collective minds in the 90s had far greater mind control implications than a premeditated murder verdict alone: What if people started looking into José Menendez, CEO of RCA records at the time of his death, and then the music industry itself? That could happen easily—if they took their foot off the Hate The Menendez Brothers gas pedal.

We would have found industrial scale, ritual rape of young artists, prior to contracts being awarded—common knowledge now in these P Diddy days.

In the case of boy band Menudo, Roy Rosello was selected as a first sacrifice—and his rape by Jose Menendez took place in the Menendez home.

The prosecutor of the first Menendez trial, that ended in two hung juries, still says on camera, that Lyle and Erik fabricated their story of abuse.

I mean to say she says this recently—in the documentary.

Roy Rossello was taken, by his manager, to the Menendez home, which he said had such a dark energy he felt sick; His manager had told him he was about to do something very “great” for his whole band, and for his manager. He was handed a glass of spiked wine; He was 14.

You can listen to his harrowing story here.

Real Boys Don’t Cry

People are often very proud of who they “don’t feel sorry for.” And so the never ending cycle of trauma, abuse, and power continues—through a judicial system that sacrifices justice for grandstanding, and a media that makes its money off the minting of “monsters.”

Big Monster Big Money.

In this clip, their lawyer describes the new evidence, and several family members, including the 93 year old sister of Kitty Menendez, plead for their release.

On a parallel track, there’s a very popular drama series called precisely this— “Monsters—” about the case, which claims, piously, to seek to tell “all sides of the story.” It takes extreme liberties with the facts, re-molds the brothers to the point that they bear no resemblance to their real personalities, (easy to witness via countless court testimonies on line.) Among other fact inventions, the series depicts that the brothers had a gay, incestuous relationship, and that they were cocaine addicts and party-boys.

All I can see in it is caricature. It’s some famous director.

Here’s the Monsters trailer:

Here, author Robert Rand, who wrote a good and fair book on the subject, and covered it at the time it happened, is interviewed about “Monsters” which he calls a “train wreck.”

I’ve watched one episode and found it to be disturbing.

Nobody resembles a real human being, the dialogue is campy and impossible to believe, and the brothers are made to look like gay porn stars, or models.

If you listen to them, the real Lyle and Erik, they’re actually way more human, loyal, self-accounting, and capable of empathy than you’d ever imagine if you, like me, like most of us, never paid attention until now. Both of them have spent their time in prison working to counsel sexual abuse survivors in prison, which Lyle says are the majority—by far.

Cui Bono?

The PSY OP factory, right now, is pushing back against Menendez Sympathy, while cashing in big on their tragedy.

It wants to stabilize and re-assert the culture’s loathing of the brothers. We should ask ourselves: Why?

I didn’t think much about the conclusion that was planted in the collective mind in the early 90s about this case.

I thought the women who defended them, especially Leslie Abramson, the lawyer for Erik Menendez, were somehow suffering from a compulsion to forgive the unforgivable. I am not one to follow sensational murder cases, except the one time I was assigned, in 1997—O.J. Simpson.

But now I am beginning to see how sensational murder cases feature in to the elaborate weaponry of our mind controllers—hammering home the things we are and are not permitted to feel, think, or ask.

Incest, rape, child abuse, and its consequences—for instance—off the table. That stuff is the currency of everything. Nobody wants it “exposed.”

Remember the American Golden Rule: We don’t concede trauma.

How did I never know that Lyle and Erik’s Cuban born father, Jose, raped them both, repeatedly—sexually, psychologically, and physically abused them, dominated and humiliated them, and threatened to kill them if they ever told anybody what he was doing to them?

How did I never know that their own mother enabled it all, and abused them herself, both sexually, psychologically, and physically? She didn't assist her younger son, for example, when he vomited in the bathroom, after one particularly violent rape. That’s just one of thousands of pieces of evidence that nevertheless got boiled, packaged, and sent back to us as an “innocent mother” being gunned down.

The answer to the “How did I not know?” question, is this, in part:

Our (American media) culture only shows up when there’s a “crime scene” with yellow tape.

Two savage murders—indeed. True. But why?

We save all our morality strictly for the moment of murder—which we oppose, of course.

If you watch the spotlight effect that blights all background, you see that homicides stand by themselves, in the glare, referencing nothing that came before, nothing inside the circle except DNA, crime scene evidence, and the consensus that murder is the worst of crimes,* never to be “forgiven,” by any of us.

(*Not counting the murders of the war machine, the public health machine, etc. No—only murder that is private, with lots of blood. That’s the kind that inspires the horror response in us all.)

Whodunnit.

We abhor murder, and we insist it can never be explained. I’m comfortable with that—murder is always ‘wrong’ except in clear self defense. But sadistic pedophilia and abuse is also murder. How many times were those boys’ souls murdered?

I too wish they would have just moved to another continent and changed their names. Of course I do!

But the other taboo we won’t look at is how traumatizing mind control operates. We expect victims of extreme trauma to act like non traumatized people—ignoring the brain damage, the actual brain changes, that chronic soul murder and abuse causes in children (and later adults.) PTSD, as it is broadly called, makes people unable to think straight. Not even Erik Menendez’ lawyer Abramson seemed remotely familiar with the neurological symptoms of PTSD—she kept scolding him when he didn’t hear or stuttered or took too long to reply smoothly.

We show up for this last act in each American tragedy, to demonstrate that we don’t care anything for why, or how, anything happened. The play before the last act.

That’s soft apologia—pathology, perhaps.

Women stuff.

As a society, we lack empathy, especially for male victims.

“Cause I’m proud to be an American, cause at least I know I’m free…”

(Of context)

(And empathy.)

(If media dictates.)

What Is A Monster?

Here’s Lyle recounting what his parents did to his pet rabbit. (I didn’t watch it.)

Here’s the new evidence, which could lead to their being released for time served. It includes a letter Erik wrote to his cousin about the abuse.

Part 2.

I woke up this morning thinking about Lyle and Erik, and thinking about the word “murder.”

The actions of the father murdered the whole family—everybody died, one way or another. That’s what Christians mean when they use the word “sin.”

Those “parents” murdered those children daily—murdered their souls.

The father was protected, by way of power, fame, domination, “reputation” and wealth.

Lyle and Erik have said many times that their crime was very serious, and they absolutely deserved a lengthy prison sentence.

The correct verdict (I say, as a female, consistent with the female jurors) would have been manslaughter, and “imperfect self defense.” That’s when a person kills because they believe their life is in mortal danger, even if this belief is unfounded.

I don’t think they were motivated by money, at all.

Pure misdiagnosed trauma.

Reviewing the elemental story line through their testimonies, I understand how—yes—they believed they were about to be killed. Their father vowed to kill them all the time. But when Lyle confronted the father, in defense of his younger brother, and the father showed zero contrition, refused Lyle’s offer to continue the coverup if it “just stopped,” that was when the stakes were raised and the train started careening toward tragedy.

I wonder what, if anything, José’s Cuban revolution trauma (the family were part of the Batista elite, that lost everything, and fled to the US) may have had to do with all this. Who was he and how did he become a monster? Where did he learn all those sadistic torture methods he used on his sons? Was he involved with MK Ultra, somehow? What does RCA Records have to say about all this? I’m guessing nothing.

I think turning away from, ignoring evidence of child abuse and sexual abuse should carry criminal penalties. Abusers require a whole culture of complicity, silence, and betrayal (of the victims) in order to carry out their crimes.

“I’ve never know anything but hopelessness,” said Lyle Menendez at one point in his testimony.

The father was a “monster,” with no capacity for remorse; Essentially psychopathic.

José Menendez was also an American success story—always rose to become CEO of every company he ever worked for—finally, RCA records. Presumably more victims will emerge now, in the wake of Rossello’s testimony.

The father had total power over the whole family, and was “everything.” The boys wanted his love, and Erik, the younger, admitted readily on the witness stand that he didn’t want the sexual abuse to stop, at times, because those were the only occasions his father had time for him, gave him attention, and was “nice to him.”

In this testimony, Erik describes part of his father’s seemingly advanced, MK Ultra level sadism, which was called “The Mirror.”

After raping him, Erik had to sit in front of a mirror, for a humiliation ritual, centered on him arguing for his own worthlessness, and hitting himself when he answered in his own favor, which was always “wrong.”

The “wrong” answer to what would happen to Erik if he ever told anybody about the sexual abuse was:

“You will hurt me.”

The correct answer was: “You’ll kill me.”

”Right,” Jose Menendez would say.

Two juries, in the first trial, came to a “hopeless” deadlock—hung juries.

And get this: Every woman, on both juries, voted for manslaughter, and “imperfect self defense,” (up to 20 years in prison) and every man voted for murder (life in prison without parole.)

Gil Garcetti, Los Angeles District Attorney at the time, needed a conviction, in the wake of the O.J. Simpson “Not Guilty” verdict and ensuing chaos.

So he announced there would be a new trial, and this time, no evidence of sexual abuse, and no testimony from family members (who overwhelmingly supported the boys, including Kitty Menendez own sister, who campaigns for their release to this day) would be admitted.

Now they got a 12 to nothing guilty of murder verdict, with a sentence of life without possibility for parole. Garcetti pumped his fists into the air, triumphantly.

Eric and Lyle have now been in prison for 34.5 years.

Why didn’t I know any of this?

The hit Netflix series “Monsters,” (what a perfectly awful and Monarch-Mind Control Kind of name for the series) sparked the new Menendez mania, despite is distortions.

Young Tok Tok influencers, by the hundreds, are posting content in support of the brothers’ release, which I see as a very positive thing.

It had taken 37 years for the “story” of fathers raping their sons to be admitted as a real phenomenon, for the PSY OP to begin to change direction.

Why couldn’t they just leave? Move away? People ask.

Our whole culture being illiterate in the dynamics of both sexual abuse, sadism, power, fame, influence, and mind control produces these naive questions, in order to have morality served up in a clean test tube: How two young men who have been tortured all their lives should have behaved.

Shortly before the murders, the older brother, Lyle, had confronted the father, demanded he stop raping his younger brother. He expected, irrationally, that the father would be cowed, would back off, and he promised he would not let the dark truth out. Instead, the father let him know, calmly, that he would kill them both, if he so pleased—and he would do whatever he pleased with his own son.

Lyle realized he had been naive, guided by a fantasy that the father would “care,”and had now backed them both into a corner, where they understandably believed they were both going to both be killed. By both parents—possibly on a fishing trip. The more I think about this, the more it sounds totally believable.

When the brothers testified in the first trial, about the father’s sadistic abuse, and rape, and beatings, attempted drownings, pins pushed into their skin, etc—they cried.

Go to the 24 minute mark here, to see Erik struggling to say the thing he was trained his whole life to repress, in order to “spare” the great father’s reputation, in tears. Even his defense lawyer, and the judge, were impatient with him, for struggling so, to speak. Erik also had hearing problems—both these things are symptoms of severe trauma.

SNL made a skit mocking the brothers crying. It’s truly among the most disgusting displays of American sadism through “comedy” and media ever created. You have to watch it to believe it.

“I'm going to lie, this is hilarious!! It's soooo funny to make fun of abused children!!!”

—YouTube comment

The whole cultural apparatus is propelled by a refusal to show “empathy” in what we call the wrong places. Every single “talk show host” from Bill Maher to Barbara Walters, solidified their positions in the over-paid media ruling class, by scorning anybody who wanted to talk about what the father (and mother) did to those boys. Instead we were sold a dark morality tale that assured us they had killed their parents so they could go on a shopping spree.

To be an American media pundit, you have to be a perfectly unambivalent bully, who aids and abets sadistic abusers, and pretends to be a straight-backed criminal prosecutor, not having it— not having it at all—when any crime is placed in context.

The context is tragedy. Tragedy is an inevitable culmination of cause and effect, resulting in a very hard earned wisdom, after all had been lost.

In the documentary, the prosecutor for the first trial, a woman, really nasty, brags about how many guns she has in the house, in the documentary, promising to shoot anybody who tries to come for her house. An odd juxtaposition.

She even claims they fabricated the abuse charges, even though there are hospital records. Even though Erik, through childhood, had every major physical symptom of sexual abuse in the book. No doctor called authorities on this man.

Even though the family were ordered to leave the father and Erik in rooms, not walk down certain corridors, when Erik was being raped.

“Jose told us Erik wouldn’t be joining us for dinner.”

The family knew to always supply Erik with lemons or ketchup—he needed that to chase the aftertaste of the father’s seminal fluid from his mouth.

Erik did try to run away. Once he paddled his canoe across a lake and tried to escape through the woods. The father found him and threatened to kill him if he ever did that again. “You’re embarrassing me,” the father screamed, slamming him into a tree.

Trauma occurs in the absence of power—the fatal absence of power—most horribly experienced by children trapped behind closed doors, and myths about the family’s image.

Who will believe them, when it would mean going up against a powerful, vindictive record company executive, a “captain of industry?”

Even the boys worshipped that father, did all they could to secure his approval and his “love.”

Wealth hides so much depravity, can paralyze an entire family and community, to not see, not hear, not feel, and not react.

All of that said, at the end of the day, this whole thing will, I feel, have a net result of helping an incalculable number of trauma survivors a) be believed and b) find hope and healing.