Hey everybody welcome back to cold case murder mysteries. I'm your host Ryan Kraus and this is episode 20 examining the Menendez brothers.

Now this case has obviously been covered exhaustively from the sensational trial

that appeared on core TV way back in the mid 1990s to movies to TV series and even

documentaries but for anyone who isn't familiar it goes like this on August 20th 1989 just midnight, brothers Lyle and Eric Menendez, 21 and 18 years

of age respectively, phoned police from their Beverly Hills, California mansion, at which

point Lyle tells them that somebody killed their parents.

But despite the controversial trials, verdicts, and life sentences to follow, one very simple

yet perplexing question has fueled continued interest in this case.

Why?

Why were Jose and Kitty Menendez brutally murdered in the living room of their home as they

watched a movie on the night of August 20th, 1989.

This argument has created a seesaw battle between the opposing notions of sexual abuse and monetary

greed, with people on both sides of the issue looking at their counterparts and wondering why they can't just see the plain truth.

Yet the truth is not at the extreme of either of these ideas, where most people sit,

and therefore it escapes them that the focal point of a seesaw is actually its pivot.

Much like a tree trunks relationship to its branches and the leaves that grow from the extension of these limbs,

the question of why somebody has committed murder should not be limited to the immediate and personal concerns of that individual,

but of society as a whole as it branches out across geographical spaces and time.

So, in examining the Menendez brothers, across geographical spaces and time.

So in examining the Menendez brothers,

what we want to do is strip this case

down to the societal implications of their actions

...