You're listening to a tenderfoot TV podcast.

This is one of the most sensational crimes ever to explode in Hollywood.

In 1989, Beverly Hills police responded to a brutal double homicide, a powerful Hollywood

executive and his glamorous wife slain in their own mansion.

And the killers, their two sons.

California, a jury hears opening statements today in the trial of two Beverly Hills brothers

accused of murdering their wealthy parents.

But when Lyle and Eric Menendez stood trial, they didn't just confess.

They revealed something darker.

Why did you kill your parents?

Because we were afraid.

I just wanted to stop.

What followed was a cultural earthquake,

two wealthy boys in pastel out sweaters, crying on the stand,

late night jokes, S&L parodies, tabloids calling them the rich kid killers.

But beneath the spectacle was a harder question.

Were these sons cold-blooded murderers

or victims no one wanted to believe?

I've heard of very few murders

that were more savage than this one was.

I just walked into the room.

I just started firing, and I don't know.

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