Erik Menendez Takes the Stand - (1993) CA v. Menendez Brothers | COURT TV

leslie h zoller z-o-e-l-l-e-r detective zola you've previously identified yourself as the investigating officer for the beverly hills police department in this case that's correct a number of photographs of various rooms and parts of the residents at 722 elm drive have been introduced in this court are you familiar with those photographs yes i am and is it usual procedure in a homicide investigation for photographs to be taken of the scene yes and as the investigating officer on i guess the early morning hours of august 21st 1989 were you aware of the fact that a large number

of photographs were taken of the interior of the house yes i am if i may approach her yes i'm holding a previously marked exhibit at 63. it's small do you recognize that photograph to be a photograph taken inside the master bedroom at 722 elm drive yes and does that particular photograph show the location of the ibm pc computer that was in that room yes it does and does that photograph show that the computer ended stand is to the right of the entry doors to the bedroom yes and it is up against a wall is it

not that's correct now i've placed a series may i stay your honor just to go to these photographs yes i've placed a series of photographs in front of you that have been marked with new numbers 257 through 265. let me ask you about them one at a time showing you 257. do you recognize what room of the residence that photograph was taken in yes i do and what room was it this is eric's room and it was a room upstairs on the south side of the residence toward the front there was a guest bed bedroom

uh further west than this at the front of the house okay so it's uh it doesn't it's not right on the front its windows don't open to the front of the house that's correct do you know what its windows open to to the south side of the house and do you know if those windows overlook the pool area the tennis court area and provide a view of the guest house it does not know does not provide a view of those things no now the items and objects that are in this particular photograph to the best

of your understanding were they in that condition when your photographer arrived to photograph them yes is it a proper police procedure to not move items around at a crime scene yes it is and was the entire house under your guidance treated as a crime scene yes so that nothing should have been moved in any room that's correct and would the same be true of putting things in rooms that were not there when the police arrived that is also correct no one should be doing that no and do you have any reason whatsoever to believe that

anyone working on this investigation on the 21st of august 1989 put anything in any of these rooms that was not already there to my knowledge nobody had done that showing you the next photograph which i previously marked 258 is that another view of eric's bedroom yes it is in your opinion does it appear messy yes when you observed it the morning of august 21st were you struck with its messiness yes were there various writings like papers magazines books strewn about the room yes there were did you note any particular writing in any police report or

inventory or property report no did you collect any items from that room not to my knowledge no and did you inventory the contents of each and every one of these rooms now showing you the next photograph which has been mark 259 what room of the house does that appear to be this is a another photo of the master bedroom and do you see there appears to be a piece of equipment in the center of the photograph that has a a jacket over do you know what that equipment was i believe it was a life cycle

an exercise bike yes and there is a doorway beyond that piece of equipment do you know where it went that went to the dressing rooms were there two separate dressing rooms and bathrooms off this master bedroom yes was access to both of them through this doorway or was there another doorway i believe it was just through this doorway and was one of the dressing room bathroom areas to the left of that doorway and the other to the right yes now when you say dressing room did that include closets yes let me take this out of

here and put it up you recall testifying earlier that there were two rifles in a closet off the master bedroom that's correct and could you determine in looking at the clothing in each of those dressing rooms which was mr menendez's and which was mrs menendez's i believe so yes was there female clothing for people in one male clothing in the other yes do you recall in which closet the rifles were i believe they were in mr menendez's closet now along those lines did you see either in the bedroom or in mr menendez's closet a wooden

box or a wooden tray-like thing the sort where men put their wallets and keys at the end of the night men who don't carry braces i don't recall you have testified that the rifles were not loaded that's correct did you ever examine the premises or search for ammunition for that rifle yes and you didn't find any that's correct i'm sorry i'll show this to you guys this is 260. is that the same bedroom yes and do you notice whether or not in their photo in that photograph there is a window seat yes and on the

sides of the window seat recessed can you tell if there's anything there it appears to be a bookcase with what appears to be books do they appear to be books or do they also appear to be magazines it's hard to tell it could possibly be magazines i take it you did not inventory those magazines that's correct nor did you remove any from the house that's correct now showing you the next photograph which is 261 does that appear to be a second window seat in the same bedroom yes and does there appear to be bookcases recessed

on the sides of that window seat yes there are i'm going to put these photographs up sort of overlapping is this sort of the way that part of the room looked the two window seats and bookcases on either side of the fireplace yes now i would like to call your attention detective zola perhaps i'll tilt this a tiny bit to uh photograph i believe this is 250. i'm not being contradicted you have previously testified that this item here was a glass of some sort that was on the coffee table in the den that's correct and

it appears to have some white substance around the sides and some darker spots that's correct was there actually any actual food inside no it was basically just traces of food that's correct and did you in examining that glass determine or at least form an opinion as to what those traces were yes and were those traces of blueberries yes was the white stuffed traces of whipped cream yes and was there only one such glass on the coffee table when you observe it containing that material yes okay and uh didn't have it was intact it wasn't broken

that's correct it wasn't picked off up off the floor and put there that's correct not by any of my people anyway okay and it doesn't appear to have any evidentiary value does it i mean it wasn't seized it wasn't tested in any way that's correct doesn't appear to have blood on it no now i want to show you photograph 262. do you recognize what room of the house that's in it's a photo of the kitchen now did you in your inspection of this crime scene come upon a second glass that also appeared to have the

traces of blueberries and whipped cream yes and where was that glass sitting on the counter in the kitchen it's depicted in photo 262. did you just this isn't a grease pencil but could you just circle that second glass with similar traces i've done that thank you and showing you 263 is that also a photograph of the kitchen it is is it taken from the opposite end of the island it is and do you see the same glass in that photograph yes i do and would you circle it again i've done that and was this glass

also entirely intact yes it was and did this glass also not have any blood or anything else of significance on it it did not now have you ever reviewed these photographs 250 and the two that i've shown you i'm sure i have yes that there was actually berries arrived would you look at the last photograph that's in front of you there are two photographs here 264. what does 264 show it's the an exterior shot a close-up of the french doors outside the den depicting a broken glass pane and does that appear to be a relatively

large hole yes and the last photograph last photograph is again from the outside of that den and it is a photo depicting a second hole in a french door window that's a different hole that's correct getting back for a moment to your inspection of the scene particularly the area of the master bedroom and the closets did you see any currency of any type whether domestic or foreign anywhere in that area yes what did you see i recall seeing american bills do you recall seeing any foreign currency bills coins anything like that i don't recall did

you locate mrs menendez's purse anywhere in the house it was in that dressing room in which one in in the one as soon as you went into that room so the first dressing room do you recall what color it was the dress no i don't and did you find mr menendez's wallet i believe i did see it where i don't recall wasn't it inside his dressing room on a wooden tray it could have been i just don't recall and didn't that same wooden tray have numerous english coins and bills on it i don't recall and

didn't that same tray also have about 20 rounds of 22 caliber ammunition i don't recall seeing that no i have nothing further you heard any examination on behalf of lyle menendez any cross-examination all right thank you messed up eric galen menendez m-e-n-e-n-d-e-z mr menendez you've been in this courtroom since the beginning of uh pre-trial hearings and trial have you not yes i have are you aware of the idiosyncrasies of that microphone if you get too close it pops you do that yes if you get too far away we don't hear you that's right okay so

would you put yourself at a middle distance if you can i think you should come in a little closer okay i'm fine okay all right mr menendez where do you live los angeles county jail how long have you lived there three and a half years and during the three and a half years that you have lived there how long on how many occasions have you been in sunshine ten times overall ten times ten times and uh for how long a period on each of those times forty forty five minutes four five six months ago is

that why you're so pale probably you're not don't have sick skin diseases no do you know who dr william vickery is yes yes i do and how long have you known him over three years three and a half years and what is he by profession he's uh a psychiatrist and is he someone that you've seen regularly while in the jail yes he's he's my psychiatrist he's your psychiatrist yes i think you better come kind of the closer thank you and uh does dr vickery have you under a prescription for some medication currently yes and what

is the name of the medication xanax and what is your understanding of what it's for objection or relevance overall for uh so that i can sleep and for my nerves are you a nervous person sometimes and how often are you supposed to take the xanax twice a day and are you supposed to take it at night for sleep yes did you take it last night yes did you take it the night before the night before yes now are you also supposed to take it during the day yes i am have you not taken it today

no i haven't and are you planning on taking it during the day so long as you test with us yes you are i'm planning on it yes do you know if you will no do you have some concerns about taking it while you're testifying yes why don't you tell us what those concerns are i've been told that when you take xanax let me ask you something does it make you sleepy yes are you reluctant to take it when you need to be awake yes are you aware of the fact mr menendez that in 1987 1988

and 1989 your mother took xanax yes do you know what the dosage is what the size of the pill is of the xanax that you're supposed to take yes what is it 0.25 0.25 milligram yeah a quarter of a milligram yes and that makes you sleepy yes did you uh strike that how long um strike that what's the first day that you resided in the los angeles county jail march 11th or the night of the 10th or the 11th um 1990. and was that the day that you were arrested yes and where were you arrested

at the uh la airport los angeles international airport yes and uh did detective zoller arrest you there yes he did and how did you come to be at los angeles international airport i flew in from miami and london and where had you started out on that journey i was in israel playing tennis and was your coach mark heffernan in israel with you yes he was and did you fly from israel to some place and then stop i flew from israel to london and then from london to miami and from miami to l.a now did something

happen did you hear something in israel that caused you to make that flight yes i did and what had you heard uh my roommate called me and told me that my brother had been arrested and your roommate's name was noel nedley and was noel nedley a man yes and did you did noel tell you or did you understand what your brother was arrested for i think he i think he told me yeah you knew it was for killing your parents yes and when you learned that did you know your brother was charged or being charged

or held on a murder charge well i i assumed i mean i knew it was for the killing of my parents so i so you knew the charge would be murder yes did you learn before you left israel that allegations had been filed against your brother of special circumstances that made it a potential death penalty case yes no i'm not sure i knew that before i left israel when i knew that in london you knew at least that was the potential charges oh yes yes i knew that and how soon after hearing that your brother

was arrested did you decide to leave israel and come back to the united states immediately and did you expect that when you came back you would also be arrested yes did you understand there was a warrant out for your arrest uh yes i did and did you understand you'd be arrested for the same thing your brother was being held on yes did you ever consider during that period of time running away no did you consider hiding no did you consider fighting extradition from either israel or england no i didn't i didn't want to fight extradition

why because i wanted to be back with my brother why rejection iran mr menendez you've heard the testimony of your brother that you and he killed your parents on august 20th 1989. did you not yes we did and what do you believe was the originating cause of you and your brother ultimately winding up shooting your parents um me telling [Applause] you telling what me telling lyle that uh you're telling lao what was it you telling lyle about something that was happening my dad my dad can i ask a leading question if you don't ask my

dad just wait one second okay let me know he was in the process of answering so there's no need to ask can you answer the question yes okay was you telling lyle what my dad had been molesting me and did you want something from your brother is that why you told him it's just wanted to stop were you seeking help from your brother yes and when you were in israel in 1990 did you feel that seeking help from your brother was why your brother was in jail yes [Applause] in the summer of 1989 mr menendez

did you live with your parents jose and mary louise menendez yes i did and how old were you i was 18 years old and had you always lived with your parents your whole life yes you had never been sent away to school boarding school or anything like that no had you on a couple of vacations gone away to camp for a week at a time yes other than that did you always live with your folks i guess i did and in fact as of that summer of 1989 had you taken all of your vacations with

your parents yes had you ever been an exchange student or studied away from the city in which they lived during the years 1986 1987 1988 were you aware of the fact that your mother was in a noticeable emotional state a lot yes were you aware of the fact that your mother took medication overruled as to that question yeah i knew she took medication did you see her doing that yes what's what was the form of the medication that she took was it a liquid was it pills it was pills during the summer of 1989 did

that change yes did you see your mother taking her medication during that summer or did you notice that she wasn't no she had stopped taking it and had at the same time that you realize she had stopped taking the medication did you see any increase in her very emotional states yes mr menendez during the summer of 1989 were you being sexually molested by your father yes and when did that begin how old were you i was six years old now you have seen you've seen a series of photographs that we put up on the board

some weeks ago series is 223. once you look through those and tell me if you remember seeing those when they were last put up in the straw yes yes what's up are those pictures of your sixth birthday party yes other scenes of that day yes now do you know can you remember whether or not the molestation began before or after your sixth birthday party um i was right around then i believe it was just after excuse me i believe it was just after after and where were you living at the time um muncie you've seen

the shark that we have used to identify the houses yes recognize the muncie house from that chart yes and was that house in quite a wooded area yes it was can you say mr menendez that you can you say that you actually remember your sixth birthday party no you don't i remember a birthday party but i mean but you don't know if you remember that one no so they're stuck together excuse me there's a photograph mr menendez do you recall seeing a photograph from this series of your body naked yes do you remember that photograph

being taken um i remember a lot of photographs being taken i don't remember that specific one the types of photography well your parents both took a lot of photographs of you and your brother is that right yes do you remember naked photographs being taken yes and who would take the naked ones my dad but you don't remember that specific one being said no do you recall when it was that you first saw or shown that naked photograph of yourself um just before i got to court with why you've been in jail yes how long from

the time you were six when you say your father started to molest you how long did that go on 12 years and were there episodes of sexual activity with your father over that last summer yes over the course of the 12 years did the type of sexual activity that your father engaged in with you vary and change yes were there patterns to the behavior so that there were actually different kinds of sexual incidents with your father objection overall yes and did you come over the years to give those different kinds of sexual incidents names yes

and would you tell us what were the names that you gave for those different types of incidents um knees knees knees k-n-e-e-s yes that was one type yes what was another type um nice sex nice sex nice sex what was another kind um rough sex rough sex and was there another kind still yes and what name did you come to give that kind just sex you call that sex yes and was that that you called sex some form of intercourse yes [Applause] when before your father died was the last incident of what you called sex

um in may of what year 1989 and when before your father died was the last incident of knees in august of what year 1989 and that last incident of knees took place in what location my bedroom the bedroom that detective zoller was just identifying photographs of yes over the course of those 12 years between age 6 and age 18 where did most of the sexual incidents with your father take place in my bedroom starting at which house and muncie and did episodes of sexual activity between yourself and your father also take place in the next

house you lived in on mill road yes and did similar incidents occur when you lived in the house in pennington on lake shore drive yes and were there incidents in the fancy house on mountain avenue in princeton yes and were there incidents in the rented house in calabasas yes and were there incidents in the big mansion in beverly hills yes i'll just put this in this this is the naked picture of you that you were testifying about yes does it embarrass you this picture yes what exhibit number was that your honor that one is um

232. the summer of 1989 mr menendez what did you do for the bulk of that summer i played tennis i played tennis you played tennis yes did you play tennis at home or were you traveling i was traveling and you were traveling to what tennis tournaments and were these tennis tournaments in different places yeah there was san francisco they were in kentucky and michigan and was this series of tournaments part of the junior national competition that occurs every year yes and what is the last place that the junior nationals has played every year in kalamazoo

michigan when did you start traveling to these tournaments that summer july and the first place was in san francisco and did you stay in a hotel with your parents during that part of the tournament yes and do you remember what town or area that hotel was in i believe it was in burlingame burlingame california yes now let's turn to the last part of this travel in kalamazoo what month was the play in kalamazoo the tournament in kalamazoo the end of the it was in august now how were you doing that summer tennis-wise in the tournament

in which tournament well let's start with how'd you do in san francisco i did pretty well in san francisco and the next stop was kentucky yes what city louiseville louisville kentucky louisville how'd you do at louisville i did great at louisville and after you did great at louisville did you sense what your parents expectations were for the next round yes and what did you sense about their expectations for the next round uh they wanted me to win uh kalamazoo and what does winning kalamazoo mean winning the net it was called the national tournament and it

was the biggest tournament um of the year every year and uh when you won it you got a birth into the u.s open but how many other tennis playing teams were in that tournament how many other kids were in it 128 it was the top 128 kids in the country would compete in that tournament and going into the tournament were those 128 already ranked based on their previous uh tennis play yes and do you know what you were ranked going into kalamazoo i'm not quite sure i think i was ranked 44 i know that was

my end up ranking somewhere around 40. and when you say your parents expected you to win it does that mean they expected you to go from 44 to 1 well not necessarily go from 44 to 1 in the rankings but win the tournament in other words beat everybody and wind up the number one player in that tournament yes now there was some youngster ranked one wasn't there yes and two yes and all the way there's 43 people ranked higher than you yes did you feel it was uh that you could do that that you were

going to win kalamazoo no why not because i i wasn't good enough to win kalamazoo and did you say that to your parents now don't expect me to win this i'm not good enough no why not well my dad and my mom wanted me to win kalamazoo so i told him i would play my my hardest and my dad said no you you want to win it so you wouldn't say to him dad that's not realistic no in fact over the course of your entire life did you feel that your parents had expectations for you

yes and did you ever feel those expectations were perhaps too high yes and did you ever tell them i can't do what you want me to do no i don't remember saying that and i wouldn't have you wouldn't have no i wouldn't say that did you play hard at kalamazoo yes did you train in addition to the actual matches were you on the tennis court playing and training in between in the morning and at night before and after the match and was the weather particularly difficult during that tournament uh yeah what was it like it

was there was a heat wave going through and it was heatwave when i was playing kentucky and then continued over when i was in michigan it was pretty hot did that make it difficult for you to play in michigan yes it made it difficult for everyone to play had you been training hard and working hard all summer yes what kind of physical shape did you feel you were in in kalamazoo i by the time i got to when i started the summer i was in fantastic physical shape but after having to play uh and train

every day for six or eight hours a day throughout the summer until i got to kentucky i was in good shape but when i was in kentucky i almost passed down on the court because it was it was too hot and i i played like nine or ten matches in period of like five days and so i was i was exhausted by the time i got to kalamazoo so i wasn't in the shape i wanted to be in when i got there how'd you do at kalamazoo i did really bad i did pretty badly and

was there a reaction on the part of your father to the way you played kalamazoo yes and was this a reaction you had seen in the past or was it different it was different now in the past if you had lost a tournament how would your father react he would get extremely angry and uh and yell sometimes hit me or uh um or have some sort of sex with me sex was a punishment yes was it always a punishment or only when you were a teenager only when i was a teenager and did he have

an angry reaction when you lost in kalamazoo yes how is it different than the previous angry reactions when you lost well i've never seen him not be able to speak um he got so angry and his muscles tensed up and his face tensed up to such a degree that he could no longer talk and where were you when you saw this reaction of his i was in the car and the car going from where to where uh from the from the tennis court to my uh hotel and did you find that what was your reaction

to his getting so angry he couldn't even yell at you i was i was i was scared i didn't know what he was gonna do i'd never seen that happen before i can't hear you i didn't know what he was gonna do i'd never seen that happen before and what he was saying uh scared me what did he say that scared you he said that uh he was yelling and telling me how awful i'd played and telling me that everything that i'd ever played for uh came down to this one tournament which i failed and

that everything i had ever played in any match i'd ever practiced for was meaningless now because this was a tournament this was the tournament and it was my last junior national tournament and uh and he was telling me that i failed and and to the point where he could no longer speak so that's what he said before he could could no longer speak yeah and did you think that there would be serious consequences to his anger yes did you know what they would be no now before this loss and his anger was there a plan

for you and your mother and your father to go somewhere from kalamazoo together yes and where were you all supposed to go we were supposed to go up to canada to see my grandfather and that's your mother's my mom's father was he ill he was dying of cancer and from what you could observe and what you heard was your mother anxious to go see her dying father yes and after you lost at kalamazoo was there some change in that plan yes and what was the change my dad said that uh he and i were not

going to canada and that we were going back to uh california and how did your mother react to that well he told my mom that if if she wanted to go she'd go alone and that uh that that i and he were going back to california and there were no argument about it no questions about it now your mother declined to go to canada by herself is that right yeah she said that she wasn't going to go if my dad wasn't going to go and therefore were plane tickets for los angeles purchased for the three

of you i assume did you all three return to los angeles on august 9th via united airlines yeah i believe that was the date and when you got back to los angeles on that day did you see your brother lyle yes and to the best of your knowledge had he been in los angeles some time before you got back yes now did you have some hope or dream or expectation over that summer of 1989 for some improvement in your life uh i had it for a longer than that but you had it that summer as

well yes and first of all what was it that you wanted to improve in your life i wanted to uh to end the sex with my dad and did you have some expectation of how that was going to happen yes and what did you expect i was going to go to college and how was that going to end the sex with your dad i was going to get away from him and uh and i wasn't going to sleep with the house anymore now what college were you expecting to go to at that time ucla and

where were you expecting to live when you went to ucla on campus in in the dorm just a regular ordinary dorm yeah now had you wanted to go farther away to college yes where had you wanted to go originally um i wanted to go to brown and where is brown in rhode island did you have any friends going to brown yeah um andy pierce was going to brown and we had made plans before to go to brown together you and andy pierce is that yes yes and did you apply to brown yes i did did

you apply to a lot of schools yeah i applied to something like 13 or 15 schools and were you did you go to brown for an interview yes and uh did you have contact with the tennis coach at brown yes was it your what role if any did you think tennis might play in your being accepted at brown uh i thought it would i wasn't going to get into the college without tennis um what does that mean well the ivy leagues don't have scholarships like ucla does and and the state schools so you can't they

can't just get you in if you don't have the grade point average and and so i had to have a minimal grade point average to get into the school and but if you have the minimal grade point average you don't usually get into the school so i had to have the coaches help and uh and he was going to get me into the school as long as i had that grade point average in other words if you had just been applying as you know someone who was totally non-athletic the minimal grade point average would not

get you in as compared to the other candidates for entry is that what you're saying no the minimal grade yeah the minimal grade point average yes okay so you thought you needed to trade on your tennis skills to get into brown oh well i knew that and was there a point when the next step if you were actually going to try to get accepted by brown the next step would have been taken when someone vetoed your plan to go to brown someone said you couldn't go oh my dad said i couldn't go and that was

after you had already applied and already started the process yeah it was after the coach called me and uh and told me that he needed to confirm that if i got in i would go uh because apparently they have like they can get two players in or or something like that each coach of every sport as long as they have the minimal grade point average and he said if i get you in you got to promise me you'll go and that's when i had to talk it over with my dad and he said you said

no was there also some discussion in the family which included your mother about you're going to the university of california at berkeley yes had you been accepted uh by the university of california amazingly so yes more than one campus accepted you all the uc campuses accepted me and do you think tennis had anything to do with that [Applause] i don't know and that's what i'm amazed about because i never talked to the coaches and i didn't have the grade point average to get into them i just assumed it was because i put down a spanish

name or something well you have you seen any of the applications that your mother made out for you for college yes did she identify you as hispanic on those applications yes and indeed you are in part are you not yes yes so was there a conversation about you perhaps going to berkeley my mom wanted me to go to berkeley and did you have some sense of why your mom wanted you to go to berkeley yeah what was that she didn't want me around the house um she wanted me to go to far away to birth

she wanted me to go to brown but uh then uh once my dad said no she wanted me to go to berkeley were you aware of the fact that your mother had some dreams that when you were gone to college she could stay with your father all the time travel with him all the time never leave his side did you hear that sort of thing yes all right objection sustained as to the form of the question calling for speculation also leading and suggestive did you hear your mother talking about what her expectations were after you

went off to college yeah she was excited to get um lal and i off to college and away from the house so that she could take trips with dad and and she wouldn't have to let she didn't want dad to go on business trips alone and so she would be able to go with dad to business trips and she'd just be able to have the house to herself and have dad to herself yes now how important was this idea in your mind that going to college would end the molestation by your father how important was

it yes how significant a notion was it was the most important thing in my life it was everything in my life it was all i thought about why was it all you thought about i don't understand all right why was it all i thought about yeah because it would end the sex and that's all i thought about how did you feel at 18 about the fact that your father was having sex with you i hated it i hated it i had just and what did you think your options were with respect to sex with your

father options i had no options well let me ask you this did you over the course of that well did you over the course of the preceding three years ever consider killing yourself yes and what was the reason as far as you understood it why you thought about killing yourself because it would end the sex and that's all i wanted and had you ever tried to end the sex through confrontation or violence against your father yes yes you were violent towards your father no not violence no but i said no to him once you said

no once yes how old were you when you said no i was 17 and was there a reason that you gave him for saying no not that i gave him was there a reason yes what was the reason i just i couldn't take it anymore i didn't i didn't want it anymore and i i was really in a bad state that day and he just walked in the room and i said no he walked in the room and there were certain signals and things that he would do which we'll get to later about that told

you that sex wouldn't counsel let's not leave the witness okay were there certain things or signals that he did when he walked into your room that told you that he wanted sex of some kind yes and did any of those things happen on that day when you said no yes now without going into the details of it um on that particular occasion after you said no did your father become upset yes and did he do anything violent yes and would you just tell us not what happened but just generically what violent things did he do

he threw me on the bed and i went to get a knife and put it at my throat put the knife to your throat yes and was there sex with your father that day yes was it that fourth kind that you called yes sex now after you returned in the summer of 1989 in august from kalamazoo did you have two separate talks with your father concerning your future in college yes could you tell us first of all about the first such talk do you remember how it took place yes well would you tell us how

where were you with your father for that first talk i don't remember what the restaurant's name i think it started with an h i was out for breakfast with him at a restaurant yes and do you recall approximately how many days after you returned from kalamazoo this took place just a few days i can't tell you this act i can't tell you speak up i i can't tell you i can't tell you the exact day you were alone with him yes and what did he uh what was the conversation about uh it was about what

i was going to do in college after college it's about what you were going to do in college and after college okay and what uh who was who was doing the talking were you telling your dad what you were going to do in college my father was telling me that uh after college he wanted he wanted me to take business and economics as my major and after college he wanted me to take this i guess a special program at ucla this business uh law school program um that combined it in a certain amount of years

and uh and then after that he said that we were going to or he was going to move to florida right at the end of that and we were all going to go into business he was going to go into business with me who's we all lyle mom me dad okay so he was telling you what your future was going to be yes is this the future you had planned for yourself [Applause] no but i mean i hadn't really planned future for myself you hadn't decided what kind of work or career you were going to

do had you no i didn't know what i was going to do and was your father presenting this to you as an idea that he wanted you to think about or was this a done thing no this is what i was going to do and that's why he was talking to me because i needed to get the grades at ucla to get into the program and he was concerned about that and so he was he was concerned about that so he was telling me that i was going to have to really really really work hard

to get the grades and uh and therefore my tennis was going to have to drop okay and what did he mean by your tennis was going to have to drop just that he wasn't sure whether or not i was going to be playing on the team and he wasn't he hadn't decided yet whether or not i was going to be playing tennis at all i guess it i i guess it depended on the grades i was getting i um my sense was that he was he hadn't decided but he wasn't going to let me uh

play tennis anymore okay now the team that he's talking about is which team is that the ucla team and how good a team did you say all i have they i think that year they were number one in the nation i'm not quite sure a good team yes and had you been promised or sure a place on that team no were you still supposed to be trying out for it yes in fact mr menendez were you originally supposed to go somewhere after kalamazoo after the canada trip were you slated to go somewhere yes i was

where were you supposed to go after you visited your dying grandfather to a tennis camp in florida and what was the purpose of your going to a tennis camp at that point to train for the tryouts of the team to see if you could be good enough to get on the ucla team yes so what is your father telling you is you're not on the team yet right yeah he was telling me well my father expected me to to make the team if i tried out for it i guess that didn't work into his calculations

i don't know but he just told me that he hadn't decided whether or not i was going to be playing on the team that he hadn't decided whether or not i was going to uh he wanted me on the team and that he would let me know before tryouts now was this a new experience for you your father sitting you down and telling you what you were going to do with yourself and your life and your sports and your work and all of that no was this very typical yeah that's what happened so did it

however bother you in some senses in some ways in what way did it bother you well it bothered me because it was a big challenge for me to get on the team they didn't have a junior varsity team it was they cut that program so it was just the varsity team there were only like 13 or 14 players that made it and so it was a big challenge i was really working to get on the team and and i was looking forward to it but in a sense it was sort of a relief if the

pressure ended what pressure the pressure of tennis of uh of just just the uh i felt part of me didn't want to play on the team because i didn't want to have to have the pressure of uh of winning the matches at the tournament so i mean at the matches that they played what was the source of the pressure was this in your head was this the coach of the tennis no it's my father you're on if we're going to take a morning break this is all right we'll take a recess we'll resume it 20

minutes after the hour don't discuss the case with anyone don't form any final opinions about it and we'll resume it 20 after mr menendez in addition to telling you what your career was going to be and what you were going to study did your father say anything about how and where you would live college and graduate school yes and what did he say about that uh we're gonna live in florida who's we lyle my mother i am my father and in what kind of setup if he described such a thing um i'm not sure if

he described the setup then i know what the setup was but i don't know if i know that from after or before i know that it was going to be on some sort of an island and a big house with other houses but i don't remember you heard your brother testify about your father talking about purchasing a large area of land a compound of houses yes did you know about those plans before you your parents were killed yes you just don't know if your father mentioned it in that conversation uh well no i knew that

we were going to move to florida i don't know if i knew the setup before or after before or after what mr menendez they died okay now after this breakfast discussion with your father uh did you go to your mother and say anything to her about gee dad's got my whole life planned i'm unhappy with it to do something no were you ever able to go to your mother for that kind of intervention no why not because you just didn't do that my mom wasn't going to help how did you know that because she had

never helped before were there other things your father had decided that you didn't like or didn't want to go along with yes had you ever shared your desires with your mother i'm confused had you ever told your mother i'd like to do this dad doesn't want me to do this maybe when i was real young but not once i got to be a teenager did she ever go against dad no concerning anything having to do with you no she never went against dad did she ever go against dad concerning anything having to do with lyle

in his life no now was there another discussion with your father within the week after your return from the tournament in kalamazoo yes and do you recall where this one took place uh this took place in the study um in the beverly hills house when you refer to the study could you give us a further description of that room it was a paneled room you popped the mic it was in a it was a paneled room uh similar to these panels i had a wooden floor and there were two chairs and a sofa and a

table two tables in there that's not the same room as the den no the den is where your parents were killed yes and what was the topic what was the basic topics of discussion of the in the conversation you had with your father in the study uh what courses i was going to take at ucla and was this you telling him what courses you wanted to take no he had uh he had all my course sheets lined up on the coffee table and had his writings and his papers and his papers what do you mean

by his papers well he had i guess written out different courses i could take and then alternative courses and then alternative courses to that and what i would be taking my second year and basically how i was going to line up my college years and what courses i was going to take and did he have some materials from ucla there that told him what courses were available what courses were offered yeah he had all the course sheets all the uh i never saw them so i don't i don't know uh but i mean i saw

them when i was in that room with him what do you mean you never saw them that you you were going to be the student weren't you yes i was going to be the student and no one ever gave them to you to look over no my dad had them and the papers you say these are things that had his handwriting on them no they well some had his handwriting on papers and then the other ones with ucla form sheets and course sheets explaining what all the different courses you could take in your first semester

i guess second semester in your second year so okay so he had obvious he had mapped it all out yes and he was telling you what you're going to take yeah we were talking about i guess it was orientation or registration i'm not sure if the two were combined what is registration when you sign up for the courses okay go on and he was telling me that um we had a problem we had a problem yes that's that's how he would talk okay and what was the problem he said that the problem was that the

parents could not be there back up from the money he said that the parents could not be there at registration that was the problem yes and so the problem was that if one of the courses that he had lined up for me was filled that i would have to pick the alternate courses and so he wanted me to go to a pay phone and uh and and call him and tell him what courses would were available not and that's why he has alternative course sheets so he expected you to telephone him from registration so that

you could tell him what courses you were taking or he could tell you what alternative to take which was it well i could tell them what both i could tell them what courses i could take and were available were available and therefore he would be able to tell me which courses to sign up for so he was going to pick which classes that you registered for yes and what else did he say about how you were going to deal with college in that conversation he told me that he told me that i was going to

be staying home a few nights a week that i was going to have my bedroom where it was and it was going to be my bedroom and that he wanted me to come home and uh and eat and study with him several nights a week so that my grades would uh would stay up and that he would be able to keep apprised of what was going on now was that a significant piece of information for you yes and how did you react to hearing that he expected you to sleep at home i asked him what

he meant what he meant i was going to be staying home with my bedroom there and just tell him and he said that he i was going to be sleeping home several nights a week so that i could at dinner and after dinner go over my work with him and i i couldn't accept what he was saying what do you mean you couldn't accept it you said no dad i'm not going to do that is that what happened no i just kept asking him what he what he what he meant i he i couldn't accept

what he was saying why because he was saying i was gonna have to live at home as well as living in college and and what i didn't expect that okay you didn't expect that did you like that idea i hated the idea because my my entire dream had been good to go to college and to leave home and uh and for the last several years all i thought about was going to college and uh and suddenly he was telling me that i was going to be living at home and that the the uh well what

did you think that meant with respect to the answer have you finished your answer no go ahead uh he was going to be telling me that i was going to be living at home and that the basically the sex was going to continue did he say the sex is going to continue no he didn't say that but that's what i knew meant that's what you believed it meant yes and how did that make you feel it just it made me feel lost it made me feel like like i can't i can't right it made me

feel like the hope that i had was gone and that suddenly i was gonna this was gonna continue throughout college and i felt like i was like i was crumbling i i couldn't i felt like nothing mattered anymore that it was going to continue emotionally what did you convey to your father during this meeting if anything how did you visibly react i guess i just acted stunned i uh i don't know how he reacted did you cry oh no did you ask him if you couldn't stay at school or take other classes no i knew

what he was saying and uh and i knew there was no arguing about it i asked him what he meant several times and he he spelled it out for me pretty clearly and i i just realized what he was saying and do you recall what time of day this particular conversation took place yes when was it late afternoon and after that conversation what did you do i went up to my bedroom and what did you do i just laid in my bed and cried and felt sorry for myself what were you sorry about i was

sorry that it was going to continue that i wasn't going to get away from college and i just didn't care about life anymore i didn't care about things that were going to happen i i couldn't let this this go on with my father and i didn't know what to do well what did you consider i considered just killing myself did you consider killing your father no not at that time were you feeling angry were you feeling depressed were you feeling sad what were you feeling at that point i was extremely sad uh i felt like

nothing mattered anymore i felt like the one thing that i'd been living for suddenly was taken away from me and i didn't care about life anymore was your social life better when you lived in california versus when you lived in new jersey or was it worse or was it the same it was better and what was different about your social life in california than when you lived in new jersey i had a lot more friends i was able to go out with my friends i was able to hang out with my friends and suddenly i

was i felt more important i felt like you popped the mic i felt more important okay did you feel liked by friends yes during those years in california did you ever think about what would happen if any of your friends knew i just did you think about that i thought about it all the time and what did you think i couldn't accept the fact that they might be able to find out i was never going to let them find out and that's just all i thought i never found out i never thought about what would

happen if they knew because that just was not going to happen well were you concerned about people knowing yes okay did you want them to know or did you not want them to no i did not want them to know why overall why didn't you want them to know we specify what it is that he didn't want to know why did you not want them to know that you were a boy who had sex with his father because i didn't want to be humiliated i didn't i didn't want to i didn't want i wanted them

to like me i wanted them to think that i was a friend of theirs and i didn't i just wanted to be one of them one of the boys yeah did you think what was happening with you and your father was normal or abnormal i knew it was extremely abnormal and i wasn't going to let anyone find out did you think what was happening with your father was all his fault or did you think it was partly your fault no i thought it was probably my fault in what way was it your fault that i

never stopped him and then i let it go on and uh just those reasons did you have a high opinion of yourself because of what was going on with your father a low opinion no opinion i thought it was a coward what else i hated myself for it and i i knew i should have stopped it okay now what did you do after you went through this period of feeling sad and feeling sorry for yourself i just cried a lot and uh and decided to leave to leave to leave i had to go over a

friend's house you mean to leave the house yes and what did you do based on that decision if anything i packed my bags back up a little i started to pack a big bag duffel bag a big duffel bag one of my tennis bags okay how long were you planning to stay at a friend's house just for a few days and had you ever done that before i had stayed at a friend's house for a day but never for a few days no did you think your parents would let you i really didn't care so

you packed this tennis bag yes did something happen while you were in the process of packing it yes what happened my mom came in to the room she knocked on the door and uh i opened it and she saw what i was doing and why didn't she just walk in why did you have to open the door i always kept my door locked did everybody in that house always keep their doors locked yes and after your mother came in what happened next she she looked at what i was doing and she said where the hell

do you think you're going and i said just for her friend's house for a few days and she said no you're not and she just started throwing the clothes out of the duffel bag and and what did you do i just watched and what happened after that she screamed uh and said a few more things about how i wasn't going to leave and then she ran out of the room she ran out of the room marched she ran and marched out of the room she left the room in a hurry yes was she what kind

of emotional condition was she in when she left she was very angry why was she angry we had had we'd had a fight before a year before about it a fight with whom we had an argument with my mom a year before the same sort of argument about about running away a year before there was an argument about running away yes well did you tell your mother on this occasion i'm running away i'm going forever no that was the year before on this occasion where did you tell her you were going i just told her

i was going over to my friend's house for a few days did you tell her why no did she ask why no so what did the year before have to do with the condition she was in when she left your room i just knew as soon as she walked in the room that there was going to be a problem and i didn't even bother well what was her emotional conditioning i'm not clear was she upset was she sad was she in despair when she walked in the room when she walked out of the room she

was furious she was angry she was angry okay did you have permission to run away from home no was she angry the year before when you told her you wanted to do that yes and after your mother left the room angry did someone else come to your room yes and who was that my father and uh did he say anything to you yes what did he say he asked me if i had a problem and uh i asked him what i thought i was doing and pushed me against he pushed me against the window and

i came up real close and he said uh are you planning on going somewhere and i said now are you remembering this verbatim you remember every word he said no i just remember the feeling that i had and and uh what he did is this the substance of the conversation yes okay and and what else if anything what what were the other things he said he told me that he was leaving this week and that uh i had better be there when i get back when you get back when he gets back okay he said

that he was leaving that week and uh and that he would deal with me then deal with you when when he got back and what did that mean to you i figured what it would mean i figured that it would mean that he would punish me in some way mr menendez you have to sit back you keep popping the mic try to sit back i figured that would mean he would punish me in some way and the way he always did it wasn't what in the way he always did did he strike you during this

uh conversation no and after i take it he left after telling you he would deal with you when he got back yes and how did you feel after he left were you still going to pack and go to a friend's house no i just you see the state i was in at the time i just didn't care it just after my dad told me that i was that i wasn't going to get away from him at in essence instead of going to college that i was going to have to stay at home several nights a

week i just didn't care nothing seemed to matter to me anymore and life just seemed to fold right in front of me and i didn't care whether he hit me i didn't care whether he didn't care whether he killed me it didn't matter to me anymore because if i wasn't going to get away from from that then who cared and uh so he did what he wanted didn't matter anymore well are those the thoughts that went through your mind after he left those are the thoughts that were there the whole day and the next day

okay and were you then getting uh ready to put up with the same activity for the next few years that you had been putting up with for the previous 12. no what were you thinking of doing i was thinking of just killing myself i was in a daze and i didn't know what to do and i just i just wanted to die i didn't life no longer mattered and uh i didn't know what to do i thought of telling lyle i thought of i thought i couldn't do that that it would be too embarrassing and

that i couldn't admit it and i just i just so two things occurred to you one to kill yourself and the other to tell lyle yes over the years the 12 years had you ever told lyle no were you ever accused by your father of having told lyle yes and approximately when was that when i was about 11 when you were about 11 yeah law would have been 13 or 14 somewhere right around there and on that occasion when your father accused you of telling lao was it true had you told him no now on

this occasion you said you considered telling lyle yes what do you think lyle could do i really didn't know i really didn't it wasn't a thought that i had planned out it was just a thought because i didn't really want to die and i was very afraid that i would and maybe it was partly to to tell lyle because that's what my dad always never wanted me to do i i don't know i just i needed help in some way and i just thought about telling lyle did you think about ways to kill yourself yes

what ways did you think about i thought about just hanging myself i thought about cutting my wrists i thought about driving off a cliff something that i wanted to do before had you in 1986 in 1987 come across any suicide letters written by your mother yes in any letter of your mother's that you saw did she ever indicate the methods that she was contemplating using to kill herself yes and what do you recall reading in those letters of your mother she wanted to shoot herself did you come across any letter where she indicated she wanted

she would sit in the bathtub with a razor in her hand and consider slitting her wrists yes did you picture yourself doing that during this after this confrontation with your parents yes i had pictured it many times before had you thought of suicide before this week yes now do you have any memory at all mr menendez of what you did the monday before your parents died no do you have a memory of every single day that summer no do you have a memory though of every day after that monday until your parents died yes starting

then with tuesday what do you remember about tuesday august 15 1989. i remember trying to play tennis in the morning and not not caring enough about it and uh and stopping what was your general mood that morning i was just very down very [Music] depressed okay depressed yeah and what else do you recall happening that tuesday i recall a fight between my father i mean my brother and my mother now was it what was your understanding that tuesday about where your father was he was out of town and do you know when it was he

left i believe on monday um i'm not quite sure did you usually know in advance when your father was leaving on a business trip no did he go on a lot of business trips oh yeah he went on business trips all the time and how would you become aware of the fact that he was on a trip my mother would tell me or he would call and i'd talk to him on the phone but he never bothered telling you his schedule where he was going or when no on this week though he did actually tell

you in advance that he was going on a trip that week did he not yes did he tell you specifically when he was leaving and when he was coming back no all he told me is that i'd i'd better be there when he got back i didn't know when that really was until i asked my mother and what did you learn after asking your mother when was he due back thursday now on tuesday what else do you remember besides not being able to practice tennis in the morning a fight between my mother and my brother

when you say fight you mean a physical altercation no i just mean an argument a lot of yelling okay and where did this argument take place right between the den and the foyer in the house yes when you entered this house from outside would you be standing in an open area yeah you were standing in the foyer at that point that's what you refer to as the foyer and was there a staircase on the right that went upstairs yes and was there a sort of gallery that cut across halfway into the foyer was there like

a a lower ceiling in a balcony yeah and were they in the area beneath the balcony just in front of it inside of the bathroom past the balcony there's another section of the foyer that leads to a bathroom and the den yes so they were closer to the den than the part with the balcony yes and how did you how did you come upon this argument did they come out of a room they came out of the den and my mom came out first and she was yelling and she was saying you don't need it

i don't care i don't care what you want you're not having it and lyle was right behind her saying please please i need it it's not that big a deal it's important to me now at that point did you have any idea what they were talking about i had no idea what they were talking about and do you know where you were coming from i was coming from my car do you know where you had been i don't remember where i'd been okay and this mom yelling at lyle was this a unique experience in your

life no not at all it was how typical was it for your mother to be yelling at lyle she yelled at lyle all the time did she yell at you all the time not as much as she yelled at lyle and this particular on this particular occasion on this tuesday was she did she appeared to be angry yeah she was really angry and was that an unusual condition for her in relation to when she was dealing with lyle no she was usually very angry when she was dealing with loud but she was really angry a

lot that summer okay and what happens after you hear this exchange between your mother and lyle he was he was just saying i needed and she finally she just took a hold of his hair and just ripped it off what did you think at that point i did i i didn't know what to think i couldn't believe it i didn't understand it first and then it hit me and then i realized and i what did you understand what hit you what'd you realize he just pulled off she just pulled off his hair and and i

knew he had something done to his hair but i didn't know what and and within a moment i realized that it was a hairpiece but i just couldn't believe it at first what did you think it was i thought it was his hair yeah she was ripping off his scalp basically yes now you said you knew he had something done to his hair what do you mean by that well i knew that that his hair was was beginning to fall out and uh and i had heard about a conversation that he and mom and him

had i guess i don't really remember it that well but i know that suddenly he had a full head hair and it was always neat always perfect and i didn't quite understand what had happened well didn't that tell you he wore a toupee i didn't know really much about uh those sorts of things i mean i knew what a toupee was but i thought it was obvious when you wore one and i couldn't imagine that my brother was wearing one because it didn't seem obvious i played tennis with him i uh i went swimming with

him it did not seem like he was wearing a toupee at all so you thought it was some other method by which his hair was thickened or restored yeah i thought it was some sort of surgery i didn't i didn't know exactly what it was okay so when you saw your mother ripping his hair off um did you react yeah i was i was pretty shocked i was i couldn't i couldn't believe it i i just couldn't believe it and how did he react how did lyle react he just started to cry and um what

if anything did your mother do after she had taken the toupee off of love she said see um you look fine you don't need it and just threw it at him did he look fine to you no i i really couldn't believe it um no uh had you ever seen him like that no so what uh what did your mother do with anything after she threw the hair piece at lyle she ran up the stairs and what did lyle do he uh he wouldn't look at me not that i wanted him to at the time

but he went to the guest house and what did you do i eventually went over to the guest house now why did you go over to the guest house at that point because i felt really bad for lyle and i was feeling pretty bad myself and i just just i'd been wanting to talk to him for two days and i figured that he couldn't have had a more down moment than that and so i figured i'd just share the moment with him you were feeling down for two days yeah did you think if you talk

before this incident did you think if you talk to your brother he might make you feel better yes did you have a good relationship with your brother at that time yeah i had a very good relationship your honor it's a two afternoon all right we'll take a recess until 1 30 ladies and gentlemen with us same admonition not to discuss the case with anyone don't form any final opinions about it and we'll resume at 1 30. direct examination okay mr menendez we were talking about what you did after you saw the argument between your mother

and your brother did you go somewhere yes and where did you go i went to the guest house why did you go there to talk to lyle and you have in mind what you were going to talk to him about not really just that you know i i understood or i didn't mind that he wore a hairpiece and that i was feeling down to just just to talk to him to comfort him and when you got to the guest house did you see your brother yes where was he he was in the bathroom fixing his

hairpiece and at some point did he come out of the bathroom yes did you start to talk to him yes can you tell us generally what you were telling him is it being offered for the truth of the matter asserted no your honor and why is it being offered it's being offered to uh as foundation for a conversation that is being offered for truth objection sustained you heard your brother testify that you talked to him about how you wanted to be close to him yes and is that what you said yes and did the conversation

then evolved into talking about something else yes and what where did it evolve to what else did you talk about again is this being offered for the truth of the matter asserted yes your honor objection sustained well i'd like to approach you may thank you this objection is sustained as far as the form of the question the answers of the witness in regards to conversations are not being received for the truth of what was said just to reflect the state of mind of the defendant witness here mr eric menendez and potentially the state of mind

of the person who heard what he said thank you ron all right mr menendez what did you say to your brother when you first started talking to him in the guest house i was telling him that uh that things in the family didn't seem to be going so well and it seemed to be um a lot of secrets um and that people seem to be seemed to be getting a part and then i didn't want that to happen between lyle and i and what else did you say just that uh that i loved him and

and that i didn't want his relationship and mind to separate did could you assess what kind of mood your brother was in when you were saying these things to him from how he looked or well after the incident with my mom he looked pretty down did you think that having his hair piece torn off in front of you was a thing that would embarrass him yes and did that enter at all i'm sorry did that enter at all into your decision or desire to go talk to him yes no i knew he was very embarrassed

and uh and i wanted to tell him that there wasn't a reason to be that it wasn't going to change your relationship no and then did you start talking about something that you were feeling badly about yes i remember asking him if he remembered a conversation that he had with dad when he was a lot younger when i was 11. and did he respond yeah he said he didn't know what i was talking about and i i asked him several times if he remembered any anything about conversation that he had with dad or conversations that

he had had with me about things that dad was doing to me he said that he didn't know what i was talking about so eventually did you clarify what you were talking about yeah what did you say i told them that things between dad and i were still happening and that uh and he he kept he kept asking what i was talking about did you tell them what you were talking about finally i told them i told them that they were just sexual things sexual things yes now why did you tell him that why did

you bring that up because i was feeling i was feeling really really depressed and really down and i didn't i didn't know what to do at the time so i forgot i'd tell lyle and maybe he could help me okay and did he you heard him testify you heard your brother lyle testify that when you told him that sexual things were still going on with you and dad that he was very nasty towards you yeah he was very angry and who did he appear to be angry at he was angry at me he was asking

me why i never told him he was asking me why i never did anything he asked me if i enjoyed it if i if i liked it if i ever fought back he just didn't understand he was asking all these questions that were really surprising me and apart from surprising you how did these angry questions make you feel they made they hurt me and i was denying when i was saying no of course not no of course not and i was just trying to make them understand and at some point did it appear that he

did understand yes he sort of he sort of changed his tone okay and did he indicate to you after he changed his tone any uh plan or any decision that he was making i could tell he was now just trying to understand where i was i was coming from he was asking me who knew he asked me if mom knew okay and what did you say when he asked you if mom knew oh i told him of course mom didn't know that if she would have known she didn't know and is that how you felt

at that time that your mother did not know yes and did you ask him to do anything for you i'm sorry did you ask your brother to do anything you're telling him how badly you feel about this right yes you're telling him you don't want it to go on i don't remember if i told him that exactly um i i'm sure i conveyed it to him because he started talking about how it was not going to happen again and he started to get really really angry and uh he was he was really upset and saying

that it wasn't going to happen again and i was saying you know i didn't know dad said it was going to keep happening and i was really worried about it going on when he went away and he said i don't have anything to worry about that it's not going to happen again and did he tell you anything else that was going to change besides that this wasn't going to happen yes what else did he say was going to change he said that i was going to go to princeton with him he said that if i

couldn't get into princeton then i was just going to live with him over there and did he tell you how these changes were going to come about yes and what did he say he said he was going to talk to dad talk to dad about what about stuff that had happened between dad and i said it was going to stop and that uh i shouldn't worry about it because it was going to end and he was going to make sure and did he seem confident when he said these things yeah he seemed really optimistic too

optimistic did you feel as optimistic as he seemed no i i i was trying to tell him you know dad's gonna be a little bit more upset than you think that's that's not gonna be too happy about you telling him this information and he said no no don't worry about it it'll be okay it'll be fine and he was really i was just trying to warn him but not too much what do you mean you weren't trying to warn him too much well i was i was really afraid that if i told him all that

was happening that he might not talk to dad and just leave me there and so i didn't want him to get worried about it that dad would might react badly so i wanted to just tell him that dad might not like what he's going to tell him and i weren't allowed to understand a little bit more but i didn't quite want to tell him what was it you didn't want to tell him was there something your dad had said to you repeatedly yes i didn't want to tell him that uh dad said he would kill

me if i ever told anyone and he was serious and i just thought it might scare him off scare lyle off so you didn't tell him that no and at that time on tuesday did you tell your brother any of the details of what the sexual activity between yourself and your father was no you didn't tell him about knees or no nice or rough or sex none of that and did you tell him anything about the violent component of your sexual activity with your father no was there a reason why you didn't tell him that

there were two reasons i i one i didn't want to scare him off and two i just didn't want to didn't want to tell him about it was it easy or difficult for you to admit to your brother that this was going on it was very hard for me were you eager or reluctant to give him any specifics of the kind of things that you and your father had been doing i was very reluctant i didn't i didn't i just didn't want to have to go into it with him i was it was my brother

and i felt really ashamed that i would have to uh talk about the fact that it was still happening with him now at the end of this conversation on tuesday did your brother tell you what he had decided he would do to help you yes and what did he tell you he had decided to do well he said that he was going to talk to dad now you encouraged him to do that didn't you yeah i did i did could you think of anything else that you might do for health at that point besides lyle's

offer to talk to your father no there was nothing i could do were you apprehensive or worried about how the talk might come out i was very nervous i uh i was really nervous about how dad would react i was i really didn't think dad was going to react well but i was i was hoping that he might i was hoping that lyle might do what he seemed like he said he was going to do had you noticed over the years that your father spent a fair amount of time talking with your brother yes did

you believe that your father and your brother had a different relationship than you had with your father yeah he had a much different relationship and as you were growing up um did you feel that the family as a whole had some respect for a lot what did you think of your brother's intellectual ability i thought he was very very intelligent and um was that just your view or did anybody else in the family share it overall that's what my dad and my mother thought and what did you think of lyle's verbal skills well he was

good in in all of that he was he was intelligent he was a good speaker he knew how to talk and i figured that he would know how to talk to dad if he seemed confident maybe there was a reason for him to be confident and he knew dad a lot better than i did in that respect now do you remember anything occurring the next day on wednesday yes do you remember going to lunch with your brother as he testified yes and what was the topic of conversation at that lunch how i was gonna live

with him and uh either he was he decided that either i was gonna go to princeton with him or he was gonna come and live with me at ucla and uh and he seemed he seemed excited about that was that a prospect that you relished as well yeah yeah i thought that would be great although i was trying to tell him that he shouldn't be so optimistic but did you on that occasion tell him um about your father's threats or his violence or any of that no i didn't again i didn't tell him about it

uh at all what were you what did you think might happen if anything if you actually had told your brother at that point the specifics about how violent your father had been i didn't know but i was worried about him getting scared off or him just not talking to dead at all and leaving me there with him and that's what my biggest fear was and i i did the wrong thing i just told him none of it now was there also during that lunch uh did your brother mention to you um anything about a talk

that he had had with your mother earlier that day yeah what uh what did he tell you he said that he talked to mom and told her that uh he wanted to talk to dad when dad got home about me okay now did you respond to that yeah what did you say i said you didn't tell him about what i told you you didn't tell who mom okay i was asking lyle if he told mom about what i told to him that happened between dad and i and and and and did he respond yeah he

said no i was real worried about that he told you he hadn't told her yeah he told me he had not told him now your worry if he had told mom was what what were you what were you afraid of if he had told mom what were you worried about i don't know i i i'm not really quite sure i just was uh i wanted i wanted loud to talk to dad but i was really afraid of it too and it just seemed like if you told mom that then the talk would have to happen

and in a sense why would the talk have to happen if he told your mother because if he told mom i would i've done the one thing that he always told me never ever to do and i just was worried about doing that mr menendez if your brother had told your mother what did you think your mother would have done oh she would have talked to my dad okay even though he was out of town yes did they talk every day as far as you knew no he always called home did your mother tend to

talk to your father more than once a day yes was that true for as long as you lived in that family and based on your experience in the family did your mother tell your father everything that you guys are up to was it your experience that if something happened if you had done something wrong or got into trouble did your father know about it even if he wasn't home when it happened yes and did your mother over the years ever say anything about telling your father what was going on in the house when he wasn't

there she would always threaten to tell dad and sometimes she'd do it right in front of me at the dinner table or i could hear it in her bedroom or when he got home otherwise she would just threaten if you do this i'm going to tell your father or with respect to things you actually did that upset her or annoy her or annoyed her did it appear from your father's reactions that she always told him yes did you feel that you could trust your mother to keep information from your father no definitely you'll ever feel

that way no mr menendez just for a moment i want to change the subject did you hear some of your teachers testify in this trial about an auditory processing problem that you have yes and were you aware you had were you aware of the fact when you were uh in school that you had a problem no you didn't you didn't know you had a problem following instructions or i knew i had a problem doing that but i didn't know what the cause was auditory um problem like that no you knew you had problems understanding but

you didn't know what it was due to yes now you have learned the past three and a half years that you had this problem yes objection sustained the answer have you learned in the past three years since you've been in jail by looking at various materials anything about having such a problem yes do you think you still have it yes and is this the kind of problem where you know that you don't understand what you're hearing or do you think that you do understand what you're hearing if you you look puzzled you don't understand the

question do you i think so yes okay you didn't understand the question no all right is it has it been your experience that you'd hear something and you thought you understood it and only found out later that you got it wrong yes are you trying to listen carefully yes now at the end of the talk on wednesday with your brother lyle did you feel apprehensive about thursday yes were you sorry you had told him at that point were you glad were you not sure i wasn't sorry i told him i was uh uneasy about it

but i was glad that i told him he he he was nice at that point to me and uh and he seemed optimistic and i was hoping that things would be okay had your brother been nice to you for some time up to that point yes we we had a good relationship up to that point and how would you rate your relationship with the other family members who among the three of them your father your mother or your brother did you have the best relationship with lyle and how long had that been true many years

since i was 13 12. and who among the other members of your family was nicest to you loyal turning to thursday were you home in the early part of the day you think um yes i believe i was i was playing tennis and were you playing tennis with someone else you're my coach mark heffernan yes and where did you play tennis with him on thursday in the backyard at home yes and your father was expected home from the trip when late afternoon uh early evening did you have a specific time that you knew about yeah

i think it was about six i think that was a time that i had in my head at the time sometime later in the day after you had your tennis lesson with mr heffernan did you leave the house as your brother has testified yes and did you come back real late yes and why did you stay away well i i just wanted not to be home when lyle was having the conversation with dad and uh so i stayed away and kept calling in to see if he had had the conversation and he kept telling me

it had been delayed so i stayed away longer the conversation was delayed or your father's return was delayed or what my dad's return and you learned that by calling lyle yes now your brother testified that there were three lines in the house three different telephone lines but they all rang at least in the main house yes in more than one location in the main house yes and when you called in on thursday you called which line last line and did he pick it up each time uh every time except for one and on that one

time who picked it up mom and what did you do when mom picked it up i hung up why did you hang up i just didn't i didn't want to talk to mom i didn't i just didn't want to talk to her at the moment and over the course of these calls with you calling in did the time for your father's return change at all it got later and later and later and i didn't understand why but it just got later now at some point late that night did you go back home and who was

the first member of your family that you came in contact with after you went back home dad and where were you when you came in contact with your father in my bedroom and how did the contact with your father begin he was banging on my door with his fist and did you did he say anything did you hear he was he was yelling for me to open up the door uh he was saying open the goddamn door now and what was your feeling when you heard him and heard the pounding i i was i was

terrified uh my heart was pounding and i uh i didn't want to open up the door what did you think if anything had happened did you think there had already been a talk with lyle did you think there hadn't been the talk with la what did you think from from dad's reaction i thought there had been a talk with lyle and uh could you tell from the way his voice sounded and the pounding whether he was in a good mood a bad mood happy sad no he was he was really upset upset meaning he was

yelling he was serious it sounded furious angry angry now what did you do after you heard your father yelling and pounding on the door he was demanding that i open it i unlock it and uh and so i did quietly okay you unlocked the door i just unlocked the lock and went back to the back of my bedroom you didn't open the door for him in other words no why did you do that because i wanted to have time to get back into the corner of my bedroom and if i might approach your honor excuse

me showing you the photograph that's previously been marked 257 do you recognize what that is yes yes and what is that that's one of the corners of my bedroom and is that the corner you retreated to after you had unlocked the lock on your door yes and what was it about being in that corner that led you to go there it's just that it was like a good uh retreat place because the bed and my desk met and so you couldn't get there very easily in other words there was a narrow space between the desk

is here is it not yes and this is my bed and was it narrow between the two yes were you expecting something to happen when your dad came through the door yes what were you expecting i didn't quite know what would happen but i figured he would attack me in some way or hit me or do something had he hit you before in your life yes had he done other physical things that hurt you when angry yes what kind of thing what was the thing he most typically did when he was angry uh he most

typically slapped me and what about pushing your body into objects would he do that yeah he'd throw me a lot throw you a lot yes he'd throw me into the wall or into the bed or into the desk or into the glass or any place he once threw you into a glass door didn't you yes broke the door and shattered the glass and then through you again yeah right through it so when he came into the room on this occasion what was the first thing that happened uh he started yelling at me can you give

us generally what he was saying he was saying that he had told me never to tell lyle and that he had warned me not to do that and now uh he said that lyle was gonna tell everyone and and that uh it was my fault and and now i was gonna tell everyone and he was not gonna let that happen he was not gonna let what happened he said he wasn't gonna let lyle tell well he didn't say he wasn't gonna let anyone he just said he wasn't gonna let that happen without telling anyone now

you say he said he told you in the past what well he had told me never ever to tell anyone and did he ever tell you what the consequence would be of telling anyone he would kill me and did he seem the way he had sounded outside the door furious angry seem inside the door yeah when he was inside did he look and sound the way you thought he was oh yeah he he was angry he was more angry than i ever seen him he was angry and what did he do after he made these

statements to you uh well i started saying you know he's not going to tell anyone i promise and he just told me to shut up and and just rush toward me and did he come in physical contact with you yeah he grabbed me as i was trying to get over the desk you're trying to climb over the desk yeah i was trying to jump over the desk because i i just wanted to get away from him at that point and he somehow stopped you from jumping over the desk and did what well he grabbed me

and threw me on the bed okay and then did you try to do something to you while on the bed yeah he was grabbing toward me and i was able to just to fling my body away and run out the door so you got away from him yeah and where did you run to downstairs and did you go into a particular room downstairs after you got down the stairs i just ran into the den did you think there was anybody in the den yeah i thought i thought there might be somebody in the dan the

television was on and was there in fact anybody in the den yes who my mom what was your mother doing in the den she was sitting on the couch watching tv she just looked over at me and what condition were you in when you got into the den do you know i i was crying and did she say anything to you did she make any comment to you yeah she said what's the matter with you and what uh did you respond to her when she said that yeah i said no nothing you wouldn't understand you

said i said no nothing you won't understand and did she say anything to that yeah she said something like oh i understand i understand a lot more than you think what did you say when you heard well first of all what did you think when you heard that i couldn't i i thought that she was saying that she knew what was happening between dad and i but i couldn't i thought i had it wrong and uh and so i said what do you mean what do you mean you understand what do you understand and i

just i couldn't understand and what did she say well she said oh i know i've always known you think i'm stupid she was real um snide i think she was uh either i think she had been drinking and uh it was uh it's real sarcastic yeah is that something that your mother was from time to time sarcasm yes so what did you say when she said she knew all along she wasn't stupid i didn't know what to say i just said i hate you i i i couldn't believe it i i couldn't believe what she

was saying all you said was i hate you i said i hate you and what did you do i ran out the back door and what did your mother do she immediately got up and started chasing me outside was she saying anything uh yeah she was she was saying uh get back here you bastard uh don't ever say that to me how dare you say that to me yeah what was she referring to did you know what what to you're saying i hate you is that what she was referring to yeah that's what she was

angry at she was angry at this point yeah well she was i didn't understand the mood she was in before i even got to the room she was she was in a mood that she had been in a lot um but she was uh angry at that point when she said whatever she said to you sarcastically she didn't seem angry then no but when you said i hate you then she got angry yes now had you had you heard your mother tell you or your brother i hate you i hate you over the course of

your life yeah and she said it once twice oh she said it often so were you saying back to her what she had said to you so was this phrase i hate you was this something that you heard over the course of your life yes had you ever said it to your mother before no did you hate your mother mr menendez no i didn't hate my mother you could speak up it would help oh i'm sorry did you hate your mother no were you expecting her to say what she said to you in the den

no not at all and where did you go when you let when you ran out of the den i ran to the guest house and did your mother follow you yes she chased after me and did what she say did what strike that did what she had said affect you of course did it affect me how do you mean emotionally yes and were you upset yes when you got to the guest house did you call out to your brother uh yes and do you remember what it was what the first thing was that you said

to him i just said she knows mom knows and did there then ensue an argument between you and your mother and your brother what happened next in the guest house mom came up the stairs right after me and uh she said get back she was still yelling at me without getting into the words about it okay was there conversation in the guest house yes and how would you characterize it was it friendly was it angry was it a discussion was it an argument it was an angry argument between lyle and mom and what were you

doing while this argument was going on between lyle and mom i was uh standing behind lyle just sort of watching is that a position you had taken in the past in that family yes would you stand behind lyle while he was fighting your battles yeah i used to stand behind lyle a lot uh that's pretty much my fixed position all right the objection is sustained the answer is stricken and we've asked the witness also to speak up now were there occasions other than this one when your brother was speaking on your behalf and you were

standing behind him yes uh wait for a question okay sorry do you remember when when these other occasions yes okay and can you tell us that happened all of my life starting at what age from the time i can remember have you heard yourself described in this trial mr menendez as a fearful shy child yes were you yes and did you think your brother was like you or dissimilar to you in that regard he was braver than me um i'm not sure why but he was and did you when you were younger say around the

age of 13 14 seek out his help when you were afraid yes and was that help with respect to your parents yes and did he help you yes i mean it depended on what was happening but um what do you mean by that whether he was able to help you depended on what was happening whether or not he'd interfere he wouldn't interfere with me if if it was dad doing something to me or being violent to me or yelling at me he really wouldn't get involved sometimes he'd he'd uh try to help me if if

i'm just having an argument at the dinner table or something but other than that he didn't interfere too much well was it in your opinion was it safe for him to interfere when your father was being violent or angry i wouldn't have wanted to interfere well my question was no it wasn't it wasn't safe now what was what was the subject matter of the argument between your mother and your brother in the guest house thursday night um her knowing about dad and i did she deny it no did she acknowledge knowing yes did lyle say

anything about what she did or didn't do with respect to what she knew i'll ask her how she how how could she not help me how could she not intervene or or or stop it something along those lines and what did she say in response to that she said that no one ever helped her and why should she help me that no one ever helped her in her life and uh and and went on okay and was this something you had ever heard before from your mother that no one ever helped her yes mr menendez

at this point in august of 1989 did you feel um that your mother had had a hard time in life she had a miserable life and how did you feel about her in regards to that in regards to that i felt sorry for her and how long had you felt sorry for her since the time i can remember and did you feel at all responsible for her having a miserable life yeah did she ever tell you you were responsible sometimes did you believe her yes and how would she tell you that you were responsible what

did she say you had done she would say that that i was born but she would say that i was the problem in her life and that law and i had ruined her life and she wanted to do other things but then she had children and it just destroyed what she wanted to do in her life and how did that make you feel just real sad so you felt sorry for her because of that i felt sorry for her for that and a lot of other reasons on this night thursday night after you found out

that she had known what had happened to you when she was saying no one ever helped me in my life did you feel sorry for her then no over the course of the preceding few months did you have some perception that your mother had some kind of knowledge about you yes and would you tell us what it was you were seeing or hearing or knowing just that she had this this this power team this magic thing that she always knew whatever i was doing or wherever i was going and pretty much everything about me that

i didn't understand were you uh prone to keep did you from time to time keep a diary yes and where ordinarily did you keep your diary in my bedroom and were you having some problems that year with your diary uh yeah i kept losing them you lost them they just were disappearing on me i didn't know what was happening were you taking them out of the house no did you take them to school no did you take them to tennis practice no but were you having trouble finding them yes did it ever occur to you

that your mother might have been taking your diaries no were there things that your mother seemed to know that were not in your diaries yes what kinds of things just uh where i was playing tennis or if a day i wasn't going to go to school to play tennis or this girl that i liked where she lived who she was even and just different things that i never told her about it and she couldn't have known and she knew she knew them yeah she'd make remarks to you that told you that she knew them yes

did you have any idea how it was that she knew these things that you weren't telling her no i had no idea it was really strange to me did it make her seem strange to you yeah yeah well a lot of things made her seem strange to me but this all that she knew was really weird it was different now over the course of several months before this thursday night had there also been discussion about your mother poisoning the family well there hadn't been too much discussion about it but that's what she had said she

said that yeah did your father ever tell you that she was likely to do that or might do that yes and did that develop any sense of fear in you about your mother sort of i i uh i had a lot of fear about my mother well let's talk first about the poisoning thing were you afraid of her because of that partly were you afraid of her because she seemed to have magical knowledge partly and were there other reasons why you were afraid of her yes and what did those have to do with just the

fact that she would she was real moody and real she would change from one thing from one mood to another she would suddenly she would be in a normal state and then she would just start yelling and throwing her arms around and throwing things and and then she would switch back to her other mood and she did you know i'm sorry go ahead she would disappear a lot um i didn't know where she was going well when but my question was what why did that make you afraid because she was unpredictable were you afraid of

her being angry were you afraid of her hurting you were you afraid of her hurting herself what was the nature of your fear before thursday night basically those two afraid of her hurting herself and from all the suicide letters and her talking about how she didn't want to be alive and her afraid of hurting me now when you found out on thursday that she knew what had been happening to you how did that if at all influence the way you felt about or thought about your mother i'm sorry did you not hear all right okay

we'll do it again you learned on thursday night for the first time that your mother knew what your father had been doing to you yes and over the years mr menendez from when you were six until you were 18 did your mother ever do anything to interfere with your father's sexual molestation of you no did she ever come into a room when he was there doing it to you no did she ever ask you why you were crying if you cried afterwards no did she ever do anything to help no and over the course of

all of those years did you believe she was ignorant of it yes now on this thursday night you find out she knew yes how does that make you feel about her asking in the present tense or at the time at the time your honor at the time uh it made me real confused it made me really angry um it made me feel like she knew all the time and she never helped me and that she betrayed me it made me uh i i can't describe how it made me feel did it make you wonder if

you knew her i thought i didn't know her objection overall had you always thought you didn't know her or was this the thought that night that was a thought that night that you didn't know who she was i i didn't know who she was and was that at all frightening that was that was very scary um just the fact that she knew and she never did anything was scary now at some point did the argument between your mother and your brother end yes and did she leave the guest house yes and then did you have

a discussion with your brother and do yes recall the first thing that came up in the discussion with your brother yes what was that i asked him what in the world was going on what what what is happening why why all this was happening okay did you were you trying to find out something yeah i asked him how his talk with dad went and why dad was so angry i told him that dad was angry and slow down for a second okay you asked him why was this happening yes did you also tell him anything

about what had happened to you not not yet okay so first you want to know what the conversation was like yes and do you at some point tell him that your father was angry and had demonstrated his anger against you in the bedroom yes he wanted to know before anything he wanted to know what had just happened so that's what i'm trying to figure out okay what was the first part of the conversation was it lyle trying to find out why are you and mom running to the guest house or was it you trying to

find out what happened with dad well it was me trying to find out what happened with dad and lyle saying no first tell me about what happened with what happened with me okay so did you tell him what had happened with you yes and did you tell him about your conversation with your mother yes okay and then where did your conversation with your brother go he told me about his conversation he told me about what happened with that and what of significance did he tell you about his conversation with dad he told me that things

uh didn't go well in the conversation and that uh he had basically threatened him and how did you react to hearing that lyle had threatened your father i couldn't believe it i was uh not happy i started yelling i started saying are you threatened dad are you crazy and uh why couldn't you believe it well i mean i could believe it but i thought it was the stupidest thing in the world that you could possibly do to this to threatened dad and uh had there been any discussions before thursday night about what lyle should or

should not do in the conversation with your father vaguely did you think before thursday night that lyle would threaten your father no i didn't know exactly what he was going to do but i figured that if he was so optimistic he had a reason to be optimistic and he wasn't going to go in and say what he said now what was the nature of the threat as you understand it from what lyle told you just that if dad ever touched me again that lyle would tell everyone and did that why did it concern you that

he had said that because you don't go and threaten dad and especially what that had just done to me i couldn't believe it i how did you think your father would react to a threat to expose him publicly as a child molester he would not react well what does that mean she would kill you he would not permit you to do that was your father a person concerned with his public image yes what about your mother yes and how do you know that because they had talked about it and they had talked about it with

me since i was in muncie from the time you were a child were there things that you were told to hide or conceal or lie about to strangers to make your family look good yes was that routine yes were you even told to lie and hide things from the rest of the family to make your immediate family look good do you recall your mother ever talking to you about what to do with your school books or your homework when you went to see your aunt terry yeah when i went to my ontario she told me

specifically not to mention my grades and if i did to tell that i was just getting ace and to hide my books in a corner somewhere where i knew where i could get them and i knew if they were touched okay and did you understand why it was your mother was telling you to do this with your aunt terry yes why i thought that she just didn't feel that i was getting good enough grades and didn't want anyone to know the grades i was getting now had you also heard in your family from your mother

and your father statements about how your family compared to other families yes and what was it that they would say about your family well they said our family overall they said our family was this great thing and this this with a lot of ancestry and that it was going to be a huge family and successful and they didn't want anything to diminish that better than other people was that the message yes is there any doubt in your mind that your father felt superior to everybody else no he definitely did and were there things that your

mother said and did that made you think she also felt that she was superior to other people i knew that she felt that way i don't know that there's things that she said i assume i don't remember at the moment sustained the answer stricken okay you knew that she felt that way how did you know she felt that one the way she felt about being superior i can't remember right now okay well this example that you gave us of what you were supposed to do with your antennas okay did that tell you anything about your

mother wanting people to think you were superior well i certainly knew that she didn't want anyone to know the flaws or the bad things in the family and she wanted the family that was very clear all right so we're back to thursday night and you're having this conversation um with your brother and do you tell him do you share with him your opinion of what this threat to your father now means what's going to happen i thought we were going to die and i was i told him that after i had gotten just gotten to

the guest house i told him that dad's going to kill us because of what dad said to me and i was just i was just sitting on the couch with my hands in my head saying we're gonna die we're gonna die i can't believe this i can't believe you did this now kids often say i mean you're familiar with kids saying oh my father's gonna kill me oh my parents are gonna kill me is that what you're talking about no no i dad was gonna kill us i thought for sure that dad was gonna i

couldn't believe what lyle had done and how it was just all messed up everything was gone it wasn't me going to princeton or him coming to ucla it was dead but what did he tell you that your father had said now he told you law told you that he had threatened your father what did he tell you about law about your father's response to the threat my dad said that he was going to tell everyone anyway i don't understand dad thought that lyle was going to tell everyone anyway whether he touched me or not again

that's what lyle said and what else did dad tell him do you remember um he told him that i i i don't remember the details do you remember your brother testifying that your father said that you had made your choice and he had made his yes remember that testimony yes does that sound familiar yeah lao told me all about the conversation um i don't remember exactly what he told me that night versus what he testified here but i heard all of that in the conversation so where did your conversation with your brother go after he

had told you um what had happened to the conversation with your father what happened then well i was i was really panicking i was crying and getting hysterical and uh lyle was trying to calm me down but i would look at him and he looked afraid and that just got me worse because the flower was afraid i was really afraid and uh and so he was just saying it's going to be okay we'll think don't worry about it and trying to calm me down okay and did you then have a conversation as he has previously

testified about what could you do now yes okay and what were the different things that you considered he said we gotta get out of here we gotta we gotta leave the house and just get away so one of the things was to just leave the house that night yes and did you agree or disagree with him i said you're crazy we can't go anywhere where are we going to go well what was your concern if any if you had left the house that night my concern you just learned that your brother had basically threatened to

tell on your father yes if the two of you disappeared that night did you have in mind anything that your father might think about that well i thought dad was going to kill us and no matter where we went anywhere he was going to kill us he obviously my dad thought that lal and i were gonna go tell somebody so if you left the house that night what do you think your dad would have thought that we were gonna tell that you had gone to tell i don't know if we had gone to tell that

instant but that we were definitely going to tell now in addition to talking about leaving the house that night was there any discussion about running away permanently yes that's what he was talking about okay well you recall your brother testified that there were really two separate discussions one about let's get out of here right now and the other was what can we do to avoid this threat in the future lyle was really concerned that they were going to come kill us right then and we locked the door and we checked the outside to see if

anyone was coming and and then he said we got to leave we got to get out of this house and i said you know where are we going to go he says we got to get away okay now in in your mind you think he's talking about running away like and permanently yes and did you agree with him good let's go do that no there was no chance of that now why do you think why did you think then there was no chance of that because of things that my dad had told me and who

my dad was and there was there was no place in this world that that my dad my dad was going to find us with this information that i had and he knew that i wasn't the most stable person and that i could just tell um if if i knew he was chasing me and i what do you mean you weren't the most stable person in the context of this family okay what was wrong with you why do you think your dad didn't think you were stable dad didn't think much of me um he didn't think

i was very bright he didn't think that i he thought i was too sensitive he didn't think i was strong enough he thought that i gave in too easily and even too easily to what in arguments in in fights um were you too emotional yeah were you not in control of feelings yeah that's what he thought i remember he said that there was a there was a gang fight once where a group of kids came over to our high school and i was on the tennis court and i got beat up and he he really

was angry at me for that he just he just thought that i was wasn't who he wanted loud to be and so um i was thinking that if i ran away would he would find me he would come after me for that reason in your family based on what you heard your father say over the years was it a positive trait to be sensitive to be emotional to express feelings to feel pain was that a positive thing or a negative thing that was extremely negative was it a sign of weakness or strength to be in

touch with emotions weakness now your mother was she an emotional person very emotional and did she seem to have feelings and express at least her own pain she expressed it a lot and did your father ridicule her for that who ridiculed her to her and to us he talked about her behind her back to you yes and did you get the clear idea that both you and your mother were in the emotional not to be trusted column yeah i worked hard at not being emotional i worked hard at trying to not cry and and to

hold back my feelings and i i tried and i did well at times but um not enough you've heard a whole bunch of witnesses come in here and talk about you crying all the time right yeah you think you were very successful with uh no i wasn't successful enough let me show you something in fact that's good all right it's mark 266. mr menendez i'm showing you this document um and just so you know what you're looking at this is not an original document this is a photocopy of a postcard yes i understand that and

if you would just read it to yourself okay and who is it written to to me and who is it from um daddy daddy that's what's us dad and who is daddy dad your father yes and would you just uh first of all does he spell your name right no he misspells it now would you read out loud just the first sentence um dear eric i trust that you are not crying much and do you know how old you were when your father wrote this postcard to you trusting that you weren't crying as much i

think i was in muncie i don't know probably how old were you when you moved from muncie i'm not sure uh when he wrote me this okay uh i was six or six and a half or seven now when you would cry in front of your father how would he deal with it he'd either hit me or put me in my room would he ridicule you for it yes would he tell you not to do it like he's telling you in that postcard he'd call me names call me a and a crybaby and he just

banned me to my room now returning to that thursday night you and your brother discuss the possibility of running away yes and you didn't think you could do that no i did not think i could what other possibilities did you discuss going to the police going to the relatives just anything we could think of and your brothers described this conversation already about why you didn't feel the police would be a viable option do you agree with what he said oh i'm the one that told him we could not go to the police okay and why

did you tell him what was it you were telling him about why you couldn't go to the police that the police weren't going to be able to protect us from dead that there was no chance that the police were going to be able to do anything and we let me ask you something had you over the course of your life seen anybody stand up successfully to your father no had you seen anybody ever try yes who was that uh a car salesman at a bmd bmw dealership okay what was the outcome of that attempt the

cross salesman started to cry grown man yeah did you ever see your father afraid of anybody no did your father talk about being afraid of anybody no no he he did the opposite he did what he did the opposite he used to come home and tell stories about how he wasn't afraid or was fearless in this or did this when most people would be afraid did he ever tell you stories about how people were afraid of him yes so you didn't feel the police could protect you from your father no and concerning the relatives mr

menendez was there any adult relative in your family that you were close to before your parents died no are you closer to those people now than then yes in fact can you remember ever having any real conversations with for example your godmother your aunt martha before your parents died no no she lived in new jersey at some point and then in florida is that right yeah for the two years or so before your parents died did she live in florida yes when you were young between the ages say of 11 and 15 and living in

new jersey did you think about what your father was doing to you on a regular basis even when it wasn't happening yes did you think um about it when you were around your relatives yes did you ever think that they knew yes no do you now think that they knew no they didn't know but i was paranoid about it at the time what do you mean you're paranoid about it they would give me a look or they would smile at me in a certain way or say something and i would just look at them and

say god they know they know so did you think when you were little that they were anybody that you could have turned to overall no uh not just because of that though okay but let's fast forward now back to thursday night at that time did you think that you could go to your relatives and tell them that your father was a child molester and have them protect you definitely not why because you just didn't you just didn't stand up to my dad my relatives certainly weren't going to stand up to my dad like that and

and hide us out or keep us they admired my dad my dad was the was the big figure in the family he was the successful admired one and he was also the feared one and uh you you didn't disobey him really so you didn't think any of them would stand up to him no they wouldn't have you didn't think anybody would oppose any of them would oppose him no and did you ever hear your other relatives actually bragging about your father were they proud of his accomplishments everybody was proud of his accomplishments now you thought

your grandmother loved you didn't you my grandmother yeah yes and and how did you feel about her i loved her and how did she feel about your father she loved my dad more than anybody else more than anyone in the world and did you have any particular desire to tell your grandmother what had been going on no so where did the conversation with your brother lyle lead to thursday night uh it led to us having to buy guns led to lyle um saying we've got to protect ourselves we've got to do something because i kept

eliminating all of his options okay he was coming up with options yeah i was i was pretty much just crying and and doing whatever i was doing and he was saying well what if we could do this well what if we do that he said calm down and work it out and i was just not being very helpful did you think any of the options would work no so a decision was made to try to protect yourselves yourself is that it and on that night on thursday night when you were talking to your brother about

what might happen you were talking about the fact that dad would kill you is that right yes did you think your mother would stop him oh i thought my mom would do it with him there wasn't no one in the other why did you think your mother would do it with him because that's who my mom was she was they were very much of a team besides the fact that my mom hated us they were a team were you so sure that your mother hated you before thursday night as you were after after i definitely

knew i mean for her known all those years i knew she must have hated me but i was i thought it before as well now what did you do after you and and lyle decided that you would try to protect yourselves and and buy guns where did you remain or where did you stay that thursday night i stayed in the um the front section of the guesthouse the front section of the guest house are there two rooms upstairs in the guest house yes what is the front section uh there's it's like a little couch and

a uh two two two chairs like a little living room a living room you stayed there and last stayed in the in the bedroom yes uh how much sleep do you think you got that night not much now do you recall whether or not that night you had a familiar nightmare yes and had you been having nightmares for some period of time up till then in your life yes how long since i was since i was in pennington since i lived in pennington back up from the mic a little since i lived in pennington since

you first moved to pennington i don't know how much they were happening in muncie but i was i i think they started in pennington okay mike what you live somewhere else between muncie and pennington do you remember that yeah i don't remember that house too well okay in 1978 we've heard here is when you moved to pennington in the fall of 1978 okay okay all right so do you think you were having nightmares from the very beginning or they started up sometime after you moved there or what i think they started up sometime after i

moved you're wondering if we're going to take a break this would be a convenient time all right we'll take a recess and resume at 20 minutes after the hour please don't discuss this case with anyone or form any final opinions about it and we'll resume at 3 20. thank you your honor mr menendez i want to back up for a moment you recall you were telling us before how your mother seemed to know things that that you couldn't find a logical or rational reason for her to know remember that yes uh after your parents died

did you find something in your parents bedroom that made you understand how it was that she knew everything yes and is there a photograph in front of you on the witness stand right now that shows you where it was in your parents bedroom that you found this thing yes and can you describe for the jury the juries where it was under my mother's night stand and what was it you found a tape recording with a phone jack in it you and i have an envelope mark 267 it's been shown to mr korean mr menendez would

you uh circle the entire nightstand now where in relation to the nightstand was this tape recorder and phone jack was right in right underneath on the left side the right side the ref the right side if you're facing the nightstand okay and showing you what's contained uh in the envelope more 267. do you know what that is yes this was the telephone uh hook uh device to the recorder okay and does that particular device have a telephone jack attachment yes you've just pulled that out yes and where did the other parts go do you remember

uh one one i guess they both this one went into the recorder i think i'm not quite sure exactly what this went into okay did you find tape recordings after your parents died that uh told you what that recorder was used for uh yes i did and whose voices were on the tape recordings that you found mine and who else whoever i was talking to they were just tape recordings of my phone conversations they were tape recordings of phone calls to your number anytime the phone was picked up apparently the tape recording went on because

i could hear the buttons being pushed on the tape recorder all right if you listen to the question were they tape recordings of incoming calls to you and outgoing calls from you both yes and could you tell by listening to some of the tapes how far back these recordings went i heard one that went back to to the winter but there were so many tapes i didn't look at them all went back to the winter of 88.89 yes and did you ever play or show any portion of those tapes to any friends of yours yes

do you remember who you might have played any portions of them before i know i played a portion to danny roberts we see a friend of yours from beverly hills high school yes did you keep those tape recordings of your phone calls no i threw them all away when you found them did it explain what you thought was magical towers yes now returning for a moment to thursday night in addition to what you have told us about what your brother lyle related to you concerning his conversation with your thought okay did lyle also tell you

that your father had basically said that he was going to go on doing whatever he was doing with you yes and did lyle express some kind of reaction that he had had or that he was feeling to your father saying basically i'm going to molest whoever i want him to last yes did he tell you that your father said that you know he just that you were his son and he'd do whatever he wanted whatever he wanted with me um yes law said he threatened him at that point i don't know if he said who

threatened at that point lyle threatened dead okay all right now what was lyle expressing to you on thursday night about how he reacted to your father's basically saying he would continue how he reacted in the room with my father or in the room with me with you about the room with my dad all right let's start over let's start over in the room with me he he looked scared uh he was telling me that he got angry with my dad when he was talking to my dad though did he tell you anything about how shocking

or unexpected your father's response was did he tell you why he had threatened to expose your father yeah because he was surprised by dad's reaction he couldn't believe how dad was reacting to what he was saying did lyle indicate to you whether or not he planned to threaten your father with exposure or just lost control of the conversation no he didn't plan at least to my knowledge to threaten dad did he tell you basically he blew it he lost it no because i remember in the conversation on wednesday i was telling him you know lyle

thought he had he had control of the situation i was trying to tell him that's not gonna be so happy and you know don't be careful and lyle was telling me on thursday that he blew it basically that he blew it yeah because he threatened to expose him now i was asking you just before the break about um a nightmare was there a particular nightmare that you had many many times in your life yes did you have it many times before august of 1989 yes have you even had it many times since yes did you

have it the night of thursday august 17 1989 yes could you tell us briefly what that nightmare was it was about uh a uh a green face and how it changed in into becoming dad chasing me through this darkness and was this dream about a green face that chases you this is you had had that before yes was there also any animal-like figures in this dream yeah they were a cow and a horse and where would the cow and the horse and the green face how did the dream begin well the dream began with me

just becoming real tiny and everything just got larger and larger and i felt like i was disappearing and uh and it was real it was it was terrifying and and then it that disappeared and i wouldn't i went into a different a different uh state i don't i don't know how to describe it is this how the dream always was yes it always started with you shrinking yes and then when did green face and cow and horse show up in the dream right right well the cow and the horse were not always in that dream

they were sometimes in different dreams they were things that i was afraid of along with the green face it was pretty much the green face that would chase me most sometimes the cow on the horse would be the dream was i don't know how to describe it all right well what would happen with the green face you'd start to be chased by this green-faced creature and when would it turn into dead almost immediately and did you see other people in this dream that you knew yes who would you see in the dream uh alicia silvia

anna maria who are they my relatives what about your aunts and uncles did you see them too no what about your mother was she ever in that dream yes now would these other people your relatives and your mother show up during the part of the dream when you're being chased yes but at different points okay how did you run to people in this stream i ran to my relatives and asked them if they they i told them that dad was chasing me and asked if they saw dad and they would say no and i would

run i ran to lyle and uh and then he would suddenly abandon me and run away what about mom what i would run to mom but she was over this this the roof of the pennington house in the dream she was over the roof yeah she was sort of floating in the sky in the pennington house so you couldn't get to her either no i tried and how would this dream end with me falling off the roof in the pennington house and is that the version of the dream that you had thursday night yes now

on friday did you hear your brother testify that you went with him to a gun store a big five in santa monica inquired about buying handguns yes and we're told that there was a two-week waiting period yes is that true yes did you do that yes before you left the house to go to that gun store had you been on the tennis court practicing yes and did your brother have a conversation with you to get you to stop practicing and do something else yes now did you hear your brother testify that he said something like

just because it's a new day doesn't mean things are okay it's basically what he said okay what were you saying to him that made you say that that made i'm sorry what were you saying to lyle that made him say that to you well he came over to the tennis court and asked if i was ready to go and i said no i said something like i'm playing tennis i got a tournament coming up i don't really feel like it and he said something like you know i i realize this is this is uh you

know hard to think about but this is real this isn't something that's that's that's going to go away this is serious and i just didn't want to deal with it well what were you thinking that was it a sunny bright sunny friday morning yes and what were you thinking that morning about whether it was real i thought it was real but it seemed like it seemed like a bad dream the night before the next morning the sun was out the birds were chipping and it just seemed like this wasn't happening and i didn't want to

think about it okay so after your brother told you that things are serious did you have to think about it yes and did you agree with him yeah i agreed to go did you think that what had happened on thursday his talk with your father your confrontation with your father your mother telling you what she told you did you think that was serious stuff oh i knew it was serious stuff that's why i didn't want to think about it had you spent time in earlier years think when your father would threaten to do something to

you if you told okay had you thought about what it was he would do if i told him well he told me what he would do if i told he told you what he told me that he'd kill me he told me that he'd tie me a chair and beat me to death he told me all sorts of things did you ever picture what would happen if it came out inside the family in other words if you told lyle and if your parents found out you were told low had you ever envisioned this happening no

now after you went to the big five in santa monica did you drive towards uh in the direction of san diego with your brother uh soon after but you did take that drive yes and when you started that drive had there been any decision by yourself and your brother to go ahead and buy a long gun since you couldn't buy a handgun no and was there a discussion in the car after which such a decision was made there was discussion before the decision was made yes yes and after that discussion was it then that you

decided you had to get a gun even if it had to be a long gun yes and what was the subject matter of that discussion in the car um the things that dad had done to me the sexual things and other things yes and was this the first time that you were actually telling your brother what had happened uh yeah the details of what had happened did you tell them all the details of everything that happened for 12 years no definitely not basically what did you tell him about the sex itself do you recall judgment

you're saying it's not offered to the truth well at this point there is no request for the substance of it just whether he recalls so the objection is overruled to the formative question what's the question again do you remem this is just a preparatory question do you remember what you told your brother about what the nature of the sexual activity between yourself and your father had been yes okay what did you tell him the nature of the sexual activity had been objection objection sustained as to the formal questions calling for hearsay it's not being offered

for the truth your honor but to explain lyle menendez a state of mind and why he formed the opinion that his father was sick which he testified all right the objection is overruled it will be received only as it might reflect upon the state of mind of the person hearing the statement and as to what if any state of mighty had in reaction to it all right do you understand the question yes okay can you answer the question i told them that it was that it was basically oral sex that was happening okay and did

you tell him anything about any kind of violence that would accompany it or any kind of threats from your father yes and what did you tell him about violence i told him that there were pins and tacks that dad would die the dead was sick in me and use pins could you speak up please the dead would stick in me and use pins and tacks yes and did you give him the impression that these pins and tacks were being used during oral sex yes and in fact was that something that did happen between yourself and

your father when you were a teen yes and what if anything did you tell him about any weapons that your father ever threatened you with i told him that he threatened me with a knife now mr menendez do you remember the kind of knife that your father threatened you with yes what kind was it was a jacket knife a what a jagged knife on one end was it was a rambo knife a rambo no yeah a knife that he had your father's company did you did you understand that your father's company was partly owned by

the company that made the rambo movies yes and was there a promotional item a knife like the knife rambo uses in the movie yes father received yes and was that knife kept in the beverly hills and calabasas houses yes and is that what he used to threaten you yes and was that the knife you were referring to earlier when you said there was one occasion when you said no objection sustained was there an occasion when you said no yes was there a knife used on that occasion yes what knife was that the rainbow knife when

you were telling your brother about a knife was it that occasion you were talking about or some other occasion that occasion overall what was your answer that occasion and did you tell your brother um the specific kinds of threats that your father had made should you tell yes had your father ever threatened to hurt anyone besides you if you told someone yes and what was that threat he told me that he would kill whoever i told he would kill whoever you told yes now mr menendez on that friday august 18th 1989 you were karen were

you carrying donovan goudreau's driver's license with you yes excuse me how long had you carried it up to that point a few months were you in new jersey when your aunt terry uh was cleaning out lyle's college room yes were you aware that she found donovan's license yes did you receive his license in new jersey or back in california in jersey and what purpose if any did you use that license before august 18 1989 to get into a nightclub here and there did you have another id that was fake yes and was that what name

was that idea richard stevens and did you know richard stevens no it was a fake fake id what was there such a person once upon a time do you think possibly not that i knew how did you get a license in the name of richard stevens oh they had birth certificates at the high school in calabasas many kids had them they had birth certificates birth certificates that you would take to the dmv and just say you're this person and they give you an id were these real birth certificates fake birth certificates you didn't know i

think they were fake but you used such a fake birth certificate to get a license in the name of richard stevens yes with whose picture on it my picture and what address i don't remember a fake address i think so i'm not sure and what date of birth uh over 21 i don't remember the date of birth would it be based on the fake birth certificate what the date of birth was yes and did you carry that one around with you all the time no why not because i didn't want to lose it i mean

why i had lost my wallet before and i had lost my cousin of mine's id that i had used then so i was without one and uh when i got the stevens one i just kept it in my bedroom for safekeeping did you ever take it out of your bedroom yeah when i knew i was gonna go to a nightclub or i knew i was gonna need it then i'd uh take it did you consider that a better fake id than donovan's well that one was real well how could it be real well it had

my signature and it had my picture so it was it was it was a real dmv uh license so i mean i was it was real well donovan's was real too it was just real for him it was real for him but you know i looked like donovan but i wasn't donovan and i wasn't six one or whatever his height was so you didn't really match the description or entirely match the appearance on donovan's license is that what you're saying no not as well as my own description okay and the richard stevens license said your

description your picture yes did your mother know that you were getting this richard stephens license yes she told me how to do it she told you how to do it how to go to the dmv and get it made so did she know you had this fake birth certificate and were intending to do this yes now what about a real eric menendez driver's license was there such a thing in existence once upon a time i mean were you licensed by the state of california and it wasn't suspended or revoked at that time was it no

but where was your license i had lost it with my wallet and in fact in july in july of 1989 did you receive a traffic ticket uh citing you for among other things having no license in your possession yes now do you remember if on july 7th 1989 when you got that ticket uh were you carrying either the richard stevens id or the donovan control id i was carrying donovan's and why didn't you show that to the policeman who stopped you because it wasn't my license so you didn't want to show him a completely false

license for this ticket no let me have a moment john i have another one-page document appears to be important yes mr menendez showing you the last entry on this computer driving record do you see a ticket that you received on july 7 1989 yes and you see there are three violations there yes okay excuse me mr koryama are the people willing to stipulate that one of those violations section 129 51a of the california vehicle code is for having no license in one's possession mr menendez you recall when you were in san diego that you went

to two different places down there that sold guns yes can i get you to stop reading that yes thank you and did you uh learn after going to the first place that you'd need something in order to purchase even shotguns yes what would you need driver's license and you had donovan's with you yes had you ever signed donovan's name had you ever used the license in a way that required you to sign his name no did you know whether or not you would have to do that when you bought guns no i wasn't sure did

you think you might i thought i might did you think you might need uh some address other than the address on donovan's license to buy guns in san diego i thought i might and what was the general area first of all did you notice donovan's address on the license sure was it the san diego or los angeles area no what did you do if anything in order to come up with a local address i looked in a telephone book and where were you when you looked in the telephone book at a restaurant i think it

was bob's big boy i'm not sure a semi fast food restaurant yeah like a denny's type of thing and was this in the san diego area yes was this before or after you went to the first gun store down there this was after and you looked in the book to find an address yes and later on when you were inside the big five did you remember that address that you had looked at in the book no so what did you do to give the saleswoman an address when you were in the big five i just

signed august why because it was the month of august i didn't i couldn't think of anything else to do you had forgotten what you had seen i've forgotten the address that i was supposed to use so i just used august and what about for the number where'd you get the number from i just made it up now did you give the saleswoman the information that donovan goudreau was born in burlingame california yes do you recall mr gujo testifying here that he was born in glenora california no but you don't remember that no now had you

been to burlingame california that summer yeah that's where i played tennis is that that's in july yes and did you believe that mr goudreau was born in northern california yes and was burlingame in northern california yes is that why you used it yes now when you were at the restaurant at some point did you try to write mr goudreau's signature yes did you practice yes how many times sustained council ask your next question did you eat at the restaurant yes and you told us you looked in the phone book yes what else did you do

i practiced the signature how many times did you practice the signature i mean how many times did you write it like four or five times did you do anything else while you were at the restaurant did you use the restrooms did you go outside to make a phone did you do anything i ate i don't really remember what else i did what about your brother do you remember what if anything he did at the restaurant i don't remember was he with you all the time or did he leave you at some point no he left

me uh a lot do you know what he was doing i don't quite know well do you know if he went to the restroom i guess i guess that's where he was going how long did it take the two of you to drive down to san diego from santa monica two two and a half three hours and then you went to a gun store yes and then you went to this restaurant yes and then you ate yes do you believe your brother ate yes do you have anything to drink yes [Applause] now you returned to

los angeles friday night yes and you recall a conversation with your mother friday night concerning the boat trip yes and do you remember your brother testifying to that conversation yes and was that essentially the way you also remembered it yes then let's move on to saturday then do you recall on saturday in the afternoon going to a gun store here in van nuys yes how was that gun saw strike that who selected that gun store i did and how did you know about it i looked it up in the phone book was there a particular

reason why you selected that particular gun store yes and what was the reason because it had a firing range next to it and how did you know that because it said so in the phone book i think there was a little picture i'm not quite sure said so in the phone book that it had a firing range yes and why did you care if the gun store had a firing range because i had no idea how to fire this gun and if i ever had to i thought i might need to know how on friday

when you were coming back to los angeles had you put any shells in your gun yes how many had you put in two and with these the shells that your brother picked up off the stack in the big five yes and why did you put two shells in in the car so that i could see if i could load it and so that it would be loaded why didn't you load it all the way i didn't think i need to did you know what two shells could or would do to someone i had an idea

did you think that was a big a very dangerous thing two shotgun shells and a shotgun yes when you uh got to the gun store on saturday the one in van nuys did you find something out about the firing range yes what did you find out that you couldn't fire off a uh i guess a shotgun or a rifle inside in the range what kind of firing range did it was it was an indoor firing range and you could only fire off apparently handguns or something like that but you were told by the people at

the establishment that you could not fire a shotgun at that range yeah i was told by the people across the street i guess across the street at the gun store the firing range was across the street from the from the little gun store okay did you make your inquiries at the gun store or at the firing range at the gun store and the people at the gun store told you you couldn't use the range for a shot that's right had you even taken the shot had you taken the shotgun along with you yes had you

taken it out of the car no while you were at the gun store uh did you and your brother purchase different ammunition from what he had picked up from the stack at the big five yeah we purchased what the guy said to purchase and do you recall what type of ammunition it was i know now it was buck well what was he telling you it was the guy at the store he was telling me it was buck too i don't buckshot yes and did the guy at the store give you any explanation of what the

purpose of the ammunition that you had already bought the day before was yes and what did he tell you it was it was bird shot for shooting uh birds and did he tell you how that stuff worked yeah he said it spread real fast it didn't work well for burglars that's what he said and you had led him to believe that you were seeking ammunition for home protection why do you think he mentioned burglars because we told him that we just needed protection around the house and uh so he gave us the stuff that he

thought we should use suggestions it's not offered for the truth all right it will be received only to reflect the state of mind of the witness and for no other reason now did you after purchasing the buckshot at the by the way how many boxes of buckshot were purchased at the van nuys gun store one and how many rounds if you remember were in that one box 10. after the trip to the gun store um did you and your brother eventually get back home yes you heard your brother testify that he sort of stalled and

drove around trying on purpose to be late um yes did that happen that happened after yes after what after we went to the gun store right you didn't want to be home did you no uh you didn't want to take the boat trip no assistant were you uh what was your state of mind with respect to taking this boat trip i was very afraid of going on the boat we did not want to go on that boat trip let's stay with your state of mind okay instead of using we all right you didn't want to

go on the boat no why didn't you want to go on the boat because i wasn't sure what was going to happen on the boat it seemed real i was real nervous about it from the conversation the night before and uh and i couldn't get a handgun when cloud tried to ask me to and so i i was real worried about going on that trip uh well what was it that you thought might happen on it i thought we might die and how did you envision yourself dying on the boat trip i didn't know what

would happen i know the time was changed to at night and i wasn't real excited about going on a boat trip with my my parents at that time at night okay when you got back to the house though were your parents still there yes and did you go on the boat trip yes now you've heard mr anderson the captain testified at what you and your brother were doing and how you looked and what happened to you on the boat trip yes and you've heard your brother testify to it yes and between the two of them

have they given an accurate picture of what happened on the boat trip basically so let's move ahead after the boat trip did you uh return with your parents to your house yes and did you then leave the house with your brother and go somewhere yes and where did the two of you go to ucla and what was your state of mind at that point given the fact that your parents didn't kill you on the boat trip i didn't know what was going to happen i mean it was really it was a scary situation i knew

they were going to do something they didn't do it on the boat trip like i thought they might have and i just didn't know what was going to happen or when and it was real nerve-wracking did you have any discussion with your brother about whether the two of you were missing something or missing something that your parents were doing or overlooking something we didn't we didn't know what what they were doing what they were up to they weren't talking to us and like in the car ride it was just quiet and it was a really

car ride which to and to and from the boat trip was silent silent and so i i didn't know i didn't understand what what they were up to in their own way and they weren't talking to us and about it they weren't giving us the signs that i was looking for okay well did you think maybe you were wrong and everything was peachy and there was no problem and uh life would go on as usual no i wasn't wrong well did you think that at all no why not because i knew what i had done

and i knew that i wasn't going to get away with it and it was just a matter of of when and it was real clear from the way my parents were acting that something was going on were they being more were they were they secretive around you ordinarily yes and no was this a family with great communication among its members no very little communication well were they even more secretive and less communicative during these few days that we've been talking about were they more communicative or less communicative during these few days that you've been testifying

about they were really quiet not saying much around us usually my dad was either in a in an up mood and laughing and and joking or making fun of people uh with the whole family uh sort of talking to my mom but not being quiet about it or he was real angry and would and would yell or act real stern but at this time he just wasn't saying anything and my mom who was also like that was not saying a word was real weird well had there been times you've described for example in kalamazoo and

your father got so mad he couldn't talk there were other times weren't there when your father wouldn't talk to you that's only that was that was very unusual and it was usually because he was so angry with me and that he could not talk but it was it was never like it was in kalamazoo that was that was different but there were times when we didn't talk but you they would say something that was something noticing something it wasn't silence on purpose this one this time it was dead silence from thursday night when you had

the struggle with your father in your bedroom until saturday night when your rephrase a question did you have a struggle with your father in your bedroom thursday night yes did you throw him off of you when he was pushing you on the bed not quite like that but i got him out from under him and had he pushed you when you reach how he grabbed you when you had gone too he threw me on the bed was it a physical struggle yes from that time of that physical struggle thursday night to in the car with

your parents coming back from the boat trip had your father said one word to you no and was that had that ever happened before or was that unusual it was extremely unusual i mean he had done a similar thing in kalamazoo when after i had lost he got so angry he couldn't talk and we didn't talk while packing the bags but he would say a word and he would do he would do this he told me we weren't going to canada for instance but uh this time he didn't say a word well did he seem

overtly openly angry on saturday no now on the boat you heard testimony from the captain did your father ever talk to you individually or direct anything at you personally no was there some word said like when he caught the shark when he caught the shark we went to the back we didn't want to make it seem really suspicious and and he would say things to the boat captain and what a great shark it was but to you did he say anything to you no so at ucla did you and your brother discuss what you should

be doing with yourselves the next day sunday yes and what did you discuss uh we discussed what we were going to do and we decided that we'd just stay away from each other and i would stay home was there why did you decide to stay away from each other because we thought that if something would happen it would happen when we were together why is that it's just what we thought would happen that if if they were going to kill us that they were going to do it when we were together um and did you

believe they were going to kill both of you or just you no i thought they were going to kill both of us even though you were the person who could was the witness to your father's molestation that's especially why that they would kill both of you or that they would kill me oh no i understand they'd kill you but but the question is why would they kill uh well because he knew he was the one apparently threatening dad and was had there been a threat by your dad about telling yes and had you told lyle

that your father had said he'd kill anybody you told on friday had you told la yes i did so when you were at ucla there was a decision made for you to stay apart the next day yes there were different decisions made did you stay apart the next day yes what time did you leave the house on sunday around eight o'clock in the morning yeah before you left the house did you let your brother know you were going yeah i went over and knocked down laos guest house door and uh told him did you see

your parents that morning no now when you knocked on lyle's guest house door that morning did you tell him something that had happened to you saturday night after you got back yes ucla let's go back to saturday night for a minute did something happen to both of you together after you got back from ucla on saturday night yes and what was it that both of you experienced saturday night uh an argument with my mother my mother was um yelling at us and in the course of that argument with your mother did your mother say something

unusual to me yes she said it to you or it was unusual to you or both she said it to me um the other thing she said she always said um but what she said to me was unusual all right what were the other things she said that she always said just that she hated us and that she wished we were never born and that we ruined her life that was this sort of a a litany your mother would go in when she was really uh just real upset and just would start saying this then

yes sustain the answer stricken when would your mother make that kind of statement whenever she whenever she was upset she was she could make it sometimes she wouldn't sometimes she would just depended how she felt i guess now she said it about how many times you think you heard that over the course of your life 40 50 times so it wasn't like she was telling you something did it seem like she was trying to tell you something or did it seem like she was just in a habit of speech no she was did it seem

like a speech habit of hers when she said it did she always say the exact same words yes now what else did she say saturday night that was not part of this standard upset thing that she'd say she told me that if i would have kept my mouth shut things might have worked out in the family what did you think that meant that meant that things had not worked out in the family and i believed that she was going to kill us well things had not worked out in the family and whose fault was that

mine because i told lyle and keeping your mouth shut what did you think she meant shut about what about the stuff between dad and i that i had told lyle and what did you think she was trying she meant by things not working out in the family the family had had problems before of one kind or another like all families have you no suggestion usually there was a lot of argument uh in these when when she would say there had not been anything since thursday night there had been no arguments on friday no arguments on

saturday and and suddenly she was coming up with this statement that the family was through and i really thought i knew what that meant you said the family was through now she didn't say the family's through or the family's over she said but for what you did things would work out she said that things hadn't worked out and did you therefore interpret that to mean the family was over yes and did you interpret that to mean that certain members of the family were not going to be alive how did you interpret that what did you

interpret that with respect to the various members of the family i thought they were going to kill lyle and i seemed clear now on you've told us that on thursday night you didn't get much sleep no and you had that that nightmare yes now on friday night where did you sleep in my bedroom and did you get a lot of sleep friday night no now on saturday after this argument with your mother by the way what was the argument actually about with your mother when you got back to the house saturday night probably cla the

fact that the door was locked okay well why didn't you guys just unlock the door and go in she was saying that we should have had a key and we were saying that what lyle was saying that that she didn't give us a key and she was saying that was no excuse for not having a key did you have a car yes did you have a key ring for your car yes did it have car keys on it yes did you have a house key on the camera no why because she did not let me

have a house key on the key ring did your brother have a car yes did he have a key ring for his car i don't know well did he did your mother ever give either one of you a key that was your own no to any house no that you ever lived in no and did she make a statement ever about why you didn't have keys to the house i don't remember do you remember how she used to refer to the houses were they our house or your house or my house no they were her

house is that what she said yes and did she ever make a statement about it being her house in connection with any discussion you ever had with her about keys yes okay and what would she say in that regard she would say that i'm not going to give you a key to my house and that you know there's no reason for you to have a key that you can just knock on the door and did that mean mr menendez that there was no time that you could come back home from a date from being with

your friends and get in the house if she had locked it up without her knowing it if i hadn't left the little door open yes okay well sometimes you left a door but if she had locked the whole house up you couldn't get in without her knowing no except in the calabasas house did you have a special way of getting into the calabasas house yes how was that uh through the upstairs window there was a like a like a tree uh i don't know how to describe it a balcony type of thing that you would

climb up the post and you could get into the window a thing that you grow a tree up against yeah a vine trellis yes and you could crawl in a second-story window yes and that's how you'd get into the calabasas house after she had locked it up yes okay with respect to the beverly hills house if she had locked it up and you needed to come home no you couldn't get in you'd have to do what you'd have to knock on the door or ring the doorbell and then she'd know all of your movements right

yes did you have a sense at any time when you were living with your parents that you had any personal privacy no did you have a sense that your parents were not interested in every single thing you did no i thought they were interested in everything i did and did they require and request you to report to them about every single thing you did they required it did you always do it no and why wouldn't you always do it because i wanted to keep certain things in my life private and certain things i just wanted

to keep to myself it was just bad things or just ordinary things just ordinary things if i was seeing a girl or this and that i wanted to keep it to myself so let's go back to the saturday night neither one of you has a cane now there were keys in a place inside your brother testified remember that yes in the kitchen and what was supposed if you took one of those keys were you supposed to put it back yes couldn't keep it no and did you have difficulties with that system where to leave the

house you take a key and then you got to put it back yes what would happen if we didn't put it back we should get very angry would you lose these keys sometimes because they weren't on a key ring yeah we'd lose them and she accused us of of lying and actually trying to keep the key and uh and so she'd get upset and eventually she'd make another key and put it in the kitchen so did you take to leaving a door open when you were going out for the evening not one of the main

doors but some other dorsey yes but would your mother before she went to sleep go around the house routinely and lock them all up sometimes sometimes she'd overlook one yes now after the confrontation with your mother at the door where did you go uh i went outside and did you have another discussion with your brother yes and what was the main thing that you were discussing at that point that something was definitely going to happen and for me to to uh just to stay away and i was basically saying wow you better talk to him

tomorrow i want to know what's going on what was it that made you then say what was it that happened in that confrontation with your mother at the door that made you say wow lyle something is really happening what she said to me about if i would have kept my mouth shut okay so that statement added something to what you were already thinking yes did that make you more fearful less fearful made me a lot more fearful and as a consequence did you then take something with you up to your room when you re-entered the

house yes and when you re-entered the house now your mother had opened the door for you right yes and then she went back to bed she went over to her room and did you then when you went outside to talk to your brother again did you close the front door you left it open yes so when you went back inside now to actually go up to your room did you take something with you yes what did you take the gun now did you did you had you ever done anything in addition to the gun after

you would put the two rounds in in the car on the way back from san diego on friday on any day before this point so it was in whatever condition it was in when you first brought it home on friday yes and did you now take it up to your bedroom yes and where did you put it i put it on the side of my bed and can you see all right if this is an appropriate time you can you know all right mr menendez does this photograph of your bedroom a show at least sort

of show where it was you put the gun on the side of your bed that saturday night yes i wanted to do an arrow from the light part down you did two acts yeah okay and these arrows point to like an overhang this is a there's a little uh uh it's a wooden bed it's a wooden bed yeah what kind of mattress it's a it used to be a waterbed but it had broken a long time before and it's just a mattress inside it's a platform type bed isn't it yes and is there an overhang

yes and that's why i kept the gun inside there okay so it's like sits on a platform and then part of it overhangs and you put the gun like sort of like this edge here sort of like i'm putting the pen on the edge yes like this sort of okay sort of only one jerry you can see that so i'll put the pin on the other edge sort of like that yes it sort of didn't fall off though when you had the gun there is that correct no it was actually on the floor the gun

sat on the floor under the ledge yes this would be a good place all right we'll take our recess until tomorrow at nine o'clock again don't discuss this case among yourselves or with anyone else don't form any final opinions out about it and don't permit yourselves to be exposed to anything about this case outside of the courtroom and will resume tomorrow at nine o'clock