The Mansions of Limbo Read Free

and girlfriends and the results of exams. They almost always had dinner together, which, in a community where most parents go to parties or screenings every night and leave their children to their own devices, is a rare thing. They talked about world events, as well as about what was happening in Jose’s business. On the day before the catastrophic event, a Saturday, they chartered a boat called
Motion Picture Marine
in Marina del Rey and spent the day together shark-fishing, just the four of them.
    On the evening of the following day, August 20, 1989, the seemingly idyllic world that Jose Menendez had created was shattered. With their kids at the movies in Century City, Jose and Kitty settled in for a comfortable evening of television and videos in the television room at the rear of their house. Jose was in shorts and a sweatshirt; Kitty was in a sweatshirt, jogging pants, and sneakers. They had dishes of strawberries and ice cream on the table in front of the sofa where they were sitting. Later, after everything happened, a neighbor would report hearing sounds like firecrackers coming from the house at about ten o’clock, but he took no notice. It wasn’t until a hysterical 911 call came in to the Beverly Hills police station around midnight that there was any indication that the sounds had not been made by firecrackers. The sons of the house, Lyle andErik, having returned from the movies, where they said they saw
Batman
again after they couldn’t get into
License to Kill
because of the lines, drove in the gate at 722 North Elm Drive, parked their car in the courtyard, entered the house by the front door, and found their parents dead, sprawled on the floor and couch in the television room. In shock at the grisly sight, Lyle telephoned for help. “They shot and killed my parents!” he shrieked into the instrument. “I don’t know … I didn’t hear anything … I just came home. Erik! Shut up! Get away from them!”
    Another neighbor said on television that she had seen one of the Menendez boys curled up in a ball on the lawn in front of their house and screaming in grief. “I have heard of very few murders that were more savage,” said Beverly Hills police chief Marvin Iannone. Dan Stewart, a retired police detective hired by the family to investigate the murders, gave the most graphic description of the sight in the television room. “I’ve seen a lot of homicides, but nothing quite that brutal. Blood, flesh, skulls. It would be hard to describe, especially Jose, as resembling a human that you would recognize. That’s how bad it was.” According to the autopsy report, one blast caused “explosive decapitation with evisceration of the brain” and “deformity of the face” to Jose Menendez. The first round of shots apparently struck Kitty in her chest, right arm, left hip, and left leg. Her murderers then reloaded and fired into her face, causing “multiple lacerations of the brain.” Her face was an unrecognizable pulp.
    The prevalent theory in the days following the murders was that it had been a Mob hit. Erik Menendez went so far as to point the finger at Noel Bloom, a distributor of pornographic films and a former associate of the Bonanno organized-crime family, as a possible suspect. Erik told police and early reporters on the story that Bloom and his fatherhad despised each other after a business deal turned sour. (When questioned, Bloom denied any involvement whatsoever.) Expressing fear that the Mob might be after them as well, the brothers moved from hotel to hotel in the aftermath of the murders. Marlene Mizzy, the front-desk supervisor at the Beverly Hills Hotel, said that Lyle arrived at the hotel without a reservation two days after the murders and asked for a two-bedroom suite. Not liking the suites that were available on such short notice, he went to another hotel.
    Seven months later, after the boys were arrested, I visited the house on Elm Drive. It is deceptive in size, far larger