The Menendez Family - Part 1 of 3

0:00 Hi. I'm Tina and I'm Rich. If there's one thing we've learned and over twenty years of marriage. It's that some days you'll feel like killing your wife. And some days you'll feel like killing your husband. Welcome to love, Mary Kill, Hey Rich, Hey Tina. How are you? I am doing good? How are you? I'm good. It's freezing here, but the sun is out, so that's good. I feel like we've been talking about the weather a lot lately, but it's such a big I mean, it's just been one of the worst winners I can ever remember.

0:42 I don't know if I would say worse. Hold, it's been cold, and we've had snow, but we haven't had tons of snow. There's been snow on the ground consistently. Yeah, it's more about the cold. But it's so cold. Unless you have experienced it, it's hard to imagine what the cold does to the snow from like a scientific basis. It's kind of interesting because it turns into styrofoam essentially, and when you crunch over it with your wheels just makes the weirdest sound. Yeah, it gets super hard and you can't do anything about it. After a certain point. It just it's there. Well. Speaking of weather, we're recording on Saturday, January twenty fourth, earlier than this is being released, and the storm, the big storm is supposed to hit tonight, I think the worst of it. So we're hoping that everyone's okay, and.

1:29 It's going to affect a lot of people, right. Yeah, hundreds of millions of people. We're just supposed to get like five inches of snow and no ice, but I think the impact is the ice. So we're thinking of you, and we're hoping that it's not going to be as bad as people are predicting. Yeah. But another weather related event is today Groundhog Day. We are releasing this episode on February second, which is a special day for us because three beloved family members have birthdays today. So many birthdays on February second. Our nephew, your sister Julia, and our sun. Yeah, so happy birthday to all of you. Happy birthday everyone. Groundhog Day, as it celebrated in the United States and Canada, is largely a North American tradition brought here by German settlers in the Pennsylvania Dutch region. The custom traces back to candle miss Day, when people once watched the weather and even hibernating animals to guess whether winter was tightening its grip or beginning to loosen. Groundhog Day is forty days after the winter's solstice and forty days before the spring equinox. In Germany, folklore held that a badger's shadow could foretell the length of winter, and parts of Eastern Europe, similar legends centered on a bear emerging from its den.

2:42 When German immigrants carried the tradition to Pennsylvania, they adapted to a common local animal, the groundhog, also known as a I don't which. Since eighteen eighty seven, the most famous of them all, Punk Satawny Phil has made his annual appearance at Gobbler's Knob, and according to the Punk Satani Groundhog Club, there has only ever been one Phil kept alife for more than a century by a secret elixir of life. In reality, groundhogs usually live about ten years. Wow, that's pretty In Punk Satani's tradition, Phil will live forever. Wow. That's good to hear. Yeah, we had a tradition in my family growing up that my poor sister was her birthday. But I would always, of course say Happy groundhogs Day, like I was all excited for Groundhog's Day.

3:29 I've said this before. You're such a nice person, but you're a little brother. You're just a little brother, and you're a little snirky to your older sister, who is very kind. I just like to tease. Yes, Well, speaking of groundhogs, I brought you a snack. Oh, a little groundhog jerky. Okay, no, I'm just kidding. I brought you a snack today from a listener who sent us the loveliest package. Alisha from Amarillo, Texas sent us a big box full of things from BUCkies. It was like if we went to BUCkies, the things that we would buy. She sent socks and a magnet and a cup, and a snow globe and a dish, towels and all sorts of stuff. It's so so sweet. It's such a lovely package to get. She probably thought we forgot about it because it was at.

4:13 The post office for a couple of weeks. You forgot because we have had some bad weather and sometimes we don't open the box until rape before we are going to record. So I have some ghost pepper. I wasn't gonna tell you it's ghost pepper, but I'll tell you. It's ghost pepper salsa and some tortilla chips, and this one looks really yummy. It's a pecan trio, milk chocolate, white fudge, and honey glazed pecans. It does look good. Yeah, I'm gonna try. I sure do. What did you think of the Bucky snacks? I will have to let you know after my mouth cools off a little bit. That ghost pepper salsa is super hot but really good.

4:54 Yeah, it is really good. Yeah. I love the pecan trio too. That was really good. I like spicy things, but that might have been a little too spicy for me, but in small amounts. Really yeah, yummy, I agree. But yeah, this also is really good. There's a couple of more Bucky snacks that Alicia sent us that we will try in the next episode. Thanks so much, Alicia, No, thank you. That was such a lovely surprise. Today, I'm going to tell you a story that I have been working on for two years, not really working on, but I started it two years ago and I knew that it was going to take me a while, and I never really had enough time to really dig into it deeply. So I did this over Christmas. You have been working on this for a long time. Yeah, and you were probably wondering, is she ever going to finish a case again? He has taken it. Before we dive in, I need to give a content warning.

5:40 This episode contains discussion of murder, family violence, and allegations of sexual abuse involving miners. Listener discretion is advised. My main source for this case was Robert Rand's book The Menendez Murders, The Shocking, Untold Story of the Menendez Family and the killings that stunned the Nation. Any quotes, unless otherwise noted, come from his book. Rand as a journalist who has worked on the case tirelessly for decades and updated his book and research through the years. He was one of the first journalists to interview the brothers after the murders and has maintained a relationship with them throughout the years. I'm really looking forward to hearing this because despite how famous this case is, I really know next to nothing about it.

6:21 And you know how, this case kind of tortured me a little bit because I thought one thing, and by the end of my research, my feelings changed about the case. Interesting On Sunday, August twentieth, nineteen eighty nine, Jose and Kitty Menendez had settled down to watch the James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me on their big screen TV while lunching on strawberries and cream. They lived in an impressive four million dollar nine thousand square foot eight bedroom mansion at seven twenty two North elm Drive. Prince and Elton John had previously lived there. Oh wow. It was a beautiful home with a pool and a tennis court, often used by their sons, lia Bill and Eric, both ranked amateur tennis players who hoped to play professionally someday.

7:05 The Menendezes had recently relocated to Beverly Hills from Calabasas. Jose was a successful executive at Live Entertainment, a home video distributor and subsidiary of Carlcoe Pictures, the studio behind films like Rambo and The Terminator. He also served on Carlcoe's board of directors. Jose and Kitty's two sons, Lyle and Eric, were out for the evening, first to see Batman and then to meet up later with friends at the Taste of La Food festival. Eric eighteen, had just graduated from high school in June and planned to attend UCLA in the fall. Lyle twenty one attended Princeton University in New Jersey, where the family had lived for over a decade before moving to Calabasas. Just after ten pm, a neighborhood popping noises and brushed them off as firecrackers, but they weren't. Two armed men entered the Menendez home through the unlocked front door eaves, carrying a twelve gage Mossburg shotgun, storming through the house into the TV room at the back of the house. The security system was left unarmed because the boys frequently set it off, waking up their parents in the middle of the night. The intruders stood behind the couch and fired several times at helpless Jose and Kitty. They'd both fallen asleep in front of the TV, Kitty's head resting on Jose's lap. Jose was shot five times. The first shot to Jose was almost certainly fatal. The gun was pressed to the back of his head, leaving a catastrophic wound. He was also struck in the thigh, chest, arm, and elbow. Jose remained

8:35 sitting upright on the couch, slumped over to one side. One shot missed and shattered the French doors behind them. When the shots woke Kitty, she tried to escape, taking a step or two, but fell between the couch and the coffee table as the spray of bullets struck her. She was found lying on the floor by her husband's feet. She had suffered at least ten shots. Every bone in her face was broken, as were all of her teeth. Her left leg was broken and bent at an odd forty five degree angle. A bullet to her left breast perforated one of her lungs. Despite the braje of gunfire, Kitty was still breathing. Her killer then reloaded the weapon and fired the final fatal shot. We know the gun was reloaded because some of Kitty's wounds contained bird shot while others did not, and none of Jose's wounds contained bird shot at all. As the shooters fled the mansion, what remained was a gruesome scene, the room and its furnishings ruined with blood spatter and biological matter from the attack. Ooh, what a horrifying horrified was a horrific scene. Meanwhile, Lyel and Eric's friends Perry and Todd, waited for them at the Taste of La until almost ten thirty, but they never showed up, so they went home. Lyele called them around ten forty five and apologized. He said he and Eric had gotten lost, but asked if they could still hang out. Perry said he'd meet them at the cheesecake factory in Beverly Hills, but Lyle asked if they could meet at his house instead so Eric could pick up his fake ID, but Harry was firm they would meet at the cheesecake factory. The brothers got back to their house around eleven thirty pm. The front wrought iron gate

10:07 was open, which was unusual. The front door was unlocked too. When Lyle and Eric stepped through the front door, they could sense something was off. The acrid odor of gunpowder mixed with the metallic smell of blood lingered in the air. They were drawn to the den, where they could hear a movie playing. Expecting to find their parents snuggled on the couch together, they were shocked to see the bloody massacre that had unfolded inside their home. Smoke lingering in the room, with Kitty and Jose clearly deceased, The boys both began screaming and crying, Confused about what to do, next, Lyle ran upstairs and gathered himself long enough to call nine one one from the phone in his parents' bedroom. It was eleven forty seven pm. While Lyle remained on the line with nine one one for two and a half minutes down the hall, Eric used the phone in his bedroom to call their tennis coach, Mark Heffernan, someone both brothers were close to. When Heffernan heard the panic in Eric's voice, he immediately got into his car and drove to the house. When police arrived minutes later, the boys ran out of the house crying and screaming. Officers immediately patted them down, then ordered them to the ground as they moved in to clear the house, uncertain whether the shooter still might be inside. Once the house was clear, detectives many pulled from their beds in the middle of the night, began questioning the hysterical brothers. Eric repeatedly slammed his head against a tree, shouting I'm going to kill them, over and over as Lyle tried to restrain him. Meanwhile, Lyle answered officer's questions about his parents and what he and Eric had been doing that day. He told them

11:38 his father's business associates were difficult people, and that Jose was always under a lot of stress. He also told officers that his mother struggled with emotional problems and had previously attempted to take her own life. Shocked neighbors stood on their pristinely manicured lawns and pajamas, staring in disbelief. Beverly Hills was not a place where murders were supposed to happen. On average, the city only saw about two per year. Jose and Kitty Menendez filled that grim quota from the start. Policeman mo Angel was suspicious of the boy's behavior. While they were understandably upset, they seemed overly emotional, even performative. At times when officers weren't speaking with them, they seemed fine. Because the brothers were visibly overwrought, officers chose not to perform standard gunshot residue tests on Lyall or Eric, a decision they would later call a huge mistake.

12:30 Does seem like a huge mistake just because someone's overly emotional. You say, ah, we won't do residue tests on you. Then one important thing to remember in this case is there in Beverly Hill. So they are automatically going to treat everyone a little differently. It's not right, but they get treated with more respect because, well, why do you think because they have more money and they're worried about a lawsuit. Gunshot residue tests were performed on Kitty and Jose and both were negative, ruling out a possible suicide situation. Another critical mistake was the decision not to search Lyle or Eric's cars. Had police done so, they would have found the ammunition and receipt for the guns. When Lyle and Eric didn't show up at the cheesecake factory, Perry drove to their house. He was stunned by the sea of flashing lights from the first responders surrounding the Menendez mansion.

13:22 Police noted that he seemed out of place. Perry soon became their first suspect, but not for long. After several hours of questioning, Mark Heffernan took Lyle and Eric to his house to spend the night. They wouldn't inform their relatives until the next morning. It had the night to think about how they'd break the tragic news, but their entire world had already shifted, and the story that the brothers told would become one of the most scrutinized and shrewd crime Do you remember this case and do you have visuals in your head of. I can picture Lyle and Eric like I've seen definitely seen a lot of pictures of them. I know the basic facts that they obviously were the ones to kill their parents. I didn't know how. I didn't like it was really in cold blood. I mean, they just came in and fired so many bullets into their parents. So, but that's really about all I remember about the case.

14:13 I am embarrassed to admit this, but I actually had the brothers ron. I thought Lyle was Eric and Eric was Lyle. Okay, which people are going to be shocked that I actually didn't even know who was who. Okay, well, who was the oldest, because I, yeah, I don't know. Lyle is the oldest. He's the one with the very dark head of hair and Eric. I don't know why. To me, Eric just looks older, but he has like a curlier hair and like very strong facial features, okay. Jose Enrique Menandez was born on May sixth, nineteen forty four, in Havana, Cuba. His parents, Pepin and Maria had emigrated from Spain and were both accomplished athletes. Pepin a professional soccer player, Maria a swimmer who won five gold medals at the nineteen thirty five Olympic Games, the first woman ever inducted into the Cube Hall of Fame.

15:01 How amazing is that? That is really amazing. Jose was their youngest child. He grew up alongside two older sisters, Terry and Marta. Pepin worked as an accountant, giving the family a comfortable life. Jose was doted on by his mother, Maria, who spoiled him relentlessly. In her eyes, he could do no wrong. Decades later, Marta revealed a shocking secret. She alleged that her mother may have sexually abused Jose, recalling an incident she described as sexually inappropriate contact. She witnessed Maria stroking Jose's exposed genitals, an image she could never get out of her head. Do you know how old Jose was at this time? He was little, like three or four?

15:42 Disturb Jose, like his parents, was a gifted athlete, a swimmer who had his eye on competing in the Olympics, But in nineteen sixty, when he was sixteen, he emigrated from Cuba to the United States amid the upheaval that followed Fidel Castro's rise to power. As the new government began nationalizing property and dismantling the country's middle and upper classes, Pepin and Maria stayed back to fight for their properties. Jose arrived in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, speaking no English and with very little money, sleeping in the attic of a distant cousin. He was homesick and depressed. Hungry for news from his family in Cuba, Jose spent hours listening to Cuban radio stations in his tiny bedroom. For the rest of his life, he would never forget what Castro and his regime had done to his family and to the country he loved.

16:32 Driven by a fierce resolve to succeed and help those he'd left behind, Jose quickly learned English and earned an athletic swimming scholarship to Southern Illinois University, where he met Kitty Anderson. That is really impressive for somebody to come to a new country, not speaking the language, no money in your pocket, and to be able to really work hard to make something of yourself. Absolutely, he overcame the ads for sure. Who was such a hard worker, but not the nicest guy. Mary Louise Anderson, known exclusively as Kitty since she was a teenager, was born October fourteenth, nineteen forty one, to Andy and Lula May Anderson in Oaklawn, Illinois. The youngest of four. She had a sister named Joan and two brothers, Brian and Milton. Charles owned a heating and cooling business, while May raised the children. From the outside, they appeared to be a picture perfect family, but behind closed doors, Charles physically abused his wife and children. When Kitty was about five, her parents divorced after Charles had an affair.

17:32 He married the woman, but May never found love again. She struggled with depression and her self image after her marriage ended. After witnessing her parents' tumultuous relationship and enduring abuse at a young age, Kitty struggled to trust others and form deep, meaningful relationships. However, pretty and athletic, she was popular with her peers. Her friend group called themselves the Party Dolls. In nineteen fifty eight, she began college at Southern Illinois US University, majoring in communications. Kitty focused on broadcasting, but she had hopes of someday acting too. She did camera work at the university television station, as well as play by play sports announcing. In nineteen sixty two, she won the Miss Oaklawn beauty pageant. Kitty and Jose met during her senior and his freshman year in a debate class. They fell in love quickly and were inseparable, but because of their different cultural backgrounds, some frowned on their relationship, but Kitty and Jose were undeterred, we'll be back after a break.

18:41 Despite the protests of their parents, they eloped in nineteen sixty three after Kitty graduated. Then they moved to New York, where Jose transferred to Queen's College while Kitty taught high school in the Bronx. Jose attended night classes while working as a dishwasher and selling Encyclopedia's Door to door is a career that is allowed. It's no longer around, is it. In nineteen sixty seven, Jose graduated with degrees in accounting and economics. He quickly found work as an accountant for Cooper's and librand, making twenty five thousand dollars a year. We're about two hundred and forty thousand dollars today. Well, that's pretty good the salary for just starting out. On January tenth, nineteen sixty eight, Kitty and Jose welcomed their first child, Joseph Flyle Menendez. After Lyle was born, Kitty quit her teaching job. Soon after, Jose was sent to Chicago to help a struggling company, Lion Container. Jose proposed a new restructuring plan that he believed would save them.

19:41 Impressed with his work, ethic and solid plan, they offered him a position as comptroller for seventy five thousand dollars a year, near least seven hundred thousand dollars today, moly. He accepted the job, and he and Kitty moved to hinsda Dale, Illinois. Just two years later, after quadrupling Lion Container's prophet margin, Jose, only twenty six, was named president of the company. His career trajectory is super impressive. Yeah, that's amazing. November twenty seventh, nineteen seventy Eric Galen Menendez was born, almost three years after his brother. In nineteen seventy one, the family moved again to New Jersey, where Jose began working at Hertz in their leasing division before becoming CFO in nineteen seventy three. With cousins living nearby, the family spent a lot of time together, and the children formed close bonds and fond memories. Jose's sister Marta recalled quote, as young boys, Eric and Lyle were two earthquakes. Our kids were very disciplined, but when Jose's kids arrived, the house trembled and things broke. When the boys were very young, Jose was often emotionally distant and largely uninvolved in their day to day lives. He took little interest in typical parenting and bristled when anyone criticized Lyle or Eric's behavior.

21:02 On one occasion, Martha's husband Peter, witnessed a disturbing interaction between Lyle and Jose. Five year old Lyle was running through the house when Jose grabbed him and whispered something into his ear, frightening the little boy so badly that he peed his pants. Jose then punched him squarely in the chest, knocking the wind out of him, and carried him into a bedroom, closing the door behind him. Peter was aghast and told Jose that was no way to treat a young child. He was then ordered to leave the house. People noticed that Kitty didn't enjoy being a mother. She was often aloof and distant with her children, like their father. She could also be rough at times, shaking them violently, oprating them verbally, calling them idiot or stupid.

21:47 When the boys were still very young, Kitty developed a drinking problem. As the boys grew older, they became increasingly rude and dismissive towards her, mirroring the way Jose treated her. Jose did nothing to curb the behavior. In fact, he appeared to encourage it, shaping his sons to see dominance's strength to be alpha males, especially Lyle. At the end of second grade, Lyle brought home the classroom bunny to care for over the summer. Kitty and Jose wanted nothing to do with it and told him to get rid of it. A few days later, when the rabbit went missing, Lyle found it in the trash, beaten to death. Oh Sorrysha, I warned you about that. So sad cool. By nineteen seventy nine, Jose, thirty five, became global general manager of Hurtz. He was soaring in his career, but his reputation among his colleagues soured He was demanding, short tempered, and verbally abusive towards his subordinates, often berating them in front of their peers, and he was infamous for dressing down weight staff and restaurants. I think one of the worst things you can do as a manager is to arate your employees in front of each other.

22:55 Yeah. Absolutely, it seems to happen quite a bit for like especially I guess back then that was more common. But yeah, it's really not okay. It is important to remember that we are in the nineteen seventies here, although at least one person later came to Jose's defense, Marzi Eisenberg. She had been with Jose since nineteen seventy six, working as his assistant, even moving to California from New Jersey with him. She described him as honest and fair, but a tough businessman. Herts was owned by RCA and in nineteen eight, which is so weird, Hurts an rc of odd combination. But in nineteen eighty Jose moved over to RCA's struggling record division to inflate sales figures. He burdened record stores with large shipments they hadn't ordered, but he was able to strengthen RCA's catalog by signing Latin American artists like Menudo and Jose Feliciano, but also major stars like Duran, Duran, Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, and The Arrhythmics. In nineteen eighty five, Jose was made Vice president and COO of RCA Global, with the salary of five hundred thousand dollars a year.

24:03 Jose is doing well for himself. I'm going to take a little bit of a detour here. Before in Sync or the Backstreet Boys was Manudo, a Puerto Rican boy band formed in nineteen seventy seven by producer at Guardo Diaz. Manudo was built around a novel concept. The group would constantly renew itself, members ahed out whence they were about sixteen, keeping Manudo perpetually fresh and young and marketable. That rotating lineup fueled the group's success rather than hindering it. By the late nineteen seventies and especially throughout the nineteen eighties, Nudo had become a global phenomenon, leasing Spanish and English language albums, starring in television specials, and inspiring intense fan de ocean across Latin America. The United States and beyond. Their polished blend of pop and disco was perfectly tailored to teenage audiences. Over the years, Manudo launched the careers of several futures stars, most notably Ricky Martin, who joined the group in nineteen eighty four.

25:05 By the time Nudo officially disbanded in the early two thousands, they had sold millions of records and cemented its legacy as one of the most influential Latin pop acts of the twentieth century, effectively laying the groundwork for the modern boy band and making at Guardo Diaz very wealthy. Why did they disband? They kept bringing in new people, and you know, when you age out at sixteen, they could have gone on forever. They could still be around. You know, I don't know why they officially disbanded. I think waned, but you'll see later that there may be other reasons why the group Disbandedjse Menendez played an integral role in Menudo's expansion into the English speaking market. He pushed the members to learn English and helped guide their crossover into mainland US, personally overseeing their English language albums and promotional strategies that broadened their appeal. Under his influence, Manudo was marketed not a Latin pop but as a global band. Jose took a particular interest in the group and even traveled with them on tour through Europe and South America. Several people later recalled that Jose seemed unusually invested in Minudo, far beyond what his professional role required as president of RCA Records, even helped pick out new members of the group. Around this time, Kitty suspected Jose was having an affair. He had recently confided to his brother in law that he no longer loved his wife, but remained in the marriage because Kitty had agreed to raise their sons according to his roles, asking few questions

26:37 and rarely challenging him. For Kitty, leaving the marriage was unthinkable. As a child, she had watched her parents' divorce devastate her mother, a lass that reshaped her own sense of security. The fear of ending up alone like her mother stayed with her, so she clung to her marriage, unwilling to risk losing her status or the financial stability it provided. In a letter to her husband, she wrote, throughout my life, I lived with a tormented mother who buried her soul to me, and I could always feel her hurt, but was powerless to help her except by a show of strength. I lived in a broken home and knew of no other like mine. I swore this would never happen to me. But staying in the marriage costed Kitty her independence, Her sense of self fded, and the future she'd imagine, one that included a career slipped further out of reach, and she increasingly found ways of numbing herself.

27:28 We already know how this ends up. But just hearing all of this, it's just you can hear all the ingredients of just a really toxic. And dysfunctional family For me. Yeah, As Lyle and Eric grew up, Jose ruled their lives with rigid control. Their success was his success, Failure wasn't tolerated, and there was little time for just being a kid. Whatever sport they were competing in, Jose coached them from the sidelines, yelling at them to be faster, focused, and more aggressive. His overbearing style was deeply unsettling to the other young athletes and their parents, so when they were younger, it seems like he didn't take much interest in them at all, But now he was taking an interest in them, but he was really just pushing for them to be successful because it reflected on him.

28:11 It sounds like exactly. Reputation was everything to Jose, and so was the sports legacy that his family had. Can't be understated, Like they were very successful, you know, going all the way back to Spain, and so. He felt a lot of pressure to carry that on to the next generation. Exactly. But we have you know, our kids did a lot of sports growing up, and we always saw there was always one guy at every game, right, who's yelling at the sidelines. Who just took it way too seriously. Right. Yeah. From an early age, Jose saw Lyle as the heir to his heavy mantle, the chosen one, the oldest son, the strongest boy with more potential, most like himself. The first sport Jose wanted Lyle to try was swimming. Lyle hated it.

28:55 He much preferred soccer. The practices with Jose were grueling to make him tougher, Jose held his head underwater until he had to fight for air, flailing his arms and legs, gasping for breath. When Jose eventually relented, more than Eric, Lyle was trained to choke back his emotions, indoor pain, reject vulnerability, and deny his own feelings. Can you imagine taking your kid's head and forcing him underwater. No, that's really horrible to think about and just so abusive. Coming from a long line of accomplished athletes, Jose steered the boys towards sports where individual excellence could be measured and the spotlight didn't have to be shared. After swimming and playing soccer in their early youth, they landed on tennis.

29:40 Jose installed a tennis court at their home and spent lavishly on private coaches and the best equipment. Lyle remembered having more than fifty tennis coaches. Jose woke the boys up early to hit balls before school. Lyle and Eric were prone to stomach aches and had visible anxiety. Whenever their father attended their matches, He argued referees over what he deemed bad calls. When they lost, Jose forced them to go over their matches point by point, be rating them for every mistake. When they won, he lectured them how they could have played better. Jose's attitude spilled over onto the boys. Both developed reputations as bad sports on the tennis circuit.

30:20 Parents put their kids in sports for a lot of reason, but a big one is socialization, right, Like, you want your kids to meet their friends and just have a good time. And learn how to work together. Yeah, after the game, you go out to ice cream together where you whether you win or lose, and you know it's about work, right. But Jose didn't want the kids to have relationships with the other athletes. He didn't let them go out to pizza or ice cream with the other kids, and he prevented them from building friendships with kids in their classrooms and on the sports fields. He really wanted them to focus on their individual success, which is pretty disturbing. Really yeah this, but they're still really young.

31:02 When Jose wasn't traveling and was home for dinner, he fired questions off at Lyle and Eric to a lesser extent, drilling them about their day, what they ate, how their sports practices went, current events, or history. It turned meals into tents interrogations rather than quality family time, setting the boys on edge. Sometimes, if Lyle didn't answer correctly, Jose locked him out of the house and he would seek refuge in the doghouse until the tension passed. Lyle kept a blanket in the doghouse in case he needed it. Isn't that so sad? That it's really sad? Lyle and Eric attended the Princeton Day School, a private school. Neither boy was a stellar student. They lacked focus and were immature. When their teachers hinted at possible learning disabilities, Jose balked at the idea. Teachers noticed that homework was always thoughtfully completed, but tests, quizzes and classroom work wasn't as polished. Even later, when Lyle was in college, Kitty or Jose often wrote his papers.

32:02 We've had a couple other stories where this sort of thing happened, where the parent was more concerned about their kid appearing successful. And it's just such a recipe for disaster. You're not doing your kid any favors at all. I'm not sure why, but our kids rarely wanted our help. No, they really didn't. There were also hints of inappropriate sexual behaviors. Diane Vandermullen, a cousin who spent summers with the family, later recalled two incidents when the brothers attacked her, tried to undress her, and touched her inappropriately. In nineteen eighty five, after General Electric bought RCA, Jose was forced out of his job with a million dollar severance package. He moved to Live Entertainment, the struggling home video distribution branch of Carolco Pictures. Kitty, Jose, and Eric moved to Calabasas, California, while Lyle stayed in New Jersey to attend Princeton University.

32:54 Kitty became depressed after the move. She hadn't wanted to leave their beloved home, her friends, or the life that she had carefully curated in New Jersey. To make it up to her, Jose bought an eight thousand square foot mansion on fourteen wooded acres. Kitty began a heavy handed remodeling project that she would never finish. There was a funny anecdote that Jose really knew that she was unhappy, and he was willing to do whatever it took to make Kitty happy. And she wanted the pool like an entire pool moved like a foot and he was like, whatever you want, Kitty. Oh Wow. Within five years, Jose planned to retire from the entertainment business, moved to Miami, Florida, and entered the world of politics by becoming a US Senator. His son said he was motivated to help Cuba rid itself of Fidel Castro. Lyle and Eric also both had political ambitions, Lyle even believing he could be the President of the United States someday.

33:51 So I know, this sounds crazy that Jose thought he could go to Florida and become a US senator, But I believe he would have made it happen. Yeah, it doesn't sound that crazy to me. Yeah, it was important to Jose that his sons received an Ivy League education. He had always felt his Cuban heritage caused people to look down on him. Sometimes he even told people to call him Joe. He felt that his sons would receive more respect with a degree from an IVY When Lyle wasn't initially admitted to Princeton, he enrolled at Trenton State College before later gaining acceptance in the fall of nineteen eighty. Seven, and he was admitted in part because of a large donation from his father, but also because he was an excellent tennis player and they wanted him on the team.

34:34 In his year of limbo, he began dating a woman five years older named Jamie Pissarsik. Jamie worked as a waitress but was also trying to make it as a professional tennis player. Kitty and Jose thought that she was beneath Lyle when he proposed the summer before entering Princeton. They protested angrily. Lyle was too young and they wanted him to focus on his studies. But ironically, this is how old Jose was when he proposed to Kitty, who was also an older woman. To put distance between the couple, Jose found sponsors to support Jamie's play in Europe. Lyle was immature and thought rules didn't apply to him. He gained a spot on the Princeton tennis team as the last seed, but he was frequently late or missed practice.

35:19 He accrued so many speeding tickets in his red Alpha Romeo Spider that his license was suspended. He instead hired a limousine to get around, paid for by his father's American Express card. So some of the stories I tell like this paint the picture that the boys were pretty spoiled even before their parents' murders. Yeah, it sounds like it. Then, Lyle was in serious hot water at Princeton for plagiarism. He copied or closely copied his lab partner's work, and it was flagged by his psychology professor. Lyle didn't think this was a big deal because it was just one minor assignment, but he was forced in front of the ethics committee, who handed him a one year suspension from the universe. I remember I used to think plagiarism wasn't such a big deal either, and then I learned that, no, that's you get kicked out of school for that, like pretty consistently.

36:09 I'm not defending Lyle, but it's going to sound like I'm sure that I copied someone's homework and this seemed like more like a homework assignment than a paper. But the Princeton Code of Ethics was very firm and you had to sign it when you entered the university, and it was rigid, rigid. Yeah, I think most universities take that pretty seriously, But obviously it depends on the context and what assignment, what type of assignment it actually is, and things like that. Yes, we were pretty lucky to go to college in a time when you couldn't instantly see if something was plagiarized. That but I think a lot of college professors have kind of given up with the use of chatjepeaching. Yeah, it's a whole different set of problems. Jose flew in for a meeting with the university president, but he stood firm on Lyle's suspension. He would be able to return after a year if he stayed out of trouble.

36:58 During the suspension, Jose made Lyle work at Live Entertainment with him. His coworkers described Lyle as nasty, arrogant, and self centered. He was often late or left early to play tennis. He was fired after a month because Jose didn't want it to appear that he was receiving special treatment. When he returned to Princeton the next fall, he found he was not given a single room as requested. He promptly gathered his roommate's belongings and put them into the hall, refusing him re entry. Jose again intervened and fixed the situation. Lyle was granted a single room. Sounds like Lyle exhibited a lot of entitled behavior. He definitely did we'll be back after a break.

37:47 Growing up, the brothers were very close. Eric worshiped Lyle, but they were very different. Lyle was confident and magnetic, while Eric was sensitive and more withdrawn. From an early age, Eric sensed that Jose saw greater potential than his brother and favored Lyle over him. It hurt him deeply, although in some ways it allowed Eric to fly under the radar and face fewer expectations. Eric was more subdued than Lyle, but he also had an entitled rebellious nature. In the summer of nineteen eighty eight, the brothers carried out a series of burglaries with some of their wealthy friends in Calabasis, partly for extra cash, but also just for kicks to see if they could get away with it. They targeted friends and acquaintances of their parents, stealing cash, jewelry, and electronics worth and estimated one hundred thousand dollars, which made the crime a felony grand theft burglary.

38:41 Yeah, that is not just small times, exactly playing around for kicks type of stuff. Jose once again came to his son's rescue, hiring a skilled attorney. Jose personally paid restitution to his friends, writing them checks to make the matter go away. Ultimately, Lyle skirted charges because Eric still am took responsibility. Later Lyle would also be connected to burglaries in New Jersey from his time at Princeton. A judge gave Eric probation and ordered him to complete community service, a pretty light sentence, but he was also required to attend counseling. What do you think of that sentence? I mean, it does seem pretty light. But he was also a juvenile too, so I don't really have no knowledge of sentencing guidelines for juveniles.

39:26 I think Jose may have pushed a lot of it under the rug too, by just going to his friends personally and saying, Hey, what check can I write you? Eric began seeing psychotherapist doctor jerome o'zell at one hundred and fifty dollars a session. I'm not really sure what therapists get paid an hour, but that today is four hundred and thirty dollars. An hour must be a great therapist. Jerry forty two, was married with two daughters. He specialized in sexual therapy and phobias. Jose required Oziel to sign a waiver stating that he would later disclose any think Eric told him in confidence to Jose, Right, well, Jerry is a piece of work. So doctor Oziel would later play in a very important part in this case, he'd begun dating an attractive, crystal loving thirty six year old divorcee named Judelan Smith. She had cold called him, trying to convince him to produce a series of self help tapes.

40:25 O'zeal later said, over time, our business relationship evolved to include a social relationship. She seduced me and insisted on sexual interaction. The reality is she was forcing herself on me and I didn't want her. So this is Jerry's account and definitely not one percent true. The affair turned toxic when Judelan developed an unhealthy obsession with Jerry and wanted more than he was willing to give her. But we'll get back to them later. After Eric was badly beaten from mouthing off to local gang members, Jose hired round the clock security for the family. Incidents like that weren't isolated Lyele and Eric often found themselves in trouble, and their parents were almost always there to smooth things over, make the consequences disappear, or step in before accountability could ever land. Reputation was everything to Jose. I know it sounds like he was always there, swooping in to make everything better, but it seemed like it was more to save face.

41:26 Right, to save his reputation, and just again not doing your kids any favors for any of this. Over the course of their marriage, Jose had multiple affairs. One was with a woman named Megan who worked with him. She said, I was always attracted to Jose. There's something very sexy about a man who's powerful, fool of himself, and as charming as he was. He absolutely gave off this sexual thing. Why do men look for anything outside their marriage. It's what they're not getting at home. He was exciting, and he wanted excitement. He didn't get any excitement at home. So she was surprised to learn that she was not Jose's only girlfriend. He also hired sex workers through a Hollywood madam.

42:07 It's a little surprising to me that she would be surprised that he had other women on the side. True, but she probably felt like she was, you know, fulfilling all of his Yes, she was special to him. I'm a little curious about this Hollywood madam though. Do you know who that probably means? It was? Oh? I can't remember her name by. So her list of clients has never been. Revealed, Oh, I didn't know that. I did do a little research there. That might be an interesting case for us to cover something. So Jose's longest extramarital affair was with a woman named Charlotte. Kitty was oblivious to the affairs, but Charlotte and Jose were open with their relationship, even traveling as a couple and hosting dinner parties together at her Manhattan townhouse. Eight years into their affair, Kitty discovered the truth. The betrayal hit hard, sending her into a deeper depression, increased her dependence on alcohol and prescription drugs. Kitty told her psychiatrist that it was too painful to be alive and that she had no support system in Los Angeles. When Kitty was in New Jersey, I think she had a much better life.

43:13 She had family, and she had friends, and she loved her house and community. And when she moved. She felt isolated. After that, yeah, I. Have Kitty had set asign her own career ambitions to support Jose through college and later to raise their sons. He'd forbidden her to have a career, and the realization left her feeling discarded, humiliated, and even suicidal. That a letter to Jose, Kitty wrote, for twenty four years, I lived in a dream. I tried so hard to keep my marriage complete, but didn't know how. I thought if I concentrated on the house and her boys, their grades and sports, that you would feel fulfilled. My fantasy about you and I and our family was my own destruction.

43:54 I locked myself in a dream that began in my childhood. I married a man just like my father. In discuss the very man I tried to run away from. Jose's infidelity gnawed at the corners of Kitty's mind. It consumed her. She even hired a private detective to trail Charlotte. Kitty left California intending to walk away from her marriage, but instead she flew to New York and staked out Charlotte's apartment, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. But she realized that she loved her husband and didn't want her marriage to end. Neither did Jose. He confessed all of his indiscretions and convinced her to come back. However, Kitty was not quite the same again. She grew more acerbic, less accommodating.

44:36 She understood that her marriage to Jose functioned more like a business arrangement than a traditional partnership. But when Charlotte ended her relationship with him, Jose turned his attention back to his family, spending more time with Kitty and the boys, and for that Kitty was grateful. But by that time, Kitty's substance abuse issues couldn't be so easily quashed. She was rushed to the emergency room for an overdose after she mixed alcohol and xanax. Doctors wanted to admit her to the psychiatric unit, but she signed herself out of the hospital after her doctors agreed to increase the dosage of her medications. Her doctors and psychiatrists believed she kept her emotions tightly bottled up. In therapy, she was reticent and stoic, but at home she was easily irritated and often furious with everyone around her. She seemed most angry at her sons, especially Lyle, So you can tell that Lyle and his father not necessarily closer, but Jose really prefers Lyle right, and Kitty prefers Eric. Kitty became increasingly fixated on Jose and on pleasing him. After his affairs, she blamed her sons for coming between them. If they came to her with an issue they had with her father, she would always side with Jose. She once confided in her sister in law that she wished Lyle and Eric had never been born. I know Kitty, three years older than Jose, consumed with her appearance. When she was afraid that she was losing him to other women, she lost twenty pounds and got a facelift. Kitty wrote many letters

46:08 to Jose. They were overwrought with emotion and hinted at taking her own life, and one she wrote, you are a brilliant, aggressive, soft hearted man and I am truly in love with you even as I write this. Please find someone you can truly fall in love with and start again. Build a new family. I know our boys will always be most special to you. They are special my gift to you. As the summer of nineteen eighty nine wound down, Lyle was headed back to Princeton and Eric for his freshman year at UCLA. Jose bought a condo for Lyle to live in near campus, and Eric was going to live in the dorms. Kitty was struggling. Her friends and family saw it. Her eyes were often glassy and vacant. She would lose her train of thought mid sentence and was unsteady on her feet, with the stress of both her sons heading off to college weighing heavily on her. That summer, Eric had climbed in the ten rankings from forty fourth to eighth in his age group. He wanted to devote himself to tennis full time and dreamed of joining the professional tour, but when he competed in the US Junior National Championships in Kalamazoo, Michigan, that August, he was eliminated in the early rounds. The family had planned a trip to Canada after the Junior Nationals, but when Eric lost, everyone was in a sour mood and at each other's throats.

47:25 The trip was canceled and the bad mood followed them home. Eric had been under enormous pressure from his father to win. The champion would advance to the US Open, a huge opportunity. After his devastating loss, Jose was furious and withdrew his financial support for Eric's tennis career. Eric was crushed, but nothing could fully dampen his spirits. He had been accepted to UCLA and was set to move into the dorms. College felt like an escape. He was excited, almost giddy about leaving home and finally tasting a sense of freedom. But Jose had other plans. He announced that Eric would live at home instead so he and Kitty could oversee his studies. The decision hit hard. Eric needed to get away from his dysfunctional family. Eric had been offered a tennis scholarship to Brown University and had also been accepted to Berkeley, but Jose forbade him from attending either school because he wanted him close to home. UCLA had been the compromise. Now Jose was refusing to allow Eric to live in the dorms, even though on campus housing was a freshman requirement. After a generous donation, the university agreed to overlook Eric's living arrangements. Years later, while going through paperwork in Jose's office, his sister Marta found Eric's completed Brown application. Jose had never bothered to mail it.

48:48 There were a few pivotal incidents that happened in the days before the murders, but this was one of them. Yeah, Eric really just needed to get away, and when Jose took that away from him, he was. No, I can understand that feeling. It seems a little weird to me that Jose. It seems like he didn't care, he didn't pay much attention to Eric, and now all of a sudden he's like wanting to control his life and keep him under his thumb. And I think you really have to ask yourself why we're going to get more into that in episode two. But he really there were reasons why he wanted to control Eric. On Tuesday, August fifteenth, while Jose was away on business, a heated argument erupted between Kitty and Lyle. This argument would change everything. Furious because she hadn't been able to see her ailing father, Kitty lashed out at Lyle, who was frequently the target of her anger. She charged at him with closed fists, but instead of punching her son, Kitty reached up and grabbed a handful of his thick, dark hair. She tugged with such great force she ripped the to pay clean off his head and then threw it at him in disgust to pay to pay. Eric, who hadn't known about the hair piece, was stunned when he walked into the room at that moment.

50:02 So this really did happen, or at least the brother's claim that it happened this way. Two years earlier, in nineteen eighty seven, when Lyle's hair began to thin, Jose took him to get a two pay. He said his future would be limited if he didn't have a full head of hair, and Jose had big plans for his son. He thought he could be a senator or even president someday. The two pay required him to shave the entire top of his head and then apply a strong adhesive to keep the hair piece in place. Normally, a solvent was applied to break down the adhesive before removal, so Kitty ripping it clean off caused Lyle a great deal of pain. Hot with shame, he retreated to the guesthouse bathroom to reapply the two pay. Since returning from Princeton that spring, Lyle had been relegated to the guest house because of his frequent arguments with Kitty and the disruptions that he caused. When he got home late at night, Eric came into the guesthouse and waited on the couch for his brother to join them. He was quietly crying, shaken by the weight of his family's secrets and the dysfunction that had shaped his life. Eric was empathetic to his brother's plight, but he was more concerned about his own situation. I have to ask you about this two pay.

51:14 Did Kitty know about it or was it. Just Kitty knew about it? Kitty and Jose and obviously Lyle were the only ones that knew about it. Yeah, allegedly wow, Like described here, it was applied with adhesive. But in the show Monsters, the Netflix traumatization we'll talk about in part three, it showed the two pay as being kind of like the two pay that doctor Anthony pignataro clip boles. Yeah okay, yeah, but I think it was like kind of a traditional two pay Okay. Later that night, on August fifteenth, as they talked in the guest house, Lyle and Eric, as close as they were, realized that they had kept secrets from each other. Eric revealed to Lyle that his father had been sexually abusing him since he was six, and over time it had become more depraved and violent. Jose threatened Eric that he would kill him if he ever told anyone or went to the police. Lyle had also been his father's victim for years when he was younger, but it had stopped by the time he was eight. He had assumed that Jose had stopped with Eric too. Lyle left the guest house and told Eric he would take care of it.

52:22 Lyle knew that Eric had been abused, but I think when he was thirteen he went to his father and he was like, you need to stop touching Eric. And I think that he thought that after that conversation it had stopped because it had stopped in his world right when he was eight. So yeah. Lyle found Kitty to tell her what Eric was struggling with, but her anger hadn't subsided from their fight, and she told him to leave. She didn't want to hear it. On Friday, when Jose returned, Lyle met him in the library and told him that he needed to stop sexually abusing Eric, that he was going to take him to Princeton with him. Jose told him that was not going to happen, and then that he needed to mind his own business. What I do with my son is none of your business. Jose roared, Lyle threatened to go to the police. Jose left the library and went to Eric's room. He aggressively tossed him onto the bed.

53:13 Eric ran from his bedroom to the TV room, where Kitty sat in the dark. I've always known, she said, menacingly. Do you think I'm stupid? Eric was scared he couldn't trust either of his parents. The brothers sat in the guesthouse talking through their next moves, both terrified that their parents might have them killed for threatening to expose the family's deepest secrets if they tried to run. Surely Jose had the resources to track them down. Lyle and Eric decided to secure handguns for protection against their parents, but when they tried to buy a handgun, they were told there was a two week waiting period. Instead, they went to a San Diego sporting goods store and purchased two six shot moss Bert shotguns for four hundred and twenty eight dollars. On the required federal form, Lyle scrawled the name Donovan Goudreau and produced a California driver's license with the same name.

54:07 I think that's where we're going to stop for part one. Boy, Well me, I already know where this is going, but it's just such a foreboding feeling everything that's gone on up until. Yeah, everything is coming to a head and the boys are old enough where they're like, we're not going to take this anymore. We're going to stand up for ourselves. Yeah. I hope everyone finds the background information is interesting as I do. I'd love to find as much history as I can about a family, and I think in this case it's really important. Yeah, to know what Yeah, I think the dynamics leading up to an event like that are really important to understand. But I wanted to actually ask you, like, a lot of these stories that we're telling here, it sounds like the only person people that would know about them were Lyle and or Eric. So how comfortable are you with the veracity of their accounts of these things? Do you think that they are that these are all truthful or do you think there are some that they potentially embellished or made up?

55:00 Well, always perceptive, You get to the nugget of the case, and that is, you know, the question that everyone has to ask themselves, like can we believe these brothers? We know that they've lied about X, Y and Z, how do we believe them about A, B and C? Do you think that Lyle and Eric act as if they're afraid of their parents? In their real lives. Well, it's it's kind of strange because I think in situations like that where you know, you're you grow up and you you have everything, like in terms of monetary you know, you've got possessions, you've got access to money, and so you grow up in some ways entitled. But at the same time, I can sort of see where you would be scared of your father because he seems like he's a very you know, aggressive and angry man.

55:44 And so it's it's a weird dynamic because you like, you're entitled on the one hand, and you feel like I can do whatever I want without consequences, but on the other hand, you're afraid of this authority figure in your life. So I'm not sure how that, you know, plays out with someone in that situation. So why is I didn't rob my neighbor's house growing up because it was wrong morally wrong and I didn't really want to, but also because my parents would have absolutely like punishment would have been huge. So it's things like that that I have a hard time with. Were you really scared of your parents, Like if you were, you know, acting out all the time? I mean their parents got them out of so much trouble. So they bailed them out when they did anything wrong.

56:26 But at the same time, it sounds like their parents were Their dad at least was horribly abusive to them. We're going to talk about one of Eric's friends named Craig Signorelli more in episode two. But he told this anecdote that I can't get out of my head that if Eric went into let's say he went into like the Ralph Laurence story to buy something, and if he didn't get someone to wait on him right away, he would stand on a table and yell, it's anyone going to help me? And wow, like I and he laughed about it. I'm like, I can't. I can't imagine anyone doing that. I can't imagine witnessing it. I can't either. Yeah, I mean it's funny in isolation, but yeah, with the whole context of everything else, we know, it's pretty it's a pretty bad sign.

57:11 So around this time, when the boys are acting out a little bit, jose had told people that he was changing his will and that he was going to disinherit the boys. Oh really, yes, And so you know whether that has something to do with what's what we know happens. Yeah, up for debate, and I'm guessing the boys knew this as well. M Yeah, he told them that, you know, I'm changing my will, which I can't imagine holding your money over your kid's heads. Do you see Kitty as a victim in all. Of this kind of I mean, it seems like she was in a really bad situation. But at the same time, you know, she has these two sons and she's not really she's not really supporting them the way that I would expect a mother too. Just that whole comment about telling a friend that she wished she hadn't had them.

58:00 I think she said that a lot. I think she said that to friends and family members, and she said that to the boys. Yeah, so I have mixed feelings. I mean, I do empathize with her situation with jose But at the same time, it doesn't seem like she did her son's any favors either. But she also was dealing with substance abuse diss order, so I think that's important to remember too. She might not have said I wish she were never born, right, you know, when she was sober, but she was under the influence of so many different substances that she probably wasn't thinking clearly. So as we look at this case going forward, we have to remember that both parents had likely sustained some abuse from their parents, right, So how these patterns perpetual.

58:40 This whole generational trauma thing, it's just so hard to get so real, it's so real, but it's just so hard to decide in your own mind. Where do you stop, you know, blaming your upbringing and where do you start taking accountability. It's a really really difficult question. Is a tough thing. But these kids are eighteen and twenty one, and you know, are still really still kids. They're still kids. And I did refer to them as boys a lot. I know they're eighteen and twenty one, but in my head, you know, that's still kind of a boy. Yeah, And after you've experienced trauma, your growth and development is arrested. I think it's really important to remember in this case too. Yeah, especially being like sexually abused from a very young age, that's really hard to get past that.

59:23 Do you think that the family's wealth made their dysfunction worse? Probably? Yeah, I mean it definitely allowed them to, you know, get out of the consequences of different actions. Yeah, that's true. The boys would have been much better served if they had actually gotten in trouble for some of the things that they did. And so yeah, and I think having everything and being spoiled that definitely doesn't help. Do you think they were crying out for attention? I guess they probably were in a way. Yeah, we talked about this a little earlier, but jose is really I know, he's not a nice guy. We're not gonna like him very much. But his career and the way he learned English so quickly, and I mean, he went from not knowing English at age sixteen to what was it, age twenty six and he's president of a company.

1:00:08 And it's incredible and it's really impressive for somebody to do that. But at the same time, yeah, it's hard to it's hard to admire his accomplishments knowing what kind of person he was. Yeah, and even if he is innocent of the allegations of sexual abuse, he wasn't a nice guy to other people. You know, A lot of people said he was arrogant, and he was a tyrant, and he was dismissive to anyone that he deemed lower than himself, which was a lot of people. Yeah, it's really sad, but you know, a lot of times assholes do really well in business, and that's it's an unfortunate fact that a lot of times people who are just jerks end up doing well because they are hard driving and you know, say what's on their mind, and they tend to rise up in the ranks in some companies.

1:00:51 Yeah, we're going to describe it more in part two. But did you when you first heard about the crime scene, did you think that there were any essence of a mob there. I mean, I already knew that the boys did it, so I was listening with a different kind of mindset. But no, to me, it doesn't It doesn't sound like a mob hit. Is that what they were trying to make it seem like? I think they Yeah, they will talk about it more in part two, but they did want it to seem that way. And I don't think they've accomplished this. But they were trying to hit their parents' knees. But in most mob hits, you wouldn't do it in their home. I don't think you would take them to a different location. Yeah, exactly, and the wife usually wouldn't get killed, right.

1:01:32 Yes, In general, you are correct, and your timing is very good because I am reading a book about the Mob right now, So, yes, that you're a spot on. You talked the other day. I hope I'm not divulging too much, but if you could, you would like to start a second podcast? And what were you going to call it? I just find the Mafia fascinating. I was going to call it the Mob's Greatest Hits, but I don't know. I haven't decided yet. I'm not sure I'm actually going to do that. But it's going to be a solo podcast, right. Maybe or maybe I'll find another another partner. I don't know. Yeah, sure, wow, but did you did you be like in life? Or wow? All right, well, please come back for part two. So the other day you did something that shocked me and he's sweaty. He's like, what are you going to talk about? We've been together for you know, a very long time, and I've never seen you do this before, but you claim that you've done it before.

1:02:31 Do you know what I'm talking about? I have no idea. You're making a grilled cheese sandwich. Oh yeah, do you want to tell everyone what you did? Well? At the end, just shocked me. It's not that shocking. It's not. But I've never seen anyone do it, and I've never seen you do it, and you're like, oh, yeah, this is this is how you do it. So at the end of when you're making a grilled cheese sandwich, one of the challenges is that the cheese like if you if the temperature is too high, it is done too quick and the cheese doesn't melt. If the temper is too low, the cheese doesn't melt. So it's really getting the cheese melty is really true. I feel like you're calling me out here, like my grilled cheese sandwiches are substandard. No, you do a great job. But at the end, when the grilled cheese is almost done, what I did?

1:03:14 You want them? You want the layers to meld. Yes, And we have a cheese drawer in our house and it's usually there's how many varieties of cheese do you think we have? I don't know, probably five, Yeah, we probably. Have five, which is a little embarrassing. So at the end of the grilled cheese making process, what I did was I sprinkled a little bit of water into the pan and then I covered the pan. You didn't sprinkle a little, you took a cup. It wasn't that much water. But I did put a little too much water. And it should be less. It should be enough just to make it steam up. And you put the cover on so the steam gets in there and it helps get the cheese all melty. We at the restaurant I worked at growing up, that was how we made grilled cheese. You had like a lid.

1:03:55 It would be on the grill, but you'd put some water on it and you'd cover it with a lid. Yeah, is like, what are you doing? Why would you put water on a grilled cheese damwich? Because to me, like the best part of a like a grilled sandwich is the crispiness because I hate anything that soggy. I'm a texture person. And then I felt your sandwich and I was like, oh, look it's a little saggy here on the corner, and you really shut up. I accidentally put a little bit too much water, yes, so, but it was a good stand by the technique. Stand by the technique, so I mean, and. It was a good grilled cheese other than the soggy part of the bread where the water soaked in. Yeah, well, I'm glad I can still surprise you even after all these hairs together. No, it was wild.

1:04:36 You know. It sounds like such a minor thing, but I was like, what the heck heck are you doing? Did you cover the whole pan? Yeah? Okay, so they live? Yeah, so I don't know. There, there you go. There's a new there's a new trick. Let us know how you make your grilled cheese is at home and what. Your spouse does that surprises you still to this day. Like last week we were talking about how you sometimes wear socks about now, I don't know who you are anymore, sir. I believe in continually changing and evolving, no matter how old you are. Okay, So I want to see if we have psychic abilities. Are you ready for this? I'm pretty sure we don't, but yes, sure.

1:05:16 Okay. So I have a marker in my hand, and I am going to send you a mental telepathic message. Okay, what color the marker is? Okay? Okay, So okay, I'm not sending it to you yet. So I want to make sure I have the right color. I want to make sure I can see the color before Okay, and three two one I'm gonna I'm gonna send you the message. Okay, ready, all right, this is good content. Okay, I didn't get the message. Okay, keep trying. Okay, I think it's red. You're close. Yeah, orange? Oh orange. Okay, you want to try it again because this is really good because you have to focus just for a second.

1:05:56 So, okay, I think it's blue. I saw it you How did you see it under the table. It was that you moved your hand just so I was. Like, oh my gosh, we're psychically intertwined. Okay, of one more, don't peek. Okay, it's green. I got that one. Did you see it? I was going to do the orange one again, but then you were going to see me move it from the table, So we're kind of psychically lyank well, I was. Kind of using the process of elimination on that one. It's like, okay, so. Green, thank you can read my mind? No, no, I don't think you can't either, because maybe your gifts would be better if. You could read exactly. I'm just kidding. You're lovely well, and our listeners are lovely. They are. And Alisha from Amarillo, Texas, she is lovely for sending us such a thoughtful package. Oh lovely, and our BUCkies, not our BUCkies, because it's not that would be dangerous.

1:06:43 Probably there was a BUCkies like close, but I think it's three hours away and it's opening in April. It was supposed to open. I think at the end of twenty twenty five. It's going to be in Ohio, Like yeah, about three or four hours south of US. And in a place where we probably wouldn't it outside of Columbus. I think it's near Dayton, I think not far from. Columbus, so we'll definitely plan a road But I feel like you guys are sweet listeners have been so like, I don't think I'm going to be super surprised. We've gotten to try a lot of BUCkies things we. Have not tried, brisket sandwich or they're sparkling clean bathrooms, so that will be super exciting. I can't wait. Well, thank you guys so much for listening. We really appreciate it. We hope you enjoyed this episode, And if you'd like to hear the conclusion of the Menendez brother's case, you can join us on Patreon.

1:07:31 We have one tier. It's five dollars a month and you get. In addition to hearing multi part episodes all at the same time, we also do a monthly bonus episode and you can listen ad free. And the best way to support our podcast is to like this episode or to give us a five star review or follow us on social media, find us on YouTube and TikTok. Until next time, don't kill your wife and don't kill her husband.

1:08:15 To the companion with the