Erik Menendez Stands by His Story of Trying to Buy Handguns : Trial: Defense tries to counter revelation that the weapons were not at the store he claimed to have visited. The defendant says he may have gone to a different one.

His credibility under attack, Erik Menendez fudged but did not budge Monday, insisting that he did go shopping for handguns just two days before killing his parents--but saying he now was not sure at exactly what store.

On Friday, he had said that “without a doubt” he and his brother, Lyle, had gone to a Big 5 sporting goods store in Santa Monica on Aug. 18, 1989. But prosecutors confronted him with the fact that the Big 5 chain had stopped selling handguns in 1986.

On Monday, Erik Menendez said he was only certain that it was a store “within one to two blocks of the (San Diego) freeway.”

Although he added: “I’m saying I believe the Big 5 is there,” the explanation left room for the defense to argue that it was another store--and an honest mistake.

But prosecutors again hammered at the issue. “What is your story today?” Deputy Dist. Atty. Lester Kuriyama asked.

His eyes hard and eyebrows raised, Erik Menendez responded: “Mr. Kuriyama, I was there.”

Two days after the purported trip to the store, Erik Menendez, 22, and Lyle Menendez, 25, shotgunned their parents to death in the TV room of the family’s Beverly Hills mansion--using weapons they concede they bought later on Aug. 18 at a Big 5 store in San Diego.

The brothers are charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Jose Menendez, 45, a wealthy entertainment executive, and Kitty Menendez, 47. If convicted, Erik and Lyle Menendez could receive the death penalty.

Prosecutors contend that the brothers killed out of hatred and greed. The defense contends that they lashed out in fear after years of physical, mental and sexual abuse.

Monday, his sixth day on the witness stand, Erik Menendez recounted--for the third time--his memory of the killing scene. He added little to his prior testimony, only that he told his brother “Hurry!” moments before they burst into the TV room and began firing.

Time and again Monday, Kuriyama brought him back to whether the brothers did or did not go handgun shopping Aug. 18, an issue that the prosecution is clearly trying to establish as a test of the brothers’ believability.

The defense alleges that they at first sought handguns, but then settled for shotguns because they could not afford the 15-day waiting period for the smaller weapons. In buying the guns, they were seeking immediate protection from their parents, the defense says, not planning a killing.

Prosecutors are expected to call a Big 5 official to tell jurors that Erik Menendez’s rich, detailed account of shopping for handguns at the Santa Monica Big 5 cannot be true because the chain had sold no handguns in three years. Lyle Menendez also described a trip to the Santa Monica Big 5, but only briefly.

Both brothers, prosecutors note, also gave detailed accounts of being molested by their parents.

Asked after court if prosecutors were “making points so far in cross-examination,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Pamela Bozanich said: “It would appear so. Definitely.”

Kuriyama had resumed his cross-examination Monday by forcing Erik Menendez to commit unequivocally to a version of events that put the brothers at a Big 5 on the morning of Aug. 18.

“You’re saying it’s at a Big 5 store, and I’m assuming. . . .” Erik Menendez said before being cut off.

“No, you said that,” Kuriyama interrupted.

“Yes,” Menendez said. “Yes.”

Later in the day, Kuriyama asked Menendez if he remembered being questioned in court Sept. 27 by his lawyer, Leslie Abramson, about visiting the “Big 5 in Santa Monica . . . to inquire about buying handguns.”

Erik Menendez said he did not remember the testimony “specifically, but that’s roughly correct.”

There is, in fact, some question about which store he has identified.

On Friday, Erik Menendez said he thought they went to Santa Monica Boulevard “right across from the 405 (freeway).” But the Santa Monica Big 5 is on Wilshire Boulevard about a mile west of the freeway.

Although there is a Big 5 near the San Diego Freeway, it is on Sepulveda Boulevard in Culver City.

“Is that what this case is about? What store he was in?” an exasperated Abramson asked reporters outside court, adding: “You all made an enormous big deal out of nothing.”

“There is no perfect witness,” Abramson said. “And children under the kind of pressure they were under, you should be more suspect if everything they said was absolutely perfect. Because then you could be assured it was absolutely made up.

“I think clearly he was confused. What he’s confused about you’ll find out,” she said, walking away to a round of applause from court watchers who had gathered around reporters to hear her talk.

Kuriyama’s cross-examination is expected to conclude today.