Erik Menendez Told of Molestation, His Jailhouse Psychiatrist Testifies

Erik Menendez was a “basket case” after he was jailed for the shotgun slayings of his parents and only months later disclosed that he had been molested by his father, his jailhouse psychiatrist testified Wednesday.

With the focus in the lengthy murder trial of Erik and Lyle Menendez switching one final time to the defense, Dr. William Vicary was called to refute prosecutors’ charges that the brothers’ allegations of sexual abuse are fiction.

Erik Menendez spun the story in fits and starts after first confiding in him in August, 1990, Vicary said. The psychiatrist--who was hired by the defense--said he found the story consistent with other claims of abused children.

The brothers were arrested in March, 1990, seven months after the slayings of Jose Menendez, 45, and Kitty Menendez, 47, in their Beverly Hills home.

Lyle Menendez, 25, and Erik Menendez, 23, testified that they killed in fear and self-defense after years of abuse.

Erik Menendez said that when he was young he told a cousin about being molested. But Vicary was the person in whom he first confided after his arrest, defense lawyer Leslie Abramson said.

Prosecutors objected to Vicary’s testimony, saying that five mental health experts had already testified for the defense. But Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Stanley M. Weisberg said jurors are still entitled to hear about Vicary’s sessions with Erik Menendez.

Vicary testified that it took time and medication for Erik Menendez to gain confidence in him. The younger Menendez brother spent his first weeks in County Jail “sobbing, hysterical, withdrawn, constantly chewing his fingernails, his fingers in his mouth, refusing to have any direct eye contact.”

Believing that Erik Menendez was on the edge of a nervous breakdown and teetering, Vicary said, he prescribed a combination tranquilizer and antidepressant.

When Erik Menendez finally opened up to him, Vicary testified, he spoke about growing angry with his parents, especially after “he found out one week prior to the killings that his mother knew his father had been molesting him.”

Erik Menendez’s fragile “clingy-type” personality and poor self-esteem left him vulnerable to sexual abuse, Vicary said.

Prosecutors are due to cross-examine Vicary today.