Crack Opens in Menendezes’ Defense : Trial: Attorney for Erik Menendez says he should not have to take the rap for his brother, Lyle. She says their slain father bred his sons on fear.

The slain father of Erik and Lyle Menendez was depicted by a defense attorney Tuesday as a mad scientist who bred his sons on fear, torturing them like laboratory animals in “this little human experiment.”

Reasonable fear drove the Menendez sons to kill their parents, attorney Leslie Abramson said in a closing argument on behalf of Erik Menendez, 23, the younger of two Beverly Hills brothers accused of gunning down their parents.

But she also opened a crack between the brothers’ defenses, telling Erik Menendez’s jury that he shouldn’t have to take the rap for Lyle.

The separate jury for Lyle Menendez, 25, received the case against him last week and was deliberating while closing arguments over his brother continued.

The brothers’ father, Jose Menendez, would have killed to keep the secret of his sons’ sexual molestation, Abramson said.

“He didn’t care if his children suffered,” she said. “He only cared if they turned out as the little creatures he wanted. He was very focused on his little laboratory animals.”

“He was locked into these kids,” Abramson said. “I think this guy looked at his kids like a scientist looks at a petri dish or a guinea pig, a plaything, a little form I can mold into myself, the ultimate power trip.

“Think of it,” she said. “A little kid who will worship you. The prospect of this little human experiment.”

The problem in this experiment, she said, was that “the animal has a devastating secret and if the animal talks the abuser goes to jail.”

Of the defendants’ mother, Kitty Menendez, she said: “The Beverly Hills social climber is going to be revealed as an incestuous wife? She’s never going to let that happen.”

With the brothers threatening to go public, Abramson said, it was reasonable for them to believe their parents would kill them.

The brothers are charged with murder and special circumstances that could bring the death penalty. The defense is seeking lesser manslaughter verdicts that could result in only a few more years of imprisonment.

On Aug. 20, 1989, Erik and Lyle Menendez burst into the family room of their Beverly Hills mansion and opened fire with shotguns, killing their father, who was an entertainment executive, and their mother.

Prosecutors say the sons were greedy and wanted to escape parental control. The defense says the sons feared their parents were about to kill them to keep them silent, and acted in self-defense.

In the first sign of any crack in the brothers’ unity, Abramson argued that Erik Menendez as the younger, less-favored brother, had “taken the rap for Lyle many times.”

“In this case,” she said, “I don’t want Erik taking the rap for Lyle. There is no proof that Erik killed anybody.”

She said that a coroner’s report coupled with the brothers’ testimony shows the final shots to the head that killed each parent were inflicted by Lyle Menendez.

Exuding outrage at the dead parents, Abramson used charts and family pictures to illustrate her assertion that the parents incited their killings.

Insisting that she was not trying to paint the parents as monsters who deserved to die, she nevertheless heaped blame on both, holding Kitty and Jose Menendez equally responsible.

She acknowledged that it was harder to explain the killing of Kitty Menendez and told jurors: “I can tell that some of you are very resistant to what I’m saying. . . .

“It’s hard to convince people that mommy can be cruel and that mommies can be frightful to their children,” Abramson said. “She heaped her own version of torture and torment on her boys. . . . “

She spoke of Kitty Menendez flying into rages, blaming her sons for ruining her life, threatening suicide and, in the last week of her life, admitting she knew all along that her husband was molesting their sons.

For Erik Menendez, she said, this was “the worst betrayal . . . the single most terrifying thing she did.”

“If she would let that happen to you, why wouldn’t she kill you?” Abramson asked.