Tapes About Menendez Slayings Replayed

The empty seats outnumbered the spectators Friday as a courtroom in Van Nuys filled with the tape-recorded voices of the Menendez brothers--first talking cagily to police, and later admitting to their therapist that they killed their parents.

There was Lyle Menendez, now 27, once again saying killing “took courage beyond belief,” portraying his mother’s shooting death as an assisted suicide and a mercy killing--”putting her out of her misery, really,”--and making this shocking observation:

“You miss just having those people around. I miss not having my dog around, if I can make such a gross analogy.”

And there was Erik Menendez, 24, sobbing and saying he hated himself for killing his father, even though he had “ruined” their lives by cheating on their mother.

“He was somebody that I loved and I really had no choice to do what I did. . . . It’s more difficult because of my mother, because I realize what an amazing tragedy her life was.”

The brothers are being tried for the second time, charged with murder in the Aug. 20, 1989, shotgun slayings of their millionaire parents, entertainment executive Jose Menendez, 45, and his wife, Kitty, 47.

Evidence that had occupied weeks during the brothers’ first trial was quickly dealt with in the retrial’s opening days.