Prosecutor Argues Menendez Brothers Can’t Justify Slayings

Despite the trappings of privilege--the Beverly Hills mansion, the luxury cars, the Ivy League schooling and the poolside-courtside lifestyle--one’s family life can be hell, a prosecutor acknowledged Wednesday during closing arguments in the retrial of the Menendez brothers.

But an unhappy home life is no excuse for murder, Deputy Dist. Atty. David P. Conn told jurors on the 80th day of the second trial for Erik and Lyle Menendez, who are accused of murder in the August 1989 shotgun slayings of their millionaire parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez.

In his departure from previous trial strategy, in which prosecutors virtually ignored defense claims of sex and child abuse, Conn applied his own spin to the Menendez soap opera during the second day of what is expected to be a weeklong argument.

By doing so, Conn wrote the script for an American tragedy--the slaying of a penniless, immigrant father who married a small-town beauty queen, rose to wealth and power, and then was cut down by resentful sons he’d pushed and coddled, but would never be half the man he was.

Conn’s storytelling was an attempt to steal the thunder of opposing attorney Leslie Abramson’s argument, which during the first trial captivated the courtroom--and a national television audience. The first trial ended in juror deadlock.

On Wednesday, Conn assumed the role of armchair psychologist, breaking away from prosecutors’ previous devotion to the money motive. Instead of arguing that the brothers killed out of hatred and greed, he appealed to jurors’ common sense, offering a variety of other reasons why Erik and Lyle Menendez, then 18 and 21, might have wanted their parents dead.

The prosecutor urged jurors to reject the brothers’ claims they were sexually and psychologically abused by their parents. But, he added, even if some jurors found they were abused, it still should not preclude verdicts of premeditated, first-degree murder.

“Abuse can lead to anger, anger can lead to rage,” Conn explained. “Rage can lead to the desire for revenge. Ladies and gentlemen, revenge can lead to premeditation and deliberation, and that in turn leads to murder.”

Conn argued that the brothers could have killed their millionaire parents out of resentment, shame, rage or some combination of those emotions.

“There were many feelings that could have been going on in that family,” Conn said. “Any one of them could have resulted in murder.”

Or, he said, the grown sons may have killed simply to gain independence from a demanding father. “They did have their father on their backs,” he told jurors.

Returning to the money motive, he explained that Kitty Menendez also had to die. “They killed their mother for a simple reason,” Conn said. “They had to in order to inherit the money.”

He pointed out that although their father raised the sons with high expectations, they had grown up to be failures. Lyle Menendez was suspended from Princeton University during his freshman year. Erik was implicated in two burglaries in Calabasas.

“Jose Menendez was a man who was very controlling. He wanted his sons to achieve,” Conn said. But the father, who came to the United States at age 16 and built a $14-million fortune by age 45, was disappointed.

In turn, Conn said, the sons felt resentful, angry and shamed.

“They were just as frustrated with Jose Menendez as he was with them,” Conn said. “Both of the defendants, no doubt about it, wanted to become Jose Menendez. They wanted to be just as brilliant, just as creative and just as devoted to their occupation as he was. But they’d never be able to walk in his shoes and they knew it.”

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He continued, “Jose Menendez was only 45 years old. How that must feel to look into your father’s eyes for the rest of his life and know that you are a failure, that you will never achieve what he wants for you.”

But even while pushing his sons to achieve, Conn said, Jose Menendez was largely an absentee father.

“Jose Menendez was off slaying dragons in the business world and his sons were left with their mother,” he added. What made parricide possible, Conn argued, was “the lack of a true relationship, a truly strong relationship” among family members.

The brothers, he said, felt “a rage that was not tempered by love.”

In addition, he said, the sons were raised with a sense of entitlement, and their father taught them to be ruthless, to win at all costs.

“The defendants decided to turn that rage and use that ruthlessness they learned from their father against their parents,” Conn said. “That’s why they were able to do what they did. . . . It was the only way they could take the power.”