Robert Rand - The Menendez Murders

On Monday morning, August 21, 1989, I received a call from my long-time friend Steven Apple, the editor of Video Insider magazine, telling me that Jose and Kitty Menendez had been killed in their home in Beverly Hills, California. Steve and I had just been together at the Video Software Dealers Association annual trade show, where I had been reporting a story about the home video business for Inside Story, a local Miami TV magazine show. The reason you are holding this book in your hands is because of that phone call from Steve Apple.

Ten days later, I learned that Jose Menendez had a sister, Marta Menendez Cano, who lived in Palm Beach County, Florida. I had been doing freelance writing for two years at Tropic, the Sunday magazine of the Miami Herald. I called Mrs. Cano and she immediately invited me to her homeabout ninety minutes north of Miami. We spent four hours together that day as she shared the fascinating story of the Menendez familys immigrant saga from Spain to Cuba and then to the States. The next morning, I met with Tom Shroder, the editor of Tropic, at the Herald newsroom overlooking Biscayne Bay. I told Tom we didnt know much about the murder investigation but suggested Jose Menendezs rags-to-riches story ending in a terrible tragedy would make an interesting biography to pursue.

I owe my writing career to Tom Shroder and Gene Weingarten, the two editors at Tropic who took a chance on mea never-before-published wannabe writer who had worked in TV news but never in print. The Herald paid for me to travel to L.A. in the fall of 1989 to interview people who worked with Jose Menendez, as well as Erik and Lyle Menendez themselvesthe grieving sons of the murdered couple who were not suspects publicly. On Christmas Eve 1989, almost four months to the day after Jose and Kitty Menendez were killed, the Miami Herald published the first speculation that the Menendez brothers were being considered as possible suspects. It was two months and two weeks before Erik and Lyle were arrested.

Nearly a year later, I was introduced to Stephen Randall, the L.A.-based articles editor for Playboy magazine. Randall had read my book proposal that was about to be shopped to major publishers. Hugh M. Hefner had a personal interest in the storythe magazine had assigned three of their regular journalists to write Menendez stories but Hef didnt like any of them, because they had no inside information as I did. Good news and bad news soon followedPlayboy wanted me to write a 7,000-word story about the case, but they wanted to rush it into their next issue, March 1991, on a deadline of only twelve days. I was only halfway through the list of what they wanted to include when I realized my word count was 5,000 words over the assignment. They told me to just keep writing and they would edit later. My first draft was 22,000 wordsroughly 20 percent of the length of this book. The final article ran 14,000 words. I was told it was the longest article Playboy had ever run. Hef was really into the story.

Book agent David Vigliano repped me in my original deal for a contract with Simon and Schuster. Arthur Jay Harris helped me from the first week after the arrests with reporting, research, and the incredibly smart idea to begin selling articles to magazines all over the world.

I am grateful to Erik and Lyle Menendez; their aunts Marta Cano, Terry Baralt, and Joan VanderMolen; as well as many members of the Menendez and Andersen familiesincluding cousins Henry Llanio and Diane VanderMolen, who spent unlimited time to fill me in on the history and dynamics of their families. Defense team members Jill Lansing, Michael Burt, Leslie Abramson, and Marcia Morrissey were invaluable in letting me backstage as the defense was preparing for the first trial in July 1993. Defense attorneys Charles Gessler, Terri Towery, and Barry Levin continued helping me in the second trial. Defense therapist Dr. William Vicary and I became personal friends when we went on the TV talk show circuit after the first trial in the spring of 1994. Dr. Stuart Hart was one of the defense therapy experts who helped me understand the reality of this casea completely different story than the false greedy rich kids narrative being told by the mainstream media.

Dominick Dunne, the iconic writer for Vanity Fair, and I agreed on NOTHING about the case, but we became personal friends who sat next to each other every day for six months in the first trial. Court TV reporter Terry Moran invited Dunne and me to debate the case regularly during Court TVs extraordinary gavel-to-gavel coverage of the first trial. Moranalong with the APs legendary trial reporter Linda Deutschwas the most professional and fairest of all the journalists covering the trial.

This book was put on hold for a number of years when I began taking care of my elderly mother, Irene Betty Rand Zurier, for the last fifteen years of her life. Then, in July 2016, I was hired by Wolf Films as a consultant on their eight-hour limited series Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders. Thank you Dick Wolf, Peter Jankowski, Arthur Forney, series creator Rene Balcer, and the entire LOTC cast, including Edie Falco and my personal friend Harry Hamlin, who went to prep school with me at The Hill School near Philadelphia. Special thanks to Melissa Azizi, the film producer who networked me to Wolf Films.

Emmy Awardwinning screenwriter Alison Cross has been one of my closest friends going back to our TV news days at KGO-TV in San Francisco. Alison helped me edit and write a five-page summary of the story that was part of my pitch to Wolf Films when they were considering hiring me as a consultant. Her husband, attorney Peter Grossman, represented me in my negotiations with NBC.

I returned to book agents David Vigliano and Tom Flannery, who sold this book a second time to BenBella Books in Texas. Thank you, Glenn Yeffeth, Adrienne Lang, Sarah Avinger, Alicia Kania, Jennifer Canzoneri, Aida Herrera, Leah Wilson, Vy Tran, Jessika Rieck, Yara Abuata, Lloyd Jassin, and Elizabeth Degenhard.

Special thanks to Arthur Jay Harris, Paul Skolnick, and Molly Pinero, who all pitched in on the editing and research of the book. Matt Carlini played a key role in cutting a 250,000-word manuscript down to 98,000 words. Laurel Leigh came on board as my editor in the fall of 2017 when I was exhausted from my work on the TV series, which ended in November 2017. Laurel never gave up on me and managed to take a fair manuscript and make it great. I will forever be grateful for her contributions that led to the book you are holding in your hands. Her persistence and inspiration were critical to the final completion of the work.

Finally, thank you to all of the supporters of Erik and Lyle Menendezmany of them adults who are survivors of childhood abuse. I am one of you. As you came forward one by one, I was inspired by your bravery. My familyincluding my childrens mothers, Patricia and Carol, and my sister Nancysurvived many bumps in the road but we finally made it! And my children, Rhiannon and Justin, showed me how important a loving family can be for truly appreciating the beauty of life.

ROBERT RAND is an Emmy Awardwinning journalist who works in TV, print, and digital media. He began covering the Menendez brothers case for the Miami Herald the day after the killings on August 21, 1989. He was in court daily for both trials and provided analysis for Court TV, ABC, and CBS News.

In March 1991, Playboy published Rands article The Killing of Jose Menendez. The 14,000-word story was the longest article ever published by Playboy. Rands print work includes stories contributed to People, The Guardian, Stern, Grazia, and Tropic, the Sunday magazine of the