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BEVERLY HILLS. —— (UPI) The eldest son of a prominent Hollywood executive orchestrated the shotgun slayings of his parents last summer and may have intimi dated his brother into going along with the plot, police said. Lyle Menendez, 22, was arrested by investigators Thursday and booked on murder and special circumstance allegations that make him eligible for the death penalty if convicted. His owner, Erik, 19, who stood to share with his brother in an estate valued at up to $17 million, was being sought in Israel, where he has been competing in a profes sional tennis tournament. Police said they had yet to pin point an exact motive in the double slayings, but one investigator close to the case told the Los Angeles Times it was “greed.” The bullet-riddied bodies of Jose Enrique Menendez, the 45-year-old Cuban-born chairman and chief executive of Live Entertainment Inc. of Van Nuys, and his wife, Kit , 4, were found Aug. 20, 1989, in a Beverly Hills mansion. Their deaths sent shock waves through Hollywood and through Carolco Pictures Inc., the enter tainment company that put out the Rambo movies and helped build Menendez’s company become a major video and music distributor. Eric Menendez, according to a friend interviewed by the Los Angeles Times, once co-wrote a 66-page about commit ting the Law ech e. His mother helped t sometimes intricate and comaian play, titled “Friends,” which centers on the criminal exploits of a pain youth with a fascination for dying. Police Chief Marvin Iannone said evidence showed that both sons played a direct role in them of their parents. ‘“‘They were pane, he said, adding, “I've in this business for 30 years and I've never seen a murder as savage as this one.”’ Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, said Lyle Menendez’s arrest was based on new evidence “involving conversa ee ee eee She declined to elaborate until formal charges are filed against the brothers. Iannone also refused comment on what new evidence in vestigators had uncovered. Lt. Ron Olson, the chief of detec tives, said he and his two lead in vestigators believe that Lyle Menendez orchestrated the murders and that Erik could have been intimidated into going along with the plan. “Lyle was the heavyweight in this,” he said. There had been speculation that the killings were somehow con nected to organized crime, but Iannone dismissed that notion Thursday, saying no other suspects were being sought and that the Menendez brothers acted alone. Without proof specifics, Ian none said oe Sans cir cumstantial evidence pointing to the sons as the suspects, but that it was only “very recently” that ‘the ee to bind’ that evidence was The chief would not say whether police had recovered the weapons allegedly used in the killings. As to motive, Iannone said: ‘It's no secret that Mr. Menendez had an estate valued at between $10 and $17 million. But you never know what goes on in a family. Frankly I don't know if there was a single motive or several motives.’ According to a 1980 wrll filed in Superior Court on behalf of Menendez and his wife, their sons are the sole beneficiaries of the estate. The sons reported finding their rents’ bodies after returning fom a night out. Menendez a parently was shot eight times in a 12-gauge shotgun from a distance of about 3 feet. His wife caught five shotgun blasts. As his family had once been influential and wealthy in their native Cuba, Jose Menendez arrived in the United States in 1960 at age 16 with virtually nothing. In the 1970s, he joined the RCA Corp. and eventually headed RCA/Ariola Records, but quit in 1986 to take over management of International Video Enterprises, a struggling home video distributor. Carolco, which had a controlling interest in IVE, had brought in Menendez to turn the company around. He received wide credit for doing just that. The father’s drive to succeed rubbed off on his sons. “You said last year, though he is that “it was sometimes very dif ficult for Erik and I. ’ Eric (left) and Lyle Menendez are shown leaving a memo rial service for their parents in August. Lyle was arrested UPI photo Thursday on suspicion of murder, and Eric was being sought in Israel.
Newspaper Details
Eureka Times Standard
Eureka, California, US
Sat, Mar 10, 1990
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
Aicha M.
