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Killer Thriller: Did the Menendez Relatives Know About the Abuse All Along? · Legally Brunette

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Killer Thriller with your host, Elisa Donovan.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. Elisa Donovan here, and this is Killer Thriller.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: In 1989, Lyle and Eric Menendez shot and killed their parents,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Jose and Kitty, inside their Beverly Hills home. Prosecutors said
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: they killed for money. The brothers said years of abuse
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: left them fearing for their lives. Caught in the middle
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: was Jose's sister, Marta Cano, an aunt who ultimately testified
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: for the nephews who killed her brother and remained one
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: of their strongest supporters. Marlene Forte plays Marta in Netflix's Monsters,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: the Lyle and Eric Menendez story. She joins us today
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: to talk about stepping into this extraordinary family story and
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: what she discovered about one of the most complicated figures
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: in the Menendez case.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Hi, Marlene.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Killer Thriller. Thank you so much for talking
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: with me today.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you for inviting me.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm a big fan
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: of your work and many things, but today we are
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: going to talk about Monsters, the Menendez story, which I
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: think we can all agree is really just one of
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: the most upsetting cases in a multitude of ways. And
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: before you got the role in this series, how much
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: did you actually know about the Menendez brothers and the case?
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm Cuban. So I knew about it. I didn't
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: follow it. I didn't do any of that stuff, but
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: I knew of it. And that's what you said. It's
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: so sad. People are like, how was it working on monsters?
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: I'm like horribly sad is in this courtroom read, just
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: listening to these horrible stories.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: But the most fascinating thing for me was when I
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: started to look into it, because everything is on YouTube,
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: the whole court thing, everything is on YouTube, right? So
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: I was able to actually see Martha's testimony. I think
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: it was like, beginning of Court TV. So it just
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: went viral, you know, and it was almost impossible not
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: to know about it while it was happening. I never
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: thought I'd be working on a project about it back then.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Was there anything that you learned about the real case
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: that genuinely surprised you? I mean, probably maybe a million things, but...
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: anything specific that you went, wow, I really can't believe this.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: I think, I think the hardest thing for me going
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: through the court, again, I never met Martha. Martha is
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: still alive. I believe she's in her eighties now. But, and,
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: and I, they didn't encourage us at least, you know, the,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: the supporting cast to, to go out. And I, I,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: I really didn't want to. There was enough online for
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: me to get a sense of who she was. And
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: I really just wanted to kind of convey her. But
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: for me, the thing that I learned, the hardest thing
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: to learn was that I, the complicit, when somebody is
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: complicit in a crime by being quiet. By being silent. Yep.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: And because it's family and because it's, and to stay
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: silent or to allow it to continue because it's, oh,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: that's how Cuban macho men are or whatever, whatever reason
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: that you justify your complicitness, you know? So I think
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: for me, that was the hardest thing. And just to
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: say straight out, I'm not a court lawyer and I
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: wasn't at the courtroom, but I do believe that they
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: were abused. I think that there was a lot of,
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: a lot of issues in that family.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: And I do believe that Martha, if she didn't know,
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: she sure as hell had an inkling. And the, for
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: me watching her, there was this sadness, this weight and
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: sadness to her.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Yes. I totally agree. I watched some of it last
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: night and I just thought there's at once this simultaneous
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: enormous bravery on her part. To be, to serve for
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: the defense, but also you just feel there is this
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: world of things that she's not saying.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: And I think that's an extraordinarily difficult position to be in.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: It's like she's called upon to be what the person,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: the only person in, you know, in the history of
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: the family that's going to speak out. Like it's just
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: a lot.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: And so she's such an interesting person to enter the
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: story through for all of these reasons, because Jose was
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: her brother and Lyle and Eric were her nephews. And
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: she was the first witness to be called by the defense.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: And so what did you make of that? The fact
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: that his own sister was on the boy's side from
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the beginning.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: That's why I think they did. That's why I think
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: he's guilty. That's why I think he's guilty because, you know,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: my mom and dad had, my mom and her brother
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: had a very interesting relationship. My uncle, may he rest
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: in peace, was a very difficult man and had a
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: lot of issues, violence, you know, a lot of stuff.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: And my mother would never go against him. So, I
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: always wondered what was the bottom line? You know, there's
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: always a line in the sand, right? At what point
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: does your line, do the person that you're allowing to
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: exist or whatever, be complicit or whatever, what time does,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: where does that line cross? And I think, you know,
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: the fact that, that I think there's so much guilt
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: in her, the fact that they got to that point
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: and us knowing that, I'm not sure Martha's been abused.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: I decided that she was not. I decided she was
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: spared from that just for my own psyche of being
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: able to have the courage. But I think that she
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: witnessed a lot of stuff and stayed silent. And I
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: think that happens so much. It happens so much in
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: situations like this because she's stuck between her brother and
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: I remember when I was working, I was like, what
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: would it have taken for my mother to turn on
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: my brother, right? What does it take?
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: Eight.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: First of all, he's dead. Gives you a lot more courage.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: If he was alive, I'm not sure she would have
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: ever had the courage.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: That's such a good point. I didn't actually think about that.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: But that is a really specific, important point.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: He's gone. So she's free to be at least, if not.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: And I don't think she ever, I would like to
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: believe she never actually physically saw anything, but it's those
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: little nuggets that are dropped that you look and you go, huh,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: that's not right. You shouldn't do that. And they did try.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: I think her and her husband did try. I mean,
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: even in the movie, there's a scene where, I don't
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: know if that ended up in the movie, but I
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: remember reading in the movie, in the series, that My
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: husband tries to say, hey, that's a little bit much,
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: you know, and they throw us out of the house. Right, right.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: And at the very least, yeah, when he's dead, she
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: at least is no longer perhaps afraid of any kind
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: of physical ramifications. Yeah. And the mother, too.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: You know, the grandma was abused, according to the series, right? Now,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know how much... Ryan used to dramatic liberties
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: and all that stuff because these things are always not factual.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: They are not documentaries. This is not a documentary. There's
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: documentaries out there, but human nature. Human nature, it's the
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: most interesting thing I do about my career is what
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: compels a person to do or not do something that
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: you know you should be doing or not doing.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: And the kind of compilation of things, right? Things can
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: get progressively worse or you can become progressively immune just
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: because we've tried to survive or it is too painful.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Your survival instincts kick in. It's too painful. It's too
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: You know, there's so many reasons to justify. I mean,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: that's my job. I justify things.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Why would a person do this? I must justify.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, but this is also in this whole podcast,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: you know, we, I say this all the time. We're
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: in most cases talking about the worst moments of people's lives. Right.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: And why do we do that? Well, it's not to
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: exploit them. It's to understand them. human nature because the
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: reality is these are human beings who have done these
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: things and they're human beings that have been the recipients
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: of this just horrific behavior and you know both sides
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: of that are so important like how do we continue
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: how does one get to a place to do something
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: like that and then how does one survive and recover you.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Know and how does one learn to try not to,
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: but look, it's human nature. Humans are capable of wonderful,
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: beautiful things and horrific, horrible things. That is the one,
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: if you believe in religious or somebody above or whatever
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: it is, that is the really, the only thing that
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: the universe gave us was choice, right? So now, How
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: does even Dahmer, like the most worst, you know, I
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: was listening to some of your podcasts and it's just,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: it is people at their worst. And what, where do
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: you cross that line? Right. At what point do you
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: cross the line on the sand? And now you're, you're
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: on the other side, you've crossed it, you know, you're
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: still a human being, but you've crossed that line.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: And then how is it even possible to go back
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: to cross back? And I don't, I don't know. I
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: don't know at what time it's.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: And then the other thing is hurt people, hurt people, right?
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: That is monsters. You know, the other wonderful thing about
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: this series is who's the monster, right? As you're watching,
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: as you're watching these things that Ryan Murphy has created.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: And even when you listen to your podcasts, it's like, well,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: you know, what, what drives a mom to kill her children?
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, we can go back to Medea. There are,
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: there are, it is not new. You have been doing
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: horrendous things for a long time. So that is the
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: power that we have. Right. So it's, it's it's fascinating
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: to know what goes on in people's brains. And for
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: me as an actor, that's the most interesting thing from,
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: for my job. Right.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: To be able to say, you know, And people always say,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: how do you get into that character? I said, well,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: I start with, what would Marlene do? Right? What would
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: take it? What would happen? What would need to happen
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: for Marlene, me, who I am the human translating this,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: to get to that, crossing that line, right? To get
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: to that. And justify. Because you have to live with that.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: So you must justify it somehow in your brain. Yep.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: And so Marta testified that Jose viewed Eric as quote,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: too soft and too tender while seeing Lyle as someone
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: that he can mold in his own image. Did, did
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: that help you to understand the family dynamic that the
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: series was trying to portray?
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Well, also Latin, you know, and weakness is not allowed
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: in men, you know, and, you know, there was the
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: whole sexuality thing. Um, hate what you are, you know, um,
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: despise what you feel, you know, cause somebody makes you
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: feel something inside you. So it, to me, that was
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: easy to, to get to because again, I see it
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: in my, I, I am, I was born in Cuba.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: I am very close to the old world, you know, and,
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: and it's easy. Again, it's part of the justification. Yeah. Amen. Amen.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: And not that I think Martha condoned it, but the
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: silence is condoning. Right.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: That must have been an extraordinary experience to be inhabiting
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: this character and having such a personal understanding of dynamics
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: and kind of that sort of cultural aspect. That's incredible. Yeah.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. And, you know, we worked. I was
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: hired to do three episodes, which is where Martha testifies
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: and all the other stuff. That was the original contract.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: It was just a recurring three episodes. And then as
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: we got into it, the directors realized Paris was like,
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: they got to be in the courtroom. So now I'm
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: sitting in these other three episodes just absorbing, absorbing what's
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: coming at me. I was having PTSD, man. I was like,
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Whirly World saved my brain. Because every time they went cut,
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: I was like, I'm going into Whirly World.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Right. I'm leaving this space now for a little bit,
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: even if it's just five minutes. It was really, and
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: they were long days. So we're just sitting there. And
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: it was literally like being in court and having this
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: just bombardment of information. Sad, sad information. Sad people.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: It's not just the family. It's just the people that
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: were testifying.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: You're just like, oh, my God.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's what's so partly fascinating about this case
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: is how many relatives eventually testified about things that they
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: had witnessed or been told.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Years and years of it. Years and years of it.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Did you realize that before doing the series? No.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: No. No. I just I didn't.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I didn't.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: I didn't really, I followed it because again, you'd have
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: to be under, it was the court TV thing and
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: it was fascinating. I was also a young single mom
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: at that time.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: So I was like, yeah, I just can't, I.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Can't go there right now. I can't even go to
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: that thing. So I was aware of what was happening.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: I was aware that they got, you know, the courts
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: were happening, but I, but it wasn't until I booked
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: the job that I started to really just investigate and
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: then just see all this, there's so much information, which
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: is a blessing when you're recreating something. Right. Cause now
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: with the world that we live in now, it's, you know,
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm old enough where I was like, man,
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen that show. I want to rerun. Yes. Yes.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Or people used to say like, Oh, why weren't you
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: watching such and such when you were to, I'm like, well,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: I was working shooting my own show. And then if
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: you missed it, you missed it. Like it was over.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: It wasn't, it wasn't accessible though. The, the enormous amount
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: of accessibility that we have now, which is, it's really great.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: It's also. Yeah.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: I distinctly remember because I moved to LA in 1993, 94, 93.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: So right at the time, right after OJ, the, the
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: chase and all of this was kind of the same
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: time in this beginning of birthing of watching.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: And I had just moved out here too, you know,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: but what year was that?
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: The, the, The Bronco chase. Cause I covered this too.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: I should know. It was 1994.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: Okay. So I wasn't living out here yet, but I
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: was out here cause I remember seeing it here, but
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: I didn't move out till 99, but I was coming
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: back and forth a lot. So I was out here
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: when that happened too. Um, yeah, it's just, it's fascinating
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: to have the access accessibility of things now is, you know.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is. And, um, So there's a fascinating
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: contradiction in Marta's own story where she acknowledged at trial
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: that after the murders, she hadn't told police about the
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: mistreatment that she later described in court because she wanted
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: to protect the family's image. So do you think that
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: pressure to maintain the image of a successful close family
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: is an important part of the story?
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's part of a.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Lot.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: I think about a lot of this type of stuff
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: that goes on. That gets swept under the rug, especially
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: people that have a certain status, right? Accessibility to hide things,
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: you know, just the accessibility of I'm a very successful
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: business person and I bring you a lot of money.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: So just shut up and take my money. Right? It
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: doesn't matter that I just slapped my kid in front
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: of you. You know, just shut up and take my money.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: Do you want to do business with me? And that
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: still happens.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Still happens. I was just going to say, we are
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: seeing that all the time. All the time.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Take the knee, man. That's what made this character for
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: me so, and even easy to sit there when I
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: didn't have anything to say, because there's a lot of
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: me just like in pain, a lot of stuff to
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: me in pain. And other members of the family, because-
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: You just start to realize, and then imagine you start
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: to think back. What if I had, what if I
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: had just been a little harder? What if I had
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: just said something? What if I hadn't said, no, I'm
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: not leaving your house that night. This is not acceptable.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: And if you don't stop it, I'm going to say something.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: You could speak to your brother like that.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: You know, I speak to my sisters like that, you know, so,
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: but you don't, Because he's the head.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: And he certainly, you know, so much has changed about
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: this case in our understanding. And he was charming.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: He was charming. Right. That is one thing Cubans are.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: We are charming motherfuckers. We are. Cuban men? Yep. I mean,
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: come on. Cuban men, Dominican men, and Puerto Rican men.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Forget about it. Yep.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: You're in trouble. That's how I learned to salsa dance,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: a Cuban.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Yep. So the charm, the money, all of it helped
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: to shield, right? Yes. everybody shields because the whole family
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: is working with, with this company and the whole, you know,
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: and you learn to put on your big pants and
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: grow out of it.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: They'll, you know, it really, the series does such an
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: amazing job of that, of really showing because Javier Bardem is,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: so terrific and that kind of like he has created
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: the reality that this family will exist in like it's
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: his own of his own making and everyone is get
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: on board and he normalizes all of these horrific things
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: yes and then you just go how i'm i find
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: it so interesting that we it's taken sort of all
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: of these years for us culturally to understand that the
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: abuse had such an impact on these children. Like that
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: the public narrative has changed so much now where they really,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: you know, we can understand how someone would come to,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, I can. It doesn't excuse things, but it
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: certainly explains them.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It doesn't excuse it, but you understand. And again,
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: the humanity of it, right? Mm-hmm. The series is called Monsters,
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: but yes, us as humans, we can be monsters. We
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: can be angels. And those are the two extremes. And
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: hopefully we live somewhere in the middle, right? We never
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: get to that point. But when something is chronic, it's
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: all throughout the life. It's why do women stay in
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: relationships for so long? Why do well, a lot of
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: these women were young when they got into the relationships
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: and then they just, you become, we're also creatures of habit,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: the human, right? So we just, this is what we understand.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: This is what we feel comfortable in. Why do women
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: keep picking or men keep, why do you, why do
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: we as human find ourselves in the same situation? Because we,
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: we gravitate to what we recognize, whether it's good or
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: bad is different. That's not, it's what we feel comfortable in, right?
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: We feel comfortable with people yelling and pushing us around
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: and we, This is what we recognize, what we have
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: carried with us. So to change something like that has
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: to be first recognized. Hardest thing to do. And then
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: the work that goes into something like that is not impossible,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: but it has to be recognized and kept in the
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: light at all times. Right.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: And the series also really shows what an impossible task
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: that was for those boys. even when they were forced
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: to go into therapy, it was controlled by Jose.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. And then people always say, why didn't they just leave,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: walk away from the money, which is, was, should have
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: been what they did, right? Just walk away from it
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: because they're adults now. So you figuratively cut them out
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: of your life, right? But if you don't know how
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: to do that, if you don't know how to survive,
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Without that, you're asking them to kill themselves too, right?
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Which is what they did.
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: They just, their naivete, their youth, right? Their warped reality,
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: which is what, I'm sorry. And people with money listening
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: to this, you know, there's 2% of the planet's population
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: that lives on another reality.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: Those are the 2% that run everything. And I, they
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: just don't live on, on the same planet perspective of us.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: So the higher you get to the sun, the more
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: you think you can get away with. Right. You lose
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: your wings and you fall right on your face. And,
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: and it's, it's, it's just human nature. And that's why
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: your podcast and why we are so interested in these things.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: It's like, why, why do people snap like that? What,
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: What takes it? What takes you to snap? What took
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: Martha to finally say anything? Unfortunately, it was the death
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: of her brother that released her in some way. For me,
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: creating Martha, it was like, that's why I think she
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: had the courage to say, because she was released from
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: that umbilical cord that nobody could walk away from, that
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: their whole reality was based upon, you know? Yep. It's
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: a difficult... it's a difficult line that we as humans
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: every day face. Yeah.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: In, um, in a 2018 interview, Marta said she didn't
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: consider Lyle and Eric criminals anymore and believed that they
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: had acted out of fear. Were you aware of how
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: strongly she continued to support them?
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: Yes. She never wavered from that. Um, They killed their parents.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: That's never, that was never, I mean, they tried to
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: get away with it, but once, once it was out,
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, those boys needed to go to like heavy
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: duty therapy. Like they did not, jail wasn't the answer, right?
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. So Marta's son, Andy, was close to Eric, and
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: he became an important defense witness. And Andy testified in
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: 93 that when Eric was 13, Eric told him that
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: his father was giving him genital, quote, massages that were
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: beginning to hurt, and he wanted it to stop. Did
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: you know about Andy's testimony?
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Not Marlene. Marlene didn't. But yes, I'm a young man
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: who played Andy. We talked about it a lot, you know. we, again,
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: because we were all sitting in this courtroom, it wasn't
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: like we had rehearsals or anything like that, but we,
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: we bonded in a very odd way in a quiet way.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Because we, again, we weren't in the scenes, we weren't talking,
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: but we were as the characters. And then on the break,
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: you know, we would be like the hell. And he,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: you know, he let me know about that particular interview.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: And I was like, yeah, I mean, the, Actions of
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: these people, to me, watching them, all new. And the
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: ones that were angry about it, maybe they didn't know.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Maybe they were just so angry at themselves for being quiet. Right.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Right. Sometimes that's the response.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: And there's another remarkable chapter involving Andy where decades later,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: a letter attributed to Eric and dated 1988 was found
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: among his belongings and they cited it as new evidence
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: of Eric's claim that the abuse was, you know, continuing
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: before the murders. And were you aware of that, of
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: that letter?
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: While we were shooting, we had already, we had already
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: seen that. We had, we had already been told about
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: that letter. You know, the interesting thing is that I,
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: we met some, some, you know, I, I didn't personally,
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: but Mauricio, who was playing my cousin. Yeah. And he
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: lives in Miami. And, you know, he did a lot
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: of business in Miami. And to this very day, those
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: businessmen do not believe that he killed their children.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: They don't believe that he abused their children.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: It was all a smear thing. It's all bullshit. And
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: those guys were murderers.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: And they are murderers. I'm not going to take that
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: from you. But what drives somebody to that?
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: And the easy thing was greed because they were so wealthy, right? Yes.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: But if you cut off some of these children, even adults,
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: they wouldn't know what to do. Right. They wouldn't know
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: what to do. It's like cutting out the umbilical cord.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: And that's what people don't understand is that if your
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: reality knows nothing else. Right.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: If you have been systematically abused your whole life.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: This is what life is.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Cocooned by wealth.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: And your family.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: And your family.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Because you have reached out to certain people.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: And even as they show in the series that Jose
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: signs the music group Menudo to a huge contract. And
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: then years later, former member Roy Rossello, he alleged that
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Jose sexually assaulted him as a teenager. And the brother's
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: attorney cited that allegation to try to attempt to challenge
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: the convictions. Had you heard about all of that as well?
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: And how do we say that this guy's making it
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: up too? This is what I don't understand.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: It's all a conspiracy.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: You know, and to what end?
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: Well, you got to believe what you got to believe
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: so you can walk out of here and say, I
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: did business with this man and I have no guilt
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: about it. Right? We all justify what we do as
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: human beings every day. Every day we do little indiscretions,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: little things. that we justify.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, it's so true.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: It's so true.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: It is so true.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: So in a hearing outside the jury's presence, Marta testified
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: that Lyle and Eric seemed shocked by the amount of
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: money that their parents had and believe their father had
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: written the amount of his will. Um, did you know
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: that that was part of her testimony?
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Because Martha used to run all the
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: business stuff. She did all the money. She knew she
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: was the treasurer of the people who allowed this to happen. Right.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: You know, Right.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: And so the first trial ended with verdicts, with both
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: juries deadlocked. And at the second trial, the brothers were
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: tied together before one jury ultimately convicted them of first-degree murder.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: And much of the abuse-related evidence presented in the first
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: trial was limited or excluded. Why on earth did that happen?
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Because Because it was such a horrific, horrific crime. And
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: at the time, OJ had gotten away with it. And
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: people love to hate rich people. The richer they are,
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: the more they hate them. And it was just, I just,
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: they needed a conviction. The DA needed a conviction. If
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: you look at what was happening in Los Angeles, and
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: I hate to bring that to like this, it's all politics.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: It was, and they just kept coming back. And to
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: take that evidence away is to remove the entire motive
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: is to say, now we're going to fight. Now they're monsters, right?
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: They had everything they wanted. They had all the cars
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: they wanted and they just wanted more. Well, further they
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: weren't aware of how much more there was second of all,
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: you know, and, and, and the truth is they already
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: had everything. Right. So, you know, at what point, you know,
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: children cannot defend themselves. These had become men at what point,
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: how much in those let's, let's do another thing. Let's
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: a woman that's constantly being, abused or raped and whatever.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: And then she, you know, she, she snaps, people snap,
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: humans snap. Yes. You know, and that's, and at that moment,
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: and you know, they were like, well, they came back
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: and shot him.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: Because you have crossed the line. And at that point,
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: there is no going back. There's no justifying that in
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: your head. You must go forward. Right. In that impulse,
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: in that thing. Right.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: And now you have a new, you have a new perspective.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Like now this is, How.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: You do now, how I do it perspective. And now
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: you can't get back up. You know, you just, you
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: can't now you just move forward and you just get
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: deeper and deeper and deeper. And it's, if you just
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: study any of these things that you listen to, that's
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: what happens. Right. And that's the point. I mean, do we,
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: do we, do we punish the person for just the
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: crime in an isolated thing, which is what they ended
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: up doing to the Menendez brothers? They just looked at
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: the crime and said, yes, this is horrible. You must suffer.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: Without saying, what?
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Right. This is why Monsters itself presents different perspectives on
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: what happened rather than giving the audience one simple answer.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: You guys can decide. And even with, I think, pretty
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: solid evidence that's out there. Forget about the movies. Forget about,
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, the series. Forget about the series. Just look
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: at what's out there. The court records.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: There's evidence.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: There is so much evidence that, yes, dude, something went on.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: Don't look at me and tell me the whole shit
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: was made up. Yes, I am sure that between their
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: testimony and the shit that happens, you know, there's the reality.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: And we're never going to know what really happened. But
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: something happened. And it happened for a long time. And
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: a lot of people knew, including Martha. Did she know
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: the details of it? Did she know that it was sexual?
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Because people keep that, you know. You know,
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: the one thing that I learned that I didn't know
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: was that the mother, that our mother had been abused. Right. Right.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Because that conversation that Varden has, I was like.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Yep. The phone call when he calls his mom.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: Of course. The abuse doesn't. It doesn't start from nothing.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: And Eric Menendez publicly criticized the series after its release
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: and called his portrayal of Lyle a damaging caricature, and
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: he objected to the way their story was presented. Were
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: you surprised by that reaction? No.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: This is what happens when you create... something about real
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: people and they're not dead because there's, you only want
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: to tell my side of the story. I want you
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: to tell my side.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Right. Don't make me look bad. Don't make me look
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: like maybe I had a reason to do this. You
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: did have a reason to do this. That's what we're
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: saying to you.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Sorry. It got to that point, but you were not
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: taking away your reason. We're not, There was a reason
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: why you did what you did.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: Even in the portrayal of him, sure, Lyle in particular
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: doesn't look like the nicest of humans in moments. But
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: to your point, it's absolutely explained why in all of
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: the other actions. I think it's probably very difficult to
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: see yourself so publicly presented at imperfectly. Like I'm sure
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: that's difficult.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: That's it. That's what you just said. And if you,
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: if anybody opens themselves up to reality TV or anything
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: like that to, to, to someone to look into your life, um,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: you have to realize they're going to look at everything,
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: you know? Um, so it's, you know, Not everybody is
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: happy when you take a good look in the mirror.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: Right. For sure. Like, oh, no, that's not the way
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: I saw it. Exactly.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Do you think that, we talked a little about this,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: but do you think that audiences hear the brothers' allegations
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: differently today than jurors and the public did three decades
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: ago when we weren't really talking about boys and men
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: reporting sexual abuse?
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. I think so. I think, look, I think, unfortunately,
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: even now, this last time that the courts came around,
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: it was a new district attorney, you know, and they
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: have been, this story has been mixed into the masa
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: in Spanish, if I was going to say, to the
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: masa of Los Angeles politics in such a way that
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: has really not helped them. You know, every time, because
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: I believe the evidence is there and I believe they've,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: they've done their time for killing. They've done their time.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: It's time to let them go. I think.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: I agree with you. I personally agree with you.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: They've done their time. They, any other, any other, it's
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: just that because it's on in the media eye and
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: because I think they're more sympathetic. I think they have
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: more people on their side, but they still, They'd have
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: to do this all over again. And at one point,
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: you know, I mean, I don't even know. I don't know.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: At what point do you give up? I don't know.
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, these are all very big questions. And I
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: agree with you. I personally, this is my personal opinion,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: just feel that they have suffered enough and after all
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: that they have gone through to have to continue to
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: be in prison. I just, it feels just... wrong, unusually
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: sick and wrong.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Unusually, unusually cruel, which is the way these men have
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: lived their lives. Usually cruel punishment around the entire lives.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: It's time. I mean, I, I had no opinion, you know,
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: I was like, it's horrible and they should be in jail.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: I think, I don't think they should not have done something,
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: you know, some sort of penance for this thing. But, um,
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: It's they have, what else do you want from them?
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: You know? Yep.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: I agree. Well, this has been such, I've just loved
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: talking with you. You're such a delight and you're so
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: smart and so interesting. And the series is called monsters,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: the Lyle and Eric Menendez story. It's streaming on Netflix
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: and Marlene, what a joy to meet you. I hope,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: I hope we get to meet in person sometime.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: A pleasure to meet you. I hope we see each
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: other soon again. Okay.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Take care.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: Bye.