Developments in the retrial of Lyle and Erik Menendez from October 16 - October 20.
OCTOBER 16
The jury listened to the audiotape of the 911 call Lyle Menendez made to police about 90 minutes after he and his brother killed their parents on August 20, 1989. On the tape, the brothers are heard screaming and crying, and at one point, Lyle said, "someone shot my mom and dad."
After hearing the tape, the jurors heard testimony from Beverly Hills police officer Michael Butkus, who was the first officer at the crime scene. He said the brothers ran out of their house screaming and crying. After Butkus said he ordered the brothers to the ground, the brothers beat their fists on the ground and shouted, "Oh my God. Oh my God. someone shot our parents. Go in and look."
Deputy District Attorney David Conn said earlier in the trial that the brothers spun a web of lies after the killings, and "turned on the tears" so that they would not be suspected.
Earlier, defense attorney Leslie Abramson concluded her cross-examination of detective Les Zoeller. Zoeller conceded that he did not know anything about the circumstances surrounding the audiotape of a session between the brothers and their former therapist Jerome Oziel.
OCTOBER 17
The tennis coach of Erik Menendez testified that Jose Menendez was a strict parent who controlled many aspects of his sons' lives but showed them little affection.
Perry Berman said Jose Menendez often criticized Lyle's taste in women and discouraged his sons from speaking at the dinner table unless they were spoken to. Berman's testimony was similar to that of his testimony during the first trial. There was one difference: Judge Stanley Weisberg limited the scope of defense attorney Terri Towery's cross-examination of Berman, throwing out as irrelevant some questions probing recollections that cast the father in a negative light.
At one point in the testimony, Berman described Jose Menendez as an overbearing tennis parent who once ran onto the court during a lesson and angrily yelled that the practice session was too easy. Berman said Erik, then 15, responded: "My dad is not going to be happy until I'm running like a dog all over this tennis court."
Berman was called by the prosecution to talk about a rendezvous the brothers had arranged with him the night of the killings. Prosecutors maintain that the brothers intended the meeting as an alibi.
OCTOBER 18
The prosecution started to present evidence to support its theory that greed motivated the brothers to kill their parents.
The wife of a probate attorney testified that less than 24 hours after gunning down their parents, Lyle and Erik Menendez hauled a safe to the attorney's home in the hopes of finding the wealthy couple's will inside.
"(It was) a good-sized safe, but the two of them managed to carry it" to the Beverly Hills home of attorney Randolph Wright on the evening after the August 20, 1989, killings, said Wright's wife, Klara.
Wright was the first witness who did not testify in the brothers' first trial. Prosecutors said they didn't know about the safe until after the first trial ended.
Klara Wright said the safe was not opened until a day or two after the killings, allowing time for two of the brothers' uncles - Brian Anderson and Carlos Baralt - to be present. It turned out the safe was empty.
OCTOBER 19
Probate attorney Randy Wright testified that within 24 hours of the murders, Lyle and Erik Menendez sought his advice on where to find their parents' will.
On the day after the August 20, 1989 murders, Wright said the brothers carried their parents' safe to his home and that Erik spent the night in the guest room with the safe. The next day, the brothers along with their uncle, Carlos Baralt, took the safe into Wright's garage and opened it to see if they could find a new will.
The prosecution argues the brothers were concerned that a new will would show that they had been disinherited. It turned out that the safe was empty.
Baralt then testified that two months before the killings, Jose Menendez told him that he wanted to disinherit his sons. Jose Menendez never wrote a new will before he was killed.
Prosecutors explored a line of questioning with Baralt that was not pursued during the first trial. Prosecutor David Conn asked Baralt if he knew of any evidence that Jose Menendez sexually assaulted his sons. Baralt said no.
OCTOBER 20
The judge rejected a defense motion for a mistrial after attorney Leslie Abramson accusing a prosecutor of improperly asking a witness whether Jose Menendez had complained that Erik Menendez had been "in trouble."
Abramson objected that prosecutor David Conn's question referred to burglary charges brought against Erik Menendez as a juvenile in 1988 over thefts from two homes in Calabasas. Erik Menendez pleaded guilty to those charges and was placed on probation, but the incidents had not yet been deemed admissible in the brothers' second trial for the 1989 slayings of their parents, Kitty and Jose Menendez.
"To use the word 'trouble' in front of this jury without seeking permission is misconduct," Abramson told Judge Stanley Weisberg in a brief hearing outside the jury's presence.
But Conn argued that Abramson had "opened the door" to the question by asking the witness, Carlos Baralt, why his brother-in-law, Jose Menendez, had talked of disinheriting Erik.
Judge Weisberg sustained Abramson's objection after Baralt said that Jose Menendez had made no mention of the burglary case against Erik. But he denied the request for a mistrial.
Baralt previously testified that he had been close to Jose Menendez and served as executor of the couple's estate. He said that the only wills ever found named Erik and Lyle as the sole beneficiaries, entitling them to all of the family's assets.
But he also testified that Jose Menendez had discussed disinheriting his sons. Baralt testified that Jose Menendez told him he was disappointed that Lyle was failing academically at Princeton University. Baralt said Jose Menendez was disappointed in Erik because he lacked talent, toughness and forcefulness.
In other testimony, computer technician Howard Witkin testified -- as he did in the first trial -- that the brothers asked him to search their family computer for a document called "will."
