How Did the Menendez Brothers Get Caught? Ultimately It All Came Down to One Woman

In August 1989, Erik and Lyle Menendez shot and killed their parents while they were watching television in their Beverly Hills mansion. The brothers were each carrying shotguns they had purchased from a store in San Diego and did little to manage the crime scene apart from grabbing the discarded shells. Over the course of the next seven months, the siblings went on a spending spree under the guise of grieving the loss of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez.

Lyle was the older brother and by all accounts, exerted some control over his younger, more impressionable sibling. Erik was the artist who enjoyed acting and wrote a screenplay about a wealthy kid who kills his folks. Due to the fact that Erik was more sensitive, he sought out the help of a therapist he had previously worked with. This meeting is what eventually led to Lyle and Erik getting arrested. How did the Menendez brothers get caught? Details to follow.

On Oct. 31, 1989, a little over two months after the murders, Erik met with Dr. Jerome Oziel at his office. When he phoned Dr. Oziel earlier that day, Erik specifically asked to be the last patient of the day. He did not want anyone else in the office. Once he arrived, Erik asked if they could go for a walk. "I had huge, huge waves of guilt and remorse and I just broke down and I told him what I had done," said Erik in A&E's documentary series The Menendez Murders: Erik Tells All.

Despite Erik's request, Dr. Oziel wasn't alone that day. A woman named Judalon Smyth had arrived while they were out. Dr. Oziel was having an affair with Smyth, who told Vanity Fair's Dominick Dunne that he was obsessed with the Menendez brothers' situation and was thrilled by his proximity to it, having briefly treated Erik. "He interjected himself into their lives," she said. In her opinion, Dr. Oziel was taking on a paternal relationship with both boys.

Dr. Oziel convinced Erik that Lyle needed to come to the office immediately. Smyth pretended to be another patient in the waiting room when Lyle arrived. "Been waiting long?" he casually asked her, before going into Dr. Oziel's office. Smyth then eavesdropped on the conversation happening in Oziel's office. She heard them discussing the confession then threaten Oziel. "I never thought I believed in evil, but when I heard those boys speak, I did," she told Dunne.

Oziel used this opportunity to force himself into Smyth's home, claiming it was for her own safety. During this time, her mental state declined as Oziel grew more controlling. He eventually moved Smyth into his house. According to a lawsuit filed by Smyth and obtained by Vanity Fair, in February 1990 she alleged that Oziel sexually assaulted her. Three weeks later, Smyth went to the Beverly Hills police station with what she knew about the Menendez brothers.

Smyth told this story while on the stand during Erik and Lyle Menendez's first trials. Three years later, when the brothers were tried together during their retrials, she recanted her original testimony, per the Los Angeles Times. She told jurors that Oziel had "implanted" memories in her of "things that didn’t exist." Smyth claimed she could no longer say for sure what she heard that day in Oziel's office.

The frightened Smyth went on to say that she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder due to the brainwashing inflicted on her by Oziel. Because of this, Smyth said she "can't be responsible" for discrepancies in her testimony. Smyth said it was as if she was disassociating when describing how she felt during her testimony from three years prior. "I somehow separated myself. I was there and I answered questions from some element of my consciousness," she said.