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Daily Mail
8 hours ago
- General
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE I was married to Lyle Menendez. I'll never forget one thing he said to me behind bars... it proves the brothers SHOULD walk free
I don't think there is a person in America who isn't familiar with my ex-husband and his brother. Their names have become synonymous with one of the most famous crimes of the twentieth century. It's impossible to utter their names – Lyle and Erik Menendez – without provoking strong feelings in others. There are those who think they should be locked up forever and, increasingly, there are those who think they've served their time and should be set free.
Fox News
25-05-2025
- Fox News
Trading card featuring Menendez brothers after parents' murder becomes collector's item
A 1990 trading card of Erik and Lyle Menendez skyrocketed in value following the infamous brothers' 1996 conviction in their parents' Beverly Hills, California, double murder. The trading card featuring New York Knicks guard Mark Jackson, obtained by Fox News Digital, gained notoriety after eagle-eyed collectors noticed that the Menendez brothers were sitting in a pair of floor seats at the game. The discovery of their presence on the card sparked significant interest among collectors and true crime aficionados. Previously valued at mere cents, the card's price surged, with some listings reaching hundreds of dollars. However, eBay eventually removed listings that explicitly referenced the Menendez brothers, citing policies against items associated with violent crimes. According to a TMZ report, some collectors are sending the card to the brothers in prison so it can be autographed. Along with purchasing courtside seats for a New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden during the 1989–1990 NBA season, the brothers lavishly spent their parents' fortune following the August 1989 murders of Kitty and José Menendez. In the months following the brutal murder of their parents, Erik and Lyle Menendez began living an extravagant lifestyle that starkly contrasted with their earlier claims of grief and trauma. While the defense would later frame the spending as part of a psychological escape from years of alleged abuse, prosecutors alleged that the brothers' crimes had been due to their efforts to gain access to the family's fortune. Lyle, the older brother, indulged in high-end purchases, including designer clothing and a Porsche. He also invested heavily in a Princeton, New Jersey, restaurant called Chuck's Spring Street Café. In their 1995 trial, jewelry sales representative Mary Ellen Mahar testified that the brothers had come to her store just four days after the killings and spent about $15,000 on three Rolex watches. Lyle rented upscale properties and lived in expensive hotels like the Beverly Hills Hotel. Erik, too, spent the family's money freely on luxury clothing, high-end accommodations and international trips. He also tried to become a professional tennis player following the 1989 slayings. He hired a private coach, took lessons and traveled internationally to train and compete. On March 8, 1990, when Lyle was arrested in connection with their parents' murders, Erik was competing in a tennis tournament in Israel. He later turned himself in. Both brothers admitted to killing their parents in a gruesome 1989 shotgun massacre inside their Beverly Hills home. Since their resentencing last week, the brothers are now eligible for parole. The brothers are set to appear before the parole board via video on June 13, 2025, at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility. The board will either recommend or veto the brothers' release. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has the final say over whether they should go free.
Fox News
25-05-2025
- Fox News
Tylenol murders suspect gave eerie final interview before death
James Lewis, the suspect in the 1982 Tylenol poisonings, gave a final interview attempting to clear his name. But some still wonder if he was the mastermind behind the murders that triggered a nationwide panic and got away with it. In a span of three days beginning Sept. 29, 1982, seven people — including a 12-year-old girl — who took cyanide-laced Tylenol in the Chicago area died, sparking a national recall of the product. The poisonings led to the adoption of tamper-proof packaging for over-the-counter medications. The case, which remains unsolved, is the subject of a new Netflix true crime docuseries, "Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders." It features new interviews with loved ones of the victims, investigators, as well as Lewis, who died in 2023 at 76. Director Yotam Guendelman told Fox News Digital that during filming, they witnessed a side to Lewis that haunts them. "For those two days, the vibe in the room was good," Guendelman recalled. "We asked him the hard questions, and we talked about it. But there was a moment when we started asking harder questions, one after the other. We caught him in a few lies, and [he] then snapped for a couple of minutes. "It became really scary. And for the first time, you can see someone who, even though I do think he tried not to do the worst in his life, when you put him in a corner, when he feels he's up against the wall, he becomes scary for a second. And then he changed back to his sweet, weird self a few minutes later." "That really stood out," Guendelman reflected. "I think that made us all understand that … he has this part in him that is completely uncontrollable and comes out of nowhere. … You see a person of duality. … But at the same time, we know that even though there are these tender parts of him, he's capable of doing the worst." Lewis, who had a history of trouble with the law, always denied any role in the Tylenol deaths. In 2010, he gave DNA samples to the FBI and even created a website on which he said he was framed. While he lived in Chicago briefly in the '80s when the murders took place, Lewis said he and his wife were in New York City at the time of the poisonings. Director Ari Pines told Fox News Digital he was surprised Lewis agreed to give the interview on camera. But after sitting down with him, it was easy to see why. "First of all, he loved the attention," Pines claimed. "He was cautious, but our producer, Molly Forster, built this relationship with him for almost a year. She gained his trust bit by bit. And it worked. I think he also enjoyed the fact that we didn't just look at him as this sensational character, which he is, but also as a human being." Guendelman said it took several months to convince Lewis to speak out for what turned out to be the last time. "Molly took another approach; she was much more gentle," he explained. "He built this trust with him. Even though he knew we were going to ask him the hard questions, we were also going to give him a chance to tell his story for the first time, from start to finish." In 1974, Lewis suffered a personal tragedy when his only daughter, 5-year-old Toni Ann Lewis, died from heart issues. One theory the documentary presented was that Lewis acted out in revenge against Johnson & Johnson, Tylenol's parent company. According to the Chicago Tribune, the sutures used to fix Toni's congenital heart defect tore. They were made by Ethicon, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. According to reports, the unknown killer bought Extra-Strength Tylenol from six different stores in the Chicago area and packed the capsules with large doses of deadly potassium cyanide. The individual then placed the bottles back on the shelves. Lewis was in New York City when he was arrested in 1982 after a nationwide manhunt. He gave investigators a detailed account of how the killer behind the Tylenol murders might have operated. Lewis served more than 12 years in prison for sending an extortion note to manufacturer Johnson & Johnson demanding $1 million to "stop the killing." He admitted to sending the letter and demanding the money but said he never intended to collect it. Instead, he said he wanted to embarrass his wife's former employer and had the money sent to the employer's bank account. During the investigation, the police discovered Lewis's dark past. In 1978, he was charged in Kansas City, Missouri, with the dismemberment murder of Raymond West, 72, who had hired Lewis as an accountant. The charges were dismissed because West's cause of death was not determined, and some evidence had been illegally obtained. Lewis was convicted of six counts of mail fraud in a 1981 credit card scheme in Kansas City. He was accused of using the name and background of a former tax client to obtain 13 credit cards. Police described Lewis as a "chameleon" who lived in several states, used at least 20 aliases and held many jobs, including computer specialist, tax accountant, importer of Indian tapestries and seller of jewelry, pharmaceutical machinery and real estate. In 1983, Lewis was convicted of extortion and spent 12 years in federal prison, the New York Times reported. After Lewis was convicted, he offered to help prosecutors solve the Tylenol murders, the outlet reported. It noted that when he was a fugitive, he wrote several rambling letters to the Chicago Tribune disclaiming any connection and demanding capital punishment for "whoever poisoned those capsules." GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE TRUE CRIME HUB Following his release, he and his wife moved to Massachusetts in 1995. But his run-ins with the law didn't end there. Lewis was charged in 2004 with rape, kidnapping and other offenses for an alleged attack on a woman in Cambridge. He was jailed for three years while awaiting trial, but prosecutors dismissed the charges on the day his trial was scheduled to begin after the victim refused to testify, the Middlesex County District Attorney's Office said at the time. "I think for the FBI, James Lewis is always the main suspect, and I can understand why," said Pines. "… We've also managed to uncover a lot of evidence and documents, which were sealed from the original investigation, and we're showing a lot of that in the series. WATCH: TYLENOL MURDERS SUSPECT TELLS FBI THEY MISSED THE KILLER'S BIG BLUNDER "But I will say there are also a lot of other documents that are still sealed, and the public is still not aware of. And we firmly believe that now is a good time… to unseal all the documents, and to show the public everything that this investigation found. Maybe that will bring us closer to finding out the truth." According to the docuseries, some investigators are adamant that Lewis will always remain a person of interest. Others aren't convinced. The docuseries presents several other theories, including those supported by some of the loved ones. Lewis previously told the Associated Press in 1992 that the account he gave the authorities was simply his way of explaining the killer's actions. He called the murderer "a heinous, cold-blooded killer, a cruel monster." Guendelman believes there may have been more victims unaccounted for. "After we talked with the coroner, the FBI agents, the prosecutors … that's the theory," he explained. "Cyanide, as we show in the series, served as a perfect crime because it dissolves so quickly. And if it wasn't for one specific doctor who [realized] that these people were poisoned, and it was not a natural death, nobody would've known about it. … I do believe in this theory. "That's why we made this film. We're not only doing this for the victims that we know about but also for the possible unnamed victims as well." Pines is hopeful that in his lifetime, especially with renewed interest in the case, we'll find out who was definitively responsible for the mass murders. "There are so many families here who never got the answer they wanted," said Pines. "The truth is out there, and there's someone out there who knows more. I hope that person will see this film, see the families and come forward. … I think every cold case needs closure."
New York Times
21-05-2025
- New York Times
Axed and Answered: Deep Cuts From a History of Gruesome Crimes
You might think that writing about axe murder is morbid. 'But, really, it's the history of civilization!' says Rachel McCarthy James, whose new book, 'Whack Job' (St. Martin's), chronicles the bloody and fascinating history of this versatile tool and the people who wield it. In a video interview, James spoke about her favorite axe murderers, the banality of chain saws and Paul Bunyan. Her answers have been edited and condensed. Who was your first? What got you interested in axe murder? Well, it really started when I moved back to Kansas after college. My dad [the noted true-crime and baseball writer Bill James] was working on the book that would become 'The Man from the Train,' and hired me as a research assistant. Pretty quickly, it became clear that I was going to be a coauthor. So, definitely, the first axe murderer for me would be the subject of that book. The axe was not quite a central part of the case; it was one of many elements, although the fact that all the serial murders were committed with the back of an axe was certainly something the newspapers [in 1911 and 1912] focused on. So how, exactly, are you defining 'axe murderer?' It's such an interesting phrase, isn't it? We don't say 'knife killer' or 'gun shooter.' Culturally, it's very broadly defined — axes are used around the world, and I explore their use as weapons of war, and as tools of execution and human sacrifice. It's really entwined with different versions of how we experience, and how we commit, violence. In the case of William Tillman, which I write about, who was a free man trying to escape enslavement, that was self-defense. He wasn't acting out of revenge or rage; he was trying to save his own life, save his own freedom. And a lot of these killers weren't especially fixated on axes; it's just what was around. Do you distinguish between hatchets and axes? Not explicitly, because in both cases, what makes it interesting is that it's a tool as much as it is a weapon. The axe has been crucial to the development of human civilization in so many ways, in terms of altering landscape, allowing us to build houses. And with progress, almost inevitably, comes grisly brutality. Working together means coming into conflict with each other. What's one of the most intriguing axe murders you came across in your research? I was fascinated by the 1980 case of Candy Montgomery, who murdered Betty Gore with a huge, three-foot axe. At the time I wrote the proposal, that story seemed kind of forgotten. Then maybe two months after I signed my book deal, there were two different warring TV series! Which do you think is more accurate? I like the Hulu one quite a bit better. You end up taking a surprising line on Lizzie Borden. I put that in the book proposal almost out of obligation. I wasn't that excited about it until I actually got into the story and understood how deep the puzzle goes and why it's so transfixing to just so many people — beyond the catchy rhyme. And now I'm quite convinced that the case is far more complicated than we've been led to believe. While you get into global history, it struck me reading your book that the axe has a very particular relationship to the American mythos. It does embody American colonial self-visions in a lot of ways. An axe was something that any pioneer knew how to wield — there were so many different uses for it, building homes, shingles, as a cleaver, even shoeing horses — and I think it was part of how they saw themselves earning the land, even though, of course, it wasn't really earned. But many of the people who came over, like George Washington's grandfather, were not used to tilling the land themselves. They were using enslaved people to do a lot of that work for them. Putting axes in their hands as well, which could be a key to rebellion. Recently I came across a vintage hatchet cookie-cutter, and realized it could have been intended for Washington or Lincoln's birthday. Yes, it's just an odd fact that both these February presidents have the hatchet association. It's clearly about self-reliance. We associate it with Paul Bunyan, too. Paul usually has a double-sided axe, which is interesting because that's kind of traditionally considered a feminine tool. Logging is a big part of the axe story. Of course, logging now is all about sawmills and chain saws, which have also become symbols of gruesome violence, but the chain saw is, really, a tool. It doesn't have a history as a weapon, the way that the axe does. It really is just for cutting wood and, you know, occasionally you see it in real-life murders for dismembering. 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' stands out. I mean, how many people really know how to use a chain saw? You make the point that because everyone once had axes lying around — and did know how to use them — it was often the weapon of choice in a crime of opportunity. But nowadays, it's a more exotic tool. Does an axe murder today imply a greater level of intention and derangement? Here in Lawrence, with homelessness growing as it is in so many places, there have been a number of incidents of people in encampments threatening each other with axes. Again, they have it as a tool, and when things escalate, it's there. How are you at wielding an axe? Not very good at all. I'm OK at throwing axes, but not great at swinging them. My boss's husband collects axes, and we went to their property so I could get a little practical knowledge. I was sore for a week after about 45 minutes of swinging the axe. It made me realize how hard it would be to actually murder someone. Just to get it high enough to have the leverage — not to be morbid — is a feat. I mean, you need to be in shape. Or you'd have to be driven by an almost superhuman rage.
Daily Mail
21-05-2025
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Idaho murder victims' loved ones react to bombshell Bryan Kohberger twist that could upend his trial
The friends and families of the Idaho murder victims have voiced their frustration at the latest twist in the Bryan Kohberger trial that threatens to upend the case. A recent Dateline show had revealed new details about the killings, including the suspected killer's phone records, porn choices and online searches for Ted Bundy.
