![]() ![]() operations of car rental company Hertz, José spent the early ’80s as the head of RCA Records and had a hand in the signing of bands such as Duran Duran, The Eurythmics, and Menudo. He then rose from washing dishes to working a successful young entertainment executive.Īfter leading the U.S. They married in the early 1960s and moved to New York City, where José earned an accounting degree from Queens College. In college, he met Mary Louise Anderson, a beauty pageant queen who everyone called Kitty and was a couple years old than him. José was born in Cuba, emigrated to the United States as a teenager after the Cuban Revolution of the 1950s, and lived in the attic of a cousin’s home until he earned a college scholarship for swimming. The Menendez family seemed to be a perfect model of the American Dream, at least by 1980s standards. Watch the true story unfold in the drama Menendez: Blood Brothers, the NBC series Law and Order True Crime: the Menendez Murders, or the documentary Truth and Lies: The Menendez Brothers - American Sons, American Murders. As court proceedings unfolded, there was no doubt that Lyle and Erik had killed their parents. The Menendez murders became one of the most famous criminal cases of the late 20 th century due to its potent mix of family drama, Hollywood connections, dramatic testimony, and cable TV’s ability to blanket the airwaves with coverage. Nearly seven years, three trials, and many thousands of hours of TV coverage later, their sons, Lyle and Erik Menendez, were found guilty of their murders and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The demeanor these teenagers spoke with and the sheer amount of knowledge they had accumulated about a legally complex case was astounding.On August 20, 1989, José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez were shot to death in their Beverly Hills home. They’d greet me with a bubbly introduction and tell me how old they were, before getting into an evidence-based narrative about why they believed the Menendez Brothers’ sentencing was unjust. However, speaking to the teenagers I reached didn’t feel like speaking to a teenager. Could this be, in part, simply due to the audience that TikTok usually attracts? Of course, yes. ![]() In researching this story, I reached out to dozens of TikTok users about the videos they were posting – and I could hardly find anyone over the age of eighteen. But who were these people?įrankly, they appear to overwhelmingly be kids. Right before my eyes, the army behind the Menendez Brothers grew stronger and louder with each passing second. There were 173 million views on these videos. Comment sections were flooded with outrage over their conviction and links to learn more information about the case. But then – the TikTok algorithm kicked in.Ĭaptions begged viewers to listen to their “heart wrenching testimony”. Sultry music played behind slowed-down footage as she joked about them being the “hottest criminals ever.” Most of the videos I clicked on followed this theme, and I began to wonder if this whole “New Age Menendez Defender” movement was nothing more than teenage girls with an extreme attraction to bad boys. Instead, a young-looking girl was on my screen, fawning over images of the young, attractive brothers at their murder trial. But the ones that I first saw didn’t have anything to do with the Menendez Brothers’ case at all. ![]() I typed “Menendez Brothers” into the search bar, and my screen flooded with hundreds of videos. I took to the primary source – TikTok itself. Why the Menendez Brothers? Why now? What is there even to post about? ![]() As a millennial who only uses TikTok to watch videos of cute dogs and easy recipes, I was caught off guard. The New York Times article detailed the mass following and attention the Menendez Brothers had gained on TikTok. But out in the real world, where social media sites like TikTok appear to have garnered the power to create actual change in the social justice system, a lot has changed. For them, life inside prison walls hasn’t changed all too much. They’ve exhausted most appeals processes and their prospects of a new trial have dwindled. The brothers have now served 31 years in prison, most of that time spent apart from each other - only being reunited recently at a prison in San Diego. MORE: Menendez brothers burst into tears during emotional prison reunion after decades apart ![]()
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