What they did, around 10 p.m. on August 20, 1989, was shoot their parents to death at the family's Beverly Hills mansion on Elm Drive, a 9,000-square-foot Mediterranean-style home that had previously been rented by people like Prince and Elton John before José Menendez and Maria Luisa “Kitty” Menendez I bought it less than a year before the murders.
Jose, a 45-year-old entertainment executive, was shot at point-blank range in the back of the head with a 12-gauge shotgun. He was found in the den, where he and Kitty, 47, his wife of 26 years, had been watching a movie. Kitty was found lying in a pool of blood in the hallway, shot in the arms, chest and face. Both were also shot in the kneecap.
The brothers got into the car and dumped the guns somewhere on Mulholland Drive, then dumped the spent shotgun shells and their bloody clothes in a dumpster at a gas station. They bought movie tickets in Century City for a film they didn't see, then drove to Santa Monica, where they tried to find one of Lyle's friends who could serve as an alibi; unable to find the guy, they drove back home.
At 11:47 p.m., 21-year-old Lyle called 911, sobbing to the operator: “Someone killed my parents!”