The Menendez Brothers: the Tragedy of Trauma

When I sat down to watch the documentary on the Menendez Brothers, I knew only the basic facts: two brothers shot their parents. My first thought was: children don’t kill their parents for no reason. Children are wired to love their parents unconditionally, even in abusive situations, still craving their love. For a child to kill, the situation must have been horrific.

For those familiar with the case, the extent of the abuse is heartbreaking. Watching the boys testify in court, describing the sexual abuse that began at age six and the emotional torment that likely started at birth, brought me to tears. The earliest recorded incident is Erik being tormented by his father at just two years old.

What’s tragic isn't just what happened to this family, but how the boys were treated by the media and the public—Oprah included. In the 90s, attitudes toward abuse were less evolved, but ignorance persists today. Do people truly grasp the impact of abuse and how it manifests?

One of the key debates in the trial was whether the boys genuinely believed they were in danger of being killed when they committed the murders. While the courts must operate within the law and prove this fear, the brothers testified that events had escalated. Lyle confronted his father about a decision that would keep Erik at home, and afterward, both feared for their lives. That’s when they decided to act.

It’s true that they purchased guns beforehand, suggesting some premeditation. But many Americans own guns for protection. If these boys had been repeatedly told that their father would kill them if they revealed his abuse, could their rifles not have felt like protection? Still, my focus is on trauma.

Children raised in abusive homes don’t think or behave like children from loving environments. Trauma isn’t always one catastrophic event; it can be the slow, relentless exposure to situations that make a child feel unsafe, whether physically or psychologically. For children to feel safe, they need to trust their caregivers. In this case, both parents proved untrustworthy—through the father’s actions and the mother’s inaction. A witness even recounted how the father once deliberately let one of his sons fall to teach him not to trust anyone.

As children, our parents are our teachers and mirrors. When they tell us not to trust, we absorb it as truth. Even as we grow older, the ‘facts’ instilled in childhood become hardwired. And if domineering parents prevent exposure to other adult viewpoints, a child knows no different. A healthy parent mirrors back to the child, helping them develop a strong sense of self. That didn’t happen here. The boys had low self-esteem and no real sense of self. Their identity only existed in relation to their parents. After the murders, Lyle confessed to feeling ‘lost,’ as he had always defined himself through his father’s eyes.

In a healthy home, individuation—when a child begins to form their own thoughts and identity—happens naturally during adolescence. A loving parent encourages this. But in the Menendez home, individuation was forbidden. The boys were extensions of their father, and they could only function based on his desires. So, when their father threatened to kill them, it would have been easy to believe, given their enmeshed relationship.

The father’s lesson was clear: "Don’t trust me." And the constant terror they experienced would have rewired their brain chemistry. Their amygdala likely became hyper-reactive, accustomed to living in fear. Even if their father wasn’t actively abusing them, they never knew when the next episode would occur, so they lived in a constant state of high alert. Will it be tonight? Tomorrow? This unpredictability, combined with verbal and physical abuse, would have heightened their physiological reactions to any perceived threat.

I wasn’t sexually abused, nor did I face such terror, but I feared my mother’s anger as a child. Her unpredictable rage created a constant feeling of danger. Did I ever think she would kill me? No. But her anger felt annihilating, and for a child, the fear of abandonment is akin to death.

So, could the Menendez brothers have feared for their lives? Absolutely. I was terrified of confronting my mother, and I imagine Lyle felt even more fear after confronting his father. The terror of standing up to a parent who threatens you must have been overwhelming. When Lyle described the confrontation, I felt a visceral connection to that childhood fear.

What struck me was how the brothers—especially Lyle—continued to protect their father, even to the detriment of their case. They didn’t want to ruin his reputation, despite the horrific abuse. At one point, one of them expressed a desire to still make their father proud. This is a clear sign of trauma bonding, where the victim’s thoughts are consumed by their abuser, not their own well-being. Even after enduring years of abuse, they prioritized their father’s reputation.

The question, “Why didn’t they just leave?” is often asked in these cases, as it is with abused wives. But it’s impossible to understand the mindset of someone so conditioned by trauma. Learned helplessness is real. Like caged animals who don’t leave even when the door is open, the Menendez brothers were trapped by their conditioned minds.

Their trauma began at birth and lasted for decades. Leaving wasn’t an option in their minds. In environments of fear, it’s easy to believe that no matter how far you run, you’ll never be safe. The brothers had tried to reach out for help, but when no one could rescue them, their sense of helplessness and fear only grew.

Their hypervigilance likely convinced them that their lives were in constant danger, leading them to act. It sickens me that even today, people continue to blame children in these situations. “Those poor parents,” you often hear, forgetting that the parents created this tragedy. While children must eventually take responsibility for healing, these boys had just entered adulthood and were still trapped in the dependency their trauma had fostered. Their emotional maturity and executive functioning were stunted by years of abuse.

Given the level of trauma behind this crime, I strongly believe they have served their time. I wonder how those who judge them would cope under the same conditions. While homicide is never justifiable, their case deserves to be reevaluated through the lens of trauma, especially considering how much evidence and key witnesses were excluded in the second trial. Trauma knows no boundaries of class or wealth, and it must be considered if justice is to be served for the Menendez brothers.

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This revision makes the narrative tighter and clarifies some of the more complex thoughts while maintaining the overall structure and message. Let me know if you'd like to adjust anything!