About the book: The Menendez Murders: The Shocking Untold Story of the Menendez Family and the Killings that Stunned the Nation (2018) is the latest definitive book on the Menendez case - and the primary source material for NBC’s Law and Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders.
A successful entertainment executive making $2 million a year. His former beauty queen wife. Their two sons on the fast track to success. But it was all a façade.
The Menendez saga has captivated the American public since 1989. The killing of José and Kitty Menendez on a quiet Sunday evening in Beverly Hills did not make the cover of People magazine until the arrest of their sons seven months later, and the case developed an intense cult following. When the first Menendez trial began in July 1993, the public was convinced that Lyle and Erik were a pair of greedy rich kids who had killed loving, devoted parents.
But the real story remained buried beneath years of dark secrets. Until now.
Journalist Robert Rand, who originally reported on the case for the Miami Herald and Playboy, has followed the Menendez murders from the beginning and has continued investigating and interviewing key sources for 28 years. Rand is the only reporter who covered the original investigation as well as both trials. With unparalleled access to the Menendez family and their history, including interviews with both brothers before and after their arrest, Rand has uncovered extraordinary details that certainly would have changed the fate of the brothers’ first-degree murder conviction and sentencing to life without parole.
In The Menendez Murders: The Shocking Untold Story of the Menedez Family and the Killings That Stunned the Nation, Rand shares these intimate, never-before-revealed findings, including a deeply disturbing history of child abuse and sexual molestation in the Menendez family going back generations, and the shocking admission O J Simpson made to one of the Menendez brothers when they were inmates at the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail.
About the author: Robert Rand is an Emmy and duPont-Columbia Award winning journalist who began covering the Menendez brothers’ case for the Miami Herald over 33 years ago - the day after the killing of José and Kitty Menendez on 20 August 1989. He is the only reporter who covered the investigation in the fall of 1989 and was in court daily for each six month long Menendez trial in 1993-94 and 1995-96. He provided analysis for Court TV, CNN, ABC News, and CBS News. Rand spent three days interviewing Erik and Lyle Menendez two months after the murders and five months before their March 1990 arrest. The Miami Herald published the first speculation that the investigation was focused on them in December 1989 in Rand’s story titled “Who Killed the Next U.S. Senator from Florida?” Rand’s cover story for People Magazine two weeks after the brothers were arrested, “A Beverly Hills Paradise Lost,“ was published 26 March 1990.
Robert Rand is Co-EP of a new documentary series ‘Menendez + Menudo Boys Betrayed’ that began streaming on Peacock 2 May 2023. New evidence Rand has developed could be the foundation for the Menendez brothers to reopen their case. A new habeas corpus petition asking the courts to review the Menendez Brothers’ case and vacate their 1996 convictions was filed a day after the docuseries premiered on 3 May 2023.
In March 1991, Playboy published Rand’s article “The Killing of José Menendez.” The 14,000-word story is the longest article ever published by Playboy. His second Playboy story on the Menendez case titled “Menendez Confidential” was published in July 1995. Rand’s print work includes stories contributed to The Guardian, People, Playboy, Stern, Grazia, and Tropic, the Sunday magazine of the Miami Herald. He covered the 1991 William Kennedy Smith rape trial for Paris Match.
Rand was awarded a Los Angeles Emmy Award in 2001 for two years of stories at KCOP in Los Angeles about an illegal immigrant who was wrongly convicted. The stories resulted in the overturning of a ten-year-old conviction and the release of the man from jail. Rand was nominated for several Emmy Awards for stories he produced as a member of the Special Assignment investigative reporting group at KCBS (CBS 2) in Los Angeles. He was a member of the I-Team at KYW (CBS 3) in Philadelphia that won a duPont-Columbia Silver Baton Award for a yearlong series about wealthy property tax dodgers.
In July 2016, Rand was hired by Wolf Entertainment as a consultant for the development of NBC’s eight hour limited series ‘Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders’ which aired in the fall of 2017. Rand has appeared as a featured interview in dozens of documentaries about the Menendez case, including ABC 20/20’s ‘Truth and Lies: The Menendez Brothers,’ and Dateline NBC’s ‘Unthinkable: The Menendez Murders,’which both aired in 2017. ABC 20/20 aired ‘Inside the New Menendez Brothers’ Supporters Movement’ in April 2021 (now streaming on Hulu). Rand still maintains contact with Erik and Lyle Menendez through phone calls and visits them regularly at R J Donovan prison near San Diego. March 2023 marked the 33 year anniversary since the Menendez brothers were incarcerated.
Robert Rand is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. He lives in Los Angeles.
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