\n<\/p>\n
As Ryan Murphy<\/strong>\u2019s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story<\/em><\/a> recalls in its controversial, true-crime-camp glory, the tale of Beverly Hills brothers Lyle<\/strong> and Erik<\/strong> brutally murdering their parents, Jos\u00e9 and Mary Louise \u201cKitty\u201d Menendez, in 1989 was an American horror story. It had all the elements to transfix a nation\u2014spoiled, attractive Beverly Hills brothers who made some seriously bone-headed decisions (one wrote a screenplay about a character who kills his parents; both spent up to a combined $700,000 in the aftermath of their parents\u2019 deaths) and allegations of sexual abuse in the country\u2019s most elite zip code. While those pulpy issues were at the forefront of the boys\u2019 1993 trial<\/a>, the court case also featured two witnesses whose behavior was perhaps just as confounding (though not criminal): Menendez therapist L. Jerome Oziel<\/strong> and his mistress, Judalon Smyth.<\/strong> Eventually, these two managed to temporarily steal the courtroom spotlight from Lyle and Erik. In fact, their testimony became such a circus sideshow that neither was invited back to testify during the brothers\u2019 second trial.<\/p>\n Dominick Dunne, who covered the trial for this magazine, credited Erik\u2019s lead defense counsel Leslie Abramson<\/strong> for taking \u201cwhat was virtually an open-and-shut case of premeditated murder in the first degree,\u201d complete with confession from the killers, and shapeshifting it before the public\u2019s very eyes. Oziel was the source of the case\u2019s smoking-gun evidence: tapes of the brothers\u2019 therapy sessions, during which they described plotting<\/a> their parents\u2019 murders (\u201cthe perfect crime,\u201d they called it, as Oziel remembered). Abramson fought for the tapes to be excluded from trial. When she lost that battle, she announced<\/a> that she would discredit the psychologist in \u201cevery way known to man and God.\u201d<\/p>\n During the trial, Abramson worked Oziel like a chew toy. She got him<\/a> to admit he hadn\u2019t told the Menendez family\u2014who hired him after the boys were caught burglarizing two homes\u2014that his license was on probation by the state board of psychology because of what it called an inappropriate \u201cdual relationship\u201d: exchanging therapy for construction work done at his house by a patient. Abramson asked<\/a> about a 1990 lawsuit Smyth filed against Oziel in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging that the psychologist assaulted, raped, kidnapped, and medicated her. When Abramson asked whether Oziel settled the case for $400,000 to $500,000, he replied that his insurance company did. (Oziel had also filed a countersuit, alleging that Smyth developed a \u201cbizarre fixation and obsession with him.\u201d)<\/p>\n