Menendez Brothers: Cousin Says Lyle And Erik’s Claims Of Sexual Abuse By Their Father Are True


A cousin of the Menendez brothers has broken her silence about the family killings that shocked the nation in 1989. Diane Vander Molen, claims both Erik and Lyle Menendez were being sexually molested by their father inside the affluent family’s home in Beverly Hills.

Lyle and Erik Menendez were the focus of a revealing ABC special interview with cousin Diane Vander Molen on Thursday evening. The Menendez cousin said she was as spending the summer with the brothers when Lyle Menendez told her he was being sexually molested by his father, Jose.

“He became very serious about asking me if he could sleep in the other bed next to mine and saying that he was afraid to sleep in his own bed because his father and him had been touching each other down there, indicating that it was his genital area,” Vander Molen said.

The Menendez cousin was 17-years-old and Lyle Menendez was only eight when he levied the sexual child abuse claims against Jose Menendez. Diane Vander Molen to her aunt, Kitty Menendez about the conversation with her younger cousin.

“By her demeanor, I could tell that she was not believing any of this,” Vander Molen added.

“And [she] went downstairs, and Lyle had already gotten into the bed next to mine, and she went ahead and yanked him by the arm and took him back upstairs and I never heard anything else about that.”

The Menendez cousin went on to say Lyle Menendez seemed truly afraid the evening he told her his father was sexually molesting him. According to Vander Molen, the little boy was afraid to sleep in his own bed because he seemed to feel Jose Menendez could come back into his room that very evening.

Vander Molen said in hindsight she wishes she would have “been stronger” when responding to what her little cousin had told her about the sexual child abuse. At the time, she said she assumed Kitty Menendez had done something to deal with the situation.

“I could have done something to help them,” the Menendez cousin added.

“I know for 100 percent that there was [molestation taking place]. Their privacy was everything to them. They were completely different people when nobody was around. And then Jose and Kitty would turn on the charm when they had people over, which wasn’t very often.”

She decided to speak out now because prosecutors were able to convince the jury the sexual assault claims made by the Menendez brothers were not true, the Daily Mail reports. According to the Menendez cousin, both Lyle and Erik Menendez had an odd relationship with their mother.

“This was when Lyle was 15 and Erik would have been 12, and when Jose wasn’t supposed to be home that night, the two of them would argue over who got to sleep with their mom,” Vander Molen continued.

“I thought it was strange, because, I mean, they were already teenagers … but again, because it was Kitty, I never questioned it.”

Brian Andersen, a brother to Kitty Menendez, rebuked the claims made by the Menendez brothers and the cousin. Andersen staunchly maintained the very idea of his sister abusing her sons is “absolute insanity.”

Diane Vander Molen believes “very strongly” Lyle and Erik Menendez would never have murdered their parents unless they felt they had “no choice.”

It has been almost 30 years since the Menendez brothers walked into the den of the $5 million Beverly Hills mansion and shot Jose Menendez in the back of the head at point blank range. Kitty Menendez was shot in the leg as she attempted to flee the room.

Before the murders were over on August 20, 1989, Erik and Lyle Menendez shot their father five times and fired nine bullets into their mother. The final rounds were reportedly fired into the kneecaps of the victims in an attempt to make the killings look like a mob hit.

In March of the following year, Beverly Hills police investigators had gathered enough evidence to arrest the affluent teenagers. They were not convicted of killing their parents until 1994 – both were given life sentences. At trial, the Menendez brothers claimed they were driven to commit the slayings because of years of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse.

[Featured Image by AP Images/Nick Ut, File]

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