On August 20, 1989, the Menendez brothers, Lyle and Erik, brutally murdered their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, at their mansion on North Elm Drive, Beverly Hills. Jose Menendez, a highly successful businessman, received a single shotgun bullet, fired at point-blank, to the back of his head and died instantly. Their mother, Kitty Menendez was shot multiple times at a relatively close range, to the point where Lyle ran out of bullets and reloaded only to continue shooting her as she was escaping the den in which they were supposedly watching television, until she collapsed onto the couch. Lyle called the police shortly after, pretending to be shocked, and informed them through drawn out sobs that someone killed their parents, in an attempt
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Their cousin recounts the night in which she first saw evidence that Lyle was suffering from sexual abuse at the age of eight years old, explaining, “He was scared to sleep in his own bed because he was afraid that his father was going to come in and molest him that night”(qtd. in Pearson). This is clear evidence that Jose Menendez had been abusing his oldest son Lyle from an early age, especially since Denise, a distant relative, revealed this information, which gives Lyle’s claim of molestation even more credibility. The same sort of fear Denise witnessed was also the fear that drove Lyle and his brother Erik to kill their parents, the sole reason why they thought of killing them in the first place, rather than to obtain their parents’ insurance or wealth. Denise herself, while testifying for the first time, claimed that “she has no doubt the brothers’ parents sexually abused them” and said, “I know that they would never, ever have done what they did unless they felt that they had no choice -- that it was either them or their parents”, an idea that she “[believes] “very strongly”(Pearson). The thought of the Menendez brothers killing their parents out of a fear that if they waited any longer …show more content…
In his theory of sexual development, Freud explains that there are five stages, the third being the Phallic Stage that deals with sexual identification (Oswalt). It is within this stage where “Freud thought that children turn their interest and love toward their parent of the opposite sex and begin to strongly resent the parent of the same sex”, a theory he “called […] the Oedipus Complex” derived from the Greek tragedy dealing with king Oedipus killing his father and marrying his mother (Oswalt). Freud’s idea of children experiencing the Oedipus Complex as part of their sexual development provides evidence that the brothers’ strong resentment of their father leading up to the action of killing him and their previous desire to “touch” their mother, years before they killed her hints that there were in fact flaws in the brothers’ development. This provides further evidence of sexual abuse, since it could have had a lasting impact on their sexual development, and if the abuse occurred at all during the Phallic stage, then it is possible that they experienced the Oedipus complex, a natural part of sexual development, to an unusually high degree. Ultimately, Freud believed “that the way parents dealt with children's basic sexual and
Their cousin recounts the night in which she first saw evidence that Lyle was suffering from sexual abuse at the age of eight years old, explaining, “He was scared to sleep in his own bed because he was afraid that his father was going to come in and molest him that night”(qtd. in Pearson). This is clear evidence that Jose Menendez had been abusing his oldest son Lyle from an early age, especially since Denise, a distant relative, revealed this information, which gives Lyle’s claim of molestation even more credibility. The same sort of fear Denise witnessed was also the fear that drove Lyle and his brother Erik to kill their parents, the sole reason why they thought of killing them in the first place, rather than to obtain their parents’ insurance or wealth. Denise herself, while testifying for the first time, claimed that “she has no doubt the brothers’ parents sexually abused them” and said, “I know that they would never, ever have done what they did unless they felt that they had no choice -- that it was either them or their parents”, an idea that she “[believes] “very strongly”(Pearson). The thought of the Menendez brothers killing their parents out of a fear that if they waited any longer …show more content…
In his theory of sexual development, Freud explains that there are five stages, the third being the Phallic Stage that deals with sexual identification (Oswalt). It is within this stage where “Freud thought that children turn their interest and love toward their parent of the opposite sex and begin to strongly resent the parent of the same sex”, a theory he “called […] the Oedipus Complex” derived from the Greek tragedy dealing with king Oedipus killing his father and marrying his mother (Oswalt). Freud’s idea of children experiencing the Oedipus Complex as part of their sexual development provides evidence that the brothers’ strong resentment of their father leading up to the action of killing him and their previous desire to “touch” their mother, years before they killed her hints that there were in fact flaws in the brothers’ development. This provides further evidence of sexual abuse, since it could have had a lasting impact on their sexual development, and if the abuse occurred at all during the Phallic stage, then it is possible that they experienced the Oedipus complex, a natural part of sexual development, to an unusually high degree. Ultimately, Freud believed “that the way parents dealt with children's basic sexual and