Jose Menendez’s backstory and his career before the killings explained

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Jose Menendez’s backstory and his career before the killings explained

Warning: Contains discussion of physical and sexual abuse

The Netflix documentary The Mendez brothers Centers around the gruesome murders of Jose and Kitty Mendez in Beverly Hills in 1989, a shocking event in which their two sons, 18-year-old Eric and 21-year-old Lyle, took a shotgun to their parents apparently to secure the $20 million inheritance Jose had threatened to deny them. The brothers then went to the movies and a music festival, before returning home to alert the police and tearfully claim that Jose, 45, and Kitty, 47, were the victims of a mafia hit.

Their confession led to a trial, in which the Mendez brothers introduced an alternative motive: The years of sexual, physical and mental abuse they claimed to have suffered at the hands of Jose Mendez. They insisted that when Lyle confronted his father about the abuse and warned him that he would go public with it, Jose threatened both boys’ lives to the extent that they felt their only recourse was to take his. Menendez, Sr. Was a wealthy, highly regarded businessman and entrepreneur, which is allegedly the status he was trying to protect.

Jose Menendez’s upbringing in Havana, Cuba explained

Menendez’s mother was an important influence

Menendez was born in Havana, Cuba in 1944. He has two sisters, Terry and Martha. His father was a well-known soccer player who retired and bought an accounting firm, and his mother was a nurse. It seems that Jose’s mother, according to Biography.comfostered his superiority complex: “His mother adored him and emphasized his masculinity and his male image.So much so that he became a bit of a bully,A friend once remarked.

After Castro’s Cuban Revolution in 1959, Jose, who had inherited his mother’s swimming genes, received an athletic scholarship to Southern Illinois University and moved to the US. It was there he met Kitty and, despite his family’s objections, they married in 1963. Ambitious and driven, Jose then relocated to New York City, where he enrolled in Queens College. where he obtained an accounting degree.

Jose Menendez moved to America and married Kitty in 1963

Menendez was a driven perfectionist


The Mendez brothers and their father

Once the couple settled down, they started their family – Lyle arrived in 1968 and Erik two years later. Now with a family to support, Jose set to work building his career – his first job was at Coopers & Lybrand, Before they were hunted by their client Lyon’s Container Service in Illinois, Where he went on to become company president. His behavior was observed and transmitted to the staff; “I get that from my father,“He supposedly once said,”They are here to serve me.”

He was immediately strict with his two sons. Eric showed promise as a young tennis player and would be pushed mercilessly by his father. One of his coaches said: “Eric has so much less self-confidence because everything he has is never good enough.“Later, Lille would complain, Per Today:”My father suffered from his perfectionism. It was sometimes difficult for Eric and me. It was hard on us.”

Jose Menendez worked at Hertz & RCA before his death in 1989

His successful career may have hidden a dark secret


Jose-Menendez-RCA

At the age of 35, Jose Menendez has advanced to the role of executive vice president of US. it. Operations for car rental company Hertz, a subsidiary of consumer electronics corporation RCA. Just one year later, RCA moved him to its record departmentwhere he became COO. It was at RCA that he made his name, expanding their Latin catalog and signing world-famous bands like Duran Duran and The Eurythmics. It also facilitated his family’s move to California, first to Los Angeles, but then to the ill-fated mansion in Beverly Hills where he and Kitty were killed.

When he was alive, Jose was seen as a driven and successful man. Erik and Lyle’s revelations of his alleged abuse in their trials were originally dismissed as fiction designed by their lawyers to reduce their charges to manslaughter. In the 25 years since his death, more disturbing claims have come to light about Jose MendezIncluding an allegation by Ray Rosello of the boy band Menudo, who said in 2023 that he was drugged and raped by Jose as a 14-year-old. in The Mendez brothers, The tearful testimony of the two boys about their father is viewed with a different lens.

Sources: Biography.com, Today

Lyle and Erik Menendez, imprisoned for murdering their parents, recount the crime and the dramatic trials in this documentary.

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