The story of Jose Menendez and his career before the deaths explained

Netflix documentary The Menéndez brothers revolves around the horrific murder of Jose and Kitty Menendez in Beverly Hills in 1989, a shocking event in which their two sons, 18-year-old Erik and 21-year-old Lyle, took a shotgun to his parents, apparently to secure the $20 million inheritance that José had threatened to deny them. The brothers then went to the cinema and a music festival, before returning home to alert the police and tearfully claim that José, 45, and Kitty, 47, had been victims of a mob hit.

His confession led to a trial in which the Menéndez brothers presented an alternative motive: the years of sexual, physical and mental abuse they alleged they suffered at the hands of Jose Menendez. They insisted that when Lyle confronted his father about the abuse and warned him he was going to go public, José threatened both boys’ lives to the point where they felt their only recourse was to take his. Menendez Sr. was a wealthy and highly regarded businessman and businessman, a status he was allegedly trying to protect.

José Menendez’s Education in Havana, Cuba Explained

Menéndez’s mother was an important influence

Menendez was born in Havana, Cuba in 1944. He had two sisters, Terry and Marta. His father was a well-known football player who retired and bought an accounting firm and his mother was a swimming star. It seems that José’s mother, according to Biography.comfostered his superiority complex: “His mother adored him and emphasized his machismo and masculine image.so much so that he became a bit of a bully,“, a neighbor once commented.

After Castro’s Cuban Revolution in 1959, José, who inherited his mother’s swimming genes, obtained an athletics scholarship to Southern Illinois University and moved to the US. It was there that he met Kitty and, despite his family’s objections, they married in 1963. Ambitious and motivated, José then moved to New York City, where he enrolled at Queens College. where he graduated in accounting.

Jose Menendez moved to America and married Kitty in 1963

Menéndez was a driven perfectionist

Once the couple settled down, they started a family – Lyle arrived in 1968 and Erik two years later. Now with a family to support, José began working on building his career – his first job was at Coopers & Lybrand, before being poached by their client Lyon’s Container Service in Illinois, where he became president of the company. His behavior was considered superior and authoritarian towards employees; “I inherited this from my father,“he supposedly once said,”They are here to serve me.”

He was equally strict with his two sons. Erik showed promise as a young tennis player and would be pushed mercilessly by his father. One of his coaches said: “Erik had much less self-confidence because everything he did was never good enough.“Later, Lyle would complain, for Today: “My father suffered from being a perfectionist. Sometimes it was difficult for Erik and me. It wore us down a lot.”

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

Your successful career may have hidden a dark secret

At age 35, Jose Menendez advanced to the role of executive vice president of U.S. operations for the rental car company Hertz, a subsidiary of consumer electronics company RCA. Just a year later, RCA transferred him to its records divisionwhere he became COO. It was at RCA that he stood out, expanding his Latin catalog and signing world-renowned bands such as Duran Duran and The Eurythmics. It also facilitated his family’s move to California, first to Los Angeles but then to the ill-fated Beverly Hills mansion where he and Kitty were killed.

When he was alive, José was seen as a motivated and successful man. Erik and Lyle’s revelations about their alleged abuse at their trials were originally dismissed as fiction concocted by their lawyers to reduce their charges to manslaughter. In the 25 years since his death, more disturbing allegations have emerged about José Menendez.including an accusation from Ray Rosello, from the boy band Menudo, who said in 2023 that he was drugged and raped by José at the age of 14. In The Menéndez brothers, the two boys’ tearful testimony about their father is seen through a different lens.

Sources: Biography.com, Today