American murderer Erik Menendez was BOTD in 1970. Born in Gloucester Township, New Jersey, he was the youngest son of José and Kitty Menendez, a successful middle-class couple. Erik and his elder brother Kyle attended private schools and showed promise as athletes, but were dominated by their father, who insisted on their achieving success and was verbally and physically abusive. In 1986, the brothers were convicted of multiple burglaries, after stealing US$100,000 in cash and jewellery. José moved the family to Los Angeles, California, settling in an expensive suburb in Beverley Hills, where the brothers attended high school, competing in swimming and tennis competitions. In 1988, Kyle was suspended from Princeton University for plagiarism, while Kyle was convicted of a further string of burglaries. Erik also co-wrote a screenplay with his high school friend Craig Cignarelli about a young man who kills his wealthy parents. In 1989, Kyle and Eric, then aged 21 and 18, murdered their parents with shotguns, staging alibis and leading police to believe the killings were a mob hit connected to José’s business. In the months after the killings, the brothers went on spending sprees, buying expensive cars and jewellery, moving to Marina del Ray and holidaying in Europe. Erik later told his therapist Jerome Oziel that he and Kyle had murdered their parents. Oziel made a secret recording of Erik and Kyle confessing to the murders, and passed it to police, leading to their arrest for first-degree murder. Legal arguments over the admissibility of Oziel’s tapes delayed their trial until 1993, by which time their case had become a national media sensation. Daily coverage of the court proceedings was broadcast on television, vaulting the brothers to a uniquely American form of celebrity. Both admitted to the killings but argued self-defence, claiming that José had sexually molested them since early childhood. After juries were unable to reach a verdict, they were retried in 1996, both found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. In 1999, Erik married his long-term pen pal Tammi Ruth Saccoman, after a series of chaste prison visits. Saccoman published a memoir They Said We’d Never Make It — My Life with Erik Menendez in 2005, describing their marriage and Erik’s relationship with her daughter. In 2023, Lyle and Erik petitioned for a new trial, based on the evidence of family friends who supposedly confirmed José’s abuse. In 2024, ahead of the decision about their retrial, their stories were dramatised in Ryan Murphy‘s Netflix series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, portraying José as a vicious pedophile and Erik as a closeted gay man, and insinuating that the brothers were in an incestuous relationship. In 2025, their petitions for a retrial were denied. They continue to campaign for parole, vigorously insisting on their heterosexuality.