From a distance, Kitty Menendez was a beautiful wife and loving mother to her two children, Lyle and Erik. But a much darker picture was developing – the marriage was increasingly coming apart at the seams and she turned to alcohol and drugs. Consequently, Kitty died early and one of the most brutal crimes was committed in recent years.
The Menendez brothers murdered their parents on the night of August 20, 1989, in the family’s home in California. These shootings led to a very public investigation and some trials to expose some very dirty little secrets within the family.
Now, Lyle and Erik’s deadly deeds are the subject of the new Netflix limited series Monsters: Lyle & Erik Menendez : The True Story. The first season set during the year 2022 is created around Jeffrey Dahmer; Kitty, the family matriarch is played Chloë Sevigny; two brothers are portrayed by Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch; the father, José Menendez, is played by Javier Bardem. All nine episodes of Monsters are out.
Far more has been written about Lyle, Erik, and José than any other figure of that era, but who was Kitty? Here is what you have to understand about her place in the Menendez family and how she played into the brothers’ shocking act.
Kitty was born on Mary Louise Andersen in the year, 1941 by parents Charles and Mae Andersen. The entire upbringing of the young girl was in Oak Lawn, Illinois, a sub urban area of Chicago and she was fourth in a family of four children. Her upbringing however was not as quite rosy as all that. Charles who owned a heating and air conditioning business use to abuse Mae and their children. Due to this, the couple decided to divorce when Kitty was still a child and she\ He consequently sank into depression. She did not have friends and clearly held grudges against her father for years.
Nevertheless these terrible conditions did not prevent Mary Louise, who was also called Kitty from the time she grew up, to dream. Her dream was to be an actor and she joined Southern Illinois University with an intention of taking communications. “I never wanted to bring her home because I was embarrassed to introduce her to the other kids as my sister,” her brother Brian Andersen said to ABC’s 20/20. In 1962, Kitty claimed the Miss Oak Lawn beauty contest. By this time, her pretty face attracted a young Cuban immigrant who was named José Menendez.
Kitty married Jose Menendez in 1963
The Los Angeles Times has also reported that Kitty was still in college studying when she came to know Menendez, a scholarship swimming athlete at the Southern Illinois University. Kitty who was two years younger of them was instantly attracted to José, he had come to America at the age of 16 because of Fidel Castro’s regime. The sheer accident, her former roommate Jo McCord described, “All of a sudden, she was hit by a bulldozer.
Other friends mentioned she was glamour packed girl, however she was rather elusive about her past and was commonly referred as rebel at that time. Despite the parents’ concerns, they thought José was too young to get married, they exchanged vows in 1963 and got married. They later moved again to New York City whereby Jose switched to Queens College.
Kitty to begin with was a school teacher. But when, in January 1968, Lyle was born, and then Erik in November 197o, José convinced Kitty to drop out and be a full-time housewife. They later moved in a new house near Princeton, New Jersey where the brothers were enrolled in the private Princeton Day School.
Cited her brother, Kitty used to pamper Lyle and Erik while jose, a business executive, was busy with his business and often traveled. “I would tell Kitty, ‘You know, there’s gotta be some discipline in their life somewhere,’” Brian Andersen said. “And, of course, she would come right back, ‘Brian, don’t tell me how to raise my boys.’”
José’s marital infidelity devastated Kitty
José moved the family to Calabasas, a city in the Californian metropolitan area of Los Angeles in 1986 then to Beverly Hills. Kitty had a great deal of difficulty accepting the idea—while even if in her heart she longed to stay in New Jersey, she did all she could for her husband. typing: “They used to say about Kitty that she was José with a wig,” an anonymous business associate of José told Vanity in 19990. “She was always right there with him; she was part of him when it came to his leadership, for the support of his fight, whichever fight it was.”
But in the background, Kitty became frustrated more than José had been unfaithful. In an article published in the Times the former psychologist testified on October 1993 explaining that because of the infidelity between José and a woman in New York who been involved in an eight year affair María became drug and alcohol dependent and became suicidal. Karen Lamm, another woman known to be Kitt Spicer’s friend, though she was an actor and model who worked for a time as Kitt Spicer’s standalone double, confirmed this, explaining to Vanity Fair that Kitt Spicer tried the suicide thrice because of her husband’s unfaithfulness.
It can still be seen that the relationship between Ronald and Rafferty was a problem in the family; but the killings of José and Kitty, and later the trials of Lyle and Erik would uncover further abuse accusations.
Lyle claimed Kitty abused the brothers
Lyle and Erik both were apprehended for the murder of both parents in March 1990 and eventually charged with two counts of first degree murder in December 1992. At their individual trials, they claimed to have killed their parents in acts of defense after being abused sexually for years by José and, to some extent, Kitty.
Lyle testified on September 13, 1993, that starting when he was about eleven years old and continuing until he was thirteen years old, Kitty invited him to her bed and fondled him. He also testified that she would often come to him half or fully nekked inside the house.
The elder brother also alleged that there was physical and psychological harm that was instigated by Kitty who kicked him to tackled him and dragged him to his room using hair. He said she would make him suffer by throwing some of his valuables like stuffed animals out of the window.
Each of the trials that were held before the brothers was ended by a hung jury. When the two were tried together in 1995, a judge promptly dismissed the defense that José had abused her as they stated was the reason for shooting him in self defense. The jury was eventually able to convict Lyle and Erik on 21 March 1996.
While there was no evidence that Kitty physically abused her, a cousin of Erik and Lyle said that in 1976, then 8 year old Lyle told her that José molested him. Diane Vander Molen said in the interview with ABC News that she discussed the admission with Kitty. “It was there, by her body language that I noted that she was not accepting what was being told to her,” Vander Molen said. I never heard anything else about that, but anyway, “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.
Sevigny wanted to “bring dignity” to Kitty
Kitty and José Menendez were buried on August 25, 1989; their memorial service was conducted in Los Angeles. She is buried at Princeton Cemetery situated in New Jersey together with her husband.
Kitty’s story has been told in multiple dramatic adaptations about the murders, most notably portrayed by Beverly D’Angelo in the 1994 TV movie Menendez: Beverly Hills implicated in A Killing in Beverly Hills while Courtney Love featured in 2017’s Menendez: Blood Brothers.
Regarding Monsters, Sevigny has explained how the series deals with the dynamics of the marriage of Kitty to José, and the cycle of violence, which had been over her head. “I do want to bring dignity to her even in terms of her faults and try to figure out how she felt about things that she complains about during the show,” Sevigny said in her interview with Harper’s Bazaar in March of twenty-four. “[She’s talking about] the children taking away the love of her life, and stripping her of her body, her career, her ambition. A lot of women can find that so difficult once they become mothers and I chat to many of them.
