The Menendez brothers expected to inherit $90 million after they murdered their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in 1989. This is according to an account by one of the brothers’ friends, per Crime Library, but Lyle and Erik Menendez were surprised to learn that their inheritance would not be as high as suspected. Even so, they spent a large amount of their wealth on a shopping spree and other substantial purchases after the murder. But since their conviction in 1996, they have been sitting in prison. Here’s a breakdown of what happened to the Menendez brothers’ money.
What happened to the Menendez brothers’ money and wealth?
All of the Menendez brothers’ money has effectively been spent due to extravagant spending, attorney fees, and other expenditures.
It should also be mentioned that the California slayer statute prevents killers from inheriting wealth from their victims, which applies to beneficiaries to an estate or life insurance policy. While this doesn’t apply to justifiable homicides, both Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted for first-degree murder, meaning that the statute impacts them. However, it took more than several years before the brothers were convicted for their parents’ murder.
Days after the murder, the brothers discovered that they would each only stand to inherit $2 million after loans and taxes were subtracted from their assets. These included the Beverly Hills mansion estate, another 14-acre home in Calabasas, and over 300,000 shares Jose owned in LIVE Entertainment valued at $20 per share. They had expected that their father had hidden $75 million in a Swiss bank account, but that was never discovered or never existed in the first place. Still, they received $650,000 from Jose’s personal life insurance policy.
Within a week of their parents’ death, the brothers spent about $15,000 on Rolex watches and money clips, in addition to an undisclosed sum on jewelry, expensive clothing, and cars. The brothers then rented adjoining apartments in Marina del Ray, California at more than $2,000 a month. Lyle hired bodyguards and purchased a Porsche 911 Carrera for $64,000, while Erik traded his Ford Escort for a Jeep Wrangler.
Dreaming of owning a restaurant, Lyle also bought Chuck’s Spring Street Café for over $500,000, renaming it to Mr. Buffalo’s and wanting to open a second location for the franchise. However, his lack of business experience eventually led the venture to lose money. Meanwhile, Erik decided to become a professional tennis player, paying $60,000 a year for a coach and traveling extensively at expensive hotels.
By 1994, they nearly spent $10.8 million based on records uncovered by the LA Times. The amount was so great that “they would stand to inherit nothing” after taxes and unpaid debts. So while it’s unclear how much money they were able to inherit before their prison sentence — also, whether the California slayer statute applied retroactively in their case — very little of the brothers’ wealth remains today.
