Menendez Brothers’ Fate, Dark Past of Baby Emmanuel's Dad, Adelson Trial Takes Shape, Entitled "AG" Arrested - "MK True Crime"

0:01The all-new Tropical Butterfly Refresher is now at Starbucks. Dive into juicy guapa and passion fruit flavors. With mango pineapple popping pearls bursting in every sip. Ice cold, instantly refreshing and impossible to put down. Made for summer, only at Starbucks. Hey Chicagoland! The Wayfair store is in your neighborhood at Eden's Plaza in Wilmette. Finally, you can feel the fabric, sit on the sectionals and even open the refrigerators. Plus, our in-store designers will help you bring it all together with free one-on-one design support for any project on any budget. Yep, we said free. Oh, and did we mention the cafe?

0:39So what are you waiting for? Come see all that's in store. Visit the Wayfair store today at Edens Plaza and Wilmette. Wayfair, every style, every home. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east.

1:02Hey, everyone. I'm Megan Kelly. And today I want to bring you an episode of our newest MK Media Podcast Network show, MK True Crime. You're going to love it. Check it out. Go ahead and subscribe on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Now, just type in MK True Crime in the search bar and you will find it and you will love it. Here you go.

1:28Welcome to MK True Crime. I'm Johnna Spilboer, your host today. I'm a criminal defense attorney and founding attorney of Johnna Spilboer Law. Here's what's on the docket. The Menendez Brothers parole hearing started on Thursday, the day of this taping, with Eric Menendez up before the parole board first. We will likely know his outcome by the time this show airs. Emmanuel Mulherro, a seven-month-old baby from California, has now been missing for over a week. We'll bring you the disturbing new revelations about his parents. Donna Adelson's trial gets underway for the murder of son-in-law Dan Markell.

2:08And Brian Kohlberger files a what? A sexual harassment claim in prison. And more. I am joined by a fabulous team, MK True Crime contributors Mark Garagos. He needs no introduction, but he is a criminal defense attorney. And Dave Ehrenberg, former state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, and managing partner at Dave Ehrenberg Law. We are going to kick things off with the Menendez brothers. And how lucky are we that we have Mark Garagos in studio today, the man, with a lot of inside information. Mark, will you tell us what's going on in there? Because you actually took a break from the hearing to join us today.

2:51So bring us up to speed. So the hearing is going on, started after a little bit of legal skirmishing this morning at around 8.30 Pacific. Shortly after 9, it started. And basically what a parole hearing looks like, this is tracking almost exactly. You've got a couple of parole commissioners, is what they call them. Eric is present remotely from San Diego, from the R.J. Donovan prison. Heidi Rummel, the one lawyer that we have doing the hearing, is there present, along with Habib Balian, who's the DA, present. Nathan Hockman apparently tried mightily to monitor this and was not allowed to do so.

3:41And there is an L.A. Times reporter that is squirreled away somewhere in the CDRC named James Quealy, who is covering this, but is embargoed until after the hearing. So this is not going to drop until after the hearing. I will tell you that what normally would happen is exactly what is happening, which is the commissioners go through and have a conversation with Eric. They are asking Eric about the crime. They are asking Eric about the sexual abuse. They're asking Eric about things that, questions, so to speak, that a lot of people in the public might have anyway about the crime. What did you do afterwards?

4:23Why did you have to do this? Why did you have to do that? They are not softball questions. It is, I think you can characterize it as a grilling. And what will end up happening is they will go all the way through the crime itself, which I can tell you as we're taping this, it appears that they have done. And then they will focus on what has happened in the prison since that time. And yesterday, we're taping this on the 21st, yesterday, August 20th, was 36 years to the day from the crime. 36 years, if you can believe it. And they have been in custody since then. And I will prognosticate that they will go through every, all the minutiae of that 30 some odd years that they've been in the prison.

5:10Because remember, they were in the LA County Jail. Not only were their two trials sandwiched between the OJ trial, and that's always been my argument, that the second trial started eight days after OJ's acquittal. And so that's why you saw the judge do all the things that he, shenanigans that he did. But remember, while they were waiting during those two trials, they were in the LA County jail where OJ was. In fact, there's a lot of people who tell the story that Leslie Abramson was responsible for Johnny Cochran representing OJ. And Leslie, of course, was the lawyer for Eric Menendez, both in trials one and two.

5:54We will have, by the time this drops, a decision, because at the end of the hearing, when they finished asking all the questions, the victims will all weigh in. This is one of those incredibly unicorn-like situations where all of the relatives of the defendant are also the victims, and they are uniformly asking that they be released. The two, you'll get closing statements, and then they'll retire. The two commissioners will actually deliberate and announce their decision today. That's incredible. Can we read the tea leaves? Because I think there is a, there's a buzz, and correct me if I'm wrong.

6:36I think the buzz is on the side of the brothers. Is that correct? Has anything changed? And did you, are you a fly on the wall in there or did you get to prepare them? Tell us what you're feeling. Look, my feeling is if anybody ever deserved to be paroled, it would be these two. I have been down to R.J. Donovan. I have seen the hospice program. I've told people, I watched Lyle graduate in the first class that was UC, University of California, Irvine, in conjunction with the Department of Corrections for a graduate degree, Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. I watched that class of 22, and I watched the valedictorian, who was not Lyle, but a kid, a young kid who was there as a third grader, illegal alien, as you want to be called, give that, basically grew up in prison.

7:32And I've watched and interacted with these people. I've seen the murals. I've seen Lyle's Green Space Project. You watch the hospice program, which is very much moving. You know, here in California, we were on the vanguard in the 90s of lock them all up. Well, one of the things about locking up all of this young population is they age. And by now, they are truly an aging elderly population in the prison. And Eric's hospice program deals with that. So yeah, they really did some pretty remarkable things behind bars. And they've had three decades to do that. I get it. But after today, the cases, once both hearings are done.

8:14The cases are going to land on Governor Newsom's desk, if I'm correct. And I think we have a SOT, if we could play SOT zero. He's giving a statement to a reporter in his pure GQ fashion. Let's take a look at that. We're just a few weeks away, August 21st and 2nd, I think, where the Pro Board is going to make a decision and make a recommendation that lands on my desk. Right. Mr. Murphy. That's heavy stuff. Heavy stuff. And you know what? Intentionally. And I remember that conversation with you. I remember going back and I kept having a temptation to want to see it. But with the recognition always in the back of my mind that this thing may land on my desk.

8:57I don't want to be persuaded. Right. By something that's not in the files. Yeah, I get that. Guys, I apologize. He was speaking to Ryan Murphy, who was the creator of the Netflix series Monsters, the Lyle and Eric Menendez story. But still, what do you think, Mark? You think he's going to rubber stamp this ago? Well, I've had my issues with Governor Newsom on parolees and getting favorable rulings and him reversing it in the past. I have about as good a feeling as one can have, having said that, that if they get the ruling they deserve, that he's not going to stay in the way. In fact, I would probably urge him, and this is a nuance maybe you guys can appreciate, We also have a live habeas.

9:50If they get parole, that habeas is still alive, so to speak. If he grants clemency, meaning he just says, that's it, you're not under state control anymore, that habeas arguably goes away. So it'll be very interesting to see what he does in the event that we get the ruling we think we deserve and that he says, I don't need to wait the 120 days. I'm convinced at this point because I think that's what will happen. Yeah, it doesn't sound like he's going to take a whole lot of time. Dave, you've been following the case, too. Do you think these guys have a good chance at, I don't know, what are they going to do for a living when they get sprung, if they get sprung?

10:35Oh, they'll make lots of money. First off, they've got a great lawyer, Mark Garagos, and I have a lot of respect for my friend, Mark. We just happen to be on different sides of this. I was just going to say, that is, by the way, that's the, I'm about to bend you over, Mark, and kick you in the head. Oh, man, I remember when these guys were on trial and their lawyer dressed them in those sweaters to make themselves look so angelic. Meanwhile, they had such brutal, they committed such brutal murders that law enforcement at the time thought it was a mob hit. There was so much blood on the scene. They shot Kitty 10 times.

11:11They had to go outside and reload the shotgun because she was crawling away and they wanted to finish her off and then shot her in the head. And then they went on a shopping spree, a spending spree. You can see them on the back of Mark Jackson's NBA card. He's dribbling in the back. There they are in the front row seats of the Knicks. So I guess people grieve in different ways. Well, let me disabuse you, Dave, of a couple of things. First of all, the Mark Jackson card, I don't believe is them, although it does kind of look like them. I'll give you that. Number two, the grand jury here, twice rejected, and you know how hard that is, twice rejected the financial motive.

11:45And number three, I've always said about the why Kitty. Besides the fact that that shows that there's a whole lot of rage there, Eric has testified, by the way, and Lyle is the one who testified about going out to reload. Nobody would know that but for Lyle's testimony in trial number one. And number three, doesn't that, or number four, doesn't that speak to the amount of rage they had in, I think, corroborate Eric, who said he had found out that his mother was protecting his father all this time, which we now know from the resentencing earlier this year. She was also the enforcer of the hallway rule.

12:20And Dave, I don't know about you, but I know if somebody was saying, I'm down the hall with my sons, and the wife is saying, you can't go down the hall, and I'm enforcing that rule, that would be incredibly peculiar to me and be an earmark or a red flag for something is going on. Then you, you know, and I mentioned the habeas, then you layer over that, the Roy Rosello declaration from Menudo, who says, Jose raped me also and felt safe enough to do it in his house. I think when you look at all of that, and you've got the clear pronouncement in the law that resentencing is appropriate, which the judge found, even in spite of our elected DA kind of throwing a hissy fit.

13:07If there was ever anybody who should be out, it should be Eric and Lyle. Well, I was going to say that sounds like the arguments that are probably all within the habeas. Yes. Yeah. In the habeas, you've got that. And then you've got this other kind of tragic piece of evidence, which was Eric's letter to his cousin, Andy, who testified in the first trial. And it was eight months before the killings. And he talks about how disturbed he was by his dad coming in and making him do it again and how it's a hard thing for him to kind of keep or secret to keep and everything else. I think, and by the way, the DA threw all of the Dave, he wasn't as articulate as Ehrenberg, but apologies to Habib and to Seth, who were the deputies who filed it, but they threw all of that at Judge Ryan already once in response to the informal, twice in response to the formal request.

14:11And still, there's an order out there that we made a prima facie case. So they're worried. I mean, the DA's office is worried, and rightfully so, that the conviction is at risk. Oh, I think they're going to get out early. There's too much momentum. They've got great lawyers, meaning Mark Garagos and team. Also, it's nice to have Kim Kardashian and Netflix on your side. I mean, there's a lot of momentum here. And that's why they're going to make lots of money when they get out, which is another reason why I don't think they should. But here's the thing about the sex abuse. Yeah, there is some evidence, the Menudo letter, the cousin letter that maybe there was with Jose.

14:44Although keep in mind, the stories changed. Eric and Lyle weren't consistent that there was sex abuse. In fact, after the murders, Eric confessed to his therapist, the guy, and you know this, Mark, Jerome Oziel, that he had killed his parents out of a desire to be free from his controlling father and his father's high standards, but not because of abuse. So the stories changed over time. And so, and then it doesn't, to me, change the fact that they murdered Kitty, who maybe was an enabler. She was married to a guy who was cheating on her, who was a pretty bad husband and father. And she had her own issues and mental health issues, but did she deserve to be murdered in the way that she did?

15:27They were both apparently sitting on their couch with their backs turned watching TV, eating ice cream. So I think there are some crimes that should fulfill the destiny of life in prison. Life in prison means life in prison. And there are a lot of people in prison right now who were probably just as good, just as model of a prisoner who did a lot less. And they're not getting out. Well, actually, we put on it the resentencing. We put on X-Rated, who's one of my favorite names, if not witnesses. And X-rated testified that he went to Menendez University and turned his life around and spent a lot less time on a murder case and was released.

16:04And he was a very compelling witness, number one. And since that time, he's posted pictures of him with his children and the fact that the Menendez brothers were instrumental in him turning his life around. And by the way, just to respond to some of those things, you know, when people say, what about Kitty? You know what? My response is I've never had a case, actually one case, murder case, where the victim's family was fully in support of my client. Well, in this case, you not only have all of the victim's family in support, you've got Jose's older sister, Terry, and you've got Kitty's older sister, Joan, both of whom are hanging on with extreme health challenges because all they want in life is to have these boys out, the brothers out, I always call them the boys because like Dave, I was much younger when this went on.

16:56But the fact that the two sisters who are the ones who have the position and especially Kitty, Joan was, she was so much older than Kitty that she almost testified under oath that she had almost a maternal role in her life that if they're saying we want them out, they've made amends and I've forgiven them, then who are we? Whose interest are we vindicating at this point when we argue, no, keep them in, lock them up for life? And by the way, Judge Jessic, who gave them and resentenced them and gave them this opportunity back in May, he heard all of this stuff. He heard hours and hours of the DAs talking about this.

17:35And ironically, one of those DAs who will remain nameless because I consider him a friend and I don't want to slam him. He's now in the sex unit. And I told him, and I said on the record, and I probably shouldn't have, I would take his next defense case pro bono, because I want to be there to remind the jury that the DA's office is prosecuting cases where victims of sex crimes, stories change over time. And yet this DA's office is saying, if you don't testify perfectly when you're the victim, that you should be disregarded, which is a first cousin of Dave's argument. So I tend to be a lot more forgiving in these kinds of situations.

18:14And I think this is a unicorn and they should be out. And anybody else similarly situated, the fame cuts both ways, would have been out by now. I think the family support is going to be a huge factor for the parole board. I'm willing to bet five bucks they're getting out. And I'm not going to be offended by it. I'm kind of in your camp. But we're going to pivot now to what I think is going to amount to be a really horrible case, the case of missing baby Emanuel Harrow, who's now been missing for, what are we up to, over a week at this point? You guys might know, gosh, this poor kid, he's seven months old, right?

18:58Look at him. There's his picture. He just disappears. Apparently, according to the mother, she was changing his diaper in a parking lot because I guess that's what you do from time to time. Somebody approached her, said, hola, hit her over the head, knocks her out. When she comes to, her baby's gone. Let's hear it straight from her mouth for a minute. Let's run. I think it's SOT1. I got him out of the car seat and I laid him down and I could get his diapers ready. And somebody said, hola, and that's all I remember. And I saw why. And the hearing sound, I fell on the floor. And I said, as I got up, I couldn't find my son.

19:47I checked all around my truck and I ran into Big Five. And I asked the lady if she saw a baby or someone with the baby. She said no. It was a happy boy. He smiled. Mackenzie loved to kiss him.

20:06Dave, do you believe that? Are these crocodile tears, real tears? What do you think? I don't believe her. And I think her shiner under her eye gives it away. Because according to witnesses who have posted on social media, she showed up with that shiner before there was the incident that didn't apparently exist although maybe and also she was not with her child so this is someone who i think is acting and that's just my belief based on what i saw also it reminds me of susan smith she did the same thing pulled the same act and threw in the same casual racism where it was the black kids who stole her kids and then turned out she was the one who drove them into the body of water here.

20:51She puts in a little bit of the oil. So, you know, put that out there into the body public to poison the well. And so, no, I think the walls are closing in on her and her husband. And there is obviously not an indictment, not a charge yet. We are speculating, but the evidence doesn't look good. They have lawyered up apparently. and when people are trying to help them find their children, the father has told these individuals that they are trespassing. That's not how people would act if they were innocent. That's not how people would act if they really cared about the wellbeing of their children, especially one last point, when you have the father who has a past of beating up a toddler.

21:32Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. And interestingly, I also thought about the Susan Smith case and the Harmony Montgomery case when I was reading about this one. And the father, apparently he beat the crap out of one of his other children, so much so that that child got taken away from him. I don't know why the father's not in jail, number one, but you mentioned he was trying to shoo-shoo away bystanders who wanted to help look for the child. Can we roll side two?

22:19Hey, are you Jake? You guys are trespassing. That's fine. I just wanted to see if we could help you in any way. Talk to you about what happened. You guys are trespassing. Okay. That's not a problem. Thank you, Jake. Thank you. Appreciate it. I made some Pokemon myself. I collect as well. You're trespassing. All right, guys. he will refuse to talk. But there you go. You heard, Jake. He clams up and refuses to talk. But at least he opened the door.

22:50Mark, this guy pleaded guilty to willful child cruelty back in 2018. And now he doesn't want any help looking for his missing seven-month-old. What do you make of it? You know, a hat tip to Megan. Kelly, former lawyer and investigator extraordinaire, at her behest, I had somebody look at a file out here in California. And I will tell you, I won't step on any of it. I will tell you, if I represented him, I would not have had him answering the door. There are some rather, I can tell you right now, having looked at a civil file involving this gentleman, the police have already got enough probable cause, in my opinion, to take the next step.

23:48In addition to that, there was a restraining order against him recently that was denied, but some of the allegations connected to that are extremely disturbing. And if he is not good for this, if in fact the story is true, he's going to have every incentive in the world to want to find out who really did this. Because I'm going to tell you his history, and I know you're not supposed to normally look at all that, but his history is extremely troubling for something like this. Especially given what you cited. Actually, it was Dave. The black and blue mark, the missing, the story beforehand. If you take a look at this civil file, which my partner just did this morning, I think there's going to be some revelations that are going to have the people worked up into a feeding frenzy.

24:51So if you're this guy, you want your kid found and found immediately and somebody else to be the perpetrator. Yeah, I, you know, look, I'm a criminal defense attorney, too, but this story stinks. I don't believe it. I don't believe their affect. I don't believe their words. I don't believe anything about it. So I won't be surprised when somebody gets and probably both parents could get indicted in the not too distant future. But we're going to move on yet again because there's so much. This is an amazing docket we have going on today because next we have jury selection, which I think is going to wrap up very soon in the case against Donna Adelson in your neck of the woods, your neck of the woods, your neck of the woods, Dave.

25:39And you also have a pretty personal connection to this case because the victim in this case was Dan Markell was a friend of yours. Yeah, Danny was a great guy. When I was a state senator, I knew him in Tallahassee. He was a law professor. He also went to Harvard Law School. And instead of making the big money out there in the private world, he went and became a law professor in a smallish town because he cared deeply about students. And he was a prominent professor nationally. He got well known for his writings and he loved his children so much. And it was his love for his children that led to his demise, his targeted murder, because he refused in a child custody dispute with his ex-wife to give up custody to allow the kids to move from Tallahassee all the way down eight hours away to South Florida where the in-laws wanted the kids.

26:31They even bribed him, said, we'll give you a million dollars if you allow it. But he cared more about being with his children than the money. And then eventually the family, because the son, Charlie, is now in prison for it, the family had him killed. And now Donna's day of reckoning is upon us. It's upon us. And I don't know. It's not looking good for her either, especially since we know she tried to leave with a one-way ticket to Vietnam because she needed some R &R. Not exactly the place I think of if I want, you know, a spa day. And also, I have so many questions about this case, and I don't know if it'll come up in the trial.

27:09But why isn't Wendy Adelson charged with anything? The actual mother of these children who she wanted to abscond to Southern Florida. Next, Kohlberger and Adelson. If you have any questions or comments for us, you can now email mktruecrime at devilmakecaremedia.com. We would love to hear from you. Don't go away. We'll be right back. You've heard me talk about Jacked Up Fitness and their amazing all-in-one home gym. They know that many people are short on time and money but still want to get fit. Now you can start your fitness journey for under$60 and in just six minutes a day. Introducing the all-new Shake Weight by Jacked Up Fitness.

27:5315 years ago, the original Shake Weight shook the world. Now the fitness legend returns, bigger, better, and built to perform. Why now? because science has finally caught up with the importance of explosive power and fast twitch muscle training, something the shake weight delivers in a compact, powerful way for beginners, along with heavy lifters and serious athletes alike. Beginners could tone and tighten arms, shoulders, and chest, and athletes could sharpen reaction times and build explosive power for that competitive edge. The shake weight is no joke. It's serious training made simple. If you're looking for a fun way to jumpstart or supercharge your fitness routine, Get the all-news Shake Weight by Jacked Up Fitness at jackedupshakeweight.com.