'Real reason' Menendez brothers went on $700 shopping spree after murdering their parents

They have hit the headlines after the life story has spurned a Netflix documentary , and now the real reason the Menendez brothers went on a $700 shopping spree after murdering their parents has been revealed.

Erik and Lyle Menendez were sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1989 murder of their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez - Jose's.

The notorious siblings, who claimed they did not kill their wealthy parents just for money, splashed out on luxury items in the weeks after their deaths.

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Just days after their brutal shotgun murders on August 20, 1989, the murdered couple's sons went on a spree and spent $15,000 on three Rolex watches, a shopkeeper testified during their first trial. This paved the way for much more big spending as Lyle went on to buy a $64,000 Porsche and Erik went for a brand new Jeep.

Later that year, Lyle put a $300,000 deposit on a $500,000 restaurant in Princeton, N.J., where he’d gone to college at Princeton University.

Now Erik has opened up about the motivation behind the shopping spree - and how it was to cover up the emotional hurt he was experiencing.

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He said in the Netflix documentary: "The idea that I was having a good time is absurd. Everything was to cover up the horrible pain of not wanting to be alive."

Lyle, now 56, echoed his brother in the Netflix documentary. He said: "I was not enjoying myself as a playboy, I was actually sobbing a lot at night, sleeping poorly, very distraught at times and kind of adrift throughout this, all those months."

During their first trial in 1993, which ended with a deadlocked jury, the brothers testified that they didn’t kill their parents for the money but rather because of years of alleged sexual abuse by their father, which they claim their mother ignored.

Meanwhile an ex-mob boss, who met the Menendez brothers in prison, said they the notorious duo 'deserve a break.'

Erik and Lyle Menendez were sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1989 murder of their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez - Jose. Their estate was estimated to be worth around $14.5m at the time of their death.

Famed mobster-turned-mentor Michael Franzese spent 11 months in solitary confinement with Lyle Menendez in a Los Angeles County federal correctional institution. Michael told Fox News: "They were definitely abused. I mean, they told me things about their dad, and more disappointment with their mom because she didn't step in and help, and she was ruled by the dad."

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