Erik Menendez was brought into a confined room at the Los Angeles County men’s jail, his hands and feet restrained and fastened to the table.

It was the spring of 1990 and for Dr Ann Wolbert Burgess, it was the very first time she had found herself sitting face-to-face with a killer.

She introduced herself as a professor and nurse specializing in trauma, abuse and behavioral psychology and then let silence fill the air.

Eventually, Erik broke the void by making polite conversation about her flight from Boston.

For the next two hours, the pair chatted about everything from his love of tennis to his travels and the differences between the East and West Coast.

The conversation didn’t touch on the night of August 20, 1989, when Erik and his brother Lyle entered the living room of their upscale Beverly Hills home and fatally shot their parents, Kitty and José Menendez, using 12-gauge shotguns.

That would all come later.

However, from the onset of their meeting, Dr. Burgess sensed that the situation was more intricate than just two wealthy young men seeking a substantial inheritance through violence.

“He didn’t come across as someone who had carried out such a gruesome act. He seemed quite ordinary and genuine,” Dr. Burgess remarked to the Daily Mail about her initial impression of Erik.

‘We talked about normal, everyday things, which is my usual style to make the person feel comfortable and get acclimated.’

With extensive experience spanning decades, Dr. Burgess had delved into the minds of infamous murderers like Ted Bundy and Edmund Kemper, revolutionized the FBI’s approach to profiling serial killers, worked with young offenders in New York’s correctional facilities, and conducted groundbreaking research on the trauma endured by victims of rape and sexual violence.

Facing this 18-year-old accused of murdering his parents, the real-life inspiration for the Netflix series ‘Mindhunter’ recognized that Erik didn’t possess the demeanor of a cold-blooded murderer.

‘He was different. He wasn’t aloof or defensive. He wasn’t proud of what he did or angry for being asked about it,’ she writes in her new book, ‘Expert Witness: The Weight of Our Testimony When Justice Hangs in the Balance’.

The book, co-authored by Steven Matthew Constantine and out September 2, gives a behind-the-scenes look into some of the most high-profile criminal cases in recent decades – delving into Dr Burgess’s role as an expert witness in the trials that have gripped the nation.

In it, Dr Burgess shares new details about her work on cases involving Bill Cosby, Larry Nassar, the Duke University Lacrosse team and the Menendez brothers.

It was 1990 when Dr Burgess was hired by the Menendez brothers’ defense attorney Leslie Abramson to interview Erik, then 18, and Lyle, then 21, about their allegations of sexual and emotional abuse at the hands of their father – and the role this might have played in their parents’ murders.

She spent more than 50 hours with Erik and testified about the abuse as an expert witness at the brothers’ first trial. It ended in a hung jury.

In the second trial, the judge banned the defense from presenting evidence about the alleged sexual abuse.

That time, jurors heard only the prosecution’s side of the story that the brothers murdered their parents in cold blood to get their hands on their fortune and then went on a lavish $700,000 spending spree.

Erik and Lyle were both found guilty on two counts of first-degree murder and were sentenced to two consecutive sentences of life with no possibility of parole.

But now, after spending more than three decades behind bars, the Menendez brothers are fighting for their freedom.

In May 2025, a judge resentenced the two brothers to 50 years to life in prison, making them eligible for parole under youth offender parole laws.

They each went before a California parole board in August – but were both denied release. 

‘I was and I wasn’t surprised,’ Dr Burgess told the Daily Mail following the decision. ‘I really hoped after 35 years they would be released.’

Dr Burgess believes the Menendez brothers should be freed and that they do not pose a danger to society.

From the moment she was approached by the brothers’ defense team 35 years ago, she said she knew ‘this case was something new’.

‘A double parricide case is very rare. You can have a single parricide case, where one child kills a parent, but to have two children kill both parents is considered rare. And that’s what this case was,’ she said.

‘Something was certainly going on. These were two, very well-to-do young men who did not need money. They had all the money, whatever they wanted. They were getting ready the week before the shootings to go back to college. 

‘One was going back to the East Coast to Princeton, and the other was going to start living in the dorm at UCLA. And so what happened in that week to create this shooting had to be not related to money.

‘It had to be related to something going on in the family, and so my job was to find out what that was.’ 

After their first meeting, Dr Burgess managed to get Erik to open up about the sexual abuse by having him draw his memories of what happened in the days leading up to the shootings.

In the book, she explains this technique is a way to gather information without the expert leading the interviewee and allow the individual to put things on paper that are too difficult to say out loud.

What followed was a series of drawings of stick figures and speech bubbles representing Erik, Lyle, José and Kitty.

Through the drawings, Erik recounted the story of his father telling him he had to live at home for college when he enrolled at UCLA that fall, shattering his plan to finally leave home and escape his abuse.

Another drawing showed Erik confiding in Lyle for the first time that their father was doing ‘sex things’ to him.

In another stick figure image, Erik depicted his father raping him on a bed and then threatening him for telling Lyle about the abuse.

After that, there were drawings showing a moment where Erik learned his mom had always known about the abuse and enabled his dad – and another where a terrified Erik and Lyle feared their parents might kill them on a remote fishing trip.

In the drawings, Erik depicted himself smaller and smaller in comparison to his father, something Dr Burgess found showed the difference in power.

The final sketches showed the two brothers shooting their parents dead: stick figures with messy red scribbles, depicting blood.

‘The drawings really illustrated his perspective, how he saw the confrontations he was having with his parents over that week before the murders,’ Dr Burgess told the Daily Mail.

‘And that is what developed into the fear that he and his brother were in danger.’

This formed the crux of the brothers’ imperfect self-defense strategy.

Lyle and Erik confessed to shooting their parents. But the defense argued they feared their parents would kill them after enduring years of abuse – and that this is what caused them to pull the trigger.

Based on this argument, Dr Burgess pushed for the charges to be reduced from murder to manslaughter.

But in the early 90s it was a huge battle to get people to understand that male-to-male sexual abuse takes place, particularly between fathers and sons, she said.

‘What people thought at that time was just “be a man, man up”. That was the general reaction. People did not believe that a father would do that,’ she said.

Public understanding was also split by gender; six female jurors voted for manslaughter while six male jurors voted for murder in the first trial.

Dr Burgess told the Daily Mail she believes attitudes toward sexual violence survivors have changed, at least in part, since then.

In her new book, she describes the criminal and civil trials of ‘America’s dad’ Cosby as a ‘tipping point’ where abusers in positions of power began to be held to account and victims were supported and empowered through the MeToo movement.

She believes this change has made the Menendez brothers’ path to freedom possible.

‘They were given life with no possibility of parole. So to have the case reappear 35 years later, I think that has a lot to do with the culture and the change in attitudes over time,’ she said.

‘The MeToo movement has helped to move things forward.’

Public support for the brothers has also grown in recent years after their case became the focus of new drama series and documentaries.

And the extended Menendez family overwhelmingly supports them, with several speaking at their parole hearings.

For now though, both Erik and Lyle have longer to wait before they might walk free from prison.

During separate hours-long parole hearings in August, parole commissioners denied their release saying the brothers had not been model inmates behind bars.

Despite their work in inmate-led groups and educational pursuits, both have been reprimanded for their use of cell phones inside prison.

They now have to wait another three years – potentially 18 months with good behavior – to get another chance at parole.

Speaking ahead of Erik’s parole hearing, Dr Burgess said she was ‘anxious to see if 35 years has made a difference in public and professional attitudes’.

Following the brothers’ hearings, she said the outcome ‘tells us a lot about the system’.

‘I think people were overly optimistic that something positive was going to happen,’ she said.

‘But after listening to the outcome, I found the reason they denied it interesting.’

Dr Burgess pointed out: ‘It was the rule infractions in prison. They didn’t hark on the nature of the crime.’

Based on this, she is hopeful that if the brothers keep a clean record they could be freed when parole comes around again.

‘I would certainty hope it comes through next time,’ she said.

‘If they don’t do any rule breaking over the next three years, what is the parole board going to base a denial on? To some degree, they’re stuck with that reason which is good for the brothers.’

Erik and Lyle are also pursuing two other roads to freedom: calling on Governor Gavin Newsom to grant them clemency and asking for a new trial based on new evidence supporting their allegations of abuse.

Dr Burgess told the Daily Mail she never thought she would see the day when the Menendez brothers might walk free from prison.

‘I think it is attainable… Three years doesn’t seem so long when it’s been 35 years.’