How much does doctor-patient confidentiality matter in a murder trial? The answer can be complicated.
Ryan Murphy’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, streaming Sept. 19 on Netflix, tackles this question in a dramatization of the real-life saga of brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were convicted in 1996 for the Aug. 20, 1989, murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills mansion.
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The question at the center of the murders was not whether the Menendez brothers had shot their parents, but why they shot their parents. Prosecutors argued that the men wanted to get their inheritance, pointing to their lavish spending in the months after their arrest. The defense argued that the men had an abusive father and acted in self-defense. Americans followed along via Court TV, which was just two years old but helped popularize true crime as a genre by broadcasting the trial.
The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story begins with the funeral service for Jose and Kitty, before jumping forward a couple months, when police are still investigating the murders. Lyle (Nicholas Chavez) and Erik (Cooper Koch) are living in the same Beverly Hills home, and Erik is shown growing increasingly anxious about their circumstances. He calls his therapist Jerome Oziel (Dallas Roberts) and asks if he can come see him. Erik reveals that he’s been haunted by nightmares and has felt suicidal. They take a walk and eventually, Erik begins sobbing, and confesses that he and his brother shot their parents. Oziel ushers Erik back to his office, where Erik shares everything that led up to him and Lyle killing their parents. In flashbacks, we see how Jose had been a domineering and abusive father—screaming at Erik on the tennis court, throwing plates while in a drunken rage—while Kitty stepped in only to aid the abuse. After witnessing one particularly bad incident, in which Kitty got so angry with Lyle she ripped his hair replacements out of his scalp, Erik tells Oziel he felt motivated to protect his brother above anything else. The idea to actually kill his parents, he says, came from a movie.
As Erik becomes more worked up, an alarmed Oziel calls Lyle in, and Lyle threatens to kill Oziel. Oziel repeatedly reassures the duo that their conversations will remain confidential.
What happened with Erik’s confession to the therapist?
In reality, the conversation became key evidence in the case of the Menendez brothers. Five months after Lyle and Erik spoke with Oziel in his office, the therapist’s mistress, Judalon Smyth, tipped off police to Erik’s confession.
In the show, Oziel runs out of the therapy session to a pay phone and begs Smyth (Leslie Grossman) to come in so he can have a witness when Lyle arrives. She’s seen in his waiting room, and then has her ear pressed up against Oziel’s office door as Erik confesses to the murder. In the second episode, Oziel explains to Smyth that he will put Erik’s confession in a safety deposit box and give her the key. Smyth says Oziel has to go to the police because the boys threatened his life, and starts having a panic attack because she’s afraid the boys will come after her too.
Smyth, in real life, eventually went to the police in March 1990, after she and Oziel had broken up, and reported that she had overheard the brothers confessing to the murders to the therapist.
On Aug. 7, 1990, a California judge ruled that conversations between the therapist and the Menendez brothers, Erik, 19, Lyle, 22, could be used as evidence in their murder case because the brothers were believed to have threatened the therapist. The threat, the judge said, constituted an exception to the court rule that conversations between therapists and patients are privileged. Authorities seized tapes of counseling sessions as part of a warrant to search Oziel’s home. For the next two years, there was a legal battle over the tapes, but a 1992 California Supreme Court ruling deemed most of them admissible.
In 1993, Smyth created another element of drama in the case when she walked back her account, claiming she had been brainwashed and ended up testifying for the defense, determined to do whatever she could to discredit Oziel.
In 1996, the Menendez brothers were convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder and are serving life sentences in prison.
Where is Jerome Oziel now?
Jerome Oziel has not had a license to practice psychology since 1997.
The California Board of Psychology maintained that he improperly shared information about the Menendez brothers’ case with Smyth, and Oziel surrendered his license rather than challenge it in court.
The board also accused him of sexual misconduct with female patients, which Oziel denied. He went on to host seminars to help women have more fulfilling personal relationships.
Ryan Murphy’s Monsters is not the first dramatization of Oziel on the small screen. He was depicted in the 2017 show Law & Order True Crime and called the portrayal of him “entirely fiction,” in an interview with Bustle, dismissing the show as a “junk soap opera.”
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