AMERICAN HORROR STORY

See Inside LA’s Hottest Draw: Menendez Brothers’ Beverly Hills Murder Scene

As tourists flock to the infamous crime scene, take a look inside the $17 million mansion where Lyle and Erik Menendez murdered their parents with 12-gauge shotguns.

BEVERLY HILLS—On face value, the empty Mediterranean villa on this quiet, leafy street is an unlikely destination for tour vans and true crime-obsessed looky loos.

But 722 North Elm Drive is a notorious address: once home to Prince and Elton John and a Saudi prince, this is the multi-million dollar mansion where Lyle and Erik Menendez killed their parents with a flurry of shotgun blasts on a summer night in August 1989.

Just over the neatly trimmed hedge and behind a row of elegant front windows, the brothers slaughtered José and Kitty Menendez in the family’s cozy family room.

Lyle, 21, and Erik, 18, shot their father in the head and body six times. They shot their mother 10 times, only stopping to reload. As she crawled away, her eldest son delivered a fatal round to her face. (Note: An image below shows the bloody aftermath of the shooting.)

Such was the carnage that Los Angeles police initially suspected a mob hit. Six months later, however, the brothers were arrested after investigators received an apparent confession to the killings Erik had made to a psychologist he was seeing.

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They were tried twice, first separately—in both cases, the juries deadlocked. But after a joint retrial in 1996, Lyle and Erik were convicted on two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. They were sentenced to life in prison without parole.

For many years, their house on North Elm Drive has been a routine stop for ghoulish “graveyard” tour vans shepherding gawkers around crime scenes like the site of the Charles Manson “Helter Skelter” murders scene not far away in Benedict Canyon, or O.J. Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson’s condo in Brentwood.

Now, propelled by the Netflix series Monsters, which retells the infamous saga, there is a steady stream of cars driving by the chain-link construction fence that has gone up in front of the house, which was recently sold—to the tune of $17,000,000—and is currently being renovated.

Neighbor are distressed about the invasion of tourists, and Beverly Hills police have stepped up patrols to keep a handle on the situation.

On this secluded block where only dog walkers and gardeners usually venture, tourists now gather on the sidewalk and debate whether Lyle and Erik should get a new trial. (The brothers have said they were abused by their parents, and feared for their own lives on the night of the murders.) Intrepid visitors slip through a gap in the locked gate—clearly marked “NO TRESPASSING”—to take pictures and videos on the property.

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“I like psychological thrillers,” a 33-year-old woman visiting the scene told the Daily Beast, having finished watching the Netflix show last week. “This seems like the most secure neighborhood. It feels so safe. And it gives me chills to be here.”

“I can’t judge them,” said the woman, a Hollywood camera assistant originally from Kyrgyzstan. “They had their issues.” The last time she visited a famous location, she added, she went to Chicago and saw the “Home Alone house” in Winnetka.

Her friend, a 24-year-old personal trainer from Kazahstan who joined her on the visit, had just started watching Monsters. “I didn’t expect to see so many people here,” they told the Beast. “There are so many cars. And so many tourists.”

North Elm Drive residents are "livid" about the the onslaught, TMZ reports, and the police have logged "a slew of calls from irate neighbors." Local authorities say they've deployed extra patrols to the area and haven't detected any illegal activity so far.

Jen, 50, who grew up two houses from the crime scene, told The Beast that she can’t believe so many people want the brothers to be freed from prison. “Two horrible, brutal, bloody murders took place in there,” she said of their former home.

On that summer night in 1989, Jen said her mother and brother heard what sounded like Chinese firecrackers—and then screaming. (After receiving a 911 call from the house, police found Lyle and Erik weeping on the front lawn, claiming they had come home to find their parents’ bodies.)

“It would haunt me to live there,” Jen added.

Others, though, can’t help wondering what it would be like to own a real-life haunted house.

Built in 1927, the 9,000 square foot villa has 7 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, a pool and guesthouse that spread out over half an acre. The photos below, courtesy of Realtor.com, provide a tour of the home's interiors—prior to a round of renovations that are currently underway.

José Menendez bought the Elm Drive property in 1988 for $4 million. After he and his wife were killed a year later, the house stood empty for a spell. It was sold in 1991, with proceeds going mainly to the IRS.

Over the years, the property changed hands and was renovated a number of times; for eight years, it was owned by the co-creator of the hit TV series Murder, She Wrote. Its new owners, reportedly a wealthy family with Persian ancestry, have not yet moved in—perhaps fortuitously amid the current furor. After purchasing the home this past March, they have begun a remodeling process of their own.

Editor’s note: Ben Sherwood has followed the Menendez story since 1989 when he began working at ABC News and was assigned to help cover the saga with an award-winning team from PrimeTime Live.

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