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Fear Drove Brothers to Kill, Expert Testifies : Trial: Under tough cross-examination, Menendez defense witness sticks to her earlier account of the slayings.

TIMES STAFF WRITER

An unyielding defense expert on Wednesday stuck to her opinion that Erik and Lyle Menendez killed their parents in fear.

Dismissing any inconsistency in the brothers’ testimony as insignificant, Ann Burgess, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, insisted under a rapid-fire cross-examination that Erik and Lyle Menendez killed their parents Aug. 20, 1989, in a reaction of fearful, almost primordial survival.

When, after the first volley of shots, Lyle Menendez ran outside, reloaded, dashed back to the TV room of the family’s Beverly Hills mansion, leaned close to his mother and pulled the trigger, that was not evidence of premeditation, Burgess said.

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“He’s on autopilot,” she said, repeating a phrase she used under questioning by a defense lawyer Tuesday.

Just a few minutes after the killings, when the brothers picked up all the shotgun shells they had fired, that was not evidence of a plan, Burgess said.

“That’s your theory,” she told Deputy Dist. Atty. Pamela Bozanich. “That’s not what I think.”

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Erik Menendez, 22, and Lyle Menendez, 25, are charged with first-degree murder in the slayings of Jose Menendez, 45, and Kitty Menendez, 47.

If convicted, the sons could draw the death penalty.

Prosecutors contend the brothers killed out of hatred and greed. The brothers concede that they killed their parents but testified that they lashed out in fear and self-defense after years of physical, mental and sexual abuse.

Prosecutors have made it plain that they believe the brothers’ tearful stories of abuse are a fiction. But, as she did on Tuesday, Burgess, a professor of psychiatric mental health nursing and an expert in child abuse, said Erik Menendez should be believed.

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Bozanich reminded Burgess that Erik Menendez had testified in rich detail that the brothers tried to buy handguns at a Big 5 store in Santa Monica on Aug. 18, 1989, two days before the killings--only to be confronted by prosecutors with the fact that the chain had stopped selling handguns in 1986.

“Did you reject that as lying?” Bozanich said.

No, Burgess responded, calling Erik Menendez’s account of the trip a “peripheral detail.” Bozanich tried again to shake the professor’s belief in Erik Menendez’s credibility. When Erik Menendez moved out of the Beverly Hills mansion some months after the killings, Bozanich said, he took his bed with him.

“Do you see any inconsistency with a child abuse victim taking a bed, the scene of the crimes, with him to a place of safety, as a memento?” Bozanich asked.

“Furniture had to be taken to set up a new place,” Burgess said. “I don’t see that necessarily as inconsistent.”

Bozanich turned to the details of the killings--again using the same technique, quoting the brothers’ words to lob questions at Burgess.

The prosecutor recounted for the professor that the brothers testified they had bought shotguns in San Diego on Aug. 18, using a fake ID.

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“I don’t see that as planning,” Burgess said. It was an act of self-protection, she said.

Lyle Menendez testified that he reloaded and shot his mother as she was moaning and “sneaking” away behind a coffee table.

Burgess said she didn’t remember him using that word.

Both brothers testified that they made up an alibi--that they had gone to the movies that night--immediately after the killings. Didn’t that, Bozanich asked, indicate they were not in wild fear but able to think coolly under pressure?

“That’s an interpretation I wouldn’t necessarily make,” Burgess said.

The brothers also testified that they collected the spent shotgun shells, drove to Mulholland Drive, ditched the guns, drove back to Beverly Hills, tossed their bloody clothes and other evidence in a dumpster, then drove to a Santa Monica food festival, where Lyle Menendez made a phone call. Neighbors said they heard shots about 10 p.m. Records indicate the phone call was at 11:07 p.m.

“Did you ever think to yourself, ‘Gee, I wonder if they could have done all that in one hour and seven minutes?’ ” Bozanich asked.

“I did not,” Burgess said.

Meeting with police just hours later, early on the morning of Aug. 21, Erik Menendez lied to police about his role in the killings. He testified that he deliberately misled them, making up a story about going to the movies that night.

“It’s my belief he’s being very honest,” Burgess said.

Bozanich asked if there was “anything that happened” just before and after the killings that Burgess considered “inconsistent with (the) theory that this was a crime born out of fear?”

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“No, it’s my theory that this was a crime born out of fear,” Burgess said.

Wrapping up her cross-examination, Bozanich asked: “Dr. Burgess, do you know what psycho-babble is?”

“No,” Burgess said, “I don’t.”

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