If Ryan Murphy‘S Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez evokes the story of the Beverly Hills brothers in its controversial true-crime epic Lyle And Erik brutally murdered their parents, José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez, in 1989 was an American horror story. It had all the makings of a nation’s enchantment: spoiled, handsome Beverly Hills brothers making some seriously stupid decisions (one wrote a screenplay about a character who murders his parents; the two spent a combined $700,000 after their parents’ deaths) and allegations of sexual abuse in the nation’s most elite zip code. While those pulp issues were central to the boys’ 1993 trial, the trial also featured two witnesses whose behavior was perhaps just as puzzling (though not criminal): Menendez’s therapist L.Jerome Oziel and his mistress, Judas Smyth. Ultimately, these two managed to steal the spotlight from Lyle and Erik for a while. In fact, their testimony became such a circus attraction that neither was invited to testify at the brothers’ second trial.

Dominick Dunne, who covered the trial for this magazine, credited Erik’s lead defense attorney Leslie Abramson for taking “what was virtually an open-and-shut case of first-degree murder,” complete with confessions from the killers, and changing their appearance before the public. Oziel was the source of the case’s incontrovertible evidence: tapes of the brothers’ therapy sessions, in which they described how they had planned their parents’ murder (“the perfect crime,” they called it, as Oziel recalled). Abramson fought to have the tapes excluded from the trial. When she lost that battle, she announced that she would discredit the psychologist “by every means known to man and to God.”

During the trial, Abramson treated Oziel like a chew toy. She got him to admit that he had failed to tell the Menendez family, who hired him after the boys were caught burglarizing two homes, that his license had been put on probation by the state Board of Psychology because of what she called an inappropriate “dual relationship”: trading therapy for construction work performed by a patient in his home. Abramson asked about a 1990 lawsuit Smyth had filed against Oziel in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging that the psychologist had assaulted, raped, kidnapped and drugged her. When Abramson asked whether Oziel had settled the case for $400,000 to $500,000, he replied that his insurance company had. (Oziel had also filed a countersuit, alleging that Smyth had developed a “bizarre fixation and obsession with him.”)

At the time, the state board of psychology accused Oziel of having a sexual relationship with another woman who worked as a housekeeper in his home, saying he had improperly medicated her and abused her. (Oziel denied those allegations.) It was also revealed during the trial that Oziel had not turned over his Menendez session tapes to authorities. Instead, he had placed the tapes in a safe and, according to Smyth, tried to extort money from the brothers by saying that paying him weekly, even if they didn’t attend the sessions, would help their defense if they ever went to trial. By the end of Abramson’s days-long taunt, even she was bored, according to Robert Rand‘s book The Menendez murders. The attorney told the judge that, during her questioning of Oziel the next day, “I’m going to be shorter than I thought. I’m kind of done with him, frankly.”

L. Jerome Oziel testifies.

Nick Ut/AP.

Oziel’s testimony was so damaging to his character that in 1993 he LA Times reported that his comfortable existence — he had a 6,000-square-foot home in a canyon, a psychologist for a wife, two children and a waiting list for his $150-an-hour sessions — “isn’t such a good life anymore. . . For Oziel, it’s his reputation that’s being tested.” He faced state disciplinary hearings over the court revelations. In 1997, the Consumer Affairs Board of Psychology charged Oziel with “several violations,” according to a spokesperson who spoke to CNN, including sharing confidential information about his patients with Smyth; having both a business and sexual relationship with Smyth; providing her with drugs; physically assaulting her on two occasions; and engaging in sexual misconduct with two female clients. (Oziel’s attorney denied the latter charge, claiming the women were not patients.) Instead of going to court, Oziel surrendered his license “while simultaneously denying any impropriety,” his attorney said. “He no longer practices psychology and hasn’t for a number of years. It wasn’t worth the expense and the intrusion into his life.”

Perhaps the defense’s greatest gift, during the first trial, was Oziel’s mistress: an attractive woman who first contacted Oziel in hopes of getting couples counseling. After realizing she couldn’t afford Oziel’s sessions, she became sexually involved with the psychologist and became dysfunctionally entangled in both his marriage and the Menendez case. After Oziel broke up with her, Smyth told authorities that Oziel had taped confessions of the Menendez brothers.