Los Angeles —

News of the killings was already spreading as the summer sun began to warm the tennis court behind Jose and Kitty Menendez’s gleaming Beverly Hills mansion on August 21,1989.

Across the country, Kitty and Jose’s relatives were learning the couple had been gruesomely shot in their home overnight, reported dead by their sons, Erik and Lyle, in a hysteric 911 call.

“It was like the world went dark,” remembers Kitty’s great-niece, Tamara Lucero Goodell, who was 9 years old.

Told by detectives that the killings may have been the work of organized crime, her family retreated into their home and followed police advice: Shut the blinds, don’t answer the door, and screen phone calls in case the criminals decided to make contact.

Her grandmother, Kitty’s sister Joan Vandermolen, rushed to Los Angeles to be by Erik and Lyle’s side, joining a growing cadre of aunts, uncles and cousins forming a protective bubble around the brothers. Together, they planned to see the brothers through the unthinkable tragedy.

Seven months later, Tamara stood petrified in front of the TV, her older sister sobbing beside her, as a Beverly Hills Police Department detective announced that Erik and Lyle would be arrested as the prime suspects in the killings.

“It was just a very, very sad and somber time,” Tamara said. “There was a lot of confusion.”

Up until the arrests, media coverage of the case “was mostly seen as a Beverly Hills story,” recalls Anamaria Baralt, the daughter of Jose’s sister, Terry Baralt.

“It was the movie executive and his wife. … There was very little attention, even on Erik and Lyle,” Baralt said. But after the arrests, it was “mayhem.”

The sensational turn in the case fueled breathless news coverage as the public became hungry for any revelation about the brothers’ motives or the dark secrets that had been festering inside the Menendez family home.

Old photos show the Menendez brothers and their family. At top left they're seen on a boat ride with their cousins, with Anamaria pictured on the top right in a black jacket. On the right, they pose for a picture with their parents. Family Photos/Getty Images/CNN

Detectives flew to New Jersey, where the Menendez family had lived before Jose’s booming entertainment career brought them to California. There, they interviewed Anamaria’s parents, returning over and over again as they built their case. The Baralt family’s home phone became a media hotline, ringing shrilly every hour of the day. Reporters ran after them down the street. Anamaria, who was a freshman in college, walked into classrooms and saw students turn to ask their friends, “Do you know who that is?”

The Menendez murders were well on their way to becoming one of the