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,

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