For those who actually watched the trial...
I'm confused about the public believing that Eric and Lyle "came with the 'abuse excuse' late to their defense".
I watched the trial and CSA was mentioned on like, day one? How is that late? How did the public come to believe this?
I may be missing information.
The fabrication theory (and that's all it is) originated with the first trial prosecutors, and people like the late Dominick Dunne promoted it as truth. The prosecution was insinuating throughout the trial that the sexual abuse was a fabrication, but they had no proof. For example, Pamela Bozanich wanted to ask Dr. Ann Burgess on cross-examination if it was possible that Erik read books on child abuse in jail in preparation for his testimony, and she specifically mentioned the 1991 book
When A Child Kills by attorney Paul Mones (who served as a consultant for the defense) as to what she wanted to ask Burgess about; however, Erik's attorney Leslie Abramson (this discussion took place in a hearing outside the presence of the juries, by the way) pointed out that the District Attorney's Office had contacts in the Sheriff's Office that would have informed them if any such evidence existed. It would have been very difficult to fabricate such a defense, especially at that time (pre-internet) and in the L.A. County Jail. The judge did not allow Bozanich to ask Burgess about that particular book, but he did allow her to ask if it was possible that Erik read books on child abuse in jail so he could pretend to have been a victim of SA. Dr. Burgess stated that for him to do that, he would have had to have access to a vast library of information, including reading material that the general public would not have had access to, to fabricate and fake abuse symptoms. The fabrication and the brothers' were "acting on the stand" theories are utterly ridiculous and came about because of the prosecution's desperation. Bozanich, Dunne, and the late Les Zoeller (the lead detective on the case) continually stated in interviews that the abuse didn't happen and that it was made up, even though there was no evidence of that.
Bozanich, for example, has stated in several interviews for documentaries on the case, that Lyle and Erik and their attorneys had two years to "get ready" for their testimony, implying that they were conspiring and practicing to present false testimony in court. The prosecution had that same amount of time to get ready, why weren't they more prepared? Another problem is that Bozanich and Dunne often claimed that the book mentioned in the above paragraph,
When A Child Kills, has many similarities with Lyle and Erik's testimony, implying that they used that as a source. The book was published in 1991, and Lyle and Erik told their relatives about the sexual abuse in the L.A. County Jail in September 1990, approximately six months after their arrest. The timeline does not fit, and there is no evidence that the brothers read that book or any other book on child abuse and/or parricide while in custody.
Late in the first trial, during the prosecution's rebuttal phase, Lyle's former girlfriend, Jamie Piscarsik, testified that Lyle had asked her while was in jail to "look up cases" in a law library, specifically cases of, as she put it, "children who claimed to have killed their parents, claimed sexual abuse, and gotten off", and asked her to make photocopies of these cases for him. Not only was her testimony vague, but there's another issue - acquittals are not published in law books, only convictions are. The defense called a legal expert who confirmed this as well.
Unfortunately, like the "they did it for money" unproven theory, the fabrication theory has stuck to this case like glue, despite the lack of evidence, because certain people have continued to promote these myths to mislead the public.
MOO
