A body language expert analyses who is lying in the real life Menendez brothers’ trial

An expert psychologist who specialises in body language reading has shared his thoughts on the Menendez brothers after analysing their behaviour in their original trial from 1993. After the Netflix Monsters show had people all over the world intrigued by the heavily-debated case, Dr John Paul Garrison delved into the stories on social media and gave some really eye-opening opinions on what the brothers’ body language could mean.

His findings were particularly interesting in a section where Erik was giving evidence about the “really nasty” reaction his mother had to the demise of his relationship with a woman he was seeing.

via CourtTV YouTube

Dr G said in the video: “Look at his brow right now, the anger. When he is impersonating his mother he sees her as being angry towards him. That seems very real for him.

“There’s a lot of emotion there when he’s talking about this, he’s shaking his head, he’s furrowing his brow. When he’s impersonating somebody, he really seems to be getting into how it must have felt to be on the other end of that, or how he perceived her.”

He then pointed out Erik slightly shutting his eyes when he was asked about the abuse he claimed he received from his father, and said that it’s “very common for us to close our eyes” when we think or remember things that we don’t like.

He continued: “It’s almost a way that we’re trying to block the thoughts – obviously it doesn’t actually work in that way, but it’s something unconscious that we tend to do.

via YouTube

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“He’s not looking around at everybody trying to put on a performance, he’s responding to questions consistently and quickly and the way that he’s doing it all speaks to someone speaking the truth.”

Moving onto Lyle’s testimony, he remarked that “we see it when people are lying, things are out of sync, they’re asynchronous, things don’t quite have the right rhythm,” but “so far everything that Lyle is saying has the rhythm of someone who’s telling the truth.”

When Lyle began to tear up, Dr G said he was “trying to pacify himself” by covering his mouth, which is what people often do “when they don’t want to say something” or are saying something that’s “very shameful and embarrassing.”

“I am sure talking about these things has got to be embarrassing, so that reaction, covering his mouth like that felt very natural. It didn’t come in a dramatic moment, it seemed like it just unconsciously happened,” the expert continued.

When he began getting into the details of the alleged abuse, Lyle took a “big breath” which was similar to his brother’s reaction, and is an indication of things getting “more intense.”

via YouTube

The expert was pretty firm in his opinions: “I do not believe he is a good enough actor to pull off this being untrue or fake. He really is too consistent with someone who has experienced abuse for this to be a fake emotion, because people who perform get aspects of the performance wrong.”

In conclusion, Dr G truly believed that Erik was having a “genuine reaction” in his body language that you could expect from someone with PTSD, and doubted that the Menendez would have had the expert knowledge or “sophistication to fake” the testimony they gave.

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is available on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news, drops and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.

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