Mrs Doubtfire star who lived in Menendez brothers' house recalls 'chilling' discovery while watching TV
Mrs Doubtfire actress Lisa Jakub has revealed the chilling discovery she made while watching TV inside the Beverly Hills mansion where Lyle and Erik Menendez murdered their parents.
Jakub, who played Lydia Hillard in the 1993 comedy, has recounted the experience in a Substack post titled Because you asked, an excerpt from her memoir You Look Like That Girl.
At just 13 years old, Jakub was living in the 9,000-square-foot mansion at 722 North Elm Drive after her mother took a housesitting job for a producer and her screenwriter husband, who had bought the property at a discount following the 1989 killings.
The chilling realization came while she was watching a news segment on the ongoing trial.
She wrote: "One day, I was stretched out on the leather couch, flipping channels on the theater screen that acted as a television.
"There was some Hollywood pseudo-news show that was giving an update on the ongoing trial of the Menendez brothers.
"Suddenly, a black and white photo of the murder scene flashed on the nine-foot screen; a body lying on the floor, one on the couch, covered in dark splotches of blood."
She said the realisation made her grasp for air, and her skin prickled on her arms.
She continued: "I started pondering the fragility of life…but, wait. Those windows in the photo…they looked familiar. I glanced behind me. Yep. It was this room.
"I looked down at the floor next to the couch I was sitting on. Sure, it was a different couch, but it was in the same position. They were right here. Bloody. Swollen. Dead. Massacred. I turned off the TV.”
Where is the Menendez brothers' house located?
The mansion sits at 722 North Elm Drive in Beverly Hills, and ownership reverted to the bank after Jose and Kitty Menendez were killed there on August 20, 1989.
The producer and her husband picked it up at a reduced price four years later, when Jakub and her mother moved in.
The 23-room property came with a pool, a tennis court fitted with an automatic ball machine, and a live-in maid named Maria, who continued working there during the family's stay.
Jakub wrote that she slept in Lyle Menendez's old bedroom throughout her time in the house. The home's history had also attracted previous famous owners.
Jakub said the producer told her the master bathroom's pink marble tub had once belonged to Michael Jackson, who reportedly used it to bathe his pet monkey, while Elton John owned the property before him.
Away from the interior, the house became something of a tourist attraction while the Menendez trial played out.
Graveline Tours regularly drove past in a hearse, with guides narrating the killings over a speaker, while other visitors gathered at the gates to protest the brothers' innocence, some shaking the fence and holding handmade signs.
Despite the history, Jakub said the mansion never felt sinister day to day, noting its bright sunroom and fully stocked screening room made it hard to associate with violence.
She credited the owners' belief that a remodel had somehow erased what happened there, even though the layout of the living room remained unchanged.
She wrote: "We accepted the house for what it was: a place we pretended was home, while I went to work and pretended to be other people.
"We pretended that the remodel changed the house in some fundamental way, while the people crying at the front gate pretended that there could be sense made of any of it."
What happened to Lyle and Erik Menendez after their trial?
Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were 21 and 18 at the time of the killings, were originally sentenced to life without parole.
In May 2025, both brothers were resentenced in a decision that opened the door to possible parole, but in August 2025 they were both denied, with officials citing rule violations and concerns they still posed a risk to the community.
The pair have now spent 35 years behind bars.
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