Mrs Doubtfire actor who lived in Menendez house after murders shares ‘surprising’ detail
The retired actor who played the eldest child in Mrs Doubtfire, Lisa Jakub, has revealed in her memoir that she lived in the house where the Menendez twins shot their parents to death.
Jakub, who played Lydia in the iconic Robin Williams film, has spoken out about what it was like living in the site of the horrific double murder, and even shared some surprising details about the house itself you wouldn’t expect.
In 1989 Lyle and Erik Menendez walked into their Beverly Hills Home and shot their parents, Kitty and José Menendez with shotguns, killing them both.
The pair initially lied about the crime, claiming that they had returned home to find their parents dead. They were later arrested and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in a hugely high-profile case. This has been the subject of numerous true crime documentaries over the years and was the focus of the second season of the Netflix series Monster in 2024.
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Many, however, would not expect their double murders to be linked in any way to Mrs Doubtfire.
Jakub lived in the house where the murders took place when she was 13 and the trial was ongoing
Speaking in a new Substack article the actor explained that she was updating a story from her memoir, You Look Like That Girl: A Child Actor Stops Pretending and Finally Grows Up.
In it she explains that when she was 13 she worked with a producer who would be spending a few months in New York and needed a house sitter.
The only catch with Jakub and her family moving in for a few months to their Beverly Hills mansion was the infamous murders that took place on site just four years before she moved in. The producer and her screenwriter husband had gotten a good deal on the mansion after the bank repossessed the home post-murders.
Whilst nowadays this would not be a site many people visit outside of a short period after Netflix’s show came out (and the nuttiest of true crime obsessives), at the time she lived there the trial of the Menendez Brothers was actually ongoing.
This meant that there were numerous true crime tours which would visit the house and detail the murders through a speaker, whilst protestors would attend the house to yell that the brothers were innocent or guilty – despite her having no connection to them.
Jakub shared some surprising details about living there shortly after the murders
Living in a house where a murder took place would creep out the vast majority of us, particularly if that murder was being talked about non-stop on the news and being yelled about outside my home night and day.
According to the Mrs Doubtfire actor however, this was far from the case. She explained: “Surprisingly, the house was not that creepy. It didn’t feel like a place of torture and murder. You expect that from dark places with low ceilings, not from a house with a brightly wallpapered sunroom and a restaurant-quality kitchen.
“How could terrible things happen in a place with a screening room that was fully stocked with movies that were still in the theatres?”
She explained that she took her guidance from the maid of the house who the producer had kept on after purchasing it, adding that she was never overly concerned by the murders that took place.
Jakub explained that she had never watched any of the documentaries or shows about the murders, adding: “I feel like the levels of suffering are more than I can handle at the moment.
“I had assumed the world had moved on from this tragic story, but apparently the army of Menendez brothers defenders have just moved from the gates of 722 North Elm Drive to a more central location — TikTok. Interestingly, many of these modern defenders were not even born at the time of the murders.”
She is now a retired actor, instead working in the wellness space and working as a speaker and author. When discussing whether she regretted quitting acting for a 'normal life' in a Reddit AMA, she said: "Not ever. I love having a normal life. I had a pretty unusual childhood, so it's easy for me to find great beauty and joy in the small, simple, regular things."
Topics: True Crime, Menendez Brothers, Netflix, Celebrity, Nostalgia
Michael Slavin