Donovan Correctional Facility are about a half hour east and slightly south of downtown San Diego. The penitentiary tops a mesa near an industrial park, just over a mile from the Otay Mesa border crossing. Lyle and Erik Menendez are both inmates here now, 22 years after being forbidden from seeing or talking to each other. The current prison population is just under β in a facility designed to hold Small cells that were originally built for one now hold two. There are large dorm areas housing many of the inmates.
Lyle and Erik sleep in separate small dorm rooms; each hold six inmates. He has one of the two individual beds in a corner. The prison day begins with breakfast at am.
Lyle prefers to sleep in a little later. He makes his own food throughout the day with ingredients from packages that can be mailed to him. The brothers are both Group A prisoners and have earned special privileges. Prisoners are allowed recreation and exercise in the morning. Inmates with jobs go to work. Lunch is a sandwich and fruit in a brown bag that can be eaten at any time. Inmates can go outside in the individual prison yards during the afternoon.
Other conversations have been unexpectedly interrupted by yard calls or lockdowns β when guards investigate an incident and inmates must immediately lie on the ground.
(mh=InYW8ClKRRFTmSHH)0.jpg "Anal Girl in Mesa")
No cell phones are permitted. Getting approval to visit takes about six weeks. After showing an ID, you are handed a light green paper pass with a smiling mug shot of Lyle. After passing through a metal detector, you walk outside and a heavy metal gate slowly rolls open.
