GRISLY PHOTO CONCLUDES MENENDEZ ARGUMENTS.

Byline: Anne Burke and Jeannette DeSantis Daily News Staff Writer

Closing arguments in the Menendez brothers murder retrial ended Thursday after a prosecutor showed jurors a photo of Kitty Menendez's shotgun-blasted face and said, "If you love your parents, you don't do this."

Prosecutor David P. Conn's flourish capped nearly two weeks of summations in the trial.

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg is expected to instruct the seven-man, five-woman jury today. Deliberations are expected to begin Monday.

In his final argument to the jury, Conn urged the panel to convict Lyle, 28, and Erik, 25, of first-degree murder plus special circumstances that make the pair eligible for the death penalty.

Conn's rebuttal focused on the brothers' claim that a lifetime of abuse by their wealthy parents, Jose, 45, and Kitty, 47, led to their shotgun slayings in the family's Beverly Hills mansion in 1989.

"The defense put the parents on trial because they want you to hate them," Conn said. "They are trying to say they got what they deserved."

Erik Menendez testified during the four-month trial that his father sexually abused him from age 6 to 18. He claimed that both parents psychologically and physically abused him.

Conn told jurors there is no evidence to support abuse claims. "This action cannot be explained by psychiatric mumbo jumbo," the prosecutor said.

He left jurors with the image of the last of nearly a dozen shotgun blasts.

"Picture Lyle Menendez leaning over his mother and putting the shotgun to her face and pulling the trigger," Conn said. "That is what this case is about."

As Conn spoke, Leslie Abramson, Erik Menendez's lawyer, played the game "hangman" on a legal pad with her client.

During a break outside the jury's presence, Deputy District Attorney Carol J. Najera complained about the boisterous game, and Weisberg ordered Abramson and her client to "keep it down."

Earlier Thursday, the lawyer for Lyle Menendez urged a jury to reject murder charges against his client, saying Lyle killed in "righteous indignation and rage" because his father was about to rape his brother.

"Can you imagine the emotion? Can you imagine the combination of fear and outrage going through this young man?" asked Deputy Public Defender Charles Gessler.

Gessler asked jurors to find Lyle not guilty of killing his mother, Kitty, and return a manslaughter verdict in the killing of his father.

Because Lyle did not testify during the retrial, Gessler drew heavily on Erik's testimony in seeking to convince jurors that Jose Menendez was a tyrannical and sadistic parent who instilled such fear in his children that Lyle wet his pants just looking at his father.

The mother was not much better as a parent, Gessler said.