A Netflix true crime drama has revived interest in the three-decade-old case, with supporters of the convicted brothers arguing the defence would be heard differently today.
Prosecutors have recommended that Erik and Lyle Menendez be resentenced for the 1989 killings of their parents, offering the brothers a hope of freedom after 34 years behind bars.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced during a Thursday news conference that his office would recommend the brothers receive a new sentence of 50 years to life.
Because they were under 26 years old at the time of the crimes, they would be eligible for parole immediately, he said.
Their resentencing will need to be approved by a judge, and the California parole board would have to sign off on the brothers’ release.
“I came to a place where I believe, under the law, resentencing is appropriate,” Gascón said. He conceded that some members of his office oppose the decision.
Prosecutors filed the petition on Thursday, and a hearing before a judge could potentially come within the next month.
A plan for ‘re-entry’ into society
The Menendez brothers were sentenced in 1996 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Lyle Menendez, then 21, and Erik Menendez, then 18, admitted they fatally shot their entertainment executive father, Jose, and their mother, Kitty. The brothers said they feared their parents were about to kill them to stop people from finding out that Jose Menendez had sexually abused his son Erik for years.
The brothers’ extended family has pleaded for their release, saying they deserve to be free after decades behind bars. Several family members have said that in a climate more attuned to the impact of sexual abuse, the brothers would not have been convicted of first-degree murder or sentenced to life.
Mark Geragos, an attorney for the brothers, would not confirm to reporters whether he had spoken to Lyle and Erik, but said he believes they have heard about the district attorney’s decision.
Geragos said a “reentry plan” has already been drafted to help the brothers re-acclimatised to everyday life if they are released.
Anamaria Baralt, Jose Menendez’s niece, said the district attorney’s “brave and necessary” decision means “Lyle and Erik can finally begin to heal from the trauma of their past.”
However, not all Menendez family members support resentencing. Attorneys for Milton Andersen, the 90-year-old brother of Kitty Menendez, filed a legal brief asking the court to keep the brothers’ original punishment.
“They shot their mother, Kitty, reloading to ensure her death,” Andersen’s attorneys said in a statement on Thursday. “The evidence remains overwhelmingly clear: the jury’s verdict was just, and the punishment fits the heinous crime.”
Grim allegations resurface
Though Kitty Menendez was not accused of abusing her sons, she appears to have facilitated the abuse, according to her sons’ legal filings.
One cousin testified during the brothers’ first trial that Lyle told her he was too scared to sleep in his room because his father would come in and touch his genitals. When the cousin told Kitty Menendez, she “angrily dragged Lyle upstairs by his arm,” the petition said.
Another family member testified that when Jose Menendez was in the bedroom with one of the boys, no one was allowed to walk down the hallway outside.
The Menendez brothers were tried twice for their parents’ murders, with the first trial ending in a hung jury.
Prosecutors in the original trial said that there was no evidence of molestation, and many of the sexual abuse claims were not admitted as evidence in the second trial.
The district attorney’s office also said at the time that the brothers were motivated to kill in order to inherit their parents’ multimillion-dollar estate.
The Menendez case has drawn massive public attention in recent weeks thanks to Netflix’s true-crime drama “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story”.
Roy Rossello, a former member of the Latin pop group Menudo, also recently came forward to claim he had been drugged and raped by Jose Menendez, the boys’ father, when he was a teenager in the 1980s.
Menudo was signed under RCA Records, which Jose Menendez headed at the time.
Rossello spoke about his abuse in the 2023 Peacock docuseries “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed.” His allegations are part of the evidence listed in the petition filed last year by the Menendez brothers’ attorney in which he seeks a review of their case.
