Los Angeles DA Recommends Resentencing for Menendez Brothers

Supporters of the Menendez brothers could soon get what they’ve been clamoring for: Lyle and Erik Menendez out from behind bars. The Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced Thursday that he is recommending the Menendez brothers be resentenced. The news comes almost four years after the Covid-19 pandemic, the re-release of their 1996 trial, and two separate projects on streaming giant Netflix renewed people’s interest in the brothers’ case. 

“After very careful review of all the arguments that were made from people on both sides of this equation, I came to a place where I believe that under the law, resentencing is appropriate,” Gascón said Thursday. “And I am going to recommend that to a court tomorrow.” He went on to say that because of the age they were at the time of the crime, they could be eligible for parole immediately.

“When you look at the case of the Menendez brothesr, you see two very young people, one was 19 and the other was 21, when they committed these horrible acts,” he said. “And I want to underline they were horrible acts. There is no excuse for murder, and I will never imply that what we are doing here it to excuse that behavior. Because even if you get abused, the right path is to call the police and seek help. But I understand also how sometimes people get desperate.”

Lyle and Erik are best known for their involvement in the Aug. 20, 1989 death of their parents José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez. Late that night, Beverly Hills police responded to an emergency call from Lyle that his parents had been shot. When they arrived, the couple’s blood was strewn across the floor, bodies riddled with wounds from a shotgun. While Lyle and Erik were first treated by police as grieving orphans, the brothers were eventually both arrested and charged with first-degree murder in 1990. During their now-infamous court cases, which were broadcast live by Court TV in 1993, Erik and Lyle claimed that they killed their parents because they were sexually assaulted by their father and feared for their lives. The prosecution claimed the boys murdered for greed. The jury was deadlocked, and after a retrial, Lyle and Erik were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. 

Editor’s picks

Gascón’s decision to recommend resentencing revolves around a new writ of habeas corpus, a request to challenge a person’s imprisonment, filed by Lyle and Erik’s legal teams. The Menendez attorneys argue that the brothers’ retrial, in which jurors were told Erik and Lyle’s sexual assault claims were a “total fabrication,” didn’t include crucial evidence that would have corroborated their claims. This excluded testimony from  Lyle’s older cousin, Diane VanderMolen, who testified at the first trial that she stayed at the Menendez home for the summer when she was 16 and that one night, when Lyle was only eight years old, he came into her room and said he was afraid to sleep in his own room because his father was touching his genitals. 

The petition also includes new evidence that wasn’t available at the time of the Menendezes’ retrial. After the convictions, journalist Robert Rand obtained a letter that Erik wrote to his cousin, Andy Cano, eight months before the shooting deaths, when he was 17. In the letter excerpted in the habeas petition, Erik described being abused by his father and how fearful he was. “It’s still happening Andy but it’s worse for me now,” Erik wrote. “I never know when it’s going to happen and its driving me crazy. Every night I stay up thinking he might come in. …He’s warned me a 100 times about telling anyone.” In his 2023 Peacock docuseries, Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed, Rand also detailed new allegations from Roy Rossello, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo. Rossello claimed that José Menendez, a music executive, had sexually abused him, too.

“After 35 years of covering this case, I hope they’re released next month, but if it’s six months or a year from now, I’ll be fine with that. The important thing is they need to be re-sentenced to time served, and they need to go home to their wives and be reunited with their family,” Rand previously told Rolling Stone. “Both of their aunts — they’re in their eighties and nineties now — their dream is, before they die, they want to see Erik and Lyle as free men.”

Related

The renewed interest in the Menedez’s brothers case began during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the Court TV channel released the entire recording of the trial online. Lyle and Erik became staple fixtures on true crime TikTok accounts, with the majority calling their imprisonment a miscarriage of justice. That interest has continued to grow since American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy released his retelling of the case in Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story in October. The growing public campaign to free the brothers from prison now includes celebrity supporters like Kim Kardashian. 

Gasćon first announced on Oct. 5 that he was “reviewing evidence” in the brothers’ case following increased calls from their supporters. Since Lyle and Erik were convicted, additional evidence potentially corroborating their claims of sexual assault has been revealed in both the book The Menendez Murders and Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed. “It’s important to recognize that both men and women can be victims of sexual abuse,” Gasćon said. ”We have a moral and ethical obligation to review what is being presented to us.” 

Present at Thursday’s press conference were several members of the Mendez family, including Lyle and Erik’s aunt Joan Andersen VanderMolen. On October 16, family members of the Menendez brothers clamored for their release, saying that if the boys had been sisters, evidence of the alleged sexual abuse would have been accepted by the judge, and led to a different outcome in their case. 

“For many years, I struggled [with] what happened in my sister’s family. It was a nightmare none of us could have imagined. But as details of Lyle’s and Erik’s abuse came to light, it became clear that their actions, while tragic, were the desperate response of two boys trying to survive the unspeakable,” VanderMolen, Kitty’s sister, said. “No jury today would issue such a harsh sentence without taking their trauma into account. Lyle and Erik have already paid a heavy price, discarded by a system that failed to recognize their pain. They have grown. They have changed and become better men, despite everything that they’ve been through. It’s time to give them the opportunity to live the rest of their lives free from the shadow of their past.”

Trending

The District Attorney’s decision does not guarantee Lyle and Erik’s freedom. The next steps involve scheduling a hearing overseen by a judge, who would then be able to resentence them. Under the law, and the age the Menendez brothers were at the time of the crime, mean per a judge’s decision, Lyle and Erik could be eligible for parole immediately.

This is a developing story…