Family members ask for Menendez brothers to be resentenced in parents' murders

LOS ANGELES (CN) — More than 20 family members of Erik and Lyle Menendez, who were convicted of shooting and killing their parents in 1996, met with the Los Angeles District Attorney on Wednesday and asked for the brothers to be released from prison.

The brothers have been in custody since their arrest in 1989, and are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. They have long claimed that they were sexually abused by their father, Jose, and that the killings were a response to the trauma of that abuse, as well as their fear of continuing abuse.

“If the case was heard today, there is no doubt in my mind that their sentencing would be very different,” said Anamaria Baralt, the sister of Jose Menendez, at a press conference held before the meeting.

Joan Andersen VanderMolen, the sister of their mother Kitty Menendez, agreed: “No jury today would issue such a harsh sentence without taking their trauma into account.”

The brothers’ attorney Mark Geragos said that he hopes to have the brothers freed from prison by the end of the year.

Their first trial began in 1993 and ended in a mistrial, with the jury deadlocking after a month of deliberations. A second trial ended with the brothers being convicted of first-degree murder. During both trials, prosecutors argued that the abuse never happened, and that the brothers killed their wealthy parents in order to inherit their money.

Since then, two pieces of evidence have come to light which the brothers’ attorneys say shows their convictions and sentencing should be reconsidered.

First, in 2023, Roy Rossello, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, said that Jose Menendez, a record executive, drugged and raped him when he was 14 years old. Secondly, a letter was unearthed written by Erik Menendez to his cousin, Andy Cano, in 1988, before the killings, in which Erik Menendez talks about his father’s abuse.

“I’ve been trying to avoid dad. It’s still happening, Andy, but it’s worse for me now,” Erik Menendez wrote in the letter. “Every night I stay up thinking he might come in … I’m afraid …. He’s warned me a hundred times about telling anyone, especially Lyle.”

In May 2023, the brothers’ lawyers filed a writ of habeas corpus, asking the court for the convictions to be overturned, based on the new evidence.

“In short the new evidence not only shows that Jose Menendez was very much a violent and brutal man who would sexually abuse children, but it strongly suggests that — in fact — he was still abusing Erik Menendez as late as December 1988,” the brothers’ lawyers wrote in the brief. “Just as the defense had argued all along.”

LA County District Attorney George Gascon must respond to the petition by November 26.

In addition to the petition, the brothers are also asking to be resentenced under the California Victims’ Bill of Rights Act of 2008, or Marsy’s Law.

Erik and Lyle Menendez have received a fair amount of media attention in recent years, due in part to the new evidence of their father’s abuse. This year alone, Netflix has released both a documentary and fictional television series about them, the latter produced by Ryan Murphy titled, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.”

At Wednesday’s press conference, which was attended by more than 100 reporters, Geragos said the TV show presented “a caricature” of the brothers, but said that it had caused a “backlash” that may have helped their cause.

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