Lyle and Erik Menéndez have been a pop culture staple since the 90s, following the gory murder of their parents, José Enrique and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menéndez, in August 1989. Renewed public interest in the Menéndez brothers came with the greenlighting of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s Monster for a second season. Netflix announced Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story in May 2023, divulging it had obtained exclusive access to the brothers for season 2 of the true crime anthology series. Around the same time, Peacock released Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed, a documentary series that has introduced new evidence to the parricide.
Lyle and Erik Menéndez shot and fatally injured their parents at the den of their Beverly Hills mansion on August 20, 1989. 45-year-old José and his 47-year-old wife of 26 years had been watching a movie when their sons stormed the den with shotguns, shooting their father six times, including a point-blank shot in the back of his head, and their mother ten times. To cover their tracks, the brothers bought movie tickets for a film and tried to trick a friend into being their alibi. They were eventually arrested, tried, and convicted in July 1996, but the new evidence on the case has left people wondering if the duo has regained their freedom. Here’s everything to know.
Why Lyle and Erik Menéndez Murdered Their Parents
Upon their arrest, a sensational trial covered by Court TV ensued. The Menéndez brothers were first tried separately, with the prosecutors arguing that Lyle and Erik Menéndez killed their parents to inherit their family’s wealth. This claim seemed valid as the brothers embarked on a spending spree after killing their parents, taking exquisite vacations to London and the Caribbean. But the Menéndez brothers’ lawyers, Gerald Chaleff and Leslie Abramson, contended that they committed the murders in self-defense after enduring years of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. José Menéndez was described as a perfectionist with high expectations that made him emotionally abusive. He allegedly molested his sons—Lyle, from age 6 to 8, and Erik, from 6 to 18.
Lyle and Erik Menéndez were 21 and 18 when they committed the gruesome crime. They testified that their father was going to kill them after the older brother confronted him. Lyle recalled he squabbled with Kitty, who yanked off his artificial hairpiece five days before the murder. Seeing his older brother without the wig for the first time, Erik cried and divulged to Lyle that José was still molesting him. Lyle confronted their father and threatened to expose him, but José’s response left them believing they were in danger. “I thought we were in danger. I felt he had no choice. He would kill us. He’d get rid of us in some way. Because I was going to ruin him,” Lyle told the court.
He said José warned him to stay out of whatever was going on between him and Erik: “What I do with my son is none of your business. I warn you: Don’t throw your life away.” Lyle said he also confronted Kitty, who dismissed Erik as a liar. The older brother’s account of his mother’s sexual abuse towards him was one of the most graphic testimonies the court heard. He alleged that Kitty had him get into bed with her until he was 13. She allowed him to touch her inappropriately and became obsessive when he started dating.
Arrest And Conviction Of The Menéndez Brothers
Lyle and Erik Menéndez might have gotten away with the murder of their parents. The police suspected they had a hand in it, but there was no evidence for an arrest until the younger brother confessed to their therapist, Dr. Jerome Oziel. The shrink confided in his mistress Judalon Smyth, who then informed the Beverly Police after an acrimonious breakup with Oziel. She presented a taped confession of the murders, leading to Lyle’s arrest on March 8, 1990. Erik was in Israel at the time, pursuing his professional tennis ambition. He returned to Los Angeles three days later and turned himself in.
The admissibility of the taped conversations between the brothers and their therapist lingered on for about two years. Following an August 1990 ruling that allowed the tapes as admissible evidence due to the brother’s violation of the physician-patient privilege, Lyle and Erik Menéndez successfully challenged the decision. The Supreme Court of California later ruled that some of the taped conversations were admissible, after which the brothers were charged accordingly. While the juries deadlocked in the first trial, the brothers were ultimately convicted on two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. They were both sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on July 2, 1996, nearly seven years after the parricide.
Lyle and Erik Menéndez Are Still In Prison
The Menéndez brothers are still in prison; they are currently incarcerated at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, California. Initially sent to separate prisons, the brothers reunited in April 2018 at a housing unit in the San Diego prison after agreeing to participate in a rehabilitation program. Since their sentence, Lyle and Erik Menéndez have pulled all the stops to overturn their conviction. After exhausting their avenues of appeal at the state level, they approached the United States District Court and then the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
With both courts denying the petitions challenging their incarceration, the Menéndez brothers resigned to their fate. But the Peacock docuseries released in May 2023 has reignited Lyle and Erik Menéndez’s hope for a rehearing. They filed for a retrial after Roy Rosselló, a former member of the famous Puerto Rican band Menudo, alleged in the series that José Menéndez raped him at age 14. Rosselló’s allegation and a letter Erik wrote to his cousin Andy Cano about his father’s abuses might turn the tide for the brothers.
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