LOS ANGELES – Lyle and Erik Menendez will appear before California’s parole board to seek freedom this week, more than 35 years after the shotgun murders of their parents in the family’s luxury Beverly Hills home.
The separate hearings – Erik on Thursday (21 August), Lyle on Friday (22 August) – represent the latest chapter in a lengthy campaign waged by friends, family, and celebrities including Kim Kardashian to secure the brothers’ release from prison.
The hearings follow a Los Angeles judge’s decision this year to reduce their original open-ended sentence to a term of 50 years, after the men accepted full responsibility for the grisly 1989 killings.
Now the brothers must convince parole panels that they are reformed and pose no danger to the public.
“For more than 35 years, they have demonstrated sustained growth. They have taken full accountability,” stated The Justice for Erik and Lyle Coalition, a support group comprising family members.
“They express sincere remorse to our family to this day and have built a meaningful life defined by purpose and service.”
The ‘mafia hit’ deception
Blockbuster trials in the 1990s heard how the men killed José and Kitty Menendez in what prosecutors described as a cynical attempt to inherit a substantial family fortune.
After establishing alibis and attempting to cover their tracks, the men shot José Menendez five times with shotguns, including wounds to his kneecaps.
Kitty Menendez died from a shotgun blast whilst desperately attempting to crawl away from her killers.
The brothers initially blamed the deaths on a mafia hit, but changed their story several times in subsequent months.
Erik, then 18, confessed to the murders during a session with his therapist.
The pair ultimately claimed they had acted in self-defence after years of emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of a tyrannical father.
During their decades in prison, changing social attitudes and greater awareness of sexual abuse helped elevate the men to something approaching cultural icon status.
This prominence was nourished by numerous docudramas and television programmes, including the hit Netflix miniseries “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.”
‘Horrific’ crimes under scrutiny
The hearings in Sacramento, which will be closed to the public, are expected to last two to three hours each. One reporter will be present to act as pool correspondent on behalf of dozens of media outlets worldwide expected to cover the proceedings.
Erik, 54, and Lyle, 57, will appear by video link from the San Diego prison where they are being held.
Two or three panel members, whose identities are not being publicly released by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), will question the men regarding their behaviour and attitudes towards their crimes.
“The hearing panel will consider all relevant, reliable information available, which includes criminal history, department records concerning the incarcerated person, and statements from the incarcerated person, victims’ family, the district attorney’s office, and the public,” the CDCR stated.
Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman opposed resentencing this year and is expected to oppose parole.
He has insisted that the men’s shifting explanations for the double deaths – they provided five different accounts during the murder investigation – demonstrate they have not truly admitted their guilt.
“The Menendez brothers have never fully accepted responsibility for the horrific murders of their parents,” Hochman said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Instead, they continue to promote a false narrative of self-defence that was rejected by the jury decades ago.”
Even if the panel grants parole, the men will not be freed immediately, with the decision subject to review by the board’s senior lawyer in a process that may take up to four months.
Thereafter, the final decision rests with California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has 30 days in which he “may affirm, reverse, modify, or refer back to the Board any parole grant,” according to the CDCR.
In 2022, Newsom rejected a parole recommendation in the case of Sirhan Sirhan, who shot and killed Democratic presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.
You must be logged in to post a comment.