The Menendez brothers, Erik and Lyle, have been in prison for over three decades. There has been a lot of attention put on them due to the Netflix series, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. As a result, there has been a call for their immediate release, citing their original reasoning of self-defence to be true.
Everything seemed to going in their favour. Then-Los Angeles District Attorney (DA), George Gascon, asked L.A. County Superior Court Judge, Michael Jesic, to review the brothers' convictions. Most of the family supported them and they were resentenced to 50 years. This allowed them to be eligible for parole under new laws. These parole hearings took place in the past two days. The brothers faced seperate hearings.
The California board of parole denied the release on Thursday of Erik Menendez, who has spent nearly 30 years in prison since he was convicted with his brother in the shooting deaths of their parents.
Erik and Lyle Menendez were sentenced in 1996 to life in prison for fatally shooting their father, José Menendez and mother, Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989. They were 18 and 21 at the time, respectively. While defense attorneys argued the brothers acted out of self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, prosecutors said the brothers killed their parents for a multimillion-dollar inheritance.
A panel of California commissioners denied Erik Menendez parole for three years, after which he will be eligible again, in a case that continues to fascinate the public.
The two commissioners determined that Erik Menendez shouldn't be freed after an all-day hearing during which they questioned him about why he committed the crime and violated prison rules.
"Two things can be true. They can love and forgive you, and you can still be found unsuitable for parole," commissioner, Robert Barton, said. Barton said the primary reason for the decision was not the seriousness of the crime but Menendez’s behaviour in prison.
During his hearing, Erik Menendez offered his most detailed account in years of how he was raised and why he made the choices he did – both at the time of his parents’ killings and during his decades in prison.
"I was not raised with a moral foundation," he said. "I was raised to lie, to cheat, to steal in the sense, an abstract way."
The panel asked about details such as why he used a fake ID to purchase the guns he and Lyle Menendez used to kill their parents; who acted first and why they killed their mother if their father was the main abuser.
Barton asked: "You do see that there were other choices at that point?"
"When I look back at the person I was then and what I believed about the world and my parents, running away was inconceivable," Menendez said. "Running away meant death." Menendez, gray-haired and spectacled, sat in front of a computer screen wearing a blue T-shirt over a white long-sleeve shirt in a photo shared by officials.
The panel of commissioners scrutinized every rule violation and fight on his lengthy prison record, including allegations that he worked with a prison gang, bought drugs, used cell phones and helped with a tax scam.
He told commissioners that since he had no hope of ever getting out then, he prioritized protecting himself over following the rules. Then last fall, L.A. prosecutors asked a judge to resentence him and his brother – opening the door to parole.
"In November of 2024, now the consequences mattered," Menendez said. "Now the consequences meant I was destroying my life." A particular sticking point for the commissioners was his use of cell phones. "What I got in terms of the phone and my connection with the outside world was far greater than the consequences of me getting caught with the phone," Menendez said.
Erik Menendez’s parole attorney, Heidi Rummel, emphasized 2013 as the turning point for her client.
"He found his faith. He became accountable to his higher power. He found sobriety and made a promise to his mother on her birthday," Rummel said. "Has he been perfect since 2013? No. But he has been remarkable."
Commissioner, Rachel Stern, also applauded him for starting a group to take care of older and disabled inmates. More than a dozen of their relatives delivered emotional statements at Thursday’s hearing via videoconference.
"Today is August 21. Today is the day that all of my victims learned my parents were dead. So today is the anniversary of their trauma journey," he said, referring to his relatives. His aunt, Teresita Menendez-Baralt, José Menendez’s sister, said she had fully forgiven him. She noted that she was dying from stage 4 cancer and wished to welcome him into her home.
"Erik carries himself with kindness, integrity and strength that comes from patience and grace,”"she said. One relative promised to the parole board she would house him in Colorado, where he can spend time with his family and enjoying nature.
The L.A. county District Attorney, Nathan Hochman, said before the parole hearings that he opposed parole for the brothers because of their lack of insight, comparing them to Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated the presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy in Los Angeles in 1968. The Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, denied Sirhan parole in January 2022 because of his, "deficient insight."
During the hearing, the L.A. prosecutor, Habib Balian, asked Menendez about his and his brothers’ attempts to ask witnesses to lie in court on their behalf, and if the brothers staged the killings as a mafia hit. Commissioners largely dismissed the questions, saying they were not retrying the case.
In closing statements, Balian questioned whether Menendez was, "truly reformed" or saying what commissioners wanted to hear. "When one continues to diminish their responsibility for a crime and continues to make the same false excuses that they’ve made for 30-plus years, one is still that same dangerous person that they were when they shotgunned their parents," Balian said.
Likewise, Lyle Menendez has been denied parole one day after his brother, Erik, was similarly blocked from being freed from prison after more than three decades. It marks a major setback for the pair who had seen recent court wins that brought them closer than ever to freedom.
The elder Menendez brother, 57, who has long been portrayed as the dominant sibling, can try for parole again at a hearing in three years, though the panel said that could be reduced to 18 months with good behaviour.
The parole board, which was composed of a different panel than his brother Erik faced on Thursday, said they found, "that there are still signs" Lyle poses a risk to the public.
The panel cited the brutal nature of the killings of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, his lack of self-control and the signs that he still employs poor decision making.
"We find your remorse is genuine," parole commissioner, Julie Garland, told him, explaining the decision and noting all the positive changes he had made while in prison.
"But despite all those outward positives, we see ... you still struggle with anti-social personality traits like deception, minimisation and rule breaking that lie beneath that positive surface," Garland said.
The grisly murders and the trial that followed were among the criminal cases that defined the last century. During their trials in the 1990s, the brothers claimed the killings were done in self-defence after years of sexual and emotional abuse from their father that they said was enabled by their mother.
Prosecutors, though, argued they were greedy, entitled monsters who meticulously planned the killings then lied to authorities investigating the case while going on a $700 000 spending spree using money they had inherited.
"I'm profoundly sorry for who I was … for the harm that everyone has endured," Lyle told the board. "I will never be able to make up for the harm and grief I caused everyone in my family. I am so sorry to everyone, and I will be forever sorry."
The panel repeatedly brought up his illicit cell phone use in prison, which they said he appeared to have near constant access to for years. Commissioner, Patrick Reardon, one member of the panel, questioned if they should give so much weight to all the positive things he did in prison - like his schooling and programmes he created for inmates - when he was constantly violating the rules.
During the hearing, Menendez cried and took sole responsibility for the murders, saying in his closing remarks: "I will never be able to make up for the harm and grief I caused everyone in my family."
While speaking to the panel on Friday, Menendez said his father physically abused him by choking, punching and hurting him using a belt.
"I was the special son in my family," he said. "My brother was the castaway. The physical abuse was focused on me because I was more important to him, I felt."
He also said his mother sexually abused him but appeared uncomfortable discussing this when asked by the panel why he didn't disclose it during a risk assessment earlier this year. When asked whether the murders were planned, Menendez said: "There was zero planning. There was no way to know it was going to happen Sunday."
He also described buying the guns used in the murder as "the biggest mistake" and told the panel: "I no longer believe that they were going to kill us in that moment. At the time, I had that honest belief."
The panel noted he pleaded guilty to a mobile phone violation as recently as March of this year.
In explaining their denial of his parole, commissioner Garland said "incarcerated people who break rules" are more likely to break rules in society. Although he had a tablet that he was allowed to use, Lyle explained that he continued to use mobile phones because it gave him more privacy.
Mobile phones are prohibited in prisons and considered to be as corrosive as drugs to a prison environment over concerns that they can further criminal activity, like moving drugs, intimidating witnesses and even organising escapes. All communications while behind bars are monitored, except for attorney-client conversations.
"I would never call myself a model incarcerated person. I would say that I'm a good person, that I spent my time helping people. That I'm very open and accepting," Lyle told the board on Friday, noting he's done a lot to help vulnerable inmates.
"I'm the guy that officers will come to to resolve conflicts," he said, describing himself as a "peacekeeper."
He graduated with a degree while in prison and is currently in the process of getting his master's. Lyle has also been lauded for mentorship of other inmates, his work helping others who survived sexual abuse and for helping launch a beautification programme designed to improve the buildings of the prison.
A risk assessment done before his hearing found that Lyle would face a "moderate risk" of violence if released and noted he has anti-social traits, as well as traits of entitlement, deception, manipulation and issues with accepting consequences, citing his mobile phone use in prison.
The defence also called a former judge and a former fellow inmate to the witness stand to testify that the brothers weren't only rehabilitated, but also helped others. Prosecutors cross-examined the witnesses but didn't call any of their own.
Former judge, Jonathan Colby, who said he considered himself tough on crime, told the court that spending time with the brothers and witnessing their growth made him believe in rehabilitation. Anerae Brown, who previously served time in prison alongside the brothers, cried as he testified about how they helped him heal and eventually be released through parole.
"I have children now," he said. "Without Lyle and Erik I might still be sitting in there doing stupid things."
The judge said he was particularly moved by a letter from a prison official who supported resentencing, something the official had never done for any incarcerated person in his 25-year career.
Los Angeles County prosecutors argued against the resentencing, saying the brothers haven't taken complete responsibility for the crime. The current D.A., Mr. Hochman, said he believed the brothers weren't ready for resentencing because "they have not come clean" about their crimes.
His office has also said it doesn't believe they were sexually abused.
"Our position is not 'no'. It's not 'never'. It's 'not yet'," Mr. Hochman said. "They have not fully accepted responsibility for all their criminal conduct."
The reduced sentencing made the brothers immediately eligible for parole but they must still appear before a state parole board, which decides on whether or not to release them from prison. While this decision is made, the brothers will remain behind bars. Their first hearing had to take place no later than six months from their eligibility date, according to board policy.
After their first appeal was denied, the brothers will continue to receive subsequent hearings until they are granted release.
The brothers have another potential avenue to freedom; having appealed to California governor, Gavin Newsom for clemency before they were resentenced. Mr. Newsom has the power to free them himself through clemency and in February, he ordered the state parole board to investigate whether the brothers would pose a risk to the public.
They already had a hearing before the board scheduled for 13 June but that one was set as part of the clemency petition. It's not yet clear if that hearing will serve as their formal parole hearing or if a separate one will be scheduled.
Mr. Newsom can override any decision the board makes.
I'm actually quite surprised by the news. I'd thought that they were exemplary inmates. As such, I thought that they would've been successful. I was shocked and taken aback when I saw the breaking news. I'm sure they'll eventually get paroled as it looks like they've changed their ways.