Family of Menendez brothers call for early release from prison

More than a dozen family members of the Menendez brothers gathered outside the downtown Los Angeles criminal courts building Wednesday and called for the resentencing and early release of the two convicted killers.

The show of support for Lyle and Erik Menendez follows a decision announced earlier this month by L.A. County District Attorney George Gascón to review their murder case. The brothers have long said they were sexually abused by their father.

Anamaria Baralt, a cousin of the brothers, introduced a coalition called "Justice for Erik and Lyle" and described the brothers as victims of a system that would not hear them and a culture that was not ready to listen.

"They would be mocked," Baralt said. "They would be called cold-blooded killers, left to rot in jail and denied any hope of redemption.

"If Lyle and Erik's case were heard today, with the understanding we now have about abuse and PTSD, there is no doubt in my mind that their sentencing would have been very different."

Joan Andersen VanderMolen, an aunt of the Menendez brothers, said she struggled for years to come to terms with what happened to her sister's family. She called it a nightmare none of the family members could imagine.

"But as details of Lyle and Eric's abuse came to light, it became clear," she continued, "that their actions while tragic were the desperate response of two boys trying to survive the unspeakable [cruelty] of their father."

The brothers were convicted of first-degree murder in the 1989 shooting deaths their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, at their Beverly Hills home. The case, which led to two highly publicized trials, has remained in the public consciousness for decades, and has recently drawn attention from a new generation on TikTok and other social media platforms.

Gascón has said new evidence was revealed in a recent Netflix documentary on the brothers, who have been imprisoned for more than 30 years.

Lyle Menendez is now 56 years old. Erik Menendez is now 53.

New evidence

One piece of evidence in question is a letter written by Erik Menendez to a cousin eight months before the murders, and it detailed sexual abuse by Menendez’s father, the district attorney said. The letter was found nine years ago, after the cousin’s death.

It could help provide a basis to reduce the conviction from murder to voluntary manslaughter because it may allow the brothers to claim the killings happened under a legal theory known as imperfect self defense. Under that argument, they would be able to claim they had the honest but unreasonable belief that their actions were necessary to protect themselves.

“None of this information has been confirmed,” Gascón said last month. “We are not at this point ready to say that we either believe or do not believe that information but we are here to tell you that we have a moral and ethical obligation to review what has been presented to us.”

The Netflix documentary recounts the August 1989 killings of Jose and Kitty Menendez, both of whom were hit with multiple shotgun rounds, and details how sexual abuse of boys was not as recognized as sexual abuse of girls at the time of the Menendez trial in the early 1990s.

"If they were the Menendez sisters, they would not be in custody," defense attorney Mark Geragos said Wednesday afternoon at the news conference.

Geragos also said a former member of the 1980s boy band Menudo has signed a declaration stating he was molested by the brother's father, Jose Menendez, who was then-head of RCA records and signed a deal with the band.

An L.A. County Superior Court hearing is scheduled for Nov. 26.

Background on the case

The case became an international sensation in part because Court TV broadcast live the first trial of the Menendez brothers in 1993. It ended in a mistrial after the jury deadlocked.

Defense lawyers for the brothers argued that the killings were motivated by years of abuse. But prosecutors raised doubts that the abuse ever happened. They argued instead that the brothers were motivated by greed and money because they inherited their father’s estate.

During a second trial, a judge limited the claims of sexual abuse and barred the brothers from arguing imperfect self defense.

Both were convicted in 1996 of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

This breaking news story will be updated with additional details from the news conference.