The Menendez brothers, who were convicted in 1989 of murdering their parents, may be closer to release thanks to a renewed legal campaign and increased public interest in the Netflix series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.
Lyle and Erik Menendez, then 21 and 18 years old, shot their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, to death in their Beverly Hills home while they watched television.
The brothers claimed their actions were the result of years of sexual abuse by their father, a Hollywood executive. Authorities, however, said greed was the real motive, citing a spending spree that followed the killings.
Despite their 1996 conviction and sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole, the brothers continue to fight for a new trial.
Their lawyers, who are “cautiously optimistic” about the brothers’ release, filed a petition in May 2023 citing new evidence, including allegations of sexual abuse against their father by Roy Rossello, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, who alleged that Jose raped him in the 1980s.
Lyle and Erik Menendez shot their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, to death in their Beverly Hills home while they watched television.
Pictured: Jose Menendez, father of Lyle and Erik Menendez, in 1988. He and his wife, Kitty Menendez, were found murdered in their Beverly Hills, California, mansion in August 1989.
Their team also cited a letter Erik wrote to his cousin, Andy Cano, describing the abuse that occurred several months before their parents’ deaths.
‘Nobody had looked [the cousin’s personal] effects until 2015, and then it was discovered, 10 years after our last appeal,’ Menendez brothers’ attorney Mark Geragos after the sentencing told people.
He argued that the brothers’ second trial violated constitutional protections and that the new evidence, including Menudo’s accuser and Erik’s letter, makes a new trial necessary.
He also said the judge had three options: deny the request, order the prosecution to respond, or issue an informal response. The judge chose the latter, and the prosecution has taken it seriously over the past 15 months.
Geragos said the brothers’ defense team conducted a parole hearing of Kitty’s oldest sister and obtained statements from 24 family members who requested a retrial.
They also submitted additional documents and evidence for the court to consider.
Geragos said that if the case were retried today, the outcome would be significantly different.
Pictured: Nicholas Chavez as Lyle Menendez, Chloe Sevigny as Kitty Menendez, Javier Bardem as Jose Menendez and Cooper Koch as Erik Menendez, in the Netflix series Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story
“I’ve tried this case today, 99 times out of 100 it’s voluntary manslaughter. Twenty years, 30 years, the culture changes, and I think it’s more enlightened or evolved, and people are starting to realize that maybe there was a feeding frenzy at the time, and if you think about it more soberly, they didn’t get a fair trial,” he said.
Los Angeles attorney Neama Rahmani told PEOPLE that while it was “tragic that the brothers were abused,” the chances of them being released are “highly unlikely.”
“It’s a Hail Mary-type argument,” he said. “That’s not enough, in my opinion. A corroborating record or the fact that a victim abused someone else, that’s not the kind of evidence that typically results in a habeas petition being granted.”
The case is now the subject of the second season of Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” starring Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny.