Menendez brothers

On August 20, 1989, brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez brutally murdered their parents, José and Kitty Menendez, shooting each of them multiple times in the family’s mansion in Beverly Hills, California. In the decades since there has been little dispute about those facts. But were the killings heinous acts of cold-blooded, privileged murderers or desperate pleas for help from confused, traumatized victims of abuse? The perhaps unknowable answer to that question explains how the case became one of the most notorious of the second half of the 20th century and one that remains unresolved well into the 21st century.

Before the murders

Before that August night it would have been easy to imagine the Menendezes as the perfect family. José Menendez was a Cuban immigrant who came to the United States in the 1950s. He met and married Mary Louise Anderson, known as Kitty. With ambition, a mind for business, and a degree from Queens College, José Menendez quickly moved up the corporate ladder, first at Hertz, the car rental company, and then at RCA Records, where he worked with Latin musical groups including the boy band Menudo. The couple had two children, Lyle, born in 1968, and Erik, born in 1970. In the 1980s the couple moved with their two sons from New Jersey to one of Beverly Hills’ most exclusive neighborhoods.

If José Menendez was ambitious for himself, he was no less so for his sons. Both boys were talented swimmers and tennis players who seemed eager to please their parents. But parental pressure was clear to those who interacted with the family. Charles Wadlington, the boys’ tennis coach, testified at trial that José Menendez was “the harshest person I’ve ever met.”

By the late 1980s cracks in the seemingly perfect family facade had begun to surface. In 1987 Lyle Menendez attended Princeton University but was accused of plagiarism and told he could not return for the 1988 school year. Also in 1988 Erik Menendez was ordered to attend therapy as part of a plea deal for his involvement in a string of burglaries.

Murders and trials

On the night of August 20, 1989, 21-year-old Lyle Menendez called 911, screaming into the phone that “someone killed my parents.” When they arrived police officers found 18-year-old Erik weeping in front of the house. The horrific nature of the crime scene initially led police to suspect a possible mob hit related to José Menendez’s business dealings.

In the wake of the murders, the therapist who had treated Erik Menendez the previous year, Jerome Oziel, reached out to him to ask if he needed additional therapy. In the course of one of those sessions, Erik confessed to killing his parents. Oziel later recorded both brothers confessing to the murders. The tape was ultimately given to Beverly Hills police, and Lyle and Erik Menendez were arrested in March 1990 and charged with their parents’ deaths.

Legal wrangling over the admissibility of the confessions and other issues meant that the brothers’ trials (there were separate juries for each brother) did not get underway until 1993. But when they did, they captured the country’s attention in a largely unprecedented manner. Court TV carried the trials live, and the hours of coverage presaged what would happen when O.J. Simpson would go on trial in 1995 in the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

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The trials lasted five months and featured more than 100 witnesses. Prosecutors argued that the brothers were greedy, killing their parents for their inheritance, and pointed to the brothers’ spending sprees, which included purchases of expensive cars and jewelry, in the months after their parents’ deaths.

The defense countered that the killings were in self-defense: both brothers testified that José Menendez had molested them repeatedly, and that their mother was aware and had done nothing to stop the abuse. Lyle told jurors that he had confronted their parents about José Menendez’s ongoing abuse of Erik. The younger brother tearfully testified that he thought his father would kill him and Lyle to prevent the revelation that “there was a sexual relationship between he and I.”

In the end both juries deadlocked, unable to reach verdicts.

A second trial in 1995 carried much less fanfare than the first. The judge ruled that there would be no cameras in the courtroom and determined that the defense had insufficient evidence to claim parental abuse. In March 1996 Lyle and Erik Menendez were each found guilty of two counts of murder and sentenced to life without parole. The brothers were sent to separate prisons and did not see each other again until 2018 when Lyle Menendez was moved to the same San Diego correctional facility as Erik.

Renewed interest in the case

In 2023 the brothers filed a petition for a new trial based on what they said was new evidence, including:

• An allegation from Roy Rosselló, who had been a member of Menudo, that José Menendez had sexually abused him. Menendez had worked with Menudo during his time at RCA.
• A letter Erik Menendez had sent to a cousin eight months before the murders outlining his father’s abuse. The cousin had testified at the trial but the letter had only recently been found.

In the fall of 2024 the Menendez case was brought to life for a new generation by two Netflix series: Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story was a fictionalized account and was followed by a documentary, The Menendez Brothers, which included interviews with the two men. Shortly thereafter, some members of the Menendez family made a public appeal for the brothers to be released from prison. Anamaria Baralt, a niece of José Menendez, cited her uncle’s alleged abuse of his sons:

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.

Not all family members supported the brothers’ freedom, however. Milton Anderson, a brother of Kitty Menendez, said his nephews “do not deserve to walk on the face of this earth” because of what they had done.

In October 2024 Los Angeles county District Attorney George Gascón said that he believed the brothers’ claims of molestation and recommended resentencing, which would have potentially made them eligible for parole. But with the election of a new district attorney, Nathan Hochman, in November, the case underwent another review. In February 2025 Hochman recommended against a new trial, saying that the new defense evidence was neither credible nor admissible. In March, the D.A. announced he would oppose resentencing the brothers to time served because “they have lied to everyone for the last 30 years.”

Lyle and Erik Menendez also have sought clemency from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has said he would not make a decision until the district attorney had decided whether to recommend resentencing. Newsom has asked the state parole board to assess whether the brothers would pose a risk to the public if released.