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, Lyle on Friday — are the latest chapter in a long campaign waged by friends, family and celebrities like Kim Kardashian to get the brothers out of prison.
They come after a Los Angeles judge this year reduced their original open-ended sentence to a term of 50 years, and as the men said, they accepted full responsibility for the grisly 1989 killings.
Now the brothers will be seeking to convince parole panels that they are reformed and pose no danger to the public.
“For more than 35 years, they have shown sustained growth. They have taken full accountability,” said a statement from The Justice for Erik and Lyle Coalition, a support group that includes family members.
“They express sincere remorse to our family to this day and have built a meaningful life defined by purpose and service.”
– ‘Mafia hit’ –
Blockbuster trials in the 1990s heard how the men killed Jose and Kitty Menendez in what prosecutors said was a cynical attempt to get their hands on a large family fortune.
After setting up alibis and trying to cover their tracks, the men shot Jose Menendez five times with shotguns, including in the kneecaps.
Kitty Menendez died from a shotgun blast as she tried desperately to crawl away from her killers.
The brothers initially blamed the deaths on a mafia hit, but changed their story several times in the ensuing months.
Erik, then 18, confessed to the murders in a session with his therapist.
The pair ultimately claimed they had acted in self-defense after years of emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of a tyrannical father.
During their decades in prison, changing social mores and greater awareness of sexual abuse helped elevate the men to something approaching cultural icons.
This status was nourished by a parade of docudramas and TV shows, including the hit Netflix miniseries “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.”
– ‘Horrific’ –
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 a pool on behalf of the dozens of media outlets around the world which are expected to cover the hearings.
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 identity is not being publicly released by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), will quiz the men on their behavior and their attitudes towards their crimes.
“The hearing panel will consider all relevant, reliable information available to the panel, 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 said.
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 gave five different accounts in the course of the murder investigation — means 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 Wednesday.
“Instead continuing to promote a false narrative of self-defense 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 top lawyer in a process that can take up to four months.
After that, 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,” the CDCR says.
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.
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