The Los Angeles district attorney announced Thursday that he will investigate new evidence of sexual abuse in the case of the Menendez brothers, who murdered their parents. This could lead to their outrage 30 years after this horrific killing.
District Attorney George Gascón announced that new evidence of sexual abuse against the brothers will be considered, more than 30 years after the infamous trial that captivated America.
“At this time, we are not prepared to say whether we believe or disbelieve that information,” the DA's office said. “But we are here to tell you that we have a moral and ethical obligation to consider what is presented and make a decision.”
In 1989, Eric and Lyle Menendez blew up their parents with a shotgun while they were watching a movie in the family room of their tony Beverly Hills home.
The brothers shot their father, Jose, a music industry executive, five times in total, but had to reload before they could deliver the final blow to their mother, Kitty, who was crawling on the ground in agony.
Eric was only 18 at the time and Lyle was 20.
last year, the brothers filed a petition Following revelations in the Peacock documentary series “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,” including allegations that his father sexually assaulted Menudo, a former underage member of a 1980s boy band. It is.
In the documentary series, Roy Lorocero claims that he was drugged and raped by RCA Records executive Jose Menendez when he was approximately 13 years old.
“This new evidence is incontrovertible,” says Nelly Inclan, one of the journalists for Menendez + Menudo. told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday..
“After 35 years, the obligation to show victims of incest the mercy they deserve is over.”
Lyle and Eric Menendez believe this new evidence lends credence to their claims that they were sexually abused by their father and mother from an early age.
Testimony to that effect was prohibited in the brothers' joint trial, but was included in their first separate trials, both of which ended with hung juries.
The brothers said in their petition that the murder was an act of self-defense and that they feared their parents would kill them if they told anyone about the abuse.
In recent months, the Menendez case has re-entered the public consciousness, thanks in part to Netflix's wildly popular miniseries Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez. The series details the murder and trial without trying to rehabilitate its image.
Murphy told Variety that she has “no interest” in speaking to the two convicts.
“I don't know what to say to them,” the American Horror Story creator confessed, adding: “I don't know what to say to them.” I know what their perspective is like. ”
The Menendez brothers' camp condemned the show.
“We believe that Ryan Murphy could not be so naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives in order to do this without any malice,” Eric Menendez wrote on Facebook days after the release. I wrote this.
Murphy told Variety that the show was “the best thing to happen to the Menendez brothers in 30 years.” They are now the talk of the town among millions of people around the world. ”
One such person is reality star turned prison reform advocate Kim Kardashian. In a personal essay published earlier todayis calling for the release of the Menendez brothers.
“We are all products of experience,” the 43-year-old wrote. “No one would ever claim to be the same person they were at 18. I know I'm not!”
Kardashian argued that the joint trial her siblings received was unfair, highlighting that witnesses who were allowed in their first separate trials were not able to testify in the joint trial.
She asserts that the allegations of sexual abuse by the Menendez brothers would be treated differently in today's climate, and would have been treated very differently if the brothers were of a different gender.
“Can anyone honestly deny that the justice system would have treated the Menendez sisters more leniently?” wondered the SKIMS founder.
“I spent time with Lyle and Eric. They are not monsters. They are kind, intelligent, honest people.”
She also called the two confessed murderers “sensational eye candy.”
The Keeping Up with the Kardashians veteran also noted that 24 members of the Menendez brothers' family, including their parents' siblings, are calling for their release.
