A Los Angeles judge hears mixed opinions on Thursday about reducing the sentences for the infamous killers Lyle and Eric Menendez.
The hearing scheduled for Thursday through Friday is set to determine whether the siblings will be able to leave prison on parole nearly 35 years after killing wealthy parents at their Beverly Hills home.
The brother’s lawyer, Mark Jelagos, claims they were completely repaired and paid the debt to society, but district attorney Nathan Hochmann claims that Eric and Lyle have not shown any regrets about the murder and refused to tell their story about killing Jose and Kitty Menendez in self-defense in 1989.
Meanwhile, tensions between the prosecutor and his brother’s family reached a hot pitch.
On Monday, the family’s lawyer filed an appeal with the court to publicly warn the district attorney for showing horrifying photos of Jose’s mutilated body.
The Assistant District Attorney flashed the images at another hearing last Friday without warning the gallery’s family, saying Shock nearly killed Jose Menendez’s 85-year-old sister, Terry Barto.
An elderly woman who traveled from New Jersey to Los Angeles to support her nephew was found unresponsive on Sunday morning and rushed to the hospital in danger.
“In the open court and without prior warning, the prosecutors showed an unedited graphic image of Jose Menendez’s lively body, an act that led to the hospitalization of Terry Barto, the 85-year-old sister of the family present.
“This was not merely cruel. It was a clear violation of our rights under Mercy’s law,” the coalition added, evoking California law that gives victims’ parents the right to fairness, respect and dignity.
The DA’s office issued a statement apologizing for not giving advance warnings before showing the photos, but pointed out that Gory Visual Aids is a fixture in previous lawsuits.
“We repeatedly described the Menendez brothers’ vicious and premeditated actions in public documents. They shot their parents 13 times in the back of their father’s head, setting the stage on a mafia hit within the blissful range of their mother’s face and through the patella,” the DA’s office said.
Court resensing was one of Eric and Lyle’s two paths to freedom, 18 and 21 respectively, with Shotgun going back and forth between his mother and his wealthy music producer father, spending on $15 million in inheritance.
The brothers were found guilty of first-degree murder after two famous trials in the ’90s, but a 2024 Netflix documentary brought their cases back to the spotlight.
That same year, then-school district lawyer George Gascon asked the court, citing new evidence that his father had been sexually abusing for years, and new evidence that both parents might try to hide the truth.
However, after the current Da Nathan Hochman removed Gascón in November, his office dismissed a resentful petition as a hopeless attempt by Gascón to revive the failed campaign, dismissing Menedezes’s self-defense story as a “lie.”
