Brothers Eric and Lyle Menendez, who spent more than 30 years in prison for the 1989 murders of their parents, are hopeful that new evidence of alleged abuse could free them.
The two brothers, now 56 and 53, have admitted to shooting Kitty and Jose Menendez in their Beverly Hills home, but the question is why they did it.
Prosecutors say the brothers committed the killings to obtain their family’s vast fortune, while others say they committed the killings out of fear from a lifetime of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. are doing.
“48 Hours” contributor Natalie Morales talks to her brother Lyle Menendez about new evidence currently under review in “The Menendez Brothers’ Fight for Freedom,” now streaming on Paramount+.
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In November 1989, the Menendez brothers, Eric, left and Lyle was on the steps of their Beverly Hills home. (Ronald L. Soble/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
“When I first heard about it, I cried,” Lyle Menendez told Morales. “For me, it meant a lot to have something come out that really made people understand, ‘OK…at least this part of this is true.’
Cliff Gardner, one of the brothers’ attorneys, told 48 Hours that given the abuse charges, the brothers should have been convicted of manslaughter rather than first-degree murder, which would have resulted in a few years in prison. He said it was supposed to be lighter. Before.
In the first trial in 1993, which was broadcast on court television and caused a national sensation, the two brothers claimed their father threatened to kill them if they spoke about the abuse they were suffering. Two relatives, including the brothers’ cousin Andy Cano, claimed that Eric had confided in them about the abuse long before Jose and Kitty were murdered on August 20, 1989.
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According to the New York Daily News, Lyle (left) and Eric (right) are pictured in a 2023 mug shot. After years apart, they moved into the same housing unit at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego in 2018, officials said. (California Department of Corrections)
The brothers were initially tried separately. According to Yahoo News, prosecutor Pam Bozanich argued that “he cannot rape because the man does not have the necessary equipment to rape.”
Immediately after the murder, the brothers told police that an intruder had killed their parents. In the months that followed, prosecutors said, he began spending money on travel, business and luxury items.
Eric confessed to the murder to psychologist Jerome Oziel, who told his then-mistress Judalon Smith. When Oziel broke off their relationship, Smith told police about his brother’s involvement in the murder, the Los Angeles Times reported. The brothers were arrested in 1990.
According to the “48 Hours” special, the trial of both brothers ended in a mistrial as neither jury could decide whether they were guilty of manslaughter or murder.
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The photo shows a letter Eric Menendez allegedly wrote and sent to his cousin Andy Cano eight months before the murders of Jose and Kitty Menendez. (Los Angeles County Superior Court, California)
In the second trial, Judge Stanley Weisberg limited testimony regarding the sexual abuse allegations and did not allow jurors to vote on manslaughter instead of murder, ABC News reported.
However, Gardner said a letter Eric Menendez wrote to his cousin Cano about eight months before the 1988 crime was recently unearthed from storage by Cano’s mother, and the men and corroborate the abuse claims.
“I’ve been trying to avoid my dad. Andy, it’s still happening, but it’s even worse for me now,” the letter reads in part. “I wake up every night thinking he might come in. … I’m scared… He’s crazy. He warned me 100 times about telling anyone, especially Lyle. .”
Roy Rosselló, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, also made claims corroborating the brothers’ story. Rosselló, now 54, said Jose Menendez, then an executive at RCA Records, abused her when she was 14 or 15.
Roy Rosselló, a member of the pop group Menudo, photographed in New York City in 1985. The man, who turned 54 this year, said in his affidavit that Jose Menendez sexually abused him. (Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images)
In an affidavit filed in 2023, he said he visited Menendez’s home in the fall of 1983 or 1984. He said that after drinking “a glass of wine” he felt like he “lost control” of his body. Mr. Rosselló then claimed that the older Mr. Menendez took her into a room and raped her. Former performers said they were abused two more times by the elder Menendez, before and after performances at Radio City Music Hall.
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Gardner argued that the brothers’ convictions should be vacated, citing a habeas petition letter and affidavit filed in May 2023.
If the brothers’ convictions are vacated, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office will have to decide whether to retry their case. The agency told “48 Hours” in a statement that it is investigating the new allegations. It is unclear when the judge will issue a ruling.
