Kim Kardashian believes the Menendez brothers should be released from prison.
The reality star recently spoke out about two controversial convicted murderers.
Los Angeles prosecutors are considering new evidence to determine whether the brothers should be sentenced to life in prison for killing their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion more than 35 years ago, the city said. The district attorney made the announcement Thursday.
The case is featured in a new Netflix scripted series and an upcoming documentary.
An undated photo of the Menendez family appearing at a panel at CrimeCon 2024 on Sunday, June 2, in Nashville, Tennessee. Brothers Lyle and Eric were convicted of shooting their parents to death in 1989. (Michael Lewis/Fox News Digital)
“You think you know the story of Lyle and Erik Menendez,” Kardashian wrote in her letter. opinion essay Published in Thursday's edition of NBC News. “I thought so.”
“In 1989, brothers, 21 and 18 years old respectively, brutally shot and killed their parents in their Beverly Hills home,” she wrote. “In 1996, after two trials, they were sentenced to life in prison without parole. As is often the case, this story is much more complicated than it appears on the surface.”
Kim Kardashian believes the Menendez brothers should be released from prison. (Rodin Eckenroth/WireImage/Getty; Reuters)
Kardashian is an advocate for prison reform and previously worked with President Trump to commute the sentences of several convicts convicted of non-violent crimes. She also spoke on criminal justice at the White House earlier this year.
In her essay, the mother of four centered on her siblings' claims that they had been subjected to mental, physical and sexual abuse by their parents, and that they feared for their lives.
Menendez brothers who shot and killed their parents slam new show for “dishonest portrayal''
“After years of abuse and real fear for their lives, Eric and Lyle chose an unimaginable way to escape what they thought was their only way out at the time: a living nightmare,” Kardashian wrote. .
She said after the jury deadlocked in the first trial, the judge ruled in the second trial that many of the abuse claims were inadmissible.
Kim Kardashian spoke at the White House in June 2019 about the importance of criminal justice reform. She also spoke at President Biden's White House earlier this year. (Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Death is now the only way they can get out of prison,” Kardashian said, adding that the first televised trial had become “a national pastime” and that the media had portrayed them as “monstrous, sensational eye candy.” '' and wrote, “Two arrogant people.'' Rich kids from Beverly Hills who killed their parents out of greed. ”
“There was no room for pity, let alone sympathy,” she noted.
“Following years of abuse and fear for their lives, Eric and Lyle chose what they thought was their only way out at the time: an unimaginable way to escape their living nightmare.”
Will the Menendez brothers have a chance at freedom?
“Eric and Lyle had no chance of a fair trial in these circumstances,” the 43-year-old argued, adding that there was prejudice against male victims of sexual abuse at the time.
“Can anyone honestly deny that the justice system would have treated the Menendez sisters more leniently?” “But what about the decades of abuse they endured as children?”
Watch “The Menendez Brothers: Monsters or Misunderstandings?” Exclusively on FOX Nation
She said she had recently spent time with the brothers, who she said had an “exemplary disciplinary history” in prison.
They are “not monsters. They are kind, intelligent, honest people,” she insisted.
Kardashian also said that one of the prison wardens told her it was safe to have the brothers as neighbors.
Kardashian said the murders of her parents were “unforgivable,” but said her siblings were “more serialized” than the two men who “endured years of sexual abuse at the hands of people they loved and trusted.” He said he was treated like a murderer.
He added: “I do not believe that spending their lives in prison is an appropriate punishment for this complex case. If this crime had been committed and tried today, the outcome would have been dramatically different. Dew,” he added.
“I also believe that they were denied a fair second trial, that the exclusion of evidence of significant abuse deprived Eric and Lyle of the opportunity to fully state their case, and that the fairness of their convictions was compromised. I strongly believe that it has been further damaged.”
But not everyone agrees with Kardashian's assessment.
The Menendez brothers were sentenced to life in prison without parole in 1996 for the murder of their parents. (Ted Soki/Sigma/Getty Images)
Clark Fogg, a former senior forensic expert who investigated murders for the Beverly Hills Police Department, told Fox News Digital this week that “if they were tried again today, they would be convicted.”
Fogg believes the motives for the brothers' murders had to do with “greed and money.”
Listen to the Menendez Brothers prison phone call:
“Why did they have to kill the mother in the first place?” Fogg said. “If you killed Mr. Menendez separately from her, she would end up getting the inheritance, right? So they had to eliminate both of them to get the inheritance. It is.”
Mr. Fogg investigated the Menendez brothers' case in 1989. He photographed crime scenes to preserve evidence, attended autopsies, and took the stand at both trials.
Eric Menendez (left) and his brother Lyle in front of their home in Beverly Hills. They are the prime suspects in the murder of their parents. (Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
In an interview with Fox News Digital, he described the horrific scenes at the crime scene.
“One of the detectives actually had to hold a golf umbrella over my head while I was taking pictures because sometimes things would fall from the ceiling,” Fogg said.
Defense attorney Barry Levin (left) pats double murder defendant Eric Menendez (center) on the back during the second trial on March 20, and attorney Leslie Abramson (right) says Eric and Lyle He is listening in as he is sentenced for first-degree murder with special circumstances. In 1989, his parents Jose and Kitty Menendez were murdered with a shotgun. (Reuters)
“At the end of the day, it's one thing. The reason they're in prison is because they brutally murdered their mother and father, not because they poisoned them, but because they killed them with shotguns so hard that they splattered on the ceiling. That's how brutally they were killed. ”
Fogg said it appeared her mother was trying to run away when she was killed because there was blood on the soles of her shoes.
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“Even at that point, they continued to kill her with one shot after another…” he told FOX News Digital.
Fox News Digital's Mollie Markowitz and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
