The place Are the Menéndez Brothers Now? A Take a look at Their Lives in Jail Over 30 Years After Dad and mom’ Homicide

The Menéndez brothers murdered their mother and father in 1989 and alleged that their father abused them

The Menéndez brothers, Lyle and Erik Menéndez, marked a darkish anniversary on Aug. 20, 2023 — 34 years since they murdered their mother and father, José and Kitty Menéndez.

Whereas José, an leisure govt, and Kitty, a former instructor, watched TV of their Beverly Hills residence on Aug. 20, 1989, Lyle and Erik shot them at point-blank vary with shotguns — then known as 911 themselves, saying they got here residence from an evening out and located their mother and father’ useless our bodies. Intrigue within the case was nearly rapid, with preliminary investigations trying into the mob as potential suspects.

However the notes from the brothers’ therapist, a shotgun casing and a screenplay pointed to Lyle and Erik, whom prosecutors claimed have been privileged, spoiled and desperate to money in on their father’s $14 million fortune. Lyle and Erik had three separate trials, throughout which they alleged that José was bodily, emotionally and sexually abusive and that Kitty was hooked on medication and alcohol, bodily abusive and an enabler of José.

The brothers have been every convicted of two counts of first-degree homicide and sentenced to life in jail, however their tales have been removed from over.

Their case and conviction have been the topic of a number of tv initiatives through the years, from A&E’s The Menendez Murders: Erik Tells All in 2017 to Peacock’s Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed in 2023. Their chilling true story can also be the topic of the forthcoming season 2 of Ryan Murphy’s Netflix show Monster in addition to the 2024 Fox Nation docuseries Menendez Brothers: Victims or Villains.

“I believe trying again 34 years now on the trials, Erik and I and our family thought we were going into a manslaughter case with a district lawyer that understood the traumatic influence that sexual violence creates in an individual,” Lyle mirrored in Menendez Brothers: Victims or Villains. “And we ended up with the identical sentence as a serial killer.”

From their motives to their life sentences, this is all the things to know concerning the Menéndez brothers and the place they’re now.

Who’re the Menéndez brothers?

The youngsters of Hollywood govt José and former pageant queen Kitty, Lyle and Erik have been born into wealth and privilege. After graduating from Beverly Hills Excessive College in 1987, Lyle went to Princeton College, the place he performed varsity tennis. He was reportedly suspended for plagiarism after his first semester, however he returned in early 1989 and dropped out once more later that yr. Throughout his yr away from Princeton, he requested his father for cash for a visit to Europe with a girlfriend; when José refused, Lyle’s girlfriend paid his approach.

Erik was an aspiring tennis participant and had deliberate to attend UCLA; after the murders, he rescinded his enrollment. In 1987, he wrote a screenplay during which an 18-year-old murders his wealthy mother and father for his or her cash.

Lyle and Erik claimed that José sexually abused them as youngsters, which they cited as their cause for murdering José and Kitty of their Beverly Hills residence.

What crimes did the Menéndez brothers commit?

The Menéndez brothers murdered their mother and father, José and Kitty, on the night of Aug. 20, 1989, of their Beverly Hills residence. Every armed with a 12-gauge shotgun, Lyle, then 21, and Erik, then 18, shot their mother and father greater than a dozen instances. They fired at José at point-blank vary and saved capturing Kitty as she was making an attempt to flee.

The brothers have maintained that they had fought with José earlier than the slayings, with Lyle making an attempt to guard Erik from their father’s abuse.

After the murders, Lyle known as 911, saying between sobs that he and Erik got here residence from seeing a film to seek out their mother and father useless. Lyle later attributed his sobs on the cellphone to being “broken down with stress” and trauma. Within the months after the killings, the brothers each spent cash lavishly: Lyle bought a café, a Rolex watch and costly clothes, whereas Erik employed a full-time tennis coach to pursue the game professionally.

The weapons have been by no means recovered, however a good friend of the brothers discovered a shell casing in Lyle’s jacket pocket. It wasn’t till police obtained recordings from Erik and Lyle’s therapist, L. Jerome Oziel, that that they had “essential proof” pointing to parricide.

Lyle was arrested in March 1990, and Erik was arrested on the airport three days later after flying residence from a tennis match in Israel. The brothers have been every charged with two counts of first-degree homicide.

Their first trials, which have been performed individually and broadcast on Court docket TV, led to two hung juries. In a second trial, the brothers have been tried collectively, ensuing of their convictions, they usually have been each sentenced to life in jail with out the opportunity of parole.

Why did the Menéndez brothers kill their mother and father?

The prosecution’s narrative is that Lyle and Erik murdered their parents for money, however the brothers, having admitted to killing them, alleged that it was because of ongoing bodily, emotional and sexual abuse from their mother and father.

“There are, like, two to a few hundred parricide circumstances a yr, the place a mum or dad is killed by a toddler. And they’re nearly all associated to abuse. And they’re nearly all settled. This case they picked out as completely different,” Lyle advised Dateline in 2017. “And I believe that it was very straightforward, as a result of it was Beverly Hills and my father had some huge cash, to kind of promote this headline that these brothers killed for cash.”

Protection witnesses corroborated that the brothers’ upbringing was lower than idyllic. Charles Wadlington, Lyle and Erik’s childhood tennis coach of 5 years, alleged that José compelled them to follow in rain, chilly climate, on holidays and even after they have been sick. “He was only a scary man,” Wadlington testified. “You would inform he had some form of maintain over them.”

The primary focus of the protection and the brothers’ said motive was the sexual abuse. Lyle testified that José started molesting him and exhibiting him violent pornography when he was about 6 years previous. Lyle additionally recalled that when he first advised his mom Kitty concerning the abuse, she staunchly denied it.

“I advised my mother to inform Dad to depart me alone, that he retains touching me,” Lyle mentioned through the trial, based on The New York Times. “She advised me to cease it, that I used to be exaggerating and my dad needed to punish me after I did issues flawed.” Lyle additionally alleged that Kitty’s psychological well being had been “deteriorating” and that she later participated within the abuse, making him watch her undress and placing his face in his sheets when he moist the mattress.

The brothers claimed that when Lyle was about 8 years previous, José stopped sexually abusing him and commenced sexually abusing 6-year-old Erik.

“I used to be my father’s prized son,” Lyle advised PEOPLE in 2017. “On the identical time I had been very brutalized by him and conserving his secret was part of who I used to be. What I remorse is just not having our household one way or the other get this secret out earlier and possibly it might have been resolved with out this tragedy and destruction.”

In A&E’s 2017 docuseries The Menendez Murders: Erik Tells All, Erik recalled his own experiences in harrowing element.

“He would have me therapeutic massage him, and he would have me carry out oral intercourse on him. He would graphically describe to me how he would kill me if I ran away,” Erik mentioned.

Erik beforehand advised PEOPLE that his childhood was removed from the rich and spoiled life that the prosecution prompt he and Lyle had. “Oh, individuals say that I had all the things, that I used to be wealthy and lived in Beverly Hills,” he mentioned. “However for those who had pictures of the occasions of my childhood, they’d be crime pictures. I used to be dying lengthy earlier than the evening I killed my parents.”

The place are the Menéndez brothers now?

For greater than 20 years, Lyle and Erik have been imprisoned individually, with Lyle in Mule Creek State Jail in Ione, California, and Erik about 500 miles away at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego County. The brothers did not communicate for years, although they communicated in letters (and played chess through the mail). In February 2018, Lyle was transferred to a different housing unit at Richard J. Donovan — and in April, Erik moved into the identical unit as Lyle.

When the Menéndez brothers reunited, they burst into tears and Lyle whispered, “Lastly,” he advised DailyMailTV. “It was only a outstanding second,” he added. “It was simply one thing I wasn’t positive was ever going to occur.”

In 1999, Erik married his longtime pen pal, Tammi Ruth Saccoman, with whom he shares his stepdaughter, Talia. Tammi wrote a book, They Stated We’d By no means Make It: My Life with Erik Menendez, about their relationship and experiences. He additionally took up portray — and even gifted a portrait to comic Kathy Griffin — and, with different inmates, made makes an attempt at jail reform.

“Being arrested was such a reduction. My life was over and I used to be glad,” Erik advised PEOPLE in 2005, including that he was by no means motivated by cash. “As soon as I used to be arrested and put into jail, that one who I used to be started to emerge once more. I needed to discover it for myself.”

Lyle served as president of inmate authorities at Mule State Creek Jail earlier than being transferred and has worked in a support group for different prisoners who endured sexual abuse. From 1996 to 2001, he was married to Anna Eriksson. Two years later, he married Rebecca Sneed, with whom he has mentioned he has a wholesome relationship.

“I’ve a really regular, concerned marriage and that helps maintain me and brings plenty of peace and pleasure,” Lyle mentioned in 2017. “It’s a counter to the unpredictable, very nerve-racking atmosphere right here.”

Will the Menéndez brothers ever get out of jail?

The Menéndez brothers are serving life sentences with out the opportunity of parole, however there have been efforts to overturn their convictions. Attorneys for the brothers filed a petition with the courtroom on Could 3, 2023, citing Rosselló’s allegations in opposition to José featured within the Peacock docuseries Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed in addition to a newly found letter Erik wrote to one in all his cousins describing his father’s sexual abuse simply months earlier than the murders.

“The brand new proof not solely exhibits that Jose Menendez was very a lot a violent and brutal man who would sexually abuse youngsters, however it strongly means that — in actual fact — he was nonetheless abusing Erik Menendez as late as 1988,” the submitting learn partly, based on paperwork obtained by The Los Angeles Times. “As a substitute, the crime was manslaughter, not homicide. The killings occurred in imperfect self-defense, after a lifetime of bodily and sexual abuse from their mother and father.”

The submitting additionally identified that of their second trial, proof of the alleged sexual abuse they endured was excluded, with prosecutors accusing the brothers of fabricating the claims as a result of they have been by no means corroborated. Lyle and Erik’s attorneys requested an evidentiary listening to or to vacate the brothers’ convictions and sentences.

Does the Menéndez brothers’ household help them?

Many of the Menéndez brothers’ relations imagine that they have been sexually abused and reportedly “rallied round” Lyle and Erik after the slayings. One shut member of the family advised PEOPLE, “There are specific issues in life individuals don’t make up.”

Kitty’s eldest sister, Joan Vander Molen, echoed the sentiment, telling PEOPLE in 2017, “Our household tragedy ought to be a lesson to all on the harmful results of kid abuse and molestation, whether or not they’re rich or not.”

Lyle and Erik’s cousin Diane Vander Molen advised ABC News that, in 1976, Lyle confided in her that José sexually abused him. She additionally recalled telling Kitty, who reportedly mentioned that Lyle was mendacity and separated him from Diane — and that was the final Diane heard about it.

Kitty’s brother, Milton Andersen, nonetheless, mentioned the abuse allegations have been “bull.”

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