Updated @ 8:41 AM EDT on August 22, 2025
Erik Menendez and his brother Lyle have been incarcerated for over thirty years for the deaths of their parents, and California has refused them release.
The state’s Board of Prison Terms said Thursday that Menendez may seek for parole after three years, which is the earliest period permitted by state law, following a hearing that lasted almost ten hours.
After stating that he and the other board member “probably spent four times more than we do on our usual average here,” Commissioner Robert Barton came to the conclusion that Menendez still poses “an unreasonable risk to public safety” in accordance with the law, according to LAist.
“Two things can be true,” Barton stated, expressing his amazement at the claims made by Menendez family members in favor of Erik’s release. You can be deemed unfit for parole even if they love and forgive you.
He claimed that Erik’s “devoid of human compassion” at the time was demonstrated by the shooting death of their mother, and he listed several other infractions that he claimed demonstrated Erik’s “continued willingness to commit crimes.”
These include using drugs and alcohol, having a cellphone, participating in a tax fraud plan for a prison gang, and violent incidents in 1997 and 2011. According to LAist, Menendez stated during the court that he was driven by “tremendous fear” and primarily to deal with jail life.
Erik’s “remorse, growth, and the impact he’s had on others speak for themselves,” the Menendez family said in a statement, adding, “We continue to stand by him and continue to hope that he is able to return home someday soon.”
“Tomorrow, we turn our attention to Lyle’s hearing,” it continued. “And while is it undoubtably difficult, we remain cautiously optimistic and hopeful that the commissioners will see in Lyle what so many others have: a man who has taken responsibility, transformed his life, and is ready to come home.”
On Friday, a different panel will hold a separate hearing for Lyle Menendez.
Although it is theoretically possible that only one of the brothers is released, Mark Geragos, their lawyer, told NewsNation’s Cuomo earlier this week that “on the merits, it shouldn’t happen.”
“I have spent, I can’t tell you how much time, with both of them,” he replied. “They are intriguing, captivating, and worthy of being granted parole.” Both of them ought to be out.
When Erik was 18 and Lyle was 21, the brothers were convicted guilty in 1996 of killing their parents, Kitty and Jos Menendez, at their Beverly Hills mansion in August 1989. They received a life sentence without the chance of release.
The brothers acknowledged the murders but insisted they were self-defense, claiming their father had sexually assaulted them and they were afraid for their life. In the years that followed, they unsuccessfully appealed their convictions on several occasions.
However, everything changed in 2023 when their attorneys offered fresh proof to support their allegations of sexual abuse. The next year, then-Los Angeles District Attorney George Gasc suggested the brothers’ resentencing after a Netflix documentary and docudrama rekindled interest in and sympathy for their cause.
In May, a court reduced their sentences to 50 years to life. Because they committed the killings before the age of 26, the brothers, who are now in their 50s, qualify for parole under California’s juvenile offender rule.
Nathan Hochman, LA’s current district attorney, has continuously opposed the brothers’ release and attempted to obstruct the resentencing procedure. “Justice should never be swayed by spectacle,” his office said in a statement on Wednesday, but it promised to “evaluate our final position based on the evidence presented at the hearing.”
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation states that the parole board’s decision is not finalized for 120 days. The board’s legal office may review it within that period, and the entire board may also be referred to it.
The office of California Governor Gavin Newsom has 30 days to examine and perhaps veto the parole decision, even if it is approved by the panel.
In a July episode of his podcast, This is Gavin Newsom, Newsom stated that he will decide before Labor Day.
Ryan Murphy, the creator of Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, was his guest, and he explained that he had deliberately avoided seeing the show in order to keep it from affecting his perspective.
“I kept having a temptation to want to see it, but with the recognition always in the back of my mind that this thing may land on my desk,” Newsom stated. “I don’t want to be persuaded by something that’s not in the files.”
The brothers have other options for achieving freedom besides parole. A court is still considering a habeas petition their defense submitted in 2023, claiming that fresh evidence should call for a new trial.
In February, Newsom stated that he had instructed the parole board to look into whether they would be a “unreasonable” public safety risk if freed, but emphasized that “there’s no guarantee of outcome here.” They have also asked for clemency from Newsom.
Let’s examine how we got here and potential future developments.
Who are the Menendez brothers?
New Jersey is where Lyle and Erik Menendez grew up. As their father, Jos, a successful RCA record executive and Cuban immigrant, advanced through the entertainment industry, the family relocated to the Los Angeles area in 1986.
Two years later, they moved into a seven-bedroom home in Beverly Hills. The brothers, however, claim that their affluent lifestyle had a sinister undertone because their parents had abused them emotionally, physically, and sexually for years.
Jos and Kitty Menendez were watching television in their living room in August 1989 when the brothers entered and killed them with brand-new 12-gauge shotguns. Later, the brothers reported to 911 that intruders had slain their parents.
Because of Jos’s business contacts and the dramatic nature of the crime scene, authorities immediately suspected possible mafia participation. However, they paid more and more attention to the brothers, who had gone on an extravagant spending binge in the days and weeks following the murders.
Lyle was detained by Beverly Hills Police in early March 1990 in connection with the killings of his parents. Days later, Erik turned himself in while attending a tennis event in Israel.
What happened in court?
Due in part to Court TV’s live broadcast of the brothers’ 1993 trial, the case captured the attention of a large portion of the nation.
The brothers’ defense attorneys contended that they had acted in self-defense, claiming that they were afraid their parents would murder them in order to keep the abuse allegations quiet. They said that Jos had assaulted them physically and sexually for years, and that Kitty, who was characterized as an unstable alcoholic, had allowed it to happen.
However, prosecutors contended that the brothers were driven by financial gain and greed because, at the time of his passing, their father’s estate was valued at around $15 million.
Each brother had his own jury in the trial. A mistrial resulted from their deadlock.
A key component of the brothers’ self-defense strategy, the judge in their second trial restricted the quantity of testimony and evidence regarding their allegations of sexual assault.
Both brothers were found guilty of first-degree murder at the conclusion of that trial in 1996. They received two consecutive life sentences without the chance of release.
According to ABC News, the brothers apologized for killing their parents and lying during the subsequent court procedures while watching their May hearing from prison via video.
There was no excuse for his behavior, which Erik described as “criminal, selfish, and cowardly.” Though he acknowledged that he had “come a long way on this path of redemption,” he added, “I will not stop trying to make a difference.”
What have the brothers done in prison?
The first 20 years of that prison sentence saw the brothers kept in separate prisons, but they have been housedin the sameSan Diego correctional facility since 2018.
According to the brothers’ attorneys, they are exemplary inmates who have contributed to society. Gasc’s 2024 memo arguing for their resentencing details that work, stating that each of them has demonstrated themselves to be a “incredible asset to his prison community.”
Erik is recognized for having co-founded and led a number of prison initiatives, such as a Twelve Step Recovery and meditation class, Life Care and Hospice Connections, and Victim Impact & Victim Empathy for Vulnerable Populations.
Lyle also created a number of programs, including an inmate advisory bulletin, a mentorship group of youth offenders without the possibility of parole andGreenSpace, a prison beautification project involving the painting of murals and landscape redesign.
“What I think you’re going to see on Thursday with Erik is you’re going to see a lot of discussion about the programs that he’s instituted, not the least of which is the hospice program which he pioneered in California, it’s kind of a template,” Geragos, their attorney, said. “And I think when you get to Lyle on Friday, you’re going to hear about the GreenSpace program.”
The board takes prison disciplinary records into account as well. That same 2024 memo says each brothers’ record is “reflective of his positive trajectory throughout his period of incarceration.”
According to the report, Erik had eight infractions during a 30-year period, the most recent of which was in 2021 for possessing a cellphone. It says Lyle has had five violations, including cellphone possession in 2024, noting that he “has not been in a single fight in the 30 years he has been incarcerated.”
“In 1997 he had to be moved from General Population to the Special Needs Yard because he wouldn’t fight back when attacked,” it continues.
What new evidence has emerged?
Lawyers for the brothers filed a habeas corpus petition in May 2023, asking a judge to considernew evidenceof their father’s sexual abuse.
That evidence includes a letter Erik wrote in 1988 to his cousin Andy Cano, describing sexual abuse by his father. Their lawyers had not known of the letter before the brothers saw it mentioned in a 2015 Barbara Walters television special and asked about it, according to the Associated Press. TheLAist reportsit was only discovered after Cano’s death.
Another piece of evidence comes from Roy Rossello, a former member of the Latin boy band Menudo which was signed under RCA during Jos Menendez’s tenure. Heclaimed in a 2023docuseries that Jos had drugged and raped him in the 1980s, when he was a teenager.
The brothers’ case reentered the spotlight the following year, not only because of the emerging evidence but because of new coverage: the true-crime dramaMonsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story(which Erik has criticized) andThe Menendez Brothersdocumentary both arrived on Netflix in the fall of 2024.
Weeks later, two dozen Menendez relativesgathered in Los Angelesto push for the brothers’ resentencing.
Joan Andersen VanderMolen, Kitty Menendez’s sister, told reporters the brothers “were failed by the very people who should have protected them.”
“[In the 1990s] the world was not ready to believe boys could be raped Today, we know better,” she added. “It’s time to give them the opportunity to live the rest of their lives free from the shadow of their past.”
Alana Wise and Ayana Archie contributed reporting.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story first published in May 2025.
Copyright 2025 NPR
