The Menendez brothers’ momentum built for years. It was dashed in two days

There has been a push to free Lyle and Erik Menendez from prison. Evonna McIntosh holds a sign supporting the Menendez brothers during a resentencing hearing in April. The Menendez brothers have spent over 30 years in prison for the 1989 murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, at their Beverly Hills mansion. Photo / Getty Images

For more than two years, people who were not yet born when Lyle and Erik Menendez murdered their parents powered a push to free the brothers from prison.

Joined by lawyers and family members and fuelled by documentaries, podcasts, news conferences and social media posts, they were remarkably successful in generating attention, so much so that after more than three decades in prison, the brothers found themselves last week in front of the California’s Board of Parole Hearings.

Almost 36 years to the day that they killed their parents, Jose and Kitty, inside their Beverly Hills home, the brothers seemed as close as ever to rejoining their clan.

“I am so sorry to everyone,” Lyle, now 57, said through tears on Saturday NZT, “and I will be forever sorry.”

But to the parole board members who decided the brothers’ fate in separate hearings, sorry was far from enough.

After reviewing hundreds of pages of documents and listening to hours of testimony over video, the two panels, with two members each, swiftly denied the brothers’ parole.

The momentum that had been building for years came to a halt in a matter of minutes.

The social-media campaigns of the young had collided with the hardline parole system of the old.

“We find your remorse is genuine,” Julie Garland, a member of the state panel for Lyle told him. “In many ways, you look like you’ve been a model inmate.”

But, she added, “you still struggle with antisocial personality traits” like deception and rule-breaking.

Throughout their campaign, the brothers’ backers focused on the fact that Erik and Lyle had been sexually abused by their father and had feared for their lives — factors that their supporters said should have been enough, alongside their record of good works while incarcerated, to free them.

The state parole board members tasked with deciding the brothers’ fate had access to a raft of prison records, and those documented a more complicated picture of the brothers and their conduct behind bars.

While acknowledging the brothers’ service, the parole commissioners had questions about the original crime, and about the brothers’ recurrent misconduct in prison.

Why did the brothers kill their mother when it was their father who was overwhelmingly responsible for the abuse?

Were they really, actually, in imminent fear for their lives when they killed?

And how did they explain persistent violations of prison rules, including the repeated use of cellphones as well as Erik’s use of drugs and participation in financial fraud schemes?

“It was an extremely violent yard that I was trying to survive,” Erik said, noting that certain prison gangs were in charge and running some of the illegal schemes he had participated in.

At the time, he said, he was still facing life in prison without the possibility of parole, and he thought he had to prioritise protecting himself over following the rules.

The commissioners were particularly troubled that the brothers kept using cellphones even in recent months, when they knew they would be coming before the board with a chance at parole.

“What I got in terms of the phone and my connection with the outside world was far greater than the consequences of me getting caught with the phone,” Erik said.

Patrick Reardon, the other member of Lyle’s parole panel, said he saw an inconsistency between Lyle’s service in prison, including a role on the inmate advisory council, and his constant possession of a cellphone, which Reardon said fitted a pattern of deceit.

Like his brother, Lyle told the parole commissioners that a cellphone made his life better and kept him “connected”. Commissioners made clear that such a rationale did not justify breaking the rules.

Lyle and Erik Menendez faced parole hearings last week 35 years after murdering their parents. Photo / Getty Images

Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor who is now a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said she was not surprised by the decision.

“For both of them, they were not following all the rules in custody, including the use of the cellphone,” Levenson said after the decision on Lyle.

“For both of them, there are real questions about why they went ahead and chose to kill their parents instead of choosing other options.”

Nathan Hochman, the Los Angeles County District Attorney, had contested the brothers’ efforts to be freed since he took office in 2024 after defeating George Gascon, who had supported parole for the Menendez brothers.

“For decades, Lyle Menendez has refused to accept full responsibility for his actions,” he said in a statement after the decisions.

“Along with his brother, he has clung to a fabricated self-defence story, repeatedly shifting narratives and enlisting others to bolster false claims.”

The brothers never thought they would get as far as they have. Up until late last year, when a court began reviewing their sentences of life without the possibility of parole, Lyle and Erik assumed they would die in prison.

Now, even after this week, many of their family and supporters believe it is only a matter of when they will be freed, not if.

They point to the fact that most first-timers in front of the parole board are denied.

“While we are of course disappointed by today’s decision as well, we are not discouraged,” the family said in a statement after Lyle’s hearing.

“The process for parole is exceptionally rigorous, but we are incredibly proud of how Erik and Lyle showed up — with honesty, accountability and integrity.”

Erik and Lyle were denied parole for three years — the minimum period possible — but were each told that if they stay out of trouble, they could petition for a new hearing earlier, possibly in as soon as 18 months.

Another legal path that could lead to freedom is the brothers’ efforts to persuade a judge in Los Angeles to throw out their convictions because of new evidence that has emerged in recent years about Jose Menendez’s alleged sexual abuse.

Over the summer, the judge in the case asked the district attorney to explain why a new trial shouldn’t be granted — a request that suggested the court was considering such a step.

“Don’t ever not have hope,” Garland told Lyle, adding that the denial was “not the end”.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: Matt Stevens and Tim Arango

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