The Menendez brothers were given life sentences for gunning down their own parents. Now they're hoping new evidence could reopen the case. "48 Hours" contributor Natalie Morales reports in "The Menendez Brothers' Fight for Freedom," streaming now on Paramount+.
The question is not whether Lyle and Erik Menendez killed their parents. They admit that they did. Instead, the focus of the case has long been on why they did it. They say they killed out of fear and in self-defense after a lifetime of physical, emotional and sexual abuse suffered at the hands of their parents. Here's a look at the case.
On the evening of Sunday, Aug. 20, 1989, Jose and Kitty Menendez were shot multiple times at close range with a shotgun while in the family room of their Beverly Hills mansion.
Officers responded to the scene after Lyle Menendez, then 21, called 911, screaming, "Someone killed my parents."
Lyle and his then-18-year-old brother Erik Menendez later told investigators that they had arrived home to find their parents shot to death.
At the time of his death, Jose Menendez was working for a film studio, running its home video division. Investigators initially suspected that the killings may have been tied to his business dealings, but attention soon shifted to the couple's sons, Lyle and Erik Menendez.
In the wake of the crime, the brothers appeared to be spending their parents' money, and lots of it. They purchased Rolex watches and real estate, and invested in businesses.
While the brothers' behavior in the wake of the crime may have seemed unusual, it wasn't hard evidence. But then, about six months after the crime, in March 1990, police got a tip from an unlikely source: Judalon Smyth, the girlfriend of a psychologist who Lyle and Erik Menendez had been talking to. She told police that the brothers had confessed to the killings in therapy and there was an audiotaped recording of it.
Days later, on March 8, 1990, Lyle Menendez was arrested by Beverly Hills Police outside the mansion where his parents were killed. Two days after that, Erik Menendez surrendered at Los Angeles International Airport upon returning from Israel where he had been playing tennis.
On July 20, 1993, the highly publicized trial of Lyle and Erik Menendez began. Although they were tried together, they had separate juries deciding their fate. The brothers faced the possibility of the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder.
The defense argued that the brothers killed their parents in self-defense and that they were deserving of a lesser charge and punishment.
Both brothers took the stand and described how they say they were abused. Lyle Menendez testified that he was sexually abused by his mother and father. He said his father began sexually abusing him when he was only 6 years old.
While Lyle Menendez testified that his father stopped sexually abusing him when he was 8, Erik Menendez testified that it never ended for him and that he finally confided in his older brother Lyle days before the crime — at age 18.
The brothers testified that Lyle soon confronted their parents — and in the days leading up to the crime, things grew so contentious that they believed their parents were going to kill them to keep the family secret from coming out. They said they believed their parents were going to kill them the night of the crime and that's why they went into the family room and started shooting their parents.
To bolster their claims of abuse, numerous relatives, friends, and acquaintances of the Menendez family testified for the defense about incidents of physical and emotional abuse that they said they observed. Alan Andersen, Lyle and Erik's cousin, was one of those witnesses.
While Andersen never saw Lyle and Erik Menendez being sexually abused, he did recall something he says was odd. He told "48 Hours" that growing up, Jose Menendez would take showers with Lyle and Erik and that Kitty Menendez wouldn't let him go near the room.
Former Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey didn't work on the case, but reviewed it at "48 Hours'" request.
"After they killed their parents, they went around and picked up the expended shotgun shell casings so that their fingerprints wouldn't be discovered on those shells. …There was a lot of thought and deliberation that went into it," Lacey said.
Prosecutors pushed back against the brothers' claim of self-defense. They pointed to money as the motive and argued the killings were premeditated since the brothers purchased shotguns days in advance. They said that even if the brothers were abused, it didn't give them the right to kill.
When deliberations began, they stretched on for weeks before both juries determined they were divided over whether the brothers should be convicted of murder or manslaughter. A mistrial was declared.
Prosecutors decided to retry the Menendez brothers. At the retrial, which began in October 1995, and consisted of only one jury instead of two, prosecutors argued the brothers were lying about the abuse. They referred to the brothers' defense as "the abuse excuse." The prosecution also successfully objected to the admission of a large amount of defense evidence. And, this time, Lyle Menendez declined to take the stand.
The state placed more of an emphasis on the brutality of the crime.
The jury deliberated for days before finding Lyle and Erik Menendez guilty of first-degree murder. At the jury's recommendation, the brothers were later sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Almost three decades after their convictions, Cliff Gardner, one of the brothers' appellate attorneys, tells "48 Hours" that new evidence has come to light proving that Lyle and Erik Menendez were telling the truth about being abused. In May 2023, Gardner filed a habeas petition asking that the brothers' convictions be vacated.
"The boys were abused as children. They were abused their whole life. …And this is a manslaughter case, not a murder case. It's just that simple," Gardner says.
Had the brothers been convicted of manslaughter, they would have received a much shorter sentence and been out of prison a long time ago.
The first piece of new evidence is a letter that attorney Cliff Gardner says was written by Erik Menendez to his cousin Andy Cano in December 1988, about eight months prior to the killings. The letter reads, in part, "I've been trying to avoid dad. It's still happening Andy but it's worse for me now… Every night I stay up thinking he might come in." Gardner says this is proof the abuse took place.
The other new evidence involves a witness named Roy Rossello, pictured bottom right, who has come forward in a sworn affidavit alleging that he was sexually abused by Jose Menendez too.
Rossello says the abuse took place in the early 80's when he was a member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo. Jose Menendez, top row, second from left, worked as an executive at RCA Records at the time and RCA signed Menudo to a recording contract.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office told "48 Hours" that it is investigating the claims made in the habeas petition. Ultimately, it will be up to a judge to decide whether the convictions should be vacated. If they are, then it would be up to the D.A's office as to whether they would retry the case. As Lyle Menendez awaits a judge's ruling, he spoke to "48 Hours" contributor Natalie Morales.
He told Morales that when he heard about the new evidence, he was happy. "'Cause it's a burden to be telling what happened to you and just have so much doubt in the public air," he said.
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