What to Know
- Family members of Lyle and Erik Menendez will speak Wednesday at a news conference in downtown Los Angeles.
- The gathering of roughly two dozen family members comes as LA County's top prosecutor reviews new evidence in the case that led to their convictions and life prison sentences.
- The review hinges on a letter hat Erik Menendez wrote to his cousin that his attorneys say corroborates claims of sexual abuse by his father just nine months before their parents were killed.
About two dozen family members of Lyle and Erik Menendez will plead for the brothers' release from prison when they gather Wednesday in Los Angeles for a news conference.
The brothers have been serving a life prison sentence for more than three decades for the murder of their parents inside their Beverly Hills home in 1989. They have claimed they were sexually abused by their father and feared for their lives.
Attorney Mark Geragos said the news conference represents a display of unity as Los Angeles County's top prosecutor is conducting a review of new evidence in the case, the subject of the recent Netflix true-crime drama "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story."
"They all took it upon themselves to fly in from all over the country," Geragos said. "They are united in asking for Lyle and Erik to be released from prison."
The news conference is scheduled for 4 p.m. ET Wednesday at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles. Family members expected to speak include Anamaria Baralt, the niece of Erik and Lyle Menendez's father Jose Menendez; Joan Andersen VanderMolen, sister of the brothers' mother Kitty Menendez; Brian A. Andersen Jr., nephew of Kitty Menendez; and the brothers' attorneys. Comedian and TV personality Rosie O'Donnell, a vocal advocate for the Menendez brothers, also is expected to speak.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón has not announced a timeline for a decision on his office's review. Geragos said. Gascón, who is running for re-election in the Nov. 5 election, announced Oct. 3 that the review was launched after attorneys for 53-year-old Erik Menendez and 56-year-old Lyle Menendez asked a court to vacate their convictions.
"The DA has said that he's taken it seriously. He hasn't made a decision, yet," Geragos said Monday night. "I take his at his word because he's been honest with us all the way along.
"They're cautiously optimistic."
The review hinges on a letter that Erik Menendez wrote to his cousin that his attorneys said corroborates claims of sexual abuse by his father just nine months before their parents were killed. The brothers have said they killed their parents out of self-defense. Their attorneys have argued that the brothers may not have been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole if the trial was held today.
The brother's attorneys said family members believed the brothers should have faced a lesser charge of manslaughter instead of murder during the trial that led to their convictions at ages 21 and 18.
Prosecutors at the time argued there was no evidence of molestation. They said the brothers killed their parents for their multimillion-dollar estate.
Jurors rejected a death sentence in favor of life without parole.
The case gained new attention after Netflix streamed the true-crime drama "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story." In a statement on X posted by his wife, Erik Menendez called the show a "dishonest portrayal" of what happened that has taken them back to a time when prosecutors "built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused, and that males experience rape trauma differently from women."
Gascón has said he believes that the topic of sexual assault would have been treated with more sensitivity if the case had happened today.
“We have not decided on an outcome. We are reviewing information,” Gascón said in early October.
A hearing was scheduled for Nov. 29.
