It sounds as though the Menendez Brothers only have to wait until the end of the week to learn their fate.
In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón shared that the next few days could take the infamous case in a new direction. This is after a press conference a few weeks ago revealed he was “reviewing” new evidence surrounding the abuse Erik and Lyle Menendez suffered from their father before the murders.
“There’s actually two different camps in my office,” Gascón said Tuesday. “I have a group of people, including some that were involved in the original trial, that are adamant that they should spend the rest of their life in prison and that they were not molested … I have other people in the office that believe actually, that they probably were molested and that they deserve to have some relief.”
“I plan to have a decision by the end of this week,” the DA confirmed.
This news from Gascón comes a week after nearly two dozen members of the Menendez family publicly urged the DA’s office to give the brothers a resentencing. Lyle and Erik, now 56 and 53 years old, respectively, have been imprisoned since being found guilty of the 1989 double murder of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, with both currently serving life sentences without the possibility of parole.
“Their continued incarceration serves no rehabilitative purpose. It’s time to recognize the injustice they’ve suffered and allow them the second chance they deserve,” the brothers’ cousin Anamaria Baralt said at last week’s family press conference. “Now here we are, both sides of the family united, sharing a new bond of hope, hope that with the reexamination of their case, a new outcome will be reached. Hope that this 34-year nightmare will end and that we will be reunited as a family.”
“They were just children, children who could have been protected and were instead brutalized in the most horrific ways,” Kitty Mendenez’s sister added. “The truth is, Lyle and Erik were failed by the very people who should have protected them: by their parents; by the system; by society at large. When they stood trial, the whole world was not ready to believe that boys could be raped or that young men could be victims of sexual violence. Today, we know better.”
The massive resurgence in the case’s popularity is largely thanks to Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” and a slew of documentaries that have been released in 2024. Gascón himself acknowledged this pop culture aspect to the case.
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