LOS ANGELES — The Menendez brothers saga has a new chapter as the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office began to review their cases.
George Gascón announced Thursday that his office is reviewing the brothers’ cases in light of “new evidence,” KTTV reported.
Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted in 1996 of killing their parents José and Mary (Kitty) Menendez in their Beverly Hills home in 1989. The brothers were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. They have appealed several times but have been denied in every instance.
Lyle Menendez was 21 and Erik Menendez was 18 when they confessed to shooting their parents, but said they were afraid that their parents would kill them to keep them from talking about the alleged sexual molestation of Erik by their entertainment executive father, CNN reported.
Prosecutors said the brothers killed their parents to get their multimillion-dollar estate.
Lyle is currently 56 and Erik is 53.
Gascón’s office started examining the case to see if it should be reheard or whether the Menendez brothers should be resentenced. More than 300 people have been resentenced since Gascón took office, CNN reported. The district attorney is running for reelection, The New York Times reported.
“We have people in the office that are looking at this very carefully, very experienced lawyers that are looking at this. That evidence will be presented to me. Their recommendations will be presented to me, but the final decision will be mine,” Gascón said, according to KTTV.
The new evidence included a letter sent by Erik Menendez to his cousin Andy Cano months before the murders that said he was being molested. There were also allegations that Roy Rosselló, one of the members of Menudo was drugged and molested by José Menendez when Rosselló was a member of the band, the district attorney said, who pointed out that the allegations have not been confirmed.
Cano’s mother found the letter recently, but Cano, who died of a drug overdose in 2003, testified during the Mendez brothers’ trial that Erik was molested by his father when he was 13 years old.
The letter read, “I’ve been trying to avoid dad. It’s still happening Andy, but it’s worse for me now. I can’t explain it. ... I never know when it’s going to happen, and it’s driving me crazy. Every night I stay up thinking he might come in. I need to put it out of my mind,” KTTV reported.
The brothers’ attorneys said that the letter showed “Jose Menendez was very much a violent and brutal man who would sexually abuse children, but it strongly suggests that -- in fact -- he was still abusing Erik Menendez as late as December 1988. Just as the defense had argued all along,” KTTV reported.
The case had been in the spotlight since Netflix released the true-crime drama “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” CNN reported. Erik Menendez’s wife called the show a “dishonest portrayal” and is based on when prosecutors “built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused, and that males experience rape trauma differently from women.” Another documentary called “The Menendez Brothers” premieres on Netflix on Oct. 7, the Times reported.
In a court filing, the Menendez brothers’ lawyers presented a letter signed by two dozen family members, including sisters of both parents, calling for sentencing. The letter reads in part, “time has provided perspective” and that “continued incarceration serves no rehabilitative purpose,” the Times reported.
A brother of Kitty Menendez told the Times last year after Rosselló's accusations that his nephews should not be released.
“They do not deserve to walk on the face of this earth after killing my sister and my brother-in-law,” Milton Andersen told the newspaper in 2023.
The brothers have a hearing scheduled for Nov. 29, KTTV reported.
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