Erik and Lyle Menendez are currently imprisoned under the minimum life sentence for killing their parents in 1989. Their family is calling for their release, in light of new evidence that would render their conviction for murder void, while the brothers claim to have been raped for years by their father.
Will the Menendez brothers be released soon? The Los Angeles County prosecutor, who met with the family of the two brothers on Friday, January 3, has not yet decided whether or not he will support their request for release.
As reported by ABC News, the magistrate, Nathan Hochman, promised that he would examine all the elements of the file – composed of thousands of pages – in this almost 35-year-old case, revived in recent months by a Netflix series.
“We had a meeting with the prosecutor and we are grateful for the time he gave us,” Anamaria Baralt, cousin of Erik and Lyle Menendez, told the media.
“I want to reaffirm our position as a family and as a family of the victims, that this 35-year process has been incredibly traumatic for us, as I’m sure you can all imagine,” she said. she added, recalling that the family hoped for the release of the two brothers.
A new hearing at the end of January
On November 25, two aunts of the Menendez brothers, imprisoned under an irreducible life sentence for having killed their wealthy parents José and Mary Louise in 1989, demanded their release.
Prosecutors had accused the two young men, aged 18 and 21 at the time of the events, of having murdered their parents to inherit their fortune of 14 million dollars. The brothers presented these murders as a desperate attempt at self-defenseclaiming to have been raped for years by their father.
The defense of the two brothers requests their release, in light of new elements which would render their conviction for murder void: a letter from the time when Erik spoke of the sexual assaults of his father to a cousin before the murder, as well as the testimony of ‘a former Latino boy band singer, who says he was drugged and raped by José Menendez in the 1980s.
The fiction series Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez as well as a documentary produced by Netflix have recently revived interest in this case, in a world where the #MeToo movement has changed the perception of victims of sexual violence.
For now, the judge has prolonged the suspense by refusing to rule on the request for release. He set a new hearing for January 30 and 31.
