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Lyle Menendez also denied parole, a day after brother Erik
By Jamie Ding
Los Angeles: Lyle Menendez, imprisoned for 35 years with his brother Erik for the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents at their Beverly Hills home, has been denied parole a day after the same decision was made for his younger sibling.
The ruling on Saturday (AEST) was announced by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation at the end of a nearly 12-hour proceeding.
Lyle Menendez appears before the parole board via teleconference.Credit: AP
Parole commissioners assigned to the case concluded there were still signs that Lyle Menendez, 57, would pose a risk to the public if released from custody, according to details of the hearing provided to news outlets, including Reuters, through a media pool reporter.
Menendez, dressed in blue prison garb, appeared by video from a San Diego facility where he is incarcerated. His younger brother, Erik Menendez, 54, was denied parole following a similar 10-hour session a day earlier. The two may apply for parole again within three years.
The parole hearings marked the closest the brothers have been to winning freedom from prison since their convictions almost 30 years ago in a case that continues to fascinate the public.
The brothers said they shot their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, because they feared for their lives after years of sexual abuse by their father and emotional abuse by their mother. At the time, Erik Menendez was 18 and Lyle Menendez was 21.
“My father was the most terrifying human being I’d ever met,” Erik Menendez said on Thursday (Friday AEST) when asked why he did not leave the home rather than commit murder.
“When I look back at the person I was then and what I believed about the world and my parents, running away was inconceivable.”
Prosecutors argued that the killings were coldly calculated and motivated by greed, namely the brothers’ desire to inherit their parents’ multimillion-dollar fortune.
Explaining the reasoning behind Friday’s ruling, Parole Commissioner Julie Garland said the “callous” nature of the killings, as well as Lyle Menendez’s efforts to cover up his role in the crime afterwards, remained factors in the denial.
Members of the California board of parole hearings also found that Erik Menendez still posed “an unreasonable risk to public safety”, and cited his behaviour in prison as an additional reason for denial of parole.
Parole commissioner Robert Barton pointed to Erik Menendez’s violations of prison rules, including drug smuggling, mobile phone use and episodes of violence in 1997 and 2011.
The brothers have been in custody since March 1990 and were originally sentenced in 1996 to two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.
In May, a judge reduced their sentences to 50 years to life. Under California law, the pair became immediately eligible for parole because they were under age 26 at the time of the crimes and had already served more than half their prison term.
Family members have supported the brothers’ release, saying the pair have paid their debt to society. Both are now married.
The case has captured the attention of true-crime enthusiasts for decades and spawned documentaries, television specials and dramatisations. The Netflix drama Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, and a documentary released in 2024, have been credited for bringing new attention to the brothers. Greater recognition of the brothers as victims of sexual abuse has also helped mobilise support for their release.
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