Erik Menendez

The backstory

The killings

José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez were killed at their Beverly Hills home on Aug. 20, 1989.¹ Their sons, Joseph Lyle Menendez, then about 21, and Erik Galen Menendez, then about 18, reported the deaths shortly afterward, according to the California Supreme Court.¹ The brothers called 911 at about 11:47 p.m., saying they had returned home from a movie and a food festival, NBC Los Angeles reported.¹⁴

The Ninth Circuit’s 2005 opinion summarizes the evidence. Two days before the killings, the brothers tried to buy handguns in Los Angeles and then drove to San Diego, where, at a third store, they bought two shotguns using false identification and nonexistent addresses; Erik gave the clerk a false reason for the mismatch, the court wrote.² At about 10 p.m. on Aug. 20, the court wrote, “Erik and Lyle burst through the doors of the den and fired thirteen to fifteen shotgun blasts at their parents.”² Erik testified that he fired as soon as he entered.² The brothers went to the car to reload and returned to fire one more shot at close range.² “Jose and Kitty died at the scene from multiple gunshot wounds — four shots to Jose and nine shots to Kitty,” the court wrote.²

Afterward, according to the opinion, the brothers collected the spent shells, bought movie tickets as an alibi and discarded them after noticing they were time-stamped, and “dumped the shotgun shells, their bloody clothes, and their bloody shoes in a trash can.”² At about 11 p.m., Lyle called a friend he had arranged to meet and falsely told him that he and Erik had gotten lost.² The brothers first told police that the Mafia was responsible, the court noted.² In 2025, District Attorney Nathan Hochman described the killings as staged “as a Mafia killing,” with shots to the kneecaps.¹⁸

The therapist’s tapes

In the fall of 1989 the brothers met with L. Jerome Oziel, a clinical psychologist who was their psychotherapist.¹ Erik told Oziel about two months after the killings that he and his brother had killed their parents, the Associated Press reported.²¹ The trial court found that during sessions on Oct. 31 and Nov. 2, 1989, the brothers made threats aimed at Oziel, and that Oziel warned his wife and a woman with whom he was involved, according to the California Supreme Court.¹ That woman later went to police, FOX 11 reported.²³

Police seized Oziel’s tapes under a search warrant on March 8, 1990, and on March 12 a felony complaint charged both brothers with two counts of murder, with special circumstances alleging murder for financial gain, lying in wait and multiple murder.¹ Lyle was arrested on March 8; Erik, who was out of the country, surrendered days later.¹⁴¹⁷ On Aug. 27, 1992, the California Supreme Court held that Oziel’s notes of the Oct. 31 and Nov. 2 sessions were not privileged, because the “dangerous patient” exception applied, but that the privilege protected a Nov. 28 session with Erik and a Dec. 11, 1989, recording of a session with both brothers.¹ Whether a tape-recorded therapy session was later admitted in violation of due process was one of the issues the Ninth Circuit rejected in 2005.²

The first trials

The brothers were tried together beginning in July 1993, before two separate juries, in a trial televised by Court TV.¹⁴ Prosecutors argued that the brothers killed their parents for financial gain.¹⁷ The defense did not dispute the killings and argued self-defense after years of abuse by their father.¹⁷

Erik testified that his father had molested him for years and that he did not know how to tell anyone, according to FOX 11’s account of the testimony.²³ He testified that he told Lyle in the days before the killings, that the brothers then confronted their father, and that his father had earlier threatened to kill him if he told anyone; he said he believed both parents were a threat to them.²³ Lyle testified that their father abused him as a young child.²³ Oziel testified for the prosecution that Erik had confessed the killings to him.²³ In January 1994 both juries deadlocked; the AP reported that they were split between murder and manslaughter verdicts.¹⁷²¹

The second trial and the sentence

The retrial began in October 1995 before a single jury for both brothers, and the judge excluded much of the abuse evidence the defense had presented the first time.¹⁷²¹ On March 20, 1996, the jury convicted both brothers of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder.¹⁴ It found the lying-in-wait special-circumstance allegations true, according to the AP.²¹ Prosecutors sought the death penalty; on April 17, 1996, the jury recommended life in prison without parole instead, NPR reported.²⁷

On July 2, 1996, Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg sentenced each brother to two consecutive life terms without parole.²⁶ He said the murders were planned over several days and were “separate acts of violence,” the AP reported.²⁶ The sources reviewed do not give the mitigation evidence or the jury’s reasons at the penalty phase.

Appeals

A California appeals court upheld the convictions in February 1998, and the California Supreme Court declined to disturb them three months later.¹⁷¹⁴ State and federal habeas petitions were denied.¹⁷ On Sept. 7, 2005, a Ninth Circuit panel of Judges Alex Kozinski, Stephen Trott and Richard Clifton rejected the brothers’ five claims, including that the trial court violated due process by admitting the therapy tape and by refusing an instruction on imperfect self-defense: “we reject all five contentions; and we affirm.”²

The new-evidence petition

In May 2023 the brothers’ lawyers filed a habeas petition in Los Angeles County Superior Court citing two pieces of evidence.¹⁷²⁵ One is a letter that his lawyers say Erik wrote to a cousin, Andy Cano, before the killings, describing abuse by his father; the Los Angeles Times reported that it says the abuse was “still happening.”²⁵²⁴ The other is the allegation by Roy Rosselló, a former member of the band Menudo, that José Menendez raped him as a teenager in the 1980s, made in a 2023 docuseries.²⁵ No court has made findings on these allegations.

Hochman’s office opposed the petition, arguing that the evidence was not new, credible or timely and would not likely have changed the outcome, and that the brothers had confessed on tape.⁴ Hochman said the letter had been available for about 35 years and that events in 1983 or 1984 could not have affected what he called a premeditated decision in 1989.¹⁰ On Sept. 15, 2025, Judge William Ryan denied the petition in a 16-page ruling, writing that “neither piece of newly discover[ed] evidence is particularly strong” and that it “is not so compelling that it would have produced a reasonable doubt in the mind of at least one juror.”⁹ Lyle wrote on Facebook, “The fight continues.”⁹

Resentencing

On Oct. 24, 2024, District Attorney George Gascón announced that his office would ask the court to replace the life-without-parole sentences with 50 years to life, saying the brothers had “paid their debt to society.”²⁰ Because both were under 26 at the time of the crimes, that sentence would make them immediately eligible for parole under a California law that took effect in 2018.²¹ Gascón lost his reelection bid in November 2024.¹⁴ On Nov. 18, 2024, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he would defer a clemency decision until the new district attorney reviewed the case.¹⁹

Hochman, sworn in Dec. 3, 2024, said in March 2025 that he would not support resentencing, saying the brothers had not shown “full insight and complete responsibility.”¹⁷¹⁸ Judges denied his requests to withdraw Gascón’s motion.¹⁷ On May 13, 2025, Judge Michael Jesic resentenced both brothers to 50 years to life.³ “I’m not saying they should be released; it’s not for me to decide,” Jesic said, adding, “I do believe they’ve done enough in the past 35 years, that they should get that chance.”¹⁶ In court, Erik apologized to his family, saying, “You did not deserve what I did to you, but you inspire me to do better.”¹⁶ Hochman’s office said parole eligibility does not mean release, a decision left to the parole board and the governor.³

The parole hearing

Erik’s first parole hearing, held by video on Aug. 21, 2025, lasted about 10 hours; Presiding Commissioner Robert Barton and Deputy Commissioner Rachel Stern denied parole for three years, finding that he would pose “an unreasonable risk to public safety.”¹¹¹² Barton said the gravity of the crime was “not a primary reason for this denial.”¹² “It’s still your behavior in prison,” he said.¹¹ He said the board would have ruled differently had Erik had no violations since 2013.¹¹

The commissioners cited at least nine rule violations between 1997 and 2021, according to CNN, including at least two for contraband cellphones, physical altercations with other inmates in 1997 and 2011, tobacco and marijuana possession, and possible involvement around 2013 in a prison gang’s “tax scam.”¹² ABC News reported that the board cited inappropriate behavior with visitors, drug smuggling, misuse of state computers and using cellphones while leading rehabilitation groups, and that he had a phone as recently as January 2025.¹³ Erik told the board he aligned with the gang to survive.¹¹ Barton called his phone use “selfish.”¹² “Contrary to your supporters’ beliefs, you have not been a model prisoner, and frankly, we find that a little disturbing,” he said.¹³ The board also cited burglaries Erik took part in before the killings and the killing of his mother; Barton said it “especially showed a lack of empathy and reason.”¹³¹² A recent risk assessment had rated him a moderate risk.¹³

Erik told the board that he bought the gun because of fear of his father, saying, “I was never going to let dad come in my room and do that again.”¹¹ Asked whether any part of his crime was self-defense, he said no, according to CNN, and he called it a “forever crime.”¹² He said he shot his mother because she had “betrayed him,” ABC News reported.¹³ Lyle, whose hearing was held the next day, was also denied parole for three years.¹⁷¹⁰

Why the case is back in the news

The September 2026 decision to advance the brothers’ next hearings to early 2027 is described above.⁷⁵ Renewed attention to the case followed a May 2023 Peacock docuseries and the September 2024 Netflix series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.¹⁴¹⁷

Personal backstory

Family and youth

Erik’s father, José Menendez, was an entertainment executive, and his mother, Kitty, was a former beauty queen, FOX 11 reported.²³ FOX 11 reported that teachers at his prep school said his heavy tennis commitments led to suspicions that others were doing his homework.²³ The parole board cited burglaries he took part in before the killings, as well as traffic violations, as part of his record as a teenager.¹²

His account of his childhood, given in testimony, is that his father sexually abused him for years and threatened to kill him if he told.²³ Lyle testified that their father abused him first and then began abusing Erik.²³ Prosecutors in the 1990s disputed the abuse claims, and the 1996 jury convicted both brothers of first-degree murder.²³¹⁴ At the 2025 resentencing hearing, a cousin testified about abuse she said she witnessed in the household, the AP reported.¹⁶

No mental-health diagnosis testified to or found by a court appears in the sources reviewed.

The family’s views

Most of the extended family, on both sides, has supported the brothers’ release.¹⁶ “We all, on both sides of the family, believe that 35 years is enough,” a cousin said in 2025.¹⁶ In 2024, Kitty Menendez’s sister said the killings were “the desperate response of two boys” trying to survive their father’s cruelty.²⁰ Kitty Menendez’s brother has opposed their release, maintaining that the brothers were not abused and were motivated by greed.²⁰²⁴

In custody

Erik admitted to the parole board that he used heroin in 1998, CNN reported, and he has since stopped using drugs, according to ABC7.¹²¹¹ He married in 1999; he and his wife first met in person at Folsom State Prison in 1997, NBC Los Angeles reported.²² The brothers were held in separate prisons until February 2018, when Lyle was transferred to the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, where Erik was held.¹⁴ On June 18, 2025, Erik received a bachelor’s degree from UC Irvine, NBC Los Angeles reported.¹⁴ The family says the brothers helped establish a hospice program and a beautification project in prison.⁷⁶

In July 2025 he was taken to an outside medical facility; the corrections department said he was “in fair condition,” and his lawyer, Mark Geragos, said he had a “serious medical condition” and asked that he be furloughed, without describing the condition, the AP reported.¹⁵ He later returned to prison.¹⁴