The Los Angeles district attorney denied killer brothers, Erik and Lyle Menendez, a new trial Friday, shutting off one path to freedom for the notorious Malibu pair.
DA Nathan Hochman announced his recommendation during a press conference 30 years after the brothers were found guilty of the shotgun slayings of their wealthy parents.
The convicted killers had asked for a new trial based on newly-surfaced evidence that they had been molested by their father Jose Menendez, including a note Erik wrote in 1988 detailing the abuse, as well as a claim from a member of the band Menudo that Jose had molested him, too.
But after reviewing the evidence, Hochman didn’t buy the brothers’ argument: He argued that corroborating evidence was too weak to justify a new trial and pointed out that even during the original trial in the 1990s, the self-defense claim was the brothers’ fourth version of the events.
” What I believe is that they testified to that sexual abuse. They absolutely testified to it in great detail. I also understand that when it came to any corroborating information about that sexual abuse, it was extremely lacking,” Hochman told reporters.
“And the fact that it was their fourth version – in other words, they didn’t come out initially and say, ’We killed our parents because our father sexually abused us. They didn’t go ahead and when they got arrested, tell anyone that,’” the DA continued.
Even if the court follows the DA’s recommendation, hope is not lost for the brothers, who came back to the spotlight last year following a hit Netflix documentary about their case.
The pair has also asked the court for resentencing, a pardon from the governor, and eligibility for parole based on evidence of rehabilitation and good behavior behind bars.
” Rehabilitation is not an issue for the habeas motion [for a new trial], and I want to make that crystal clear that all the talk about rehabilitation will be talk that will be focused on in the resentencing motion,” Hochman said.
The sons of a wealthy music producer, Lyle and Erik purchased shotguns and killed José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez, execution style, in their mansion in 1989.
They claimed the killings were a mob hit, but cops began to suspect the brothers after they went on a spending spree with their parents’ sizable inheritance.
The two were found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison after two high-profile trials in the 90s.
The 2024 Netflix documentary “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” sparked new public interest in their case.
After the new evidence surfaced, a group of 20 family members begged the DA to reconsider their case. And LA’s soft-on-crime DA George Gascón seemed sympathetic to their plight.
But the brothers’ fortunes changed once again: Gascón lost his seat in a landslide election to Hochman, who vowed to reverse his lenient policies, and LA’s January wildfires delayed scheduled court hearings.
