The Real Reasons the Menendez Brothers Are Getting a New Hearing Explained

The-Real-Reasons-the-Menendez-Brothers-Are-Getting-a-New-Hearing-Explained

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re breaking down the legal saga of the Menendez brothers — including new evidence that may see the brothers walk free.

Before anything, an introduction to the twisted world of the Menendez brothers. On August 20th, 1989, Lyle and Erik Menendez returned to their Beverly Hills home from a trip to the movies and the “Taste of L.A.” festival. What they found was an unthinkable horror: they found their parents, José and Kitty Menendez, brutally slain in their living room. At least, that’s what they wanted people to believe had happened. In reality, the Menendez boys, in response to what they claim was years of torture and abuse on their parents’ part, had taken their parents’ lives themselves. They were able to disguise this fact until early 1990, when a guilt-stricken Erik confessed his and Lyle’s heinous crime to Dr. L. Jerome Oziel, a therapist who’d been hired by José.

Oziel, fearing the repercussions of treating patients such as Erik and Lyle, convinced the brothers to allow themselves to be recorded as a means of “insurance.” The therapist foolishly spilled the beans to Judalon Smyth, his mistress. When the doctor refused to leave his wife for Smyth, she used his secret against him. This meant informing the police that, among other allegations of misconduct, he was in possession of material that incriminated the Menendez brothers for their parent’s murder. Lyle and Erik, who’d posited that their father was murdered in cold blood by one of his so-called “business enemies” or even the Mafia, were arrested on March 8th and 11th of 1990, respectively. Oziel has claimed that the brothers directly threatened his life, which did violate doctor-patient confidentiality, and as such, his recordings were mostly admissible as evidence.

When their court case finally kicked into action after having been delayed for two years, Lyle and Erik Menendez also faced an entirely different kind of trial: that is, in the court of public opinion. The media’s unprecedented access to the courtroom — via the nascent Court TV — totally flipped expectations on their head. General public sentiment regarding the brothers was largely unfavorable, with skeptics claiming that the Menendez brothers appeared smug and arrogant in court. They also pointed to their $700,000 spending spree after their parents’ murder as proof of their status as spoiled rich kids, only in it for the substantial inheritance they stood to receive.

That all changed, however, when Lyle Menendez took the witness stand. His moving testimony, detailing a lifetime’s worth of severe mental, emotional, and physical abuse from his father José, was a game-changer for him and Erik. Leslie Abramson’s legal defense strategy, which had initially seemed like a long shot, paid off… for a moment. The result was a “hopelessly deadlocked” jury, as described by Judge Stanley Weisberg, and a mistrial was declared as a result. The brothers’ legal defense was completely thrown out the window by two rules that were implemented for their second trial: 1) the media was banned from the courtroom, and 2) claims and discussion of the aforementioned abuse were heavily restricted. Lyle and Erik were both sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, having been spared the death penalty.

Much to Erik and Lyle’s shock and dismay, they were separated after their 1996 sentencing and didn’t see each other for well over 20 years. That is, until 2018, when Lyle was transferred to the same prison as Erik; the former was moving from Mule Creek State Prison to the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility. The brothers shared a predictably emotional reunion, having kept in touch for their entire, respective terms in prison. They had, of course, managed to keep busy in the interim: Lyle had been married, divorced, and then married again, and Erik had married in 1999. Over time, the case went from trial of the century to an historical footnote, having already been overshadowed by the OJ Simpson murder case by this point.

While Lyle and Erik had resigned themselves to quiet lives in prison, a new development in the Menendez saga was quietly brewing. José Menendez, born in 1944, was an accomplished businessman, having held high-ranking executive positions at corporations like Hertz Global Holdings and RCA Records. In his professional capacity at RCA, Lyle and Erik’s father was instrumental in signing the enormously popular Puerto Rican boy band Menudo to the record label. While this factoid mostly went unnoticed throughout the Menendez brothers’ trial, it came to light in 2023 when Roy Rossellò, a Menudo member, publicly accused the late José of having assaulted and drugged him — at 14 years of age. Upon learning this, Lyle and Erik filed paperwork to request a new hearing, which would ostensibly prove the brothers’ claims of abuse at José’s hands.

However, nothing would come of the Menendez brothers’ filing until over a year later. It’s no coincidence that, just a few weeks prior, Ryan Murphy’s “Monsters: The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story” debuted on Netflix. The ubiquitous showrunner followed up on the smash success of the first season of its true-crime anthology series “Monster,” which explored the life and crimes of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, with a Menendez-inspired follow-up. Much like the show’s “Dahmer” season, “Monsters” was a colossal hit for the streaming giant, quickly rising to the top of Netflix’s Top 10 “Most Watched” films. This, coupled with a grassroots TikTok following for the brothers, significantly reignited public interest in the case — as well as sympathy and outrage on the brothers’ behalf.

In what must’ve been a strange feeling of deja vu for those who had followed the Menendez case, Lyle and Erik were back in the news for the first time since 1996. After a massive wave of support for the brothers grew after Netflix’s “Monsters,” L.A. District Attorney George Gascón’s office confirmed that they were reviewing the Menendez brothers’ application for a new hearing, set for November 2024. Said the D.A., “We are not, at this point, ready to say that we either believe or do not believe that information. But we're here to tell you that we have a moral and an ethical obligation to review what is being presented to us.” While Erik Menendez had originally released a statement condemning Murphy’s “Monsters” miniseries, one has to wonder if his meetings with Cooper Koch and Kim Kardashian have swayed his opinion.

What did you think of the Netflix documentary “The Menendez Brothers?” Be sure to let us know in the comments below!