Relatives of the Menendez brothers held a press conference Wednesday following the Los Angeles DA's announcement his office was reviewing new evidence
Family members of Erik and Lyle Menendez gathered outside a courthouse in downtown Los Angeles Wednesday to call for their release from prison. The relatives, more than 20, gathered amid ongoing concerns that key evidence was not considered, or simply "discarded," when the brothers were convicted and sentenced in the shocking shotgun slayings of their parents José and Kitty Menendez more than 30 years ago.
At the press conference, Kitty's 92-year-old sister Joan Andersen VanderMolen said she believes evidence that the brothers were routinely sexually abused by their father would have been accepted and portrayed in a much different light if the trial took place today.
"No jury today would issue such a harsh sentence without taking their trauma into account," Andersen VanderMolen said, her voice shaking. "Lyle and Erik have already paid a heavy price, discarded by a system that failed to recognize their pain. It's time to allow them to live the rest of their lives free from the shadow of their past."
Other relatives said they believe the outcome of the case would have been much different if the siblings were sisters, not brothers. "It's time for Erik and Lyle to come home," Kitty's niece Karen VanderMolen said. "We live in a time now that we understand what trauma does to the brain development of a child. The evidence of their father's abuse would have been a central part of their defense."
Anamaria Baralt, a niece of José Menendez, called the brothers "victims of a culture that was not ready to listen." She said it was time to recognize the injustice they suffered. "If Lyle and Erik's case were heard today, with the understanding we now have about abuse, and PTSD, there is no doubt in my mind that their sentencing would have been very different."
The statements come after Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced he would be "reviewing evidence" in the brothers' case following increased calls from their supporters. Lyle and Erik rocketed to national prominence decades ago after they were implicated in the 1989 murders of their parents inside the family's $4 million Beverly Hills mansion. Late that August night, Beverly Hills police responded to an emergency call from Lyle that his parents had been mysteriously murdered. Investigators found the parents' bodies riddled with shotgun wounds amid a horrific, blood-soaked scene. While Lyle and Erik were first treated by police as grieving orphans, the brothers were arrested and charged with first-degree murder in 1990.
During their now-infamous first court case, which was broadcast live by CourtTV in 1993, Erik and Lyle testified that they killed their parents because they were sexually assaulted by their father and feared for their lives. Prosecutors claimed the boys wanted their inheritance and murdered for greed. Separate juries for each of the brothers deadlocked after an initial trial. Lyle and Erik were convicted of first-degree murder in a retrial.
In a new writ of habeas corpus, a request to challenge a person's imprisonment, attorneys for both Lyle and Erik argue that their retrial, in which jurors were told Erik and Lyle's sexual assault claims were a "total fabrication," didn't include new evidence that would have corroborated their claims. Their father Jose was posited as someone who would never abuse children, which directly led to the jury's decision. But the jury wasn't aware of a 1989 letter from Erik to his cousin Andy corroborating his assault. The trial also did not include the recent claims from Menudo band member Roy Rossello that he was raped by José Menendez when he was around 14-years-old, which attorneys for the Menendez brothers argue justifies an answer from the state.
In the recent Netflix documentary The Menendez Brothers, Joan VanderMolan said that she was disheartened by how much the public made light of Lyle and Erik's sexual abuse claims. "I called Jay Leno's show one time to protest them making fun of them. And that's all they did. They just made fun of them," their aunt, she said. "I was told that we were public property now and they could do what they wanted."
Since American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy released his retelling of the case in Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story in October, Kim Kardashian has also gone on a public campaign to free the brothers from prison. "With their case back in the spotlight -- and considering the revelation of a 1988 letter from Erik to his cousin describing the abuse -- my hope is that Erik and Lyle Menendez's life sentences are reconsidered," she wrote in an NBC op-ed. "We owe it to those little boys who lost their childhoods, who never had a chance to be heard, helped or saved."
The brothers' criminal lawyer, Mark Geragos, said he hopes Erik and Lyle will be out of custody by Thanksgiving. A representative for the district attorney confirmed that there was no news yet from his office: "A decision regarding the Menendez case has not been made," the spokesperson wrote. "Once DA Gascón has made a decision, the family members of the victims and the public will be notified."
