LOS ANGELES — Twenty-eight years after Lyle and Erik Menendez were sentenced to life in prison for killing their parents, the brothers may be getting a second chance at freedom.
The news of their potential resentencing comes after the recent release of two Hollywood projects — including a Ryan Murphy-led true crime series on Netflix — prompted widespread buzz and speculation surrounding the case. Netflix also released a documentary titled “The Menendez Brothers” earlier this month. Celebrities, including Kim Kardashian, also came forward to issue their own public statements of support for the brothers.
Some legal experts say the Hollywood projects, as well as a public shift in attitude toward victims of sexual abuse, helped bring renewed attention to the Menendez brothers, paving the way for their potential release from prison.
“When the Ryan Murphy series came out, it was such a caricature of them that the pendulum swing backlash actually created a focus on it,” Mark Geragos, an attorney for the Menendez brothers, told reporters on Thursday. “And people then took a look.”
Lyle and Erik Menendez fatally shot their parents with shotguns in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989. Lyle was 21 and Erik was 18 years old at the time. Defense attorneys argued they were sexually abused by their father, but prosecutors said they lied to help create an alibi.
Their first trial was tossed out after jurors failed to reach a verdict. During their second trial, much of the sexual abuse evidence was excluded and the brothers were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole.
Their faces were broadcast into the homes of millions of people during their initial televised trial, cementing their celebrity status long before social media existed.
Last month, fictionalized versions of the Menendez family made their way to TV screens once again with the release of Murphy’s series “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” which stars Javier Bardem, Chloë Sevigny, Cooper Koch and Nicholas Alexander Chavez.
While the brothers criticized the show as “ruinous” and filled with “blatant lies,” the public became enamored with a case that shook the nation decades earlier. The show is the latest example of Hollywood’s fascination with true crime, a genre that has repeatedly been criticized for retraumatizing victims and normalizing horrific acts of violence.
In an interview with NBC News, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said his office already had plans to revisit the case after receiving two petitions. But the Netflix documentary triggered an onslaught of new interest and his office started getting a lot of questions.
“It became awfully clear to me that we needed to handle the case and move on,” he said. “That is a reason why I decided to move forward.”
The Netflix show came on the heels of a 2023 Peacock documentary “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,” which revealed shocking details about the brothers’ father, José Menendez, who was then an executive at RCA. It appeared to corroborate Lyle and Erik’s claims that they had been raped and sexually abused throughout much of their youth, details of which were excluded from their second trial.
“They should send a big thank-you note to the people who did the recent documentary,” said Manny Medrano, a Los Angeles-based criminal defense attorney who has followed the case since its inception. “There’s no question that the brothers benefited from the Hollywood influence and the documentaries and everything else that happened after that.”
Murphy told Variety in September that he believes his show was “the best thing that has happened to the Menendez brothers in 30 years.”
“They are now being talked about by millions of people all over the world,” he said, adding: “And I think the interesting thing about it is it’s asking people to answer the questions, ‘Should they get a new trial? Should they be let out of jail? What happens in our society? Should people be locked away for life? Is there no chance ever at rehabilitation?’ I’m interested in that, and a lot of people are talking about it. We’re asking really difficult questions, and it’s giving these brothers another trial in the court of public opinion.”
Speaking to reporters at a news conference, Gascón, who is seeking re-election but is trailing his opponent by double digits, said the Menendez brothers have paid back their debt to society and have been model prisoners. Moreover, they were under the age of 26 when they killed their parents and should be eligible for parole after serving decades in prison.
“When Erik and Lyle Menendez were sentenced to Life Without the possibility of Parole in 1996 their sentences were aligned with what was considered the best public safety practices,” Gascón wrote in his motion seeking resentencing. “What is considered best practices for public safety, however, has evolved.”
Criminal defense lawyer Anthony Solis said that changing opinion is likely to affect the judge’s decision on resentencing, having also endeared the brothers to millions of people who have followed their case.
“It seems more like the corroboration of the abuse that they suffered is equally as responsible as any kind of Hollywood effect,” he said, referring to some of the revelations in the Peacock series.
“They’ve always claimed that this was the result of an abusive father, and that they were victimized and terrorized,” he continued, adding that the case might have taken a different direction had the brothers been allowed to present evidence of sexual abuse. “The attitudes are very different now than they were back then.”
In a personal essay for NBC News, Kardashian expressed similar views to the attorneys, saying the brothers “were condemned before the trial even began.”
“Back then, there were limited resources for victims of sexual abuse, particularly for boys,” she wrote in the piece earlier this month. “There were virtually no systems in place to support survivors, and public awareness of the trauma of male sexual abuse was minimal, often clouded by preconceived judgments and homophobia.”
Kardashian, a reality-TV star and entrepreneur who has used her celebrity platform to advocate for inmates on criminal justice issues, met the brothers in September when she spoke about prison reform in a California prison near San Diego.
“I have spent time with Lyle and Erik; they are not monsters,” she wrote. “They are kind, intelligent, and honest men.”
Lyle Menendez is now 56, and Erik Menendez is 53.
In a two-part Instagram story Thursday, Kardashian thanked Gascón “for revisiting the Menendez brothers’ case and righting a significant wrong.”
She also wrote that “the media’s focus, especially on the heels of Ryan Murphy’s TV show, helped expose the abuse and injustices in their case.”
No hearing date has been set as of Friday.
