LYLE and Erik Menendez have spent more than half their lives in prison for the murder of their parents.
They claimed they were being abused by their father – but they were found guilty and are serving life sentences.
Where are the Menendez brothers today?
The brothers were housed in different prisons for many years, but are both are currently incarcerated at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.
Older brother Lyle and Erik did not see each other from 1996 until 2018 because they were in different prisons.
Lyle had previously been serving his sentence at Mule Creek State Prison in California.
“They just hugged each other for a few minutes without saying any words to each other,” journalist Robert Rand told ABC News in 2018, referring to the brothers’ reunion.
“Then the prison officials let them spend an hour together in a room.”
How old are the Menendez brothers?
Lyle was 21 and Erik was 18 when they fatally shot Jose and Kitty Menendez on August 20, 1989, in the family’s Beverly Hills home.
They used shotguns to shoot Jose Menendez in the head and Kitty in the face and stomach.
They were initially tried separately, but both juries were deadlocked.
“I think it was the emotional pull of the defense that caused a mistrial,” Deputy District Attorney Pamela Bozanich, who prosecuted Lyle, told The New York Times.
“It was similar to a situation where you have pro-life and pro-choice people and put them in an argument together.”
The brothers were later tried together and found guilty of murder in 1996.
Now 53 and 50, Lyle and Erik are serving life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The legal team for Lyle and Erik argued that they were sexually abused by their father.
Why are the Menendez brothers appearing on social media?
After being featured on ABC’s 20/20 in April of 2021, the Menendez brothers have a new generation of defenders – on Instagram and TikTok.
Thousand accounts across TikTok have been dedicated to freeing the convicted brothers since the special aired.
These new groups of supporters have been sending letters to Governor Gavin Nesom and the Los Angeles County DA, Geoge Gascón, to try and get them to take a second look at the Menendez case and free the brothers.
“They didn’t do it for money,” said Jazmine Shah, 16, a Menendez Defender, to FOX11. “They didn’t, you know, do it because they hated their parents. They wanted the abuse to stop.”
Despite all the support pouring in decades later, there are still people, who don’t agree with the murder charge, but agree they should be behind bars.
“Just because they were molested doesn’t give you a free pass to kill your parents,” said Rand to FOX11. “But with all of the mitigating evidence, with all of the family history that was presented in the first trial, one can understand, as did half of the jurors, that this should have been a resolution of manslaughter and not murder.”
While the brothers have been in prison since 1996, there is possibly new hope for them to get a new trial with the new generation of defenders.
