On Oct. 24, Los Angeles District Attorney (DA) George Gascón filed a motion recommending the resentencing of Lyle and Erik Menendez, who currently serve life sentences at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility near San Diego, California.
If the judge at their upcoming hearing agrees with Gascón’s recommendation and the parole board approves the request, the brothers could be freed after 30 years imprisonment. This hearing could mark a turning point from their 1996 sentencing to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the first-degree murder of their parents, José and Louise Menendez. With shifting views on the reality of sexual abuse of males, many now question how these changes influence perspectives on the Menendez brothers’ case.
The brothers’ first trial in 1993 resulted in a hung jury, meaning the jurors could not reach a unanimous verdict. In 1995, a new jury retried the brothers in court. In the second trial, the jury found insufficient evidence to support the brothers’ claims about their parents’ abuse. The jury ultimately convicted the brothers of first-degree murder in 1996.
In the original trial, the defense argued that the Menendez brothers’ crimes were the result of prolonged emotional and sexual abuse by their parents, particularly their father. Initially, many doubted the brothers’ claims due to inconsistencies in their accounts — such as one brother claiming the mafia killed their parents — and prevailing prejudices in the 1990s about the reality of sexual abuse of males. However, recent shifts in the understanding of such abuse have prompted a social re-evaluation of the brothers’ case and sentencing.
The brothers initially denied involvement in the murders, but later admitted to shooting their parents. They spent large sums of their parents’ money until their arrest and the defense delayed mentioning their abuse, both of which caused some jurors to question the brothers’ credibility.
Hazel Thornton, a juror on the first trial, observed distrust among jurors. “The men [on the jury] did not believe that José [Menendez] had been abusing his sons. [They] never did back down and accept the fact that they may have been abused,” she said in an interview with NewsNation.
Today, experts better understand that delayed disclosures of abuse are common among survivors. According to the National Institutes of Health, between 55% and 70% of children who experience sexual abuse don’t speak out until adulthood.
Leslie Abramson, who represented Erik Menendez in the 1993 trial, argued that the brothers’ male identities may have influenced both the public and the jury’s perception of them in her closing statement.She said, “Would it make any difference to you if he was a girl who was sadistically sexually molested by her father? Because if it would, it shouldn’t. Because men are human, and boys are human. And men and women suffer, and boys and girls suffer, and it is no different.”
The 2024 release of producer Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story”— which amassed 12.3 million views in its first four days —has revived debate over the brothers’ abuse claims. The series’ popularity, along with questions about its accuracy, raises new concerns about the fairness of the original ruling.
An X account claiming to be run by Tammi Menendez, Erik Menendez’s wife, posted Erik’s response to the show. “It is sad for me to know that Netflix’s dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime have taken the painful truths several steps backward — back through time to an era when the prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused, and that males experienced rape trauma differently than women,” Erik Menendez said.
“The world was not ready to believe that boys could be raped or that young men could be victims of sexual violence,” the Menendez brothers’ aunt Joan VanderMolen said to reporters outside a downtown LA courthouse on Wednesday, Oct. 16. “Today we know better. We know that abuse has long-lasting effects and victims of trauma sometimes act in ways that are very difficult to understand.”
These sentiments reflect a growing awareness of sexual abuse of males and its impact on individuals. Co-leader of Healthy Masculinity Group (HMG) Taryn Jones ’25 said, “Molestation is molestation, it doesn’t matter the gender. It [can] affect anyone, and gender shouldn’t change whether we believe it.”
The change in societal perception reshapes the DA’s view of the Menendez brothers’ case. At a news conference in LA discussing Gascón’s decision, the DA said, “It’s salient to understand that our own implicit and sometimes explicit bias around sexual abuse and sexual assaults often leads us to severe injustice in our community.”
Co-leader of Students for Women’s Equality and Rights (SWEAR) Micaela Winthrop ’25 said, “If sexual abuse was viewed as an issue that impacts everyone, and focused on safety, consent and believing survivors, regardless of their gender, we would be able to get a lot more done in creating a social shift towards different standards of consent.”
