A Netflix series has drawn new attention to the case of the Menendez brothers, who brutally murdered their parents in 1989. Their family now hopes they can be released despite the life sentence.
At a news conference Wednesday in Los Angeles, several generations of relatives of Erik and Lyle Menendez called for the brothers’ release. It was claimed that they themselves were victims because they had been ‘brutalized’ and sexually abused by their father.
The jury that sentenced the brothers to life in prison without parole in 1996 was part of a society unwilling to accept that men could also be raped.
Aunt of perpetrator speaks of ‘desperate reaction’
The victim’s 92-year-old sister, Kitty Menendez, emphasized that the family was unaware of the extent of the abuse at the time. “It became clear that their actions, while tragic, were the desperate response of two boys trying to survive their father’s unspeakable cruelty,” said Joan Andersen VanderMolen.
Would the verdict have been very different today?
“If Lyle and Erik’s case were tried today, there is no doubt in my mind that their verdict would have been very different given what we know today about abuse and PTSD,” said Anamaria Baralt, Jose’s niece Menendez. Prosecutors had argued at the time that there was no evidence of sexual abuse and that the only motive for the crime was greed for the parents’ multimillion-dollar fortune.
The prosecutor is considering a new sentence
There is also new evidence to support this theory. A former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo said he was raped by José Menendez in 1984 when he was 14 years old. The current prosecutor, George Gascon, is also likely to question whether the sentence was fair at the time. The authority will investigate whether a new conviction is justified. A hearing was scheduled for November 26.
Source: Krone
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