Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon recommended resentencing Lyle and Erik Menendez. His announcement during a press conference on Thursday means the brothers could walk out of prison as free men within weeks.
Erik and Lyle were convicted of shooting their parents, Hollywood music executive José Menendez and homemaker Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez, at their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989.
José was shot six times while he and Kitty watched TV on a sofa in their den on August 20, 1989. Kitty was shot ten times as she was on the floor crawling away.
During the murder trials, prosecutors proved that the brothers ruthlessly plotted and carried out the murders of their parents after José removed his sons from his will.
Erik, then 18, and Lyle, then 21, purchased Mossberg 12-gauge shotguns because they didn’t want to wait the 2-week cooling off period mandated by California law.
Following the murders, Erik and Lyle left the house to dispose of their bloody clothes and bury the shotguns.
They then went to a movie theater to buy tickets for a Batman movie to use as an alibi. But they abandoned their plan when they noticed the timestamps on the movie tickets was after the time of the murders.
They then headed to the “Taste of L.A.” festival at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, according to police.
When Erik and Lyle returned home hours later, they were surprised to see a lack of police presence around the mansion. Their neighbors had not reported the sounds of screams and gunshots to police.
In an emotional call to 911, Lyle told the operator, “someone killed my parents!” Lyle said he and his brother returned home and discovered their parents’ bodies in the den.
When police responded to the home, Lyle and Erik claimed intruders broke in and killed their parents. They later said the murders were likely mob-related.
Police described the murder scene as “the most brutal” one they had ever encountered. They noted blood and brain matter splattered on the walls, floor and ceiling.
Police believed Erik and Lyle’s tearful statements and investigated the mob link. But detectives grew suspicious when a computer specialist contacted them and said Lyle and Erik hired him to delete their father’s updated will from José’s computer hard drive.
With the money from the fraudulent will and their parents’ life insurance policies, Lyle and Erik went on a lavish $700,000 spending spree.
Lyle bought a Buffalo wing restaurant in Princeton, New Jersey, as well as three Rolex watches and a Porsche Carrera sports car.
Lyle (wearing blue sweater) purchased a custom hair piece because he suffered from premature baldness. Lyle was allowed to wear the custom hair piece during their murder trials.
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The brothers threw wild parties in the murder house, traveled extensively, and gifted clothes and jewelry to their girlfriends. Erik paid for expensive tennis lessons for himself as he had hoped to play in the junior boys tennis category at Wimbledon in England. Erik ranked 44th in the US as a junior tennis player.
But their lavish lifestyle came to an end when a remorseful Erik tearfully confessed to the murders during a recorded session with his psychologist.
Erik was especially distraught when he told his psychologist about his mother’s murder. Erik said that after shooting their parents multiple times, they ran out to the car where Erik handed Lyle ammunition to reload his shotgun. They went back into the house and Lyle coldly approached their mother who was on the floor screaming and crawling away. Lyle then fired the kill shot to Kitty’s face, lacerating her brain.
The psychologist later told police about Erik’s confession, which led to Lyle and Erik’s arrests.
Erik, now 53, and Lyle, now 56, have remained behind bars since their arrests in 1990.
After their first trial ended in a mistrial in 1994, they were found guilty of first-degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
But a Netflix movie, titled “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” cast doubts on their guilt and Gascon announced he would consider resentencing them.
“We are going to recommend to the court [on Friday] that the life without the possibility of parole be removed and they would be sentenced for murder,” Gascon told reporters on Thursday. “I believe that they have paid their debt to society.”
Gascon emphasized that his recommendation does not guarantee the brothers will be released from prison. The final decision rests with an LA Superior Court judge.
