A panel of two commissioners denied Menendez parole for three years, after which he will be eligible again, in a case that continues to fascinate the public.
The brothers were sentenced to life in prison in 1996 for fatally shooting their father, Jose Menendez, and mother, Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills mansion almost exactly 36 years ago on August 20, 1989. While defence attorneys argued that the brothers acted out of self-defence after years of sexual abuse by their father, prosecutors said the brothers sought a multimillion-dollar inheritance.
A judge reduced their sentences in May, and they became immediately eligible for parole. The parole hearings marked the closest they have come to winning freedom since their convictions almost 30 years ago.
Erik Menendez, who is being held at the same prison in San Diego, was denied parole Thursday after commissioners determined his misbehaviour in prison made him still a risk to public safety.
A day later, Lyle Menendez told the parole board details about the abuse he suffered under his parents. He cried, face reddened, while delivering his closing statement. He seemed to still want to protect his “baby brother,” telling commissioners he took sole responsibility for the murders.
“I will never be able to make up for the harm and grief I caused everyone in my family,” he said. “I am so sorry to everyone, and I will be forever sorry.”
The state corrections department chose a single reporter to watch the videoconference and share details with the rest of the press.
Lyle Menendez describes abuse
The panel began by asking how abuse impacted decision-making in his life.
The older brother described how his father physically abused him by choking, punching and hurting him using a belt.
“I was the special son in my family. My brother was the castaway,” he said. “The physical abuse was focused on me because I was more important to him, I felt.”
He also said his mother also sexually abused him. He appeared uncomfortable discussing this with the panel, who asked why he didn’t disclose his mother’s abuse in a risk assessment conducted earlier this year.
Commissioners asked if one death made him more sorrowful than the other.
“My mother. Because I loved her and couldn’t imagine harming her in any way,” he said. “I think also I learned a lot after about her life, her childhood, reflecting on how much fear maybe she felt.”
Later, he broke down in tears when recounting how they confronted their mother about Jose Menendez’s abuse of his younger brother.
“I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that she knew,” he said.
Hearing focuses on crime, over achievements in prison
Lyle Menendez’s parole lawyer, Heidi Rummel, was more outspoken during his hearing than the one for Erik Menendez on Thursday.
She quarreled with the commissioners over several lines of questioning and whether the panel had access to trial evidence in the case.
The panel asked Lyle Menendez whether the murders were planned, and about the brothers buying guns.
“There was zero planning. There was no way to know it was going to happen Sunday,” he said, referring to buying the guns as “the biggest mistake.”
“I no longer believe that they were going to kill us in that moment,” he said. “At the time, I had that honest belief.”
Garland asked him about the “sophistication of the web of lies and manipulation you demonstrated afterward,” referring to having witnesses lie for them in court — and attempts to destroy his father’s will.
Menendez maintained that there was no plan, only that he was “flailing in what was happening” and didn’t want to go to prison and be separated from his brother.
In closing, Rummel expressed frustration that the hearing spent almost no time on Menendez’s achievements in prison or his efforts to build positive relationships with correctional staff. She noted he never touched drugs or alcohol inside.
“How many people with an LWOP sentence come in front of this board with zero violence, despite getting attacked, getting bullied, and choose to do something different?” she said.
More than a dozen of their relatives attended Friday’s hearing via videoconference, but many did not testify citing privacy concerns after learning audio from Erik Menendez’s hearing Thursday was published online.
“I want my nephew to hear how much I love him, and believe in him,” said his aunt, Teresita Menendez-Baralt. “I’m very proud of him and I want him to come home.”
Similar to his brother’s hearing the day before, the panel zeroed in on Menendez’s use of cellphones in prison as recent as March 2025.
“I had convinced myself that this wasn’t a means that was harming anyone but myself in a rule violation,” Menendez said.
He said correctional staff were monitoring his communications with his wife and family and selling them to tabloids, so he saw cellphones as a way to protect his privacy. There was “a lot of stress in his marriage” around the time he transferred to the prison in San Diego, and he wanted to stay in close touch with his wife, he said.
Commissioner Patrick Reardon applauded him for starting a prison beautification project and mentorship programs. However, he questioned if the cellphone violations tainted those accomplishments.
“I would never call myself a model incarcerated person,” Menendez said. “I would say that I’m a good person, that I spent my time helping people. … I’m the guy that officers will come to to resolve conflicts.”
The panel noted that a psychologist found that Menendez is at “very low” risk for violence upon release.
According to previous court documents, Menendez has not gotten into any fights in his time in prison. He said nonviolence was a promise he made to his grandmother.
“My life has been defined by extreme violence,” he said. “I wanted to be defined by something else.”
The brothers still have a pending habeas corpus petition filed in May 2023 seeking a review of their convictions based on new evidence supporting their claims of sexual abuse by their father.
