The Los Angeles prosecutor on Thursday opened the way to possible parole for the Menendez brothers, who shocked the United States in 1989 with the murder of their parents, and returned to the spotlight thanks to a very popular Netflix series, Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez.
The prosecution will ask a judge to review their conviction, which could “make them eligible for parole,” explained prosecutor George Gascon. The two brothers had confessed to having killed their parents, claiming to have suffered years of sexual abuse from their father.
The prosecutor admitted that the recent series concerning them had pushed the prosecution to reconsider this case with a fresh eye, in a world where the #MeToo movement has changed the perception of victims of sexual assault.
“I think that often, for cultural reasons, we do not believe victims of sexual assault, whether they are women or men,” said the prosecutor.
Sentenced to irreducible life imprisonment
The assassination in 1989 of José and Mary Louise Menendez in their posh Beverly Hills home was the subject of a real media frenzy in the United States.
The trial of the two sons Lyle and Erik had been broadcast on television, a novelty at the time, even before that of the American footballer OJ Simpson established itself as the “trial of the century”, with its cameras in the courtroom.
Aged 18 and 21 at the time of the events, the two brothers were not convicted at first instance: the jury failed to achieve the unanimity necessary to render a verdict. In 1996, a second trial resulted in their being sentenced to irreducible life imprisonment, after the judge refused to examine numerous elements relating to their accusations of sexual assault.
Prosecutors had accused them of murdering their parents in order to inherit their $14 million fortune.
