Lyle and Erik Menendez, brothers who infamously murdered their parents at their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989, have been denied a new trial.
On Monday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William C. Ryan rejected a habeas corpus petition filed in 2023, in which the Menendez brothers asked for a retrial based on new evidence supporting their claims that their father, Jose Menendez, sexually abused them.
The new evidence included a letter Erik sent to his cousin in 1988, alluding to the alleged abuse he faced by his father, and a claim from Roy Rosselló, a former boy band member, that he was raped by Jose, the Los Angeles Times reports. Jose was an entertainment executive in the 1980s, per CBS News.
Judge Ryan wrote in his ruling the new evidence that “slightly corroborates” the allegations the brothers were sexually abused, does not negate the fact that the pair acted with “premeditation and deliberation” when they carried out the killings.
“The evidence alleged here is not so compelling that it would have produced a reasonable doubt in the mind of at least one juror or supportive of an imperfect self-defense instruction,” the judge wrote.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement published by local outlet KTLA Ryan’s ruling proves “how deficient, how meritless, how baseless the evidence that has been presented by the Menendez brothers has been in this habeas motion.”
The brothers were sentenced to life in prison in 1996 for fatally shooting their father and mother, Kitty Menendez, on August 20, 1989. Lyle was 21 years old and Erik was 18 years old at the time of the murders.
While defense attorneys argued that the brothers acted out of self-defense 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.
A panel of two commissioners on August 22 denied Lyle parole for three years after a daylong hearing. Commissioners noted the older brother still displayed “anti-social personality traits like deception, minimization and rule-breaking that lie beneath that positive surface.”
Erik, who is being held at the same prison in San Diego, was similarly denied parole a day earlier after commissioners determined that his misbehavior in prison made him still a risk to public safety.
With reporting from The Associated Press.
