The Menendez brothers’ chance of freedom hangs in the balance yet again after the Los Angeles County District Attorney who recommended their resentencing was defeated at the ballot box on Election Day.
Last month, LA County District Attorney George Gascón announced his recommendation that Lyle, 56, and Erik Menendez, 53, receive a new sentence of 50 years to life in prison for the 1989 double homicide of their parents, saying he believed the brothers had “paid their debt to society.” Because the men were under 26 at the time of the crimes, this new sentence would make them eligible for parole immediately, having spent almost 35 years behind bars.
But on Tuesday, their potential path to freedom hit a roadblock: Gascón lost his re-election bid to former assistant attorney General Nathan Hochman.
Hochman, who will take office on December 2, has said that he now wants to do his own due diligence on the case, consulting the brothers’ files, the authorities and their attorneys before proceeding.
“Before I can make any decision about the Menendez brothers’ case, I will need to become thoroughly familiar with the relevant facts, the evidence and the law,” Hochman said in a statement on Wednesday.
“I will have to review the confidential prison files for each brother, the transcripts from both trials, and speak to the prosecutors, law enforcement, defense counsel, and the victims’ family members.”
The hearing to determine Gascón’s request is currently scheduled for December 11, which would give Hochman just nine days to review the brothers’ case after taking office if that is to go ahead.
“If for some reason I need additional time, I will ask the court for that time,” Hochman concluded.
On August 20, 1989, the brothers walked into a room in the wealthy family’s Beverly Hills mansion while their parents José and Kitty were watching TV and opened fire with 12-gauge shotguns, killing them both.
Seven years later, in July 1996, the Menendez brothers were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murders, following their second trial.
In their first high-profile televised trials in 1993 – with separate juries – the brothers’ attorneys argued they had acted in self-defense following years of sexual and physical abuse at the hands of their father.
One cousin testified that Lyle told her as a child that he was too scared to sleep in his room because his father would come in and molest him. When the cousin told Kitty, she “angrily dragged Lyle upstairs by his arm,” she told the court.
Another family member testified that when José was in the bedroom with one of the boys, no one was allowed to walk down the hallway outside.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, claimed the brothers had murdered their parents to get their hands on the family’s $15m fortune.
The trial ended in a hung jury in January 1994.
They were tried a second time in October 1995 where the judge ruled that the jury could not hear much of the testimony about the alleged abuse. That trial ended in their convictions on two counts of first-degree murder.
Last year, attorneys for the brothers filed new evidence that reportedly sheds further light on the alleged abuse as family members, human rights advocates and even celebrities have called for their freedom.
The brothers’ story has since been released as a Netflix biographical crime drama, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.
