UPDATE: Menendez Brothers May Be Headed for Freedom…
The campaign to free Erik and Lyle Menendez is gaining momentum.
A source close to the case says that a large number of the Menendez brothers’ extended family will be in Los Angeles for a press conference at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center courthouse this Wednesday. The brothers’ aunt, Joan VanderMolen, told VF that they were invited by LA County district attorney George Gascón. It’s unclear if Gascón will attend the press conference himself, but it’s the family’s hope that he will recommend that the brothers be resentenced after 34 years in custody. If the DA were to recommend a revised sentence, a judge would then preside over a hearing. Gascón did not respond to Vanity Fair’s request for a comment, but a source with knowledge of the situation believes the DA will make an announcement about resentencing in the next few weeks.
Erik and Lyle have spent decades in jail without the possibility of parole. They were convicted in 1996 of murdering their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, with shotguns in the den of their Beverly Hills home. At their trials, the prosecution said they acted out of greed. The defense argued that the brothers killed their parents because Jose had sexually abused them, and that they feared for their lives. The details of the murders were harrowing, as was the testimony of the molestation the brothers allegedly suffered.
Among those said to be attending the press conference on Wednesday are the brothers’ nonagenarian aunt, Joan VanderMolen; her children, Diane, Arnie, and Kathy VanderMolen; and her grandson Erik VanderMolen. Kitty and Joan’s brothers, Milton Andersen and Brian Andersen, are not expected to appear. Unlike much of the family, they have said that they don’t believe that Erik and Lyle were abused.
The Menendez case first roared back to life on TikTok during the pandemic, when Court TV rereleased all its episodes of the first trial. Public fascination reached new heights in September, after the premiere of Ryan Murphy’s hit show on Netflix, Monsters: The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story, and the case is once again a pop-culture phenomenon. This time, earnest Menendez supporters who believe Erik and Lyle should not have been charged with first-degree murder are posting on social media and signing petitions, while those who believe the brothers should serve out their sentences are making their cases in TikTok and Instagram comment threads. The story has inspired tabloid ephemera like T-shirts that can be found on Etsy: One is emblazoned with a photo of the brothers and the words “Nightmare on Elm Drive” in bright red letters—their former home is on Elm Drive in Beverly Hills—while another reads “Dimes, dimes, dimes,” a reference to a montage in Murphy’s show of Lyle frantically trying to make phone calls.
Gascón appears to have solid grounds to recommend that the Menendez brothers be resentenced, should he be inclined. Under Penal Code 1172.1, the DA can consider whether someone who was convicted suffered “preconviction psychological trauma or physical abuse,” if they were given a harsh sentence compared to other cases, and whether or not they could be considered a threat to society. “The point of resentencing is to help us undo the crazy things that happened in the ’90s,” says Menendez attorney Mark Geragos. Erik and Lyle’s first trial, during which sexual abuse testimony was admitted, resulted in hung juries. Judge Stanley Weisberg wouldn’t allow the brothers’ attorney Leslie Abramson to present evidence that they were molested in their second trial.
In May of 2023, Geragos and Cliff Gardner, who also represents the Menendez brothers, notified the DA that they believe there is new evidence in the case: most strikingly, a letter Erik allegedly wrote to his cousin, Andy Cono, in which he says he was still being raped by his father eight months before the murders, along with a statement by former Menudo band member Roy Roselló saying that he was drugged and raped by Jose when he was 13 or 14. At a press conference on October 3, Gascón said that he hadn’t made up his mind yet whether or not the brothers sentence of life in prison without the possibility of should be reconsidered: “We are reviewing the new information, but I think it’s also important that we recognize that both men and women can be the victims of sexual assault.”
When Gascón ran for DA in 2019, he promised to make the justice system more just. He’s currently in a reelection race against Nathan Hochman. Voting will take place on November 5.
According to Joan VanderMolen, Erik and Lyle are aware that the press conference is taking place. She says that Erik called his cousin Kathy from prison late last week to urge her to find someone to cover for her at work so she could be present at the courthouse.
VanderMolen has been standing by her nephews since their arrest in 1990, and is nervous about what the family will hear from Gascón. “What if it’s not that they’ll be released?” she asked this reporter on Saturday. It seems unlikely that the DA would ask a 92-year-old with constant back pain to travel over an hour to Los Angeles only to say that he thinks her nephews should spend the rest of their lives in prison. Hearing this, Joan said, “Thank you,” and released a shaky sigh. “I really needed to hear that.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a developing story and the original version has been updated to incorporate new reporting.
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