Joseph Lyle Menendez (born January 10, 1968) and Erik Galen Menendez (born November 27, 1970), commonly referred to as the Menendez brothers, are American brothers convicted of killing their parents, José and Mary Louise "Kitty" Menendez, in their Beverly Hills home in 1989.

Following the murders, Lyle and Erik claimed that unknown intruders were responsible for the murders, framing it as a potential mob killing. Police initially investigated this claim but grew suspicious when they discovered the brothers' extravagant spending sprees following the murders, and the fact that they had hired a computer expert to delete their father's recently updated will. Erik confessed to the murders in sessions with his psychologist, citing a desire to be free of a controlling father with high standards, which led to their arrests months later. In a second trial, the brothers were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Beginning in 1998, Lyle and Erik began numerous successive legal appeals of their convictions, which were reviewed and rejected by judges. Newly elected district attorney Nathan Hochman opposed the habeas petition. In May 2025, a judge resentenced the brothers to fifty years to life, making them eligible for parole. In August 2025, however, Lyle and Erik were both denied parole due to incidents of rule breaking and deception.

The Menendez brothers' highly publicized trials received international media attention, inspiring numerous documentaries, dramatizations, books and parodies.<!--Per WP:CITELEAD, references are not needed in the lead if it is sourced in the body of the article.-->

Background

José Enrique Menendez was born on May 6, 1944, in Havana, Cuba, to parents José Francisco "Pepin" Menéndez and Maria Carlota Llanio Navarro. At age 15, in the wake of the Cuban Revolution, he moved to the United States. José attended Southern Illinois University, where he met Mary Louise "Kitty" Andersen (born on October 14, 1941) in Oak Lawn, Illinois, to parents Charles Milton Andersen and Mae Helen Andersen (née Maloney). They married in 1963 and moved to New York City, where José earned an accounting degree from Queens College.

The couple's first son, Joseph Lyle, who goes by his middle name, was born on January10, 1968, in New York City. Kitty quit her teaching job after Lyle was born, and the family moved to New Jersey, where Erik was born on November27, 1970, in Gloucester Township. The family lived in Hopewell Township, and both brothers attended Princeton Day School. After he was appointed as the CEO of Live Entertainment, a film studio and home video distributor, the family moved to Calabasas, California, where Erik attended Calabasas High School. The following year, Erik attended Beverly Hills High School, where he earned average grades but displayed a talent for tennis, ranking 44th in the US as a junior. About two weeks before the murders, Erik and his friend Michael Joyce entered the 1989 Boys' Junior National Tennis Championship.

As a student at Princeton University, Lyle was placed on academic probation for poor grades and eventually suspended for plagiarism. He lived in the Gauss Hall, a dormitory, where he reportedly threw out his roommates' belongings as he did not wish to share a room, caused damage by leaving sinks overflowing and repainted his room in violation of university rules.

Murders and investigation

Murders and alibi

On August 18, 1989, Lyle and Erik visited several Southern California gun stores to buy handguns. However, due to issues with Lyle's driver's license and a two-week waiting period mandated by gun laws, the brothers decided to purchase shotguns instead. They acquired Mossberg shotguns along with boxes of birdshot and buckshot ammunition in a Big 5 Sporting Goods store in San Diego, where Erik used a driver's license stolen from Lyle's friend, Donovan Goodreau.

On the evening of August 20, José and Kitty were watching The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) in the theater den of their Beverly Hills mansion, when Lyle and Erik entered, carrying loaded shotguns. José was shot six times, including a fatal shot to the back of his head. Kitty was shot ten times. Before the fatal shot to her cheek, Kitty was on the floor, crawling away. Lyle ran to the car where Erik handed him ammunition to reload before firing the fatal shot to her face.

Immediately after the killings, both brothers remained in the house for a few minutes, expecting a police response to the gunshot noise. They left to dispose of their blood-stained clothes and later buried the shotguns somewhere along Mulholland Drive. They also went to a movie theater and attempted to purchase tickets for the film Batman (1989) to use as their alibi but abandoned the plan when they realized the theater time-stamped its ticket stubs. They then headed to the "Taste of L.A." festival at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

After returning home and finding no police presence, Lyle called 9-1-1 and emotionally told the operator, "Someone killed my parents!" saying that he had just come home and discovered their bodies. Erik was heard screaming and crying in the background. When officers arrived, Lyle and Erik ran from the home toward them while screaming. Police did not seek gunshot residue tests from the brothers, which would have indicated whether they had recently discharged a firearm. Retired police detective Dan Stewart stated, "I've seen a lot of homicides, but nothing quite that brutal. Blood, flesh, skulls. It would be hard to describe, especially José, as resembling a human that you would recognize. That's how bad it was."

In the months after the killings, Lyle and Erik spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury items, businesses and travel. Lyle bought Chuck's Spring Street Café, a Buffalo wing restaurant in Princeton, New Jersey, as well as three Rolex watches and a Porsche Carrera sportscar. Erik hired a full-time tennis coach and competed in a series of tournaments overseas. The brothers eventually left the Beverly Hills mansion unoccupied, choosing to live in adjoining condominiums in nearby Marina del Rey. They also dined at high-end restaurants and took overseas trips to the Caribbean and London.

The brothers' courtside attendance at a New York Knicks basketball game was captured in the background of a Mark Jackson trading card. During this time, they spent approximately $700,000. Cignarelli contacted police to report that Erik had confessed to him and also reported his and Erik's authorship of the Friends screenplay.

Police also heard from Glenn Stevens, a friend of Lyle's, that one week after the killings, Lyle had made a sudden trip back home from Princeton to destroy something in the family computer. Stevens said that Lyle told him a family member "found a new will and I went there and erased it." After breaking up with Oziel, Smyth informed police about the brothers' involvement in the murders. Lyle was arrested on March8, 1990, outside the Beverly Hills mansion, while Erik turned himself in three days later after returning to Los Angeles from Israel, where he had participated in a tennis tournament. Both were held without bail and jailed separately at the Los Angeles County Jail.

Trials

In August 1990, Judge James Albracht ruled that tapes of the conversations between Erik and Oziel were admissible evidence, since Oziel claimed Lyle had threatened him and thus violated doctor–patient privilege. Albracht's ruling was appealed, after which the proceedings were delayed for two years. The Supreme Court of California ruled in August 1992 that most of the tapes were admissible, with the exception of the tape on which Erik discussed the murders.

After that decision, a Los Angeles County grand jury issued indictments in December 1992, charging the Menendez brothers with the murders of their parents; the special circumstances that the killings were committed for financial gain was deemed unsupported by evidence and was subsequently excluded from the charges. They were charged with two counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances for lying in wait, which made them eligible for the death penalty. On January 12, 1993, the prosecution announced they would seek the death penalty for the brothers, at a hearing presided over by Judge Lance Ito. At the same hearing, Ito assigned Stanley Weisberg to serve as the trial judge.

First trial (1993–1994)

Lyle and Erik's first trial began in July 1993; cameras were allowed in the courtroom and the trial was broadcast on Court TV. Represented by lead defense lawyers Leslie Abramson (for Erik) and Jill Lansing (for Lyle), the brothers stated that they had killed their parents out of fear for their lives after a lifetime of child abuse, especially sexual abuse at the hands of José, who was described as a cruel perfectionist and pedophile. Meanwhile, Kitty was described as an enabling, selfish, mentally unstable alcoholic and drug addict who encouraged her husband's behavior and was also violent toward the brothers.

Lyle alleged that José began abusing him when he was six years old, but stopped at age 8 without explanation. Erik alleged he was abused up until adulthood, shortly prior to the murders. Erik testified that two weeks before the killings, he first told Lyle about the sexual abuse he was experiencing, leading to multiple confrontations within the family.

Under California law, the brothers could be eligible for conviction of manslaughter only if they could prove they were in immediate or imminent danger. The prosecution argued there was no evidence of imminent danger or self-defense. Prosecutor Pam Bozanich argued this was contradicted by the brothers purchasing shotguns in advance. They argued that the murders were inconsistent with a self-defense killing; after they had shot Kitty, who was "moaning and trying to crawl away," Lyle went to reload his shotgun and returned to complete the murder.

Prosecutors also argued that the sexual abuse allegations were fabricated, as nobody mentioned abuse taking place until a legal defense was being formulated seven months after the murders. Jurors were told that mention of sexual abuse was absent in discussions and tapes with Oziel, and that Erik did not mention abuse in his earlier confession to Cignarelli. The prosecution continually asserted throughout the trial that Lyle and Erik were capable of lying repeatedly and in great detail to avoid being caught, and thus were also capable of lying about child abuse to avoid the death penalty.

The defense presented two faceless photographs of young boys from the waist down, which Lyle alleged were taken by José when they were little. The prosecution argued that there was no evidence the photographs were taken by José,

Evidence from a taped therapy session between Lyle, Erik and Oziel was also presented in court, after legal attempts by the defense to exclude it. Oziel's ex-mistress, Judalon Smyth, also testified that Oziel wanted to "control" the brothers by taping their sessions. Judge Weisberg refused to allow Kuriyama to discuss the idea.

Erik testified over fifteen days his alleged abuse by José. He also alleged that José had told him he was written out of the will. Prosecutor David Conn told jurors that Lyle had asked a friend, Brian Eslaminia, to fabricate a story in the first trial. A seven-page letter found by police, allegedly written by Lyle, detailed how he wanted Eslaminia to testify. Prosecutors also presented another letter that Lyle had allegedly written, this time to his ex-girlfriend Traci Baker. It included instructions on how to testify, with the sentence: "We will decide later around what date this incident occurred." The defense disputed the letter's authenticity. Baker was not reached for comment.

During the penalty phase, Abramson reportedly told defense witness William Vicary to edit his own notes of meetings with Erik to remove potentially incriminating information, but the district attorney's office decided not to launch a criminal investigation in response. Both brothers filed motions for a mistrial, claiming that they suffered irreversible damage in the penalty phase as a result of possible misconduct and ineffective representation by Abramson. On July2, 1996, Weisberg sentenced the Menendez brothers to life in prison without the possibility of parole, to be served as consecutive sentences for the killings and the charges of conspiracy to commit murder. and the district court adopted the recommendation. The brothers then decided to appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. On September7, 2005, a three-judge panel denied both their habeas corpus petitions.

In May 2023, the brothers requested a new hearing based upon an allegation that José had raped former Menudo member Roy Rosselló, who was signed under RCA Records, the label where José had been an executive, at the time of the alleged assault. On an April 18, 2023, appearance on NBC's Today, Rosselló stated that he was drugged and raped by José while he was visiting the Menendez family's New Jersey home when he was aged 14. The 2023 appeal cites a 1988 letter that appears to have been written by Erik to his cousin, Andy Cano, in which Erik talked about the abuse. Author Robert Rand, claimed to have found the letter in a dresser in Cano's bedroom in 2018.

On October 3, 2024, Los Angeles district attorney George Gascón announced in a press conference that his office was actively reviewing the appeal. On October 24, Gascón announced he was asking the court for a resentencing of the case. If a judge accepted his recommendation, the brothers would be eligible for parole. However, during a court hearing on November 25, the trial would be pushed back to January 30 and 31, 2025. The resentencing hearing was postponed to March 20 due to the Los Angeles fires. On March 21, the hearing was once again pushed back to April 2025. On March 24, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a June 13, 2025, deadline for the brothers' resentencing via his podcast This is Gavin Newsom.

Newly elected district attorney Nathan Hochman reversed Gascón's recommendations for resentencing and filed an opposition to the habeas corpus petition. Hochman called the claims of self-defense "self-serving lies" and stated that the letter allegedly sent to Cano was not credible, because it had not been used in either defense.

In May 2025, a judge resentenced the Menendez brothers to fifty years to life, making them eligible for parole because they were under twenty-six years old when they committed the murders. On August 21, 2025, Erik was denied parole by the California Board of Parole Hearings, citing ongoing rule violations and concerns about public safety. Lyle was also denied parole the following day, with the board referencing repeated cell phone infractions. Both brothers will be eligible for a second hearing in 2028.

Marriages

On July 2, 1996, Lyle married Anna Eriksson via telephone at a ceremony attended by Abramson and his aunt Marta Menendez, officiated by Judge Nancy Brown; they divorced on April 1, 2001, Lyle and Sneed separated in 2024.

On June 12, 1999, Erik married Tammi Ruth Saccoman in the waiting room of Folsom State Prison. Tammi later stated: "Our wedding cake was a Twinkie. We improvised. It was a wonderful ceremony until I had to leave. That was a very lonely night." In an October 2005 interview with ABC News, she described her relationship with Erik as "something that I've dreamed about for a long time. And it's just something very special that I never thought that I would ever have."

In 2005, Saccoman self-published a book, They Said We'd Never Make It—My Life with Erik Menendez. She conceded on CNN's Larry King Live that Erik "did a lot of editing on the book." In an interview with People magazine, she also stated: