By Peter Omopo
A California parole board has denied release to Erik Menendez, more than three decades after he and his brother, Lyle, gunned down their wealthy parents in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989.
The 54-year-old inmate, appearing via video link from Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, was told Thursday he must remain in prison for at least three more years before being considered again.
“Erik Menendez was denied parole for three years at his initial suitability hearing today,” the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) said in a statement.
The decision deals a major blow to a growing movement for the brothers’ release, bolstered in recent years by documentaries, podcasts, and the hit Netflix series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. Supporters, including celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, had argued that the brothers deserve a second chance.
The hearing coincided with the anniversary of the murders. “Today is the day all my victims learned my parents were dead,” Erik told the panel during the 10-hour session. “So today is the anniversary of their trauma journey.”
Parole commissioner Robert Barton called the case “tragic,” noting that “not only two, but four people, were lost in this family.” Despite forgiveness expressed by more than a dozen relatives, Barton said forgiveness does not automatically mean suitability for release.
The Menendez brothers became household names in the early 1990s after their sensational televised trial exposed their opulent lifestyles and claims of years of emotional and sexual abuse by their father, José Menendez. Prosecutors, however, maintained the killings were motivated by greed for the family’s fortune.
On August 20, 1989, Erik and Lyle shot their father five times, including in the knees, before turning the shotguns on their mother, Kitty, who was killed while attempting to crawl away. The brothers initially blamed the murders on a mafia hit, but Erik later confessed to his therapist.
The parole hearing was only possible after a judge resentenced the men earlier this year, reducing their life-without-parole terms to 50 years with the possibility of release.
Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman welcomed Thursday’s ruling, saying the board “did not bow to public spectacle or pressure, a restraint that upholds the dignity and integrity of the justice system.”
Lyle Menendez, now 57, faces his own parole hearing on Friday. His fate remains to be decided.
