Should the Menendez Brothers Be Freed? Lyle Talks Possibility of Life After Prison for Killing Parents in 1989

Lyle Menendez murdered his parents in a Los Angeles mansion in 1989 with the help of his brother, and now he's made rare public remarks from prison, talking about his aspirations of getting out of prison despite a sentence of life without parole.

In 1989, Lyle Menendez and his brother Erik, with shotguns in hand, shot their parents, Jose and Mary “Kitty” Menendez, at their home in Beverly Hills.

The brothers fired so many shells that one of them had to go back to his car and get more ammunition before delivering a fatal shot to their mother.

According to the Menendez brothers, they claimed they feared for their lives and thought their father would kill them after they warned him about exposing him for physical and sexual abuse.

The brothers were convicted of their parents’ murders and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. However, they are now seeking reduced sentences under a new California law.

On June 2, Lyle called in for an interview with his lawyer Mark Geragos at CrimeCon 2024 in Nashville.

He said more than two dozen family members have signed a letter asking a judge to resentence them. Lyle then talked about his aspirations for life after prison.

“Well, I’m hoping that…I’ve had these discussions with corrections officials who are in charge of letting formerly incarcerated people return to the prisons to do good work and they are definitely open to and would like me to continue to work on this idea of transforming prison yards so that it creates living environments and communities that produce better neighbors,” Lyle said on a collect call to News Nation’s Laura Ingle during a panel at CrimeCon 2024.

Menendez added, “So I hope to do that. And then I probably will, as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, I’ve had talks with Rosie O’Donnell about creating a foundation where we would go and try to speak to the forums in those groups, and help in that space. It’s an area that I spend a lot of my time in.”

Menendez said he has been working to form therapy groups with other inmates while he’s been in prison and wants to continue to form these groups so prisoners can talk more confidently about their difficult childhoods and difficult circumstances.

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He also said he is about to receive a master’s degree in urban planning and is hoping to reenter society, if he receives a sentence reduction. He also thanked people for their letters of support to him and his brother over the years.

“I would just express gratitude to so many, an enormous number of people around the world and around the country who have written my brother and I or visited the Facebook created for victims to express themselves on through my family’s help and just express gratitude for their support, their belief that we should be given a second chance," he said.

Geragos has argued the brothers should have been convicted of manslaughter, not murder. If that was the case, he said they likely would already have been released from prison.