Menendez Brothers Lyle and Erik Walk Should Get Shot at Freedom Due to Letter Kept from Jurors, Lawyer Says

Locked behind bars on life sentences, parent killers Lyle and Erik Menendez may be on the brink of getting sprung from prison — and walking the streets as free men — thanks to a new law legal loophole that allows sexual abuse as a murder defense.

The brothers’ lawyer Chris Pixley, who is working for free, was drafting an appeal to get the pair a new trial because a judge refused to allow the jury to hear their claims they’d been beaten down and molested by their father, Jose.

Lyle, then 21, and Erik, 18, killed Jose and their mom Kitty with a shotgun as they enjoyed dessert in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989.

During their initial separate trials in 1993, the brothers contended they were victims of years of physical and sexual abuse — and only killed to stop the horror. But prosecutors argued the boys, who went on a wild spending spree after the slayings, were driven by greed for their parents’ fortune.

Their separate juries ended deadlocked and a new trial was held. In the new proceeding, judge Stanley Weisberg barred evidence that Jose and Kitty abused their sons.

“The judge in the second trial gutted the defense,” says Pixley. Without the abuse evidence, Lyle, now 56, and Erik, 53, were convicted in 1994 and caged for life.

But a new California law recently gave prisoners who were not allowed to present evidence of abuse the right to appeal for a new trial.

Pixley shared an explosive piece of evidence that could free the killers.

In a letter to his cousin Andy, Erik, then 15, wrote about Jose:

“It’s still happening, Andy. But it’s worse for me now. I never know when it’s going to happen and it’s driving me crazy.

“Every night, I stay up thinking he might come in....I know what you said before, but I am afraid.”

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New York defense attorney Gerald Allen believes the letter and similar evidence would have freed Erik and Lyle — if presented to the jury.

“That’s why this information was kept from the jury during the second trial,” Allen said. “That testimony is of potentially great importance in any retrial. It could very well change the outcome and result in an acquittal!”

But others aren’t so sure.

Says a legal source, “It would be shocking if these cold-blooded murderers were allowed back into society.”