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 The Menendez brothers: what's happening? 


It's certainly been a rollercoaster for the Menendez brothers these past weeks. Between the new media content that has come out and the newly uncovered evidence offering a dangerous hope in their long-settled case, I cannot even begin to fathom the emotions the brothers and their families must be feeling. It's no secret that Lyle and Erik have attempted to appeal their case several times since their sentencing, but this is the first time the outcome doesn’t seem as bleak as it has in the past. With this and the renewed traction the case is gaining due to the Netflix show, it’s safe to say that the coming months might be the most crucial and transformative period for the brothers.

So, what's happening? What's new in this case that everyone is talking about? If you’ve fallen behind on the most recent developments in the Menendez case, keep reading! In this post, I'll cover EVERYTHING that has happened from 2023 to now. I’ll also explain the next steps in the case and what we should expect in the months ahead. What are you waiting for? Tune in!

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Habeas vs Resentencing (+ Evidence)


First of all, it’s important to understand the difference between habeas corpus and resentencing in the context of the brothers’ appeal for release. These are two completely separate legal motions currently being pursued. The former addresses the new evidence that has been revealed, which consists of two key pieces of information:
  1. Erik's letter to his cousin, Andy Cano
  2. Roy Rosselló's statement about (alleged) sexual abuse
Let’s start with the letter. Erik wrote it in early 1988, around eight months before the murders on August 30, 1989. It gives us a rare glimpse into Erik’s mindset at the time. In this letter, Erik opens up to his cousin about the abuse he was suffering at the hands of his father. It’s not super detailed, yet it’s painfully revealing. Here’s the letter. This is part of the letter, including what might as well be the most heart-breaking extract ever written.

Picture 1 Picture 2
This letter is crucial because it gives actual evidence, at least to a degree, of the sexual abuse that Jose inflicted on Erik.

"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"

"I can handle it, Andy"

I could go on forever about how the words Erik bled on paper are so incredibly powerful yet fail to hide the terrified, desperate, helpless child that Erik most certainly was, and I will, but not on this post. My intention with this post is to inform, more than anything.

One of the prosecution’s key arguments during both the 1993 and 1996 trials was that there was no evidence to substantiate the brothers’ claims of abuse by their father (a claim that, even then, wasn’t entirely accurate—but that’s a topic for another post). The discovery of this letter is monumental because it’s the closest thing to a direct admission of abuse before the murders, and it corroborates Erik and Lyle’s entire narrative of what they went through. Unfortunately, this letter was only discovered after Andy’s death. It was found in a safety deposit box, believed to be in his home.

It’s unclear why this letter wasn’t revealed or uncovered earlier, but its absence during the first and second trials is undeniably tragic, to say the least. This single piece of evidence could have drastically altered the outcome, potentially obliterating the prosecution’s claim of “non-existent abuse” and reinforcing the brothers’ defense, which was entirely based on the sexual sadism and manipulation that Lyle and Erik suffered for over a decade.

The second piece of evidence consists of some sexual assault allegations produced by Roy Rosello, a former member of the boy band Menudo of which Jose Menendez had a connection with. Jose signed a 30-million-dollar-contract with Menudo when he was the director of RCA records, the record label in which the band worked under. This facts just by themselves build an incredibly enormous power dynamic between Roy and Jose in which Roy was in the bad end of the deal.

Roy’s statement includes a detailed description of how Jose Menendez invited 14-year-old him to have dinner at his house in New Jersey, long before the family moved to Beverly Hills, where the crimes took place. He narrates how Jose offered him a glass of wine, which he later found out contained some type of intense drug that disables physical movement entirely but keeps whoever consumes it conscious enough to be aware of what’s happening. Jose then carried him to a separate bedroom where he raped him. This is a whole new level of cruelty, torture, and sadism. Roy wasn’t given the “relief” of unconsciousness but was forced to be a witness to his own violation, helpless to do anything to stop it from happening. Maybe the most horrifying and core-wrecking thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life.

Now, many of you may consider Roy a fool for not having spoken out after the crimes happened, to help or act as a witness in the ’90s trials, and, to an extent, you are right. Roy said himself that he regrets not coming forward sooner but that, at the time, he didn’t feel physically or psychologically ready to talk about his experience.

And to that, I say we are in no place to judge what a victim of rape and pedophilia should or should not have done after such an encounter. We might feel frustrated and annoyed when thinking about how different things could have been if only Roy had testified before, and that’s perfectly understandable. But there are too many “what ifs” we could consider, and not one of them would change the reality of what happened.

Roy is not to blame for the actions of a masochistic, pedophilic man who saw his victims as mere tools for his own pleasure—sexual objects he could use and manipulate at will while knowing full well that no one would ever suspect him, a high-ranking, wealthy executive, of doing what he was doing.

We can blame a lot of people for the horrors that occurred in that house and the unfortunate events that followed. Roy is not one of those people.

Habeas is the motion that evaluates these two new pieces of information and determines an outcome for the reopened case. It has been around for about a year, since Roy made his statement in 2023, and we are suspiciously hopeful about the next steps in this motion.

On the other hand, the second motion, resentencing, focuses on something entirely different: the lives of the brothers inside prison. What are they doing? What projects are they participating in? How have they behaved? Etc, etc, etc. What this means is that even if the Habeas turns out to be a dead end, the resentencing could still bring about a positive outcome for the brothers. Don’t put all your eggs in the same basket, they say.

Both brothers lead a beautification project in prison, which involves painting a gigantic mural on the prison’s exterior walls. Prison is often a place where inmates lose their will or purpose to live, largely due to the uncertainty of freedom, and thus rates of depression and other mental health disorders skyrocket. So, giving prisoners something to work on, a group to belong to, fosters a sense of identity so powerful that it could potentially increase the chances of rehabilitation, both inside and outside prison.
Sample Picture

This fills me with a sense of pride so intense, especially knowing how much Erik has struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts. And now, here he is, doing everything in his power to ensure the psychological well-being of others. I’m so happy that he’s found some resemblance of purpose after everything that’s happened. Also, he’s a phenomenal artist. He was, and still is, extraordinarily talented. This is how one of his paintings looks!
Picture 1 Picture 2

In addition, Erik works with the terminally ill in prison, as Lyle mentioned to ABC News a couple of years ago. All of this shows just how much the brothers have accomplished behind bars—definitely more than what the average person has achieved outside of prison. Big deal.

This could all work in favor of the resentencing motion.


The DA recommendation

“After very careful review of all arguments made from people on both sides of this equation, I came to a place where I believe under the law resentencing is appropriate and I am going to recommend that to a court tomorrow."
This past October 24, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón recommended the resentencing of the brothers. For reference, there could have been quite a few outcomes, and although a resentencing recommendation is not the worst we could have gotten, it definitely sounds better than it really is. These are the outcomes we could have gotten:
  1. Time served - The brothers have fulfilled their debt to society and are freed immediately.
  2. Reduced sentence - The sentence gets reduced to manslaughter (which is 10–15 years of imprisonment and what the brothers were fighting for during the first trial), meaning the brothers would also be freed immediately since they’ve already served 35 years.
  3. Nothing changes - Pretty self-explanatory. The DA doesn’t recommend anything.
Because Gascón recommended resentencing, the brothers would have to spend a total of 50 years in prison (they’ve already served 35). BUT, since both Erik and Lyle were younger than 25 years old at the time of the crimes, they are considered youth offenders. This reduces their sentence to 25 years, which would make them eligible for parole immediately.

This is the part where we cheer YAY!

...Or not?


The change


So, after the DA’s recommendation came out and my fellow Menendez supporters and I were celebrating to the moon and back, a new question naturally arose in our minds: who would be the judge to decide whether or not to follow the DA’s recommendation? And, also naturally, social media didn’t wait to fill in our curiosity. A couple of days later, it was announced that Judge William C. Ryan was going to be the one to determine the final outcome (only in 1 out of X cases has Ryan disagreed with the DA's recommendation). So, everyone was pretty confident that the brothers had their release in the bag.

HOWEVER, because life is like that, we were flabbergasted when we were informed that Judge William C. Ryan was off the case. A new judge, Michael V. Jesic, had been introduced to the case. And to be frank, he didn’t seem as indulgent as William C. Ryan. Some people, including me, were suspicious and unsure about him. He’s known for being prosecution-oriented (which is not inherently bad at all—quite the opposite, actually).


Gascón's "downfall"


Unfortunately for some, fortunately for the rest, Gascón was voted out of office at the beginning of November and will be replaced by Nathan Hochman very soon. Only time will tell if this will have any resounding consequences on the brothers' case or not.



The delay


Originally, just a couple of weeks ago, the resentencing motion was scheduled for December 11. But just yesterday, November 25, Jesic announced that they decided to push it back to January 30 due to both the court and the District Attorney needing more time to come to a decision, as Talia, Erik’s daughter, informed on her Instagram account this November 25/26.

Erik and Lyle’s family remains hopeful but frustrated because of the slow advancements in the case. Especially Joan Andersen, Kitty Menendez’s sister, who has spoken out several times lately. I’m writing this on her 93rd birthday, and I sincerely hope and implore anything and everything that she gets to see her nephews free once and for all, just as she desires and has expressed multiple times with tears in her eyes, inducing tears in our own.

“No child should have to endure what Erik and Lyle did. No children should have to live in fear day by day that their dad would come and rape them."


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Lyle


I’ve been debating whether to add this extra section, and I’ve finally decided in favor of it simply because these are recent developments, and this post is meant to inform and provide opinions on the latest news about the brothers.

There have been recent discoveries that Lyle has been sharing correspondence with a 21-year-old British student, that they have met in real life, and that Lyle has been cheating on his wife with her. These are rumours and not confirmed facts, which is why they shouldn't be treated as such..

Don’t let this distract you from the real goal, which is to fight an injustice and get the brothers out of jail. Their private lives are theirs and theirs alone, and we shouldn’t be gossiping or actively seeking personal information when we have no clue about the brothers' intimate lives. Thus, we are in no place to judge or comment.

Ana Maria Baralt, Erik and Lyle’s cousin, has expressed her opinion on this matter on her TikTok account, and her opinion is pretty much what you would expect.


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Well, you’ve reached the end! Congratulations! This is pretty much everything new that has happened since 2023 until now. Honestly, the whole case is very messy, but which case isn’t, right?

This post required a lot of research, so I’ll be linking every page I’ve used to write this below. Keep in mind that there are some things I haven’t included, and some things I’ve added on my own accord.

I’ll be writing quite a lot about the Menendez case in the next few weeks. I have A TON of ideas for posts, and I’m going to let my imagination run wild, so beware.

See you all then!!


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