The California Parole Board denied parole for Erik Menendez, rejecting his first bid for release nearly 36 years after he and his brother Lyle shot and killed their parents in their Beverly Hills home.
Following a nearly 10-hour hearing Thursday, commissioners concluded that despite support from family and advocates, Erik remains unsuitable for release. He will not be eligible to try again for three years, though he can petition for an earlier hearing, according to a report from The Los Angeles Times.
“This is a tragic case,” Parole Commissioner Robert Barton said. “I agree that not only two but four people were lost in this family.”
The case captured national attention in the 1990s. At trial, prosecutors said the brothers executed their parents to inherit the family’s fortune and live lavish lifestyles. The Menendez brothers spent extravagantly in the time between their parents’ death and their arrest. The defense countered that the brothers had suffered years of emotional and sexual abuse from their father and feared for their future safety, according to the Times report.
“Step by step, my mom had shown she was united with my dad,” Erik said this week said at the hearing. “On that night I saw them as one person. Had she not been in the room, maybe it would have been different.”
The brothers were initially sentenced to life without parole.
The younger Menendez brother, now 54, told the board he carried deep remorse and explained past rule violations, including drug use and helping a gang while in prison, as the actions of someone who was living in fear and with the belief freedom was impossible. The “connection with the outside world was far greater than the consequences of me getting caught with the phone,” he said, referring to another infraction brought up by the parole board.
Family members testified on his behalf. The relatives later issued a statement calling themselves disappointed but still holding “unwavering” belief in Erik and saying they would continue to stand by him.
The Menendez case has regained public attention through recent documentaries and dramatizations, including the Netflix series “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.”
Lyle Menendez, 57, faces his own parole hearing Friday.
