The California board of parole denied the release on Thursday of Erik Menendez, who has spent nearly 30 years in prison since he was convicted with his brother in the shooting deaths of their parents.
Erik and Lyle Menendez were sentenced in 1996 to life in prison for fatally shooting their father, José Menendez, and mother, Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989. They were 18 and 21 at the time. While defense attorneys argued the brothers acted out of self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, prosecutors said the brothers killed their parents for a multimillion-dollar inheritance.
A panel of California commissioners denied Erik Menendez parole for three years, after which he will be eligible again, in a case that continues to fascinate the public. A parole hearing for his brother Lyle Menendez, who is being held at the same prison in San Diego, is scheduled for Friday morning.
The two commissioners determined that Erik Menendez should not be freed after an all-day hearing during which they questioned him about why he committed the crime and violated prison rules.
“Two things can be true. They can love and forgive you, and you can still be found unsuitable for parole,” commissioner Robert Barton said.
Barton said the primary reason for the decision was not the seriousness of the crime but Menendez’s behavior in prison.
The parole hearings marked the closest they have come to winning freedom since their convictions almost 30 years ago for murdering their parents.
The state corrections department chose a single reporter to watch the videoconference and share details with the rest of the press.
The brothers became eligible for parole after a Los Angeles judge in May reduced their sentences from life in prison without the possibility of parole to 50 years to life, making them immediately eligible for parole under California law because they were under the age of 26 when they committed their crimes.
During his hearing, Erik Menendez offered his most detailed account in years of how he was raised and why he made the choices he did – both at the time of his parents’ killings and during his decades in prison.
“I was not raised with a moral foundation,” he said. “I was raised to lie, to cheat, to steal in the sense, an abstract way.”
The panel asked about details such as why he used a fake ID to purchase the guns he and Lyle Menendez used to kill their parents; who acted first; and why they killed their mother if their father was the main abuser.
Barton asked: “You do see that there were other choices at that point?”
“When I look back at the person I was then and what I believed about the world and my parents, running away was inconceivable,” Menendez said. “Running away meant death.” Menendez, gray-haired and spectacled, sat in front of a computer screen wearing a blue T-shirt over a white long-sleeve shirt in a photo shared by officials.
The panel of commissioners scrutinized every rules violation and fight on his lengthy prison record, including allegations that he worked with a prison gang, bought drugs, used cellphones and helped with a tax scam.
He told commissioners that since he had no hope of ever getting out then, he prioritized protecting himself over following the rules. Then last fall, LA prosecutors asked a judge to resentence him and his brother – opening the door to parole.
“In November of 2024, now the consequences mattered,” Menendez said. “Now the consequences meant I was destroying my life.”
A particular sticking point for the commissioners was his use of cellphones.
“What I got in terms of the phone and my connection with the outside world was far greater than the consequences of me getting caught with the phone,” Menendez said.
Erik Menendez’s parole attorney, Heidi Rummel, emphasized 2013 as the turning point for her client.
“He found his faith. He became accountable to his higher power. He found sobriety and made a promise to his mother on her birthday,” Rummel said. “Has he been perfect since 2013? No. But he has been remarkable.”
Commissioner Rachel Stern also applauded him for starting a group to take care of older and disabled inmates.
More than a dozen of their relatives delivered emotional statements at Thursday’s hearing via videoconference.
“Today is August 21. Today is the day that all of my victims learned my parents were dead. So today is the anniversary of their trauma journey,” he said, referring to his relatives.
His aunt Teresita Menendez-Baralt, José Menendez’s sister, said she had fully forgiven him. She noted that she was dying from stage 4 cancer and wished to welcome him into her home.
“Erik carries himself with kindness, integrity and strength that comes from patience and grace,” she said.
One relative promised to the parole board she would house him in Colorado, where he can spend time with his family and enjoying nature.
The LA county district attorney, Nathan Hochman, said before the parole hearings that he opposed parole for the brothers because of their lack of insight, comparing them to Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated the presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy in Los Angeles in 1968. The Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, denied Sirhan parole in January 2022 because of his “deficient insight”.
During the hearing, the LA prosecutor Habib Balian asked Menendez about his and his brothers’ attempts to ask witnesses to lie in court on their behalf, and if the brothers staged the killings as a mafia hit. Commissioners largely dismissed the questions, saying they were not retrying the case.
In closing statements, Balian questioned whether Menendez was “truly reformed” or saying what commissioners wanted to hear.
“When one continues to diminish their responsibility for a crime and continues to make the same false excuses that they’ve made for 30-plus years, one is still that same dangerous person that they were when they shotgunned their parents,” Balian said.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
