(Los Angeles) Despite their rehabilitation efforts, the Menendez brothers must stay in prison, an American judicial commission said on Friday, completely refusing the request for parole of the two detainees, famous in the United States for having killed their wealthy parents in 1989.
As with Erik the day before, the Commission of the Correctional and Reintegration Department of California refused the Lyle’s conditional release request. They will be able to request a review of their case in three years, according to a statement.
At the head of the Judicial Commission, Julie Garland said that the committee said that Lyle Menendez was still a risk for the company.
She invited him not to lose hope, explaining that the refusal of parole for three years was “not an end in itself”.
“I am deeply sorry for what I was, for the evil that everyone has suffered,” regretted Lyle Menendez, 57, during a audience where he tried to show his evolution. “I can never fix the evil and the pain that I have caused to all the members of my family. »»
Originally sentenced to life for having killed their parents with shotgun in their luxurious Beverly Hills family villa, the Menendez brothers are among the most publicized prisoners in the United States.
Their trial in the early 1990s was one of the first broadcasts on television and their history returned to the light thanks to a series as well as a Netflix documentary last year.
Photo Nick Ut, Associated Press Archives
Lyle and Erik Menendez leave a courtroom in Santa Monica, California in August 1990.
The sexual violence of which they accuse their father have been seen in a new light in recent years, after the emergence of the #Moiaussi movement. More than 35 years after the murders, a movement demanding their release took shape online, supported by their family and certain celebrities like Kim Kardashian.
In May, a judge reduced their sentence, which made them eligible for an exit from prison.
“Different faces”
But the commission showed off these hopes and judged that the two brothers still pose a risk to society.
Behind bars, the Menendez brothers have set up anger management workshops or aid for prisoners in palliative care.
But Friday, the members of the commission worried about the duplicity of Lyle Menendez, who regularly violated the rules using mobile phones. A grievance already made the day before to his brother Erik, 54 years old.
Photo Department of California Correctional and Rehabilitation Services, provided by Reuters
Erik Menendez
The panel also mentioned a psychological assessment of a prison doctor, describing Lyle as a misleading, manipulator and refusing to accept the consequences of his actions.
“You seem to adopt different faces at different times,” said Patrick Reardon, one of the members of the committee.
The ambivalence of the two brothers was already at the center of their two trials in the 1990s. At the time, the prosecutor had accused the two young men, aged 18 and 21 at the time of the murders, of having murdered their parents to inherit their fortune of $ 14 million.
Armed with shotguns, they fired five times on their father José Menendez, especially in the ball joints. Their mother, Kitty Menendez, died while crawling to try to escape them.
The brothers first attributed the murders to a stroke of the mafia, before changing their version several times. The investigators finally got their hands on the recording of a psychotherapy session, during which Erik admitted the murder.
Before the court, their lawyers had invoked a desperate attempt at self -defense, saying that the two brothers had been sexually assaulted for years by their father and that their mother was aware.
Other appeals
As with Erik the day before, the prosecutor of Los Angeles, Nathan Hochman, praised the maintenance in Lyle prison on Friday evening, a decision which “honors the memory of Jose and Kitty Menendez”.
“For decades, Lyle Menendez has refused to fully assume the responsibility of his actions. With his brother, he clung to a story made of self-defense, “he said in a statement.
A favorable opinion from the Commission was considered the best chance of the Menendez brothers to get out of prison. But this rejection does not exhaust all their appeals.
California Governor Gavin Newsom can still commute their sentence.
Their defense also tries to obtain a new trial, by invoking the discovery of new elements in recent years: an old letter where Erik evokes his father’s sexual assault to a cousin before murder, and the testimony of an ex-singer of Boys band Latino, who explains that he was drugged and violated by Jose Menendez in the 1980s.
