A Los Angeles judge will hear arguments for and against reducing the sentences of infamous killers Lyle and Erik Menendez on Thursday, after family members bashed prosecutors for showing grizzly crime scene photos they say put the brothers’ elderly aunt in the hospital.A hearing scheduled for Thursday into Friday is set to determine whether or not the brothers can leave prison on parole nearly 35 years after killing their wealthy parents in their Beverly Hills home.The brothers’ attorney Mark Geragos maintains they are fully rehabilitated and have paid their debt to society, but District Attorney Nathan Hochman insists Erik and Lyle have shown no remorse for the murders and rejects their story about killing José and Kitty Menendez in self-defense in 1989.
Meanwhile, tensions between prosecutors and the brothers’ family members reached a fever pitch.On Monday, the family’s lawyer filed a motion for the court to publicly admonish the district attorney for showing gruesome photos of José’s mutilated corpse.A deputy district attorney flashed the images at another hearing last Friday without warning the family members in the gallery, and they say the shock nearly killed José Menendez’s 85-year-old sister, Terry Baralt.
The elderly woman — who traveled from New Jersey to LA to support her nephews — was found unresponsive on Sunday morning and rushed to the hospital in critical condition.“In open court, and without any prior warning, prosecutors displayed an unredacted, graphic image of José Menendez’s lifeless body — an act that retraumatized family members in attendance and led to the hospitalization of José’s 85-year-old sister, Terry Baralt, who is now in critical condition,” the Justice for Erik and Lyle Coalition said in a statement Sunday. “This wasn’t just cruel. It was a clear violation of our rights under Marsy’s Law,” the coalition added, invoking a California law that gives victims’ relatives the right to fairness, respect and dignity.
The DA’s office issued a statement apologizing for not giving prior warning before it showed the photos, but it pointed out that gory visual aids have been a fixture of the proceedings thus far — implying that anyone choosing to watch those proceedings should have expected to see them.“We have repeatedly described in public documents the vicious, premeditated conduct of the Menendez brothers, shotgunning their parents 13 times through the back of the father’s head, at point-blank range in their mother’s face, and then through the kneecaps to stage a Mafia hit,” the DA’s office said.Resetencing by the court is one of two paths to freedom for Erik and Lyle, who were 18 and 21, respectively, when they pumped shotgun rounds into their mother and wealthy music producer father and then went on a spending spree with their $15 million inheritance.
The brothers were found guilty of first-degree murder after two high-profile trials in the ’90s, but a 2024 Netflix documentary brought their case back into the spotlight.The same year, then-District Attorney George Gascón asked the court to lower their sentencing, citing new evidence that backed up the brothers’ claim that their father had sexually abused them for years — and that both parents might try to kill them to hide the truth.But after current DA Nathan Hochman unseated Gascón in November, his office dismissed the resentencing petition as a desperate attempt by Gascón to revive his failing campaign and dismissed the Menedezes’ self-defense narrative as “lies.”
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