Lyle Menendez was denied parole a day after a board also rejected his brother Erik’s bid for freedom, following decades in prison for killing their parents in 1989 at their Beverly Hills mansion.
On Friday, a panel of California commissioners denied parole for Lyle on the same grounds as Erik’s rejection: They still pose a risk to the public if released.
After an 11-hour proceeding, commissioners found Lyle’s remorse genuine and described him as “a model inmate in many ways who has demonstrated the potential for change.”
Despite this, Commissioner Julie Garland said Lyle also displayed “anti-social personality traits like deception, minimization and rule-breaking that lie beneath that positive surface.”
Who are the Menendez brothers, and what did they do?
Lyle and Erik were convicted of killing their father, Jose, and mother, Kitty. They were sentenced to life in prison without parole in 1996.
The brothers initially blamed the killings on a mafia hit but repeatedly changed their story. Erik, then 18, later confessed to his therapist. They ultimately claimed self-defense, citing years of emotional and sexual abuse by their father and emotional abuse by their mother.
Prosecutors argued the killings were motivated by greed and a desire to inherit their parents’ multimillion-dollar fortune.
Explaining the reasoning behind Friday’s ruling, Parole Commissioner Julie Garland said the “callous” nature of the killings, as well as Lyle Menendez’s efforts to cover up his role in the crime afterward, remained factors in the denial.
The trial of the Menendez brothers captivated US television audiences much like the O.J. Simpson trial.
In subsequent years, the story of the killings and the trial became the stuff of television drama, spawning numerous films and series, including “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” on Netflix.
The brothers became eligible for parole in May, when a Los Angeles judge reduced their sentence to 50 years to life.
Edited by: Richard Connor
