A man from California and his brother killed their parents in a Los Angeles mansion in 1989. On Sunday, he made rare public comments when he called into a true crime conference from jail and said he wants to be free even though he is serving life in prison without the chance of parole.
Lyle is Joseph Menendez’s given name. In 1989, he and his brother Erik broke into their parents’ home in Beverly Hills with shotguns.
They threw things at their parents, Jose and Mary “Kitty” Menendez. They shot so many times that one of them had to go get another one from his car and then come back to kill their mother with it.
They said they were scared their father would kill them because they told him they would tell other people about how he abused them sexually and physically. Both of them were found guilty and given sentences of life in jail without the chance of parole. However, they are now trying to get their sentences shortened because of a new law in California.
The older Menendez brother called in to say that he’s been working on getting a master’s degree and figuring out how to get back into society while interviewing with his lawyer Mark Geragos at CrimeCon 2024 in Nashville.
They have more than twenty family members who have signed a letter asking the judge to change their sentence, Menendez said. He also talked about some of his hopes for life after jail.
“Well, I hope that…” “I’ve talked to corrections officials who are in charge of letting former prisoners go back to prisons to do good work, and they are open to and would like me to keep working on this idea of changing prison yards so that they become better places to live and communities where people are better neighbors,” he told News Nation’s Laura Ingle on a collect call during a CrimeCon 2024 panel in Nashville.
Then there was an automatic voice that told them the call was being recorded.
“That’s what I hope to do. Then I probably will. As someone who was sexually abused as a child, Rosie O’Donnell and I have talked about making a charity where we could go to those groups’ forums and try to help there, Menendez said. “It’s an area that I spend a lot of my time in.”
He said that he is working with other prisoners to start rehab groups while he is in jail.
“As you’re probably aware, a lot of the prisoners had difficult childhoods and come from difficult circumstances, and so I’ve formed groups where they can more confidently talk about that,” he added. “So, I think I’ll keep doing those two things. That sounds like fun.
Menendez also said that he is about to get his master’s degree in urban planning and plans to use it to get back into society if he gets his term reduced.
Finally, he thanks the people who have written letters of support to him and his brother while they’ve been in prison for 30 years.
“I would just express gratitude to so many, an enormous number of people around the world and around the country who have written my brother and I or visited the Facebook created for victims to express themselves on through my family’s help and just express gratitude for their support, their belief that we should be given a second chance.”
Lawyers for the brothers have said they should have been found guilty of manslaughter instead of murder. Most likely, they would have already been let out of jail if they had been.
Other people besides the boys said their father abused them.
Roy Rossello, who used to be in the boy band Menudo, said last year that Jose Menendez, who was an official at RCA Records at the time, abused him in the early 1980s.
