This article was originally published on March 1, 2024.
Lyle and Erik Menendez have been behind bars in California for more than three decades for the 1989 murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. They were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in the infamous case that captured national attention. Now, the brothers are hoping new evidence will reopen their case and free them.
“48 Hours” contributor Natalie Morales speaks to Lyle Menendez from prison as he awaits a judge’s decision in an encore of “The Menendez Brothers’ Fight for Freedom,” airing Saturday, Sept. 28 at 9/8c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
THE The Menendez Brothers The young men admit to killing their parents. Instead, the focus has long been on why they committed the murders. They insist they killed out of fear and in self-defense after a lifetime of physical, emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of their parents.
One of their attorneys, Cliff Gardner, told “48 Hours” that new evidence supports those long-standing accusations and reduces their culpability. Gardner argues that Lyle and Erik Menendez should have been convicted of involuntary manslaughter rather than first-degree murder, and that if they had been, they would have received much shorter sentences and would have been out of prison long ago.
Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles
The new evidence includes a letter that Gardner said was written by Erik Menendez to Erik’s cousin, Andy Cano, in December 1988, about eight months before the crime. The letter reads, in part: “I’ve tried to avoid Dad. It still happens, Andy, but it’s worse for me now. … Every night I lie awake thinking he might come. … I’m scared. … He’s crazy. He’s warned me a hundred times not to tell anyone, especially Lyle.”
Andy Cano testified at the brothers’ trial. He said that Erik Menendez, at age 13, years before the murders, told him that his father touched him inappropriately. Prosecutors suggested that Cano was lying.
The Menendez brothers have been tried twice. Their first trial ended in a mistrial when two juries, one for each brother, failed to reach a unanimous decision on whether Lyle and Erik Menendez were guilty of manslaughter or murder. When they were tried a second time, prosecutors attacked the abuse allegations more aggressively. They referred to the allegations as the “abuse excuse.” That trial resulted in the brothers being convicted of first-degree murder.
Gardner said the letter proves the abuse allegations were not fabricated. He said the letter was never presented at either trial and was discovered in a warehouse in recent years by Andy Cano’s mother. Andy Cano died in 2003.
The letter isn’t the only evidence that has surfaced. Roy Rossello, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, said he was also sexually abused by José Menendez in the early 1980s, when Rossello was a minor and a member of the group. At the time, José Menendez was working as an executive at RCA Records, and RCA had signed Menudo to a recording contract.
Sony Music/RCA Records
Rossello is now 54. In a sworn statement filed in 2023, he claims to have visited Menendez’s home in the fall of 1983 or 1984. Rossello was between 14 and 15 years old at the time. He says he had “a glass of wine” and then felt like he had “no control” over his body. He says Menendez took him into a room and raped him. Rossello also claims in the affidavit that he was sexually assaulted by Menendez on two other occasions, just before and just after a show at Radio City Music Hall in New York.
“When I first heard about it, I cried,” Lyle Menendez told Morales. “For me, it was very meaningful to see things come out that allowed people to really understand that, okay, at least this part of what this is about is true.”
The Menendez brothers’ attorney, Cliff Gardner, filed a writ of habeas corpus in May 2023, citing Rossello’s letter and affidavit as new evidence that his clients’ convictions should be overturned.
“The boys were abused as children. They were abused their whole lives.[…]”And this is a manslaughter case, not a murder case. It’s that simple,” Gardner told “48 Hours” of the Menendez brothers. “I hope the judge realizes that this new evidence is indeed credible and compelling, and he overturns the convictions.”
If that happens, it will be up to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office to decide whether to retry the case. In a statement, the district attorney’s office told “48 Hours” that it is investigating the allegations made in the habeas corpus petition. It is unclear when a judge will rule on the case.
