In the 1990s, a shocking crime rocked Beverly Hills and all of America – brothers Lyle and Eric Menendez kill their parents Jose and Kitty in their luxurious home, recalls dariknews.bg.
The two youths, respectively 21 and 18 years old at the time of the crime, were sentenced to life in prison without parole. Today, decades later, a new generation of young people on social media are calling for a review of the case, questioning the justice of the verdict and the motives behind the murder.
Horrible Night in Beverly Hills
On August 20, 1989, Lyle and Eric Menendez killed their parents with a shotgun in the family home, firing over 10 bullets at them. The two then cover their tracks, trying to make it look like the crime was the result of a mob attack. Father Jose is an immigrant from Cuba who fulfilled the American dream and became an influential person in the business, music and film industry from scratch. The family lives lavishly, their house is on one of the hippest streets in Beverly Hills, and Michael Jackson lived there before them.
The case attracted huge media attention, especially when it was revealed that the brothers had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars from the family's inheritance just days after the murder – for luxury cars, clothes and entertainment. Society is shocked by their lack of remorse and their lavish lives after the tragedy. In fact, the police did not suspect the two boys at all, but one of them confessed to the murders to his psychiatrist. The doctor, for his part, shared it with his lover, who, after an intimate scandal, decided to take revenge on him by telling everything to the police and thus discrediting him for violating the ethical norms of the profession.
During the trial, the Menendez brothers claimed they acted in self-defense after years of physical, emotional and sexual abuse by their father, Jose. They describe the strict and controlling nature of their father, who subjected them to torture and kept them in constant fear. According to their testimonies, the murder was a last desperate attempt to free themselves from violence.
Their mother, Kitty, is also described as complicit in the bullying – she not only knew about the abuse, but contributed to it through passivity and dependence on alcohol and drugs. The brothers claimed that the killing was not premeditated, but the result of fear for their own lives, but the court did not accept this line of defense.
In 1996, both were sentenced to life in prison after two trials, much of which was televised live across America. In the end, the judge ruled that there was insufficient evidence of abuse by the father and accused the brothers of simply covering up the murders behind this convenient motive.
It is pointed out that in the months following the murder, they do not act like children who have recently found both their parents dead in a brutal, bloody scene. Instead, they look like two guys who just won the lottery - inheriting $14 million and spending about $700,000 of it in just six months. One young man acquires an expensive Rolex, a Porsche, a brand new wardrobe and even buys a restaurant in Princeton, where he was a student until recently. The other brother hires a personal tennis coach for $50,000 a month, goes on exotic vacations, and invests $40,000 in a rock concert that never took place.
The new wave of support
In recent years, young social media users, especially on platforms like TikTok, have begun to advocate for the Menendez brothers. Short videos, photos and comments present their version of events as a tragic story of two young men driven to the extreme by years of torture. The hashtag #MenendezBrothers is gaining popularity, and a number of profiles are demanding a new trial, claiming that the court did not take into account the severity of the violence they were subjected to.
This online support is rooted in the growing awareness of mental health issues, domestic violence and trauma, which are much more understood and accepted today than they were in the 1990s. Many young people on social networks see the brothers as victims of a system that was not sympathetic enough to their case.
The brothers were recently visited in prison by Kim Kardashian, who advocates for judicial reform in the US and has already helped several death row inmates and lifers. Against this background, Lyle and Eric received support from their mother's family in the form of her sister and their cousins, who admitted that as children the brothers had shared about the sexual abuse at home, but the others were too young to realize.
In recent years, interest in the story of the Menendez brothers has been fueled by documentaries and television shows, one of the most significant being the Netflix series "Menendez: Killing for Power" (2017).
The LA district attorney's office is expected to announce a possible reopening of the case in light of new evidence -- a 1988 letter from Eric Menendez to his cousin in which he details how he was raped by his father.
Roy Rossello, a former member of the boy band Menudo, also claimed he was abused by Jose Menendez while he was an executive at RCA Records, where the group had a recording contract. Their attorneys believe those circumstances mean the brothers should have been convicted of first-degree manslaughter, not murder. And accordingly, they should have received lighter sentences, which would have set them free many years ago.