Pop culture has reinvented the Menendez brothers

It was once unthinkable that Lyle and Erik Menendez, the men who killed their rich parents by shooting them 16 times, would get the sympathy and forgiveness of the masses.

Their claims of sexual abuse by their father were mocked by both public prosecutors and comedians, from TV in the late night to jokes during the Academy Awards.

But 35 years later – thanks in part to Tiktok, Netflix and stars like Kim Kardashian – the Menendez brothers have a new generation of supporters – many who were not even born in 1989, the year that the brothers were ambushed with shotguns in their Beverly Hills mansion.

At the time of their tests, the brothers were portrayed as a greedy, entitled samples that started to spend a $ 700,000 (£ 526,0000) in the weeks after the murders. Now, with a growing understanding of trauma and sexual abuse, many are more sympathetic – and that may give the brothers a chance of freedom.

This week, a judge in Los Angeles has reduced the prison sentence of the brothers to include the possibility of conditional release, which could be granted during a hearing next month.

Their destiny will then be in the hands of the conditional administration of California and, ultimately, governor Gavin Newsom, who will weigh the changing public opinion on division with his own political ambitions.

In 1989 Erik and Lyle Mendez burst into their living room in Beverly Hills, both with loaded shotguns, and opened the fire on their parents who watched television. The crime would remain unsolved for months.

They were given tickets for the James Bond film license to kill as an alibi and told law enforcement and members of the news media, who covered the execution of the rich, powerful couple in their country house that the Mafia might have blamed.

In the meantime, they bought a new Porsche, Jeep, Rolex watches and other luxury items with cash from their parents’ estate.

They were not caught until the police received a message from their recordings to a psychologist.

Even at the time their crime was divided – the first trial ended a mistrial after the jury could not reach a judgment. After the second, they were sentenced to life without a conditional release.

During both tests, the brothers were characterized as bad boys and spoiled children who were motivated to kill their parents from hatred and hoped to acquire their $ 14 million estate.

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE AND OTHER LATE -NIGHT SHOSS The defense of the couple in court – including trusty testimonials about their alleged sexual abuse, who called the judiciary “abuse excuse” – and documentary titles from that decennium such as “The Bad Sons” and “American”.

Appeal after the profession was rejected, but last year everything seemed to change. New evidence about the alleged sexual abuse had surfaced and Netflix released a drama that caught the attention of a whole new generation. Soon documentaries about the case contain titles with words such as “wrongly rated” and “Boys Brerayed”.

Tiktokers discussed the case with their followers. Reality star Kim Kardashian, a supporter of criminal law who helped with free prisoners, wrote an opinion piece publicly to support their bid on freedom.

“At the time there were limited resources for victims of sexual abuse, especially for boys,” Kardashian wrote in the NBC piece.

In the nineties, society did not have the same concept that we are doing today of trauma, sexual abuse and intimidation, Whitney Phillips, a professor from the University of Oregon, told True Crime, to the BBC. That gap to understand was mainly pronounced for boys who were abused, she added.

But after the Metoo movement, more cultural space had been created for people to talk about these experiences, she said.

“It not only creates a consent structure,” said Prof Phillips about people who feel encouraged to express about intimidation and abuse, “in some respects it creates a stimulation structure to contain stories about trauma”.

Add to that is the change in the way in which the public sees criminal justice rights, with more emphasis on rehabilitation and the reduction of prison populations instead of the tough mentality that Los Angeles dominated at the end of the 20th century.

“Fortunately, the final people in the nineties have disappeared for a long time,” said Robert Rand, a journalist who met the brothers and interviewed before they were arrested and new evidence was discovered in 2018 – a letter that Erik had written to a cousin about the sexual abuse of his father.

In a documentary, Mr. Rand produced over the murders, released in 2023, a former member of the boys’ band called Menudo, claimed that the Menfather – who was a director of RCA Records – had raped him when he was 14 years old, that their claims further strengthened.

The new testimonies helped with the new life of the brothers’ claims and gave a catalyst for what Prof Phillips called an “hurricane” important and support“ From the Netflix drama to Kardashian’s Op-Ed.

“The things that become very large online are things that have many energy sources,” she said.

Even Lyle Mendez noticed that the sea changed.

“The followers who are younger who are on that kind of Tiktok social media generation really have a huge lot,” said Lyle Mendez during a hearing.

“I am not as hopeless as I was as a 21-year-old, that’s for sure. Of course I feel more hope when society seems to better understand these experiences and sexual abuse.”

The fate of the brothers – regardless of what social media, the courts or the parole board of California recommends – ultimately rests with one man: Governor Newsom, who has the power to accept or reject a conditional recommendation.

And many believe that man is considering a run for President in 2028.

Since the last elections Newsom has been undergoing a political transformation, shifted from crusades from liberal universal health care to a more moderate, pragmatic approach, the most recently for presenting freezing of health care for immigrants without papers.

Weighing such a division can be “risky”, said Pennsylvania established Republican political strategist Sam Chen.

“Can you introduce a reality TV program of the Brothers Menendez while Newsom is trying to run for President? Talk about free campaigns,” he said. “That would be the worst for him.”

Although nobody knows what way he leans, Newsom has mentioned the matter several times on social media and on his podcast.

“The question for the board is fairly simple,” Newsom said on Tiktok in February. “They are a current, which we call ‘unreasonable’ risk to public safety.”

Mr. Rand acknowledged that the matter is political “risky” for Newsom.

“You can’t bypass the elephant in the room: they brutally killed their parents,” Rand said the BBC. “But if you believe they have been abused and that they suffered from a lifetime abuse – and there is actually evidence that their story supports – it is a very different situation.”

The brothers have not committed violent crimes in prison, a fact that the judge considered hearing in their hearing, although they did infringe the use of mobile phones smuggled in prison.

They also led a productive life while they were locked up, where Erik founded a hospice program to help older and disabled prisoners while Lyle worked on the beautification of the prison.

It is remarkable that every remaining member of their family – from cousins ​​to aunts and uncles – wants the brothers to be released, including the surviving brothers and sisters of Jose and Kitty Menendez.

“They chose to live their lives with clarity and a purpose of service,” said their cousin Anamaria Baralt outside the court after they hated.

If the board recommends conditional release in June, the Governor has 30 days to accept or reject the recommendation. If they are released conditionally, the brothers will probably be released within five months, according to the California Department of Corrections.

The fact that GOV Newsom ordered the State Parole Board to carry out an extensive risk assessment before the brothers were even supposed to be eligible for conditional release, many thought he is open to release them.

“He wants the political cover” of the conditional council and recommendations of the court, said Neaea Rahmani, a former federal public prosecutor who followed the legal saga of the brothers but does not represent any of the participants.

A year ago, Mr. Rahmani would never have predicted that the Menendez brothers could be released. Now he thinks they will be free within a few months.

But it would not be unprecedented for GOV Newsom to reject a controversial conditional release.

He blocked the release of a family member in Manson several times. And in 2022 Newsom blocked the release of Sirhan Sirhan, the man who killed Sen Robert F Kennedy.

As far as the Menendez brothers go, GOV Newsom said on his podcast that he is considering the case and he is not going to view one of the documentaries or real crime dramas about the case.

“I am clearly familiar with the Menendez brothers, only through the news in the course of many decades, but not to the extent that many others are due to all these documentaries and all the attention they have received,” he said. “So that will not affect my independent and objective assessment of the facts.”