The Menéndez brothers have remained busy behind bars. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at what happened to the Menéndez after their famous trial and where they are today.
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00:00It is one of the most shocking cases in Southern California history.
00:03And it's now being featured in a new Netflix show.
00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at what happened
00:08to the Menendez brothers after their famous trial, and where they are today.
00:12What am I hearing rumblings about that there actually might be other witnesses out there?
00:17What some call the trial of the century began in 1993,
00:20when brothers Lyle and Eric Menendez were charged with the murders of their parents,
00:24Jose and Mary Louise. The question was whether the killings were justified,
00:28and what punishment, if any, the brothers would receive.
00:31Most of the Menendez family members who knew about the sexual abuse
00:35believed the brothers should have been convicted of manslaughter, not murder.
00:40The defense argued that Lyle and Eric killed their parents owing to a lifetime
00:43of abuse at the hands of their father. As for Mary Louise, better known as Kitty,
00:48it's claimed that she was mentally unstable and often encouraged,
00:51or at least enabled, Jose to abuse their children.
00:54The prosecution argued that they had financial motives,
00:57which was seemingly supported by the large amounts of money that the brothers splashed
01:00after the killings. The first trial ended in a deadlocked jury, and the controversial second
01:05trial was performed with a few new caveats. The jury could no longer vote on charges of
01:09manslaughter, and the brothers' sexual abuse defense was greatly diminished.
01:13The second jury found them guilty of first-degree murder,
01:16and they were both sentenced to life in prison.
01:18He changed it in a way that was significant,
01:22that basically directed an all or nothing, a murder or an acquittal.
01:27That's the story that most people know and remember. But of course, that occurred all
01:31the way back in the early 90s. So what has happened to the Menendez brothers and those
01:35involved closely with the trial since then?
01:37Tell me I'm not a bad person.
01:38You killed your mom and dad, Eric.
01:40I know. I know.
01:42The brothers were separated immediately following the convictions, with Eric spending time in
01:47Folsom and Pleasant Valley State, while Lyle was sent to Mule Creek.
01:51Family members stay together.
01:53Family members who conspired to get out of the murders they committed together?
01:57Please.
01:58God knows what they could cook up if they lived in the same prison for the rest of their lives.
02:02In 1996, the same year that both were found guilty of murder,
02:06Lyle married a woman named Anna Erickson. Just three years later, Eric also married.
02:10His wife was Tammy Sackaman, and the two were officially wed inside the waiting room of
02:14Folsom State Prison, with a Twinkie serving as their cake. Eric and Tammy remain married
02:19to this day. Lyle divorced Erickson in 2001 and met a woman named Rebecca Sneed,
02:24whom he would marry in 2003. They two are still together.
02:28I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss each other in your mind's eye.
02:33Just one year after their imprisonment in 1996, defense attorney Leslie Abramson published a
02:38book titled The Defense Is Real, Life in the Trenches of Criminal Law, and she was later
02:43hired by Phil Spector to defend him in his famous murder trial. However, she parted ways with Spector
02:48before he was found guilty of killing Lana Clarkson. As of October 2024, she is 81 years old
02:54and retired. Of course, a lengthy appeals process followed the brothers' convictions.
02:591998 was a big year for the process, as the California Court of Appeal upheld their convictions,
03:04and the Supreme Court of California declined to hear the case. A number of habeas corpus
03:08petitions followed, stretching a number of years between 1999 to 2005. However,
03:13every single petition was denied, effectively bringing an end to their legal battle.
03:18Judge Weisberg showed remarkable patience. This is a victory for justice.
03:23That might have been all we heard of the Menendez brothers, but 2005 was also a big
03:27year in their personal lives. That's when Eric's wife Tammy Sackaman published the book They Said
03:32We'd Never Make It, My Life with Eric Menendez, which detailed her controversial and often
03:36difficult relationship with the imprisoned man. This included driving herself and their daughter
03:41150 miles every weekend to visit Eric in prison, not to mention the fierce contention that she
03:46faced from other family members for marrying a convicted murderer.
03:49Judge Brown agreed to meet us at my office, okay? We will get you married on that.
03:55Things remained quiet in the Menendez story until 2009, which is when Dominic
03:59Dunn passed away at the age of 83.
04:02You truly believe those Menendez boys are evil?
04:04Yes. When you've stared evil in the face as I have, it's something you never forget.
04:11A famous crime writer, Dunn was paramount in bringing the Menendez story to the masses,
04:15extensively covering their famous trial and penning an account titled Nightmare on Elm Drive,
04:20which was published in the October 1990 issue of Vanity Fair.
04:24He passed away on August 26, 2009, after a brief fight with bladder cancer.
04:29He hit at the age of 50. Then he found success.
04:34And he loved the trials.
04:36He sure did.
04:37And that was about it for a number of years. It wasn't until 2018 that the brothers found
04:41themselves in the news again, this time for a long-awaited family reunion. It was then that
04:46the Menendez brothers were reunited for the first time in over 20 years, having both been transferred
04:52to the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility outside of San Diego. It was a deeply emotional
04:57moment for the brothers, as they both cried while they embraced.
05:00I wasn't sure how I would react, you know, in 20 years. I just felt a lot of adrenaline and
05:04just I ended up bursting into tears. It was just quite an emotional moment.
05:07Three years later, Les Soller, the prime detective in the Menendez case, passed away.
05:12The retired police officer suffered a major stroke on July 9 and remained in a coma for
05:17just under a month, but he never regained consciousness and tragically died on August 4,
05:212021. He was 69 years old.
05:25One of them said that the room was full of smoke when they walked in,
05:28two hours after the shots were fired. Was that window blown out?
05:33The Menendez brothers remain in the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility to this day,
05:38being housed in a unit meant for rehabilitation and education.
05:41A major break in the story occurred in April of 2023, when a Puerto Rican pop singer named
05:46Roy Russello confessed on Today that he was sexually assaulted by the family patriarch
05:50Jose Menendez. The incident allegedly occurred back in the mid-1980s,
05:54when Russello was visiting the Menendez family in New Jersey.
06:02This seemingly gives huge credence to the brothers' claims,
06:05not to mention a serious boost to their legal defense. In May of 2023,
06:10their attorneys filed new court documents to have the convictions overturned.
06:13They point to two key pieces of evidence, the new allegations made by Russello and a letter
06:18that was discovered by the brothers' aunt Marta Cano back in 2018. It was written by Eric to his
06:24cousin and Cano's son Andy. In it, he details the horrific abuse he had been receiving at the hands
06:29of his father, writing damning things like, quote, it's worse for me now, quote, every night I stay
06:34up thinking he might come in, and quote, I don't know I'll make it through this.
06:38According to the attorneys, this letter was written before the murders took place,
06:42and conclusively disproves the prosecution's claim that Jose was not violent or abusive.
06:47We talk about this letter. Would the client not have told their own lawyer,
06:52I wrote this letter eight months ago. If you don't believe that it's going on, call my cousin.
06:58The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office confirms that the case is, quote,
07:02under review. It's hard to say just how effective the new pieces of evidence may be.
07:07But if they are effective, and if the district attorney's office is convinced by what they see,
07:11it's more than possible that the convictions will be overturned and the brothers set free.
07:16I think if people knew more about what really happened in the first trial,
07:20and what happened in the second trial, they would see that it was a miscarriage of justice.
07:25It was the trial of the century back in the 1990s, and the Menendez case has remained in
07:30the public spotlight ever since. Many people involved with the story have since passed away,
07:34and many more have faded from the public's view, but not the brothers themselves.
07:39With new shows and documentaries, not to mention some tantalizing fresh pieces of evidence,
07:44it's clear that interest in the story remains deeply rooted in the American consciousness.
07:48Judge issued an informal order asking the DA to reply,
07:52and the DA has been taking this very seriously.
07:54We can only wait and see how it will play out.