After spending 34 years behind bars for the 1989 murder of their parents, Lyle and Erik Menendez may now be on the brink of freedom. But the fight over their fate has divided not only the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office but their family—and even curious tourists visiting the murder scene in Beverly Hills.
Mark Geragos, the brothers’ attorney, told Good Morning America on Friday the pair are “cautiously optimistic that they can see some real relief” after District Attorney George Gascón announced Thursday that he would recommend their resentencing and release.
“It’s exciting, it’s beyond words,” said cousin Karen VanderMolen, one of more than 20 relatives who support their freedom. “Best-case scenario would be for us to have Erik and Lyle home for the busy week of Thanksgiving,” she told GMA, noting the holiday coincides with three family birthdays.
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Another cousin, Tamara Goodell, pointed to shifting public attitudes about victims of abuse. (The brothers have insisted that they killed their parents in self defense after years of sexual and psychological abuse.) “This new generation is really putting up a fight to say this is not what should’ve been handed to them,” Goodell said on GMA. “At this point, after almost 35 years, they’ve served their time… It’s time for them to come home.”
But not every family member agrees the brothers should walk free. Their 90-year-old uncle Milton Andersen (a brother to their mother, Kitty Menendez) remains their most vocal opponent, and has dismissed their abuse claims as a lie. “The jury’s verdict was just, and the punishment fits the heinous crime,” Andersen said in a statement to GMA, arguing the brothers’ crime was driven by greed and a desire to claim their $14 million inheritance.
Andersen’s attorney, Kathleen Cady, said Gascón is seeking to exploit the case to win reelection on Nov. 5 and is trying to ”rewrite history” and “manipulate the facts.”
“His decisions must be grounded in truth and law, not a last-ditch effort to sway voters,” Cady said, according to Fox News. “The victims of this horrific crime, including Mr. Andersen, deserve far better than being pawns in a politician’s game.”
Announcing his decision to ask for resentencing on Thursday, Gascón revealed that his own office is divided.
“There are people in the office that strongly believe that the Menendez brothers should stay in prison for the rest of their lives, and they do not believe they were molested,” Gascón explained. “And there are people in the office that strongly believe they should be released immediately and that they were in fact molested.”
“I will never excuse murder, and those were brutal, premeditated murders,” Gascón told CNN on Thursday. “They were appropriately sentenced at the time when they were tried. They got life without the possibility of parole. I just think that given the current state of the law and given our assessment of their behavior in prison, they deserve the opportunity to be re-evaluated and perhaps reintegrated into the community.”
“What they did was horrible… But I think they’re different people today, and we base our opinion on the last 35 years of behavior,” Gascón said.
Gascón is currently trailing by more than 30 points in public opinion polls in the district attorney race. His challenger Nathan Hochman, a former prosecutor and criminal defense lawyer running as an independent, immediately questioned the timing of his announcement. In a statement, Hochman urged voters to consider, “whether the decision was correct and just or just another desperate political move by a DA running a losing campaign scrambling to grab headlines through a made-for-TV decision.”
The Association of Los Angeles Deputy District Attorneys also accused Gascón of playing politics.
“Throughout his disastrous tenure as DA, Gascón has consistently prioritized celebrity cases over the rights of crime victims, showing more interest in being in the spotlight than in upholding justice," wrote Michele Hanisee, president of the association, a union that represents nearly 900 deputy DAs, in a statement.
“Gascón’s actions make it clear that he is more interested in using his office for free media attention than in actual justice,” the statement continued. ”His self-serving agenda has left victims and their families neglected while he chases the next headline.”
Even tourists who visit the Menendez murder scene on Elm Drive in Beverly Hills—the family’s former mansion—find themselves divided. In interviews with the Daily Beast at the scene, some sympathized with Lyle and Erik, viewing them as victims of parental abuse, while others see them as cold-blooded killers who got what they deserved.
