First Erik Menendez, then Lyle denied parole by California board that
says they pose safety risk
[August 23, 2025]
By JAIMIE DING
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lyle Menendez was denied parole Friday by the same
board that a day earlier rejected his brother Erik’s appeal for freedom
after serving decades in prison for killing their parents in 1989 at
their Beverly Hills mansion. The reason was the same: misbehavior behind
bars.
A panel of two commissioners denied Lyle Menendez parole for three years
after a daylong hearing. Commissioners noted the older brother still
displayed "anti-social personality traits like deception, minimization
and rule-breaking that lie beneath that positive surface.”
“We do understand that you had very little hope of being released for
years," said commissioner Julie Garland. “Citizens are expected to
follow the rules whether or not there is some incentive to do so."
She also said the panel found his remorse genuine and that he has been a
“model inmate in many ways who has demonstrated the potential for
change.”
“Don’t ever not have hope,” she told Menendez.
The brothers were sentenced to life in prison in 1996 for fatally
shooting their father, Jose Menendez, and mother, Kitty Menendez, in
their Beverly Hills mansion almost exactly 36 years ago on Aug. 20,
1989. While defense attorneys argued that the brothers acted out of
self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, prosecutors
said the brothers sought a multimillion-dollar inheritance.
A judge reduced their sentences in May, and they became immediately
eligible for parole. The parole hearings marked the closest they have
come to winning freedom since their convictions almost 30 years ago.
Erik Menendez, who is being held at the same prison in San Diego, was
denied parole Thursday after commissioners determined his misbehavior in
prison made him still a risk to public safety.
A day later, Lyle Menendez told the parole board details about the abuse
he suffered under his parents. He cried, face reddened, while delivering
his closing statement. He seemed to still want to protect his “baby
brother,” telling commissioners he took sole responsibility for the
murders.
“I will never be able to make up for the harm and grief I caused
everyone in my family," he said. “I am so sorry to everyone, and I will
be forever sorry.”
The state corrections department chose a single reporter to watch the
videoconference and share details with the rest of the press.
Lyle Menendez describes abuse
The panel began by asking how abuse impacted decision-making in his
life.
The older brother described how his father physically abused him by
choking, punching and hurting him using a belt.
“I was the special son in my family. My brother was the castaway," he
said. "The physical abuse was focused on me because I was more important
to him, I felt.”
He also said his mother also sexually abused him. He appeared
uncomfortable discussing this with the panel, who asked why he didn't
disclose his mother's abuse in a risk assessment conducted earlier this
year.
Commissioners asked if one death made him more sorrowful than the other.
“My mother. Because I loved her and couldn’t imagine harming her in any
way," he said. “I think also I learned a lot after about her life, her
childhood, reflecting on how much fear maybe she felt.”
Later, he broke down in tears when recounting how they confronted their
mother about Jose Menendez's abuse of his younger brother.
“I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that she knew," he said.
Hearing focuses on crime, over achievements in prison
Lyle Menendez's parole lawyer, Heidi Rummel, was more outspoken during
his hearing than the one for Erik Menendez on Thursday.
She quarreled with the commissioners over several lines of questioning
and whether the panel had access to trial evidence in the case.
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Lyle Menendez appears before the parole board via teleconference on
Friday, Aug 22, 2025, at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional
Facility in San Diego. (California Department of Corrections via AP)
The panel asked Lyle Menendez whether the murders were planned, and
about the brothers buying guns.
“There was zero planning. There was no way to know it was going to
happen Sunday,” he said, referring to buying the guns as “the
biggest mistake."
“I no longer believe that they were going to kill us in that
moment,” he said. "At the time, I had that honest belief.”
Garland asked him about the “sophistication of the web of lies and
manipulation you demonstrated afterward," referring to having
witnesses lie for them in court — and attempts to destroy his
father's will.
Menendez maintained that there was no plan, only that he was
“flailing in what was happening” and didn't want to go to prison and
be separated from his brother.
In closing, Rummel expressed frustration that the hearing spent
almost no time on Menendez's achievements in prison or his efforts
to build positive relationships with correctional staff. She noted
he never touched drugs or alcohol inside.
“How many people with an LWOP sentence come in front of this board
with zero violence, despite getting attacked, getting bullied, and
choose to do something different?” she said.
More than a dozen of their relatives attended Friday’s hearing via
videoconference, but many did not testify citing privacy concerns
after learning audio from Erik Menendez's hearing Thursday was
published online.
“I want my nephew to hear how much I love him, and believe in him,"
said his aunt, Teresita Menendez-Baralt. "I’m very proud of him and
I want him to come home."
Cellphones in prison
Similar to his brother's hearing the day before, the panel zeroed in
on Menendez's use of cellphones in prison as recent as March 2025.
“I had convinced myself that this wasn’t a means that was harming
anyone but myself in a rule violation," Menendez said.
He said correctional staff were monitoring his communications with
his wife and family and selling them to tabloids, so he saw
cellphones as a way to protect his privacy. There was “a lot of
stress in his marriage” around the time he transferred to the prison
in San Diego, and he wanted to stay in close touch with his wife, he
said.
Commissioner Patrick Reardon applauded him for starting a prison
beautification project and mentorship programs. However, he
questioned if the cellphone violations tainted those
accomplishments.
“I would never call myself a model incarcerated person," Menendez
said. “I would say that I’m a good person, that I spent my time
helping people. ... I’m the guy that officers will come to to
resolve conflicts.”
The panel noted that a psychologist found that Menendez is at “very
low” risk for violence upon release.
According to previous court documents, Menendez has not gotten into
any fights in his time in prison. He said nonviolence was a promise
he made to his grandmother.
“My life has been defined by extreme violence," he said. “I wanted
to be defined by something else.”
The brothers still have a pending habeas corpus petition filed in
May 2023 seeking a review of their convictions based on new evidence
supporting their claims of sexual abuse by their father.
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