José & Kitty Menéndez

Case background and investigation

José Menéndez, 45, an entertainment executive, and his wife Mary Louise, known as Kitty, 47, were shot to death at their home in Beverly Hills, California, on August 20, 1989. According to ABC News, their sons Lyle, then 21, and Erik, then 18, carried out the killings with shotguns bought a few days earlier. Wikipedia's account of the case gives the parents' ages and states that both were shot multiple times.

The brothers were not arrested for several months. Wikipedia dates Lyle's arrest to March 8, 1990, and says Erik surrendered three days later after returning from a tennis tournament abroad. At their first trial, which began in 1993, the brothers admitted the shootings but said they had acted in fear after years of sexual, physical and emotional abuse by their father. Prosecutors argued the motive was the family's wealth. Separate juries for each brother could not agree, and mistrials were declared in January 1994.

At a second trial that began in 1995, the judge excluded much of the abuse evidence, ABC News reported. In March 1996 both brothers were convicted of first-degree murder, and each received two consecutive sentences of life without the possibility of parole. Their appeals over the following years were unsuccessful.

Interest in the case revived in the 2020s. On October 24, 2024, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón recommended resentencing. ABC News reported that the material under review included a letter Erik is said to have written to a cousin months before the killings describing abuse, and an allegation by a former member of the band Menudo that José Menéndez had abused him. Gascón's successor, Nathan Hochman, opposed resentencing, saying the brothers had not taken full responsibility, and his office twice tried to withdraw the request, according to The Guardian.

On May 13, 2025, Judge Michael Jesic reduced the sentences to 50 years to life, which made the brothers eligible for parole under California's youthful offender law because they were under 26 at the time of the crime. The judge said that the decision on release was not his to make but that they had earned the chance to seek it.

The Board of Parole Hearings denied parole to Erik on August 21, 2025, and to Lyle on August 22, each for three years. ABC News reported that the panel cited prison rule violations, including the use of contraband cellphones, and found a continuing risk to public safety. In September 2026 ABC News reported that both brothers had been granted an earlier parole suitability hearing, tentatively set for March 2027 rather than August 2028. Both remain in prison. Clemency from the governor remains a separate possible route.