THEY brutally gunned down their parents before splashing chunks of their $14million fortune on expensive designer clothes, Rolex watches, and cars worth thousands of dollars.
But following a hit Netflix drama and fresh evidence they were victims of alleged sexual abuse, the campaign to free the Menendez brothers is ramping up.
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Lyle and Erik, who slaughtered parents Jose and Kitty at their Beverly Hills home in 1989, have spent over three decades behind bars after being convicted of first-degree murder.
A fresh hearing next month will consider unearthed evidence suggesting they were molested as children by their father, with the pair’s attorneys pushing for authorities to consider resentencing them.
It comes amid a backdrop of high-profile figures including Kim Kardashian – who has visited them in prison – calling for the brothers to be released, with thousands of videos on TikTok backing up the campaign.
However, in a new Channel 5 documentary airing tonight, the lawyer who prosecuted Erik and Lyle in their first court case in 1994, which ended in a mistrial, slams their new status as ‘social media stars’.
She also claims they engineered their legal argument to improve their chances of being convicted for manslaughter and avoiding the death penalty.
Pamela Bozanich tells the show: “The idea that these delicate flowers did this thoughtless act of killing mummy and daddy, it’s nauseating.”
She adds: “They lied and lied and lied. They’ve always been liars. And they planned the murder out meticulously. And they planned out the defence meticulously.
“I don’t think they thought about the cruelty of what they were doing. I think it was just a means to an end.
“And the tragedy is that there are people out there who don’t get that.”
Despite the brothers insisting that they killed Jose and Kitty because they feared that their lives were in danger, Pamela says she had already seen their defence coming even before stepping into court.
“I was a sex crimes prosecutor,” she says. “I knew that this was such a great defence because a child molester is the lowest form of life. The way that they constructed the defence, it was in order to get a manslaughter conviction.
“Manslaughter is an unreasonable but strong belief in the necessity of self-defence.
“So what they were trying to do is set up a scenario, which was the night of the murders, where they were in imminent danger. They ran out to the car and got the guns and blew up mum and dad.”
Shocking crime
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Although Pamela and her team had pushed for the death penalty, Lyle, now 56, and Erik, 53, managed to escape the punishment.
Instead, the jury in their second trial recommended that they be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Erik was just 18 and Lyle was 21 when they gunned down their wealthy parents in August 1989.
The pair initially claimed they had no involvement in the murders and even suggested that they thought it was a mob hit.
But after a taped confession and a handwritten letter were intercepted by authorities, the brothers came clean about what really happened.
They claimed they had lived through their father’s sexual abuse for years and finally decided to escape his clutches on the fateful night of the murders.
Lyle and Erik recounted horrific details of molestation that started at the age of six.
According to the brothers, an argument ensued, and Jose told them he would raise them in any way he saw fit.
They also allege that their mother had been fully aware of what Jose had been doing to them.
Under the firm belief that they were going to be killed that night, the brothers, who had purchased guns with stolen identification documents, said they decided to kill their parents before they had a chance to strike first.
But Pamela never bought the brothers’ self-defence argument.
According to the prosecutor, the case was mostly about two things – freedom and money.
Menendez brothers’ new hearing
Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon confirmed last week that the Menendez Brothers have a new court hearing scheduled for November.
This could potentially lead to their resentencing or release. It comes after the emergence of new evidence, including a letter from Erik Menendez detailing sexual abuse by their father.
The court will review the new evidence and claims largely dismissed during their original trial.
In the letter, Erik wrote: “It’s still happening, Andy, but it’s worse for me now. I can’t explain it. He’s so overweight that I can’t stand to see him. I never know when it’s going to happen, and it’s driving me crazy.
“I need to put it out of my mind. I know what you said before, but I’m afraid. You just don’t know dad like I do.”
In the note, Erik described his dad as crazy and asked himself if he was a “whimpus”.
“I don’t know I’ll make it through this. I need to stop thinking about it,” he said in the letter.
In the weeks after the murder, Erik and Lyle embarked on a huge spending spree and blew $700,000 (£530,000).
Erik decided not to go to college and instead hired a $50,000-a-year tennis coach to help him become a pro. He also bought a restaurant near the family’s former Princeton, New Jersey, home.
Pamela tells Murder in Beverley Hills: The Menendez Brothers: “The spending that they did in the weeks after the murder told me that’s why they killed their parents. They wanted the luxury and they wanted the stuff.
“But they didn’t want to be told what to do. It wasn’t the only motive. It wasn’t a single-motive case. I think he [Jose] was very hard on them. It’s clear to me that he was hard on them. That’s why they blew his brains out.”
They lied and lied and lied. They’ve always been liars. And they planned the murder out meticulously
Pamela Bozanich
Prosecutors believed the boys had gone against what the father wished for them.
Lyle had been suspended from Princeton University, while both brothers also participated in a spate of burglaries in the Beverly Hills suburbs that left their parents ashamed.
Pamela’s team believed that this led Jose to give them an ultimatum – they either had to get their act together or face being cut off from the family’s wealth.
They argued that this was when the boys decided to plan their parents’ murder.
Ultimate victim
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During the trial, which began in July 1993, Pamela emphasised who she believed was the real victim in the case – Lyle and Erik’s mother, Kitty.
At one point, she showed a gory picture of Kitty’s bloodied body to the jury and said: “Look at their mother – this is the woman who gave birth to them. This is what they did to their mother.”
At court, Kitty was portrayed as a wife who was unhappy and depended on drugs and alcohol to deal with her bouts of depression and suicidal thoughts.
Lyle and Erik have described her as a cold and distant mother who knew about the abuse and did nothing to stop their father.
In the documentary, Pamela doubles down and says: “Even if you believe that Jose Menendez was having sex with Erik, what about Mum? How do you explain her?
“Kitty Menendez gave birth to two sons who turned around and absolutely slaughtered her.”
She adds: “As a matter of fact, the evidence showed that she was scared of everybody. She was scared of her husband. She was scared of her kids.
“She, to me, is the ultimate victim.”
She continues: “One of the things they said was that they killed Mum because they knew she couldn’t live without Dad.
“I remember that line and just thinking, ‘Oh yeah, did you give her a vote?'”
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For years, many people have asked why the brothers did not leave the home, since they were both over 18 when the murders were committed.
While they maintain that they were manipulated into believing they could never leave, Pamela is adamant that was never the case.
“The reason they didn’t leave was because they wanted the money”, she says. “They wanted basically what is called an Italian divorce.
“You get the money, and your partner is gone. And that’s what they did.”
After the jury heard from experts and family members who supported the brothers’ claims and several days of heart-wrenching testimony from Lyle and Erik, they could not decide whether to convict them of manslaughter or murder.
Ultimately, they found themselves “hopelessly deadlocked”, forcing the judge to declare a mistrial in 1994.
Pamela decided to step down from the case and wasn’t involved in the second shorter trial that ended in a murder conviction in 1996.
Cameras were banned in the second trial. Judge Stanley Weisberg also controversially limited the number of witnesses the defence could call, which enraged the brothers’ legal teams.
The brothers were spared the death penalty and sentenced to life in prison without parole. While Pamela says she was disappointed about the ruling, she also understands.
“I was disappointed, but I knew it was going to happen”, she explains.
“For most human beings, the most important decisions they make in their lives generally are who to marry and maybe what house to buy.
“When you’re a juror, you’re deciding, in this case, life and death. That’s a huge responsibility and having a bunch of people in America watching you do that, that’s too much pressure.
“It’s easy to acquit. It’s much harder to convict when everyone is looking at you.”
New support
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Robert Rand, an author and journalist who has remained a close friend of the brothers, uncovered a bombshell letter from Erik to a late cousin, Andy Cano, which convinced him they were telling the truth and has prompted the new hearing.
He told The Sun: “It’s a five-page letter. I was going through documents in Andy’s dresser, and it was probably about halfway through the second page.
“He wrote a paragraph where he started complaining about the abuse by his father, and that every night he was afraid that his father would come into his room, and he didn’t know what to do about it.
“And I was reading this, and I was shocked to see it because I realised that it was a physical piece of evidence. It wasn’t just somebody saying something, but a real physical piece of evidence.
“And I realized this could have a major impact on the brother’s case and their attempt to reopen the case.”
But Pamela is not amused by the fresh wave of public support – particularly from younger generations like TikTok who were not even alive when the murders were committed.
She says: “Richard Ramirez was the night stalker, and he killed a bunch of people and tore up people’s eyes when they were still alive.
“Ramirez, as evil as he was, had all these babes who wanted him. So, I’m not surprised by the phenomenon. I guess it’s the ultimate bad boy.”
Murder in Beverley Hills: The Menendez Brothers airs tonight at 10pm on Channel 5
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