By JAIMIE DING<\/p>\n
LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Lyle Menendez was denied parole Friday by the same board that a day earlier rejected his brother Erik\u2019s appeal for freedom after serving decades in prison for killing their parents in 1989<\/a> at their Beverly Hills mansion. The reason was the same: misbehavior behind bars.<\/p>\n A panel of two commissioners denied Lyle Menendez parole for three years after a daylong hearing. Commissioners noted the older brother still displayed \u201canti-social personality traits like deception, minimization and rule-breaking that lie beneath that positive surface.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe do understand that you had very little hope of being released for years,\u201d said commissioner Julie Garland. \u201cCitizens are expected to follow the rules whether or not there is some incentive to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n She also said the panel found his remorse genuine and that he has been a \u201cmodel inmate in many ways who has demonstrated the potential for change.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t ever not have hope,\u201d she told Menendez.<\/p>\n The brothers were sentenced to life in prison in 1996<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n A judge reduced their sentences<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n Erik Menendez, who is being held at the same prison in San Diego, was denied parole<\/a> Thursday after commissioners determined his misbehavior in prison made him still a risk to public safety. <\/p>\n 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 \u201cbaby brother,\u201d telling commissioners he took sole responsibility for the murders.<\/p>\n \u201cI will never be able to make up for the harm and grief I caused everyone in my family,\u201d he said. \u201cI am so sorry to everyone, and I will be forever sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n The state corrections department chose a single reporter to watch the videoconference and share details with the rest of the press. <\/p>\n Lyle Menendez describes abuse<\/p>\n The panel began by asking how abuse impacted decision-making in his life. <\/p>\n The older brother described how his father physically abused him by choking, punching and hurting him using a belt.<\/p>\n \u201cI was the special son in my family. My brother was the castaway,\u201d he said. \u201cThe physical abuse was focused on me because I was more important to him, I felt.\u201d<\/p>\n He also said his mother also sexually abused him. He appeared uncomfortable discussing this with the panel, who asked why he didn\u2019t disclose his mother\u2019s abuse in a risk assessment conducted earlier this year.<\/p>\n Commissioners asked if one death made him more sorrowful than the other.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mother. Because I loved her and couldn\u2019t imagine harming her in any way,\u201d he said. \u201cI think also I learned a lot after about her life, her childhood, reflecting on how much fear maybe she felt.\u201d<\/p>\n Later, he broke down in tears when recounting how they confronted their mother about Jose Menendez\u2019s abuse of his younger brother.<\/p>\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t wrap my mind around the fact that she knew,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Hearing focuses on crime, over achievements in prison<\/p>\n Lyle Menendez\u2019s parole lawyer, Heidi Rummel, was more outspoken during his hearing than the one for Erik Menendez on Thursday.<\/p>\n She quarreled with the commissioners over several lines of questioning and whether the panel had access to trial evidence in the case.<\/p>\n The panel asked Lyle Menendez whether the murders were planned, and about the brothers buying guns.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was zero planning. There was no way to know it was going to happen Sunday,\u201d he said, referring to buying the guns as \u201cthe biggest mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI no longer believe that they were going to kill us in that moment,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the time, I had that honest belief.\u201d<\/p>\n Garland asked him about the \u201csophistication of the web of lies and manipulation you demonstrated afterward,\u201d referring to having witnesses lie for them in court \u2014 and attempts to destroy his father\u2019s will.<\/p>\n Menendez maintained that there was no plan, only that he was \u201cflailing in what was happening\u201d and didn\u2019t want to go to prison and be separated from his brother.<\/p>\n In closing, Rummel expressed frustration that the hearing spent almost no time on Menendez\u2019s achievements in prison or his efforts to build positive relationships with correctional staff. She noted he never touched drugs or alcohol inside.<\/p>\n \u201cHow 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?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n More than a dozen of their relatives attended Friday\u2019s hearing via videoconference, but many did not testify citing privacy concerns after learning audio from Erik Menendez\u2019s hearing Thursday was published online.<\/p>\n \u201cI want my nephew to hear how much I love him, and believe in him,\u201d said his aunt, Teresita Menendez-Baralt. \u201cI\u2019m very proud of him and I want him to come home.\u201d<\/p>\n Cellphones in prison<\/p>\n Similar to his brother\u2019s hearing the day before, the panel zeroed in on Menendez\u2019s use of cellphones in prison as recent as March 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cI had convinced myself that this wasn\u2019t a means that was harming anyone but myself in a rule violation,\u201d Menendez said.<\/p>\n 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 \u201ca lot of stress in his marriage\u201d around the time he transferred to the prison in San Diego, and he wanted to stay in close touch with his wife, he said. <\/p>\n Commissioner Patrick Reardon applauded him for starting a prison beautification<\/a> project and mentorship programs.<\/a> However, he questioned if the cellphone violations tainted those accomplishments.<\/p>\n \u201cI would never call myself a model incarcerated person,\u201d Menendez said. \u201cI would say that I\u2019m a good person, that I spent my time helping people. \u2026 I\u2019m the guy that officers will come to to resolve conflicts.\u201d<\/p>\n The panel noted that a psychologist found that Menendez is at \u201cvery low\u201d risk for violence upon release.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cMy life has been defined by extreme violence,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted to be defined by something else.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Originally Published: August 22, 2025 at 8:15 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By JAIMIE DING LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Lyle Menendez was denied parole Friday by the same board that…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":168225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1370,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-168224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-sandiego","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115076101820176796","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}