The Menendez Brothers: "FROM MONSTERS TO MARTYRS: How TikTok Might Free Two Killers"

0:03 Caalaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Reed Carter, and welcome back to Celebrity Trials. Yesterday we explored how two privileged brothers from Beverly Hills became convicted killers. Today we're diving into something even stranger, how those same killers became TikTok heroes, Netflix stars, and possibly future free men. Because here's what's wild about the Menendez case. It won't stay in the past. Every generation rediscovers it and sees something different. In nineteen ninety six, when Lyle and Eric were sentenced to life without parole, that seemed like the end of the story.

0:47 Two rich kids had murdered their parents for money, tried to blame it on abuse, and justice was served. Case closed. Except the case never really closed. It just waited for America to change its mind about male sexual abuse, waited for social media to turn true crime into entertainment, waited for new evidence to surface, and waited for a Los Angeles District attorney willing to take another look. On May thirteenth, twenty twenty five, just two months ago, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Jessich did something that would have been unthinkable in nineteen ninety six, he resentenced the Menendez brothers to fifty years to life, making them immediately eligible for parole. After thirty five years behind bars, Lyle and Eric Menendez suddenly had what they'd given up on hope.

1:43 But as I record this on Sunday, August third, twenty twenty five, Eric Menendez isn't preparing for his parole hearing in eighteen days. He's in a hospital bed with what his family describes as a serious medical condition. His attorney, Mark Geragos is pushing for an emergency medical furlough, and America is once again debating whether two admitted killers deserve freedom. Let me tell you how we got here, How two of America's most hated criminals became causes celebris, how Netflix and TikTok succeeded, where million dollar defense lawyers failed, and why the Menendez brothers might actually walk free before the year is out. After their convictions in nineteen ninety six, Lyle and Eric Menendez disappeared into the California prison system.

2:33 They were sent to separate facilities, the California Department of Correction's way of preventing them from coordinating stories or causing trouble together for years, the brothers who'd done everything together, including murder, couldn't even speak to each other. But here's what's interesting about their time inside. By all accounts, they were model prisoners, not just well behaved, actually productive. Both earned college degrees, Both became peer counselors. Both got married, because yes, even convicted parent killers can find love through prison pen pal programs. Eric married Tammy Sackerman in nineteen ninety nine. She'd started writing him after watching the trials, and she's been his most vocal advocate ever since. Lyle married twice, first to Anna Erikson in nineteen ninety six, though she divorced him when she found out he was writing to other women. He married Rebecca Snead in two thousand and three, and before you ask, no, California doesn't allow conjugal visits for life without parole inmates, these marriages are about as physical as a zoom relationship. In twenty eighteen, after more than twenty years apart, the brothers were reunited at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego. Witnesses say they burst into tears when they saw each other.

3:49 Here were two men in their late forties who'd spent more than half their lives in prison, hugging like the boys they'd been when they decided to kill their parents, and that image tu middle aged men who'd been boys when they committed their crime is crucial to understanding how public perception began to shift. In May twenty twenty three, something happened that would have seemed impossible during the original trials. New evidence supporting the brother's abuse claims surfaced, and it came from the most unexpected source. Roy Rosello, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, came forward in the Peacock docuseries Menudo plus Menendez Boys betrayed his allegation that Jose Menendez had drugged and raped him in the nineteen eighties when he was a teenager. Let me put this in context for you. Menudo was the bts of the nineteen eighties Latin music world. They were massive, and Jose Menendez, as an executive at RCA Records, had power over their careers. Rossello claims that Jose assaulted him in a New York hotel room, and that this wasn't an isolated incident with the band. Now one allegation from decades ago doesn't prove the Menendez brother were abused, but it does something crucial. It establishes that Hose Menendez may have been exactly the predator his sons claimed he was.

5:09 It provides independent corroboration that the successful executive had a pattern of abusing young boys. But wait, there's more, because attorney Robert Rand, who's been investigating this case for decades, found something in twenty eighteen that could have changed everything if it had surfaced earlier. A letter allegedly written by Eric Menendez to his cousin Andy Cano months before the murders. The letter, which Rand says he found an addresser in Cano's bedroom, appears to show Eric discussing the abuse. The exact contents haven't been made fully public, but court documents indicate Eric wrote about the abuse getting worse than his fear of his father. Think about what this means. The prosecution's whole case rested partly on the idea that the abuse allegations were fabricated after the murders as a legal strategy.

5:58 But if Eric was writing about abuse use months before he killed his parents, that destroys that narrative. It suggests The abuse claims weren't made up for trial, they were the ongoing reality the brothers were living with. Of Course, former DA Nathan Hawkman, who took office after these developments, isn't buying it. He's compiled a list of what he calls sixteen unacknowledged lies the brothers have told over the years. He points out that self defense claims don't work when you buy guns in advance and ambush your parents while they're watching TV. He's got a point, But here's what Hawkman is up against. Public opinion has shifted dramatically, and a lot of that shift has to do with how we consume true crime in twenty twenty five, back in a Moment. In September twenty twenty four, Ryan Murphy, the guy behind American Horror Story and Glee, released Monsters the Lyle and Eric Menendez Story on Netflix. It was the second season of his true crime anthology following the Jeffrey Dahmer series, and just like with Dahmer, Murphy's show turned a decade's old case into water cooler conversation. But Eric Menendez wasn't happy about it. In a statement released through his wife, he called out the show's horrible and blatant lies and accused Murphy of taking the case back to

7:29 an era when the prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused. Here's what's fascinating. Eric's criticism of the show might have done more for his cause than the show itself. It reminded people that these weren't just characters in Ryan Murphy production. They were real people, still alive, still in prison, still maintaining their abuse claims after thirty five years. Then, in October twenty twenty four, Netflix doubled down with a documentary simply titled The Menendez Brothers. This one featured actual prison interviews with Lyle and Eric, no actors, no dramatization, just two middle aged men in prison uniforms telling their story. The timing couldn't have been better for the brothers or worse, depending on your perspective, because suddenly everyone was talking about the Menendez case again, and this time the conversation was very different than it had been in nineteen ninety six. TikTok exploded with Menendez content gen Z creators, most of whom weren't even born when the murders happened, started making videos defending the brothers. The hashtag Menendez brothers has billions of views.

8:43 Young people who've grown up in an era of hashtag me too and greater awareness of male sexual abuse victims saw the case through completely different eyes than the nineteen nineties jury. The TikTok argument goes something like this, the brothers were abused children who killed their abusers. They've served thirty five years. Actual child molesters often get less time free them. It's simplified. Sure, it ignores the premeditation, the brutality, the lies, but it resonates with a generation that's more willing to see victims as complex and violence as sometimes understandable, if not justifiable. October twenty fourth, twenty twenty four, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon dropped a bombshell. After reviewing the new evidence, the shifting cultural understanding of male sexual abuse, and the brother's exemplary behavior in prison, he was recommending resentencing.

9:41 Gascon's reasoning was careful and political. He said, I don't believe that manslaughter would have been the appropriate charge given the premeditation that was involved, but he also added, I do believe that the brothers were subjected to a tremendous amount of dysfunction in the home and molestation. Translation, they're guilty of murder, but maybe not the kind of murder that requires life without parole. The reaction was immediate and predictable. Victims' rights advocates were furious. How could the DA recommend leniency for two men who'd admitted to shotgunning their parents, but supporters, including more than twenty Menendez family members, were ecstatic.

10:21 Joan Vandermuhlen Kitty Menendez, his own sister, held a press conference saying, if Lyle and Eric's case was heard today, with the understanding we now have about abuse and PTSD, there is no doubt in my mind, their sentencing would have been very different. Think about that the murder victim's own sister was advocating for her killer's release. That's how much the narrative had shifted. But then came a plot twist worthy of Murphy's Show. In November twenty twenty four, Gascon lost his re election bid to Nathan Hakman, a former federal prosecutor who ran on a tough on crime platform. Hawkman made it clear he opposed the resentencing, calling the abuse claims fabricated and the brother's various explanations over the years lies. For a moment, it looked like the brother's hopes had died with Gascon's political career, but the legal process had already been set in motion, and on April eleventh, twenty twenty five, Judge Michael Jessex ruled that the resentencing could proceed despite Hawkman's objections. Then came May thirteenth, twenty twenty five, Judge Jesich resentenced to the brothers to fifty years to life. Because they committed their crimes when they were under twenty six, they immediately became eligible for parole after thirty five years. The Menendez brothers finally had a realistic path to freedom, but freedom isn't guaranteed. They still need to convince a parole board that they're no longer a threat to society, and that's where things get complicated.

11:55 Back in a moment. As I speak to you on August third, twenty twenty five, Lyle and Eric Menendez are just eighteen days away from the most important hearings of their lives. On August twenty first and twenty second, they'll face the California parole Board. If they can convince the board they're rehabilitated, they could be free by fall. But Eric might not make it to that hearing. He's currently hospitalized with what his family describes as a serious medical condition. His attorney, Mark Geragos, the same guy who defended Michael Jackson and Chris Brown, is pushing for an emergency medical furlough.

12:42 He wants Eric released immediately for medical treatment and to prepare for the parole hearing. It's a dramatic turn that even Ryan Murphy couldn't have scripted. After thirty five years in prison, Eric Menendez might get out not because of changing attitudes about abuse, not because of TikTok campaigns, but because he's too sick to stay inside. Meanwhile, Nathan Hashman isn't giving up. He's submitted a recent psychological evaluation that found the brothers at moderate risk of committing violence if released. He's compiled his list of sixteen lies to present to the parole board. He's fighting this release with everything he's got. But here's what Hawkman is really fighting, a cultural shift that's bigger than any one case. In nineteen ninety six, male sexual abuse victims were punchlines not sympathetic figures. The idea that boys could be raped by their fathers was something people didn't want to believe. The Menendez brothers were rich kids who killed for money. End of story. In twenty twenty five, we live in a different world. We've seen powerful men exposed as predators. We've learned that abuse victims don't always act the way we expect. We've recognized that trauma can make people do terrible things. The Menendez brothers haven't changed we have. Does that mean they should go free. That's for the parole board to decide. But I'll tell you this, if Eric and Lyle Menendez walk out of prison this year, it won't just be because of new evidence or good behavior. It'll be because America

14:14 itself has changed its mind about who deserves sympathy and who deserves a second chance. You know what strikes me most about revisiting this case, It's not how much has changed, it's how the fundamental question remains the same. Do abuse victims who kill their abusers deserve mercy? And if so, how much. The Menendez brothers have now spent more time in prison than they spent free. They went in as young men and might come out as grandfathers. They've earned degrees, counseled other inmates, maintained marriages without physical contact by any measure except the one that matters most, bringing their parents back. They've been rehabilitated, But Jose and Kitty Menendez are still dead, still shot multiple times at close range by their own children.

15:01 No amount of TikTok videos or Netflix documentaries changes that fundamental fact. What has changed is our capacity for nuance. In nineteen ninety six, you are either team prosecution their greedy killers or team defense their abuse victims. In twenty twenty five, most people acknowledge it can be both. They can be killers and victims. They can deserve punishment and mercy. They can be guilty and sympathetic. The parole board will have to weigh all of this, the exemplary prison records versus the brutal murders, the new evidence of Jose's predatory behavior versus the premeditated nature of the killings, the brother's youth at the time versus the decades they've already served.

15:44 And they'll have to do it while one of the brothers fights for his life in a hospital bed, adding another layer of drama to a case that's never lacked for it. Here's my prediction. They're getting out. Not because they deserve it. That's a moral question I'm not qualified to answer, but because the zeitgeist has shifted and parole boards don't operate in a vacuum. The same society that condemned them in nineteen ninety six is ready to forgive them in twenty twenty five. The Menendez brothers went to prison as villains. If they leave, they'll leave as victims. Same crime, same facts, different America. I'm read Carter with celebrity trials. Tomorrow we'll be back to covering breaking legal news as it happens, but this weekend we wanted to remind you that sometimes the most important trials happen long after the verdict. Sometimes justice isn't about what happened, it's about how we choose to remember it. The Menendez brothers killed their parents thirty six years ago. In eighteen days, they'll find out if that's all they'll ever be, or if America is ready to let them be something more.

16:50 Remember you don't have to be a celebrity going in, but you will be one when the verdict comes down. And Lyle and Eric Menendez. They've been celebrities, lawnger than some of you have been alive. The only question now is whether they'll die that way, or whether they'll get what their parents never did, a second chance at life. Justice isn't always fast, but it's always riveting, and sometimes the most riveting part is watching society decide what justice even means. See you tomorrow,