This week, after delays, plot twists, and a letter of support from Kim Kardashian, Lyle and Erik Menendez may finally learn if they will be resentenced for the 1989 murders of their wealthy parents, José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez. Their original sentence was life without the possibility of parole. Now parole, or even early release, might be possible.
What changed? Two new pieces of evidence emerged, which seem to support the brothers’ early claims they were physically and sexually abused by their father, José Menendez, a high-profile music executive. The first is a bombshell letter Erik apparently wrote to his cousin Andy Cano eight months before the murder. Cano passed away in 2003, but author Robert Rand unearthed the note in 2018, when he was writing a book about the Menendez brothers and their aunt gave him permission to look through Cano’s bedroom.
The letter seems to reference the abuse, saying, “It’s still happening, Andy, but it’s worse now. . . . Every night I stay up thinking he might come in. . . . I’m afraid. You just don’t know dad like I do. He’s crazy! He’s warned me a hundred times about telling anyone.”
