Menendez Brothers: New Evidence Being Reviewed in Murder Case
Over 30 years after being sentenced for murdering their parents, new evidence in Erik and Lyle Menendez’s case will be reevaluated, Los Angeles District Attorney Javier Gascon announced in a press conference on Thursday.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Gascon said his office would be reviewing newly surfaced evidence over the brothers’ allegations that their father had molested them. The decision could lead to a resentencing, though Gascon said the office hadn’t made any decision yet.
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“We’re not at this point ready to say we believe or do not believe that information,” Gascón said, per the Times. “But we’re here to tell you that we have a moral and ethical obligation to review what is being presented to us and make a determination.”
The Menendez brothers were convicted of murder in the Nineties in a trial that captivated the country both for the lavish stakes of the Menendez family’s money and violent nature of the murders, while much of the trial played out on television.
The review comes amid renewed interest in the infamous case amid Netflix’s series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, created by Ryan Murphy. The Menendez family heavily criticized Murphy and the show last week, calling it “a phobic, gross, anachronistic, serial episodic nightmare that is not only riddled with mistruths and outright falsehoods but ignores the most recent exculpatory revelations.”
“Our family has been victimized by this grotesque shockadrama,” Joan VanderMolen, the brothers’ aunt wrote. “Murphy claims he spent years researching the case but in the end relied on debunked Dominick Dunne, the pro-prosecution hack, to justify his slander against us and never spoke to us.”
Through his wife, Eric Menendez called the show “vile and appalling.”
Murphy defended the series, responding to Menendez’s claim and stating that “I know he hasn’t watched the show.” The show creator said the true crime series presented viewers with “many, many, many perspectives” and theories “based on people who were either involved or cover the case.”
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