Erik Menendez has been denied parole, nearly 40 years after he and his brother killed their parents inside their Beverly Hills mansion.
The 54-year-old participated via live stream in a parole hearing at the Richard J Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego on Thursday. This was after a judge modified his and his brother Lyle’s sentences from life imprisonment without parole to 50 years to life.
The two have been campaigning for years, but the board told Erik he would be denied parole for three years due to his behavior in prison.
‘Despite what your supporters believe, you have not exhibited exemplary behavior as an inmate, which we find somewhat unsettling,’ the board commented, as reported by journalist Brian Entin.
This determination followed a comprehensive hearing where board commissioners interrogated Erik about his criminal actions and his breaches of prison regulations.
They began by asking him about his involvement in a burglary at the age of 17.
‘It started as a joke involving a few others at a gathering, but it spiraled into a serious issue,’ Erik explained, as reported by NBC Los Angeles. ‘I wanted to impress them, and my lack of maturity led me to make reckless choices, resulting in harm to those I burglarized.’
He then went on to tell the commissioners that he was ‘dealing with tremendous self-worth issues’ at the time.
Erik Menendez was denied parole by the California Board of Parole Hearings on Thursday
A judge had previously adjusted Erik and his brother Lyle’s sentences, reducing them from life without parole to 50 years, making parole a possibility.
‘I lacked a moral upbringing,’ Erik added. ‘I was deliberately raised without learning the principles of right and wrong, even though I understand that difference.’
‘I was raised to lie, to cheat, to steal in a sense – an abstract way.
‘When I was playing tennis, my father would make sure that I cheated at certain times if he told me to.
‘The idea that there is a right and wrong that I do not cross because it’s a moral bound[ary] was not instilled in me as a teenager.’
Erik and Lyle was arrested for the shooting deaths of their parents, Kitty and Jose, as they watched a movie at their Beverly Hills mansion on August 20, 1989.
The duo were 18 and 21 at the time they killed their parents.
Their trial prompted worldwide headlines. Prosecutors said their motive was greed, as they stood to inherit $14 million from their parents.
The brothers insisted they acted against a father who sexually abused them for years and a mother who turned a blind eye to the abuse.
The first trial ended with a hung jury. But at a second trial in 1996 – where the judge refused to allow any evidence about the brothers being molested by their father – they were convicted and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.
The brothers were convicted in 1996 of murdering their parents, Jose and Kitty, inside their Beverly Hills mansion
At the hearing on Thursday, Erik claimed he developed a ‘moral guardrail’ while in prison, where he earned a bachelor’s degree with top academic honors.
Much of the rest of the hearing was focused on the allegations of sexual abuse, with Erik claiming he bought firearms ‘to protect myself in case my father or my mother came at me to kill me, or my father came in the room to rape me.’
Another commissioner then asked why he decided to also kill his mother.
‘When Mom told me… that she had known all of those years, it was the most devastating moment in my entire life,’ Erik said, becoming visibly emotional. ‘It changed everything for me. I had been protecting her by not telling her.’
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
