Where are the Menendez Brothers now? Lyle and Erik’s Hotel Bel-Air days are over

When Erik and Lyle Menendez decided to end their parents’ lives in 1989, they couldn’t possibly have imagined how the next 35 years would turn out for them. As seen in the recently released second season of Netflix’s MonstersOn August 20, the brothers shot their parents at close range. They then performatively called 911 and claimed to have found the bodies of José and Kitty, their wealthy (and allegedly abusive) parents, whose bodies looked like they had been involved with the mob. Initially, the mob was the police’s prime suspect, but as People reports, “notes from the brothers’ therapist, a shotgun shell and a screenplay pointed to Lyle and Erik.” So, where are the Menendez brothers now? Read on to find out!

The Menendez Brothers Now: Lyle and Erik Reunited In Person in 2018

It took three attempts to successfully bring the Menendez brothers to trial, who consistently portrayed their late father as a domineering figure known for physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Some questioned how family matriarch Kitty could have allowed her children to endure such trauma, but Lyle and Erik say the former teacher enabled her husband and abused them herself while struggling with drug and alcohol addiction. In March 1996, a jury convicted the Menendez brothers of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced them to life in prison.

After fighting together for years, the convicted killers spent more than 20 years in separate prisons. Lyle was sent to Mule Creek State in Ione, California, while his younger brother lived 500 miles away at Richard J. Donovan in San Diego County. They were unable to speak to each other for years, but kept in touch through letters during their time apart, even playing chess through the mail. In 2018, they finally got a chance to reunite when Lyle was transferred to a different housing unit in the same prison as his brother; later that year, they were placed in the same unit and reportedly broke down in tears as they were overcome with emotion.

Erik has spent his decades behind bars honing his creative skills (the 53-year-old even once sent Kathy Griffin a portrait), while Lyle has pursued his father’s dream of a political career. He previously served as chairman of the Inmate Government at Mule State Creek Prison and worked for a time in a support group for inmates who have also been sexually abused.

Who is Erik Menendez’s wife?

Erik Menendez’s sexuality is questioned several times in his work. Monsters. While he admits to enjoying the company of a fellow inmate on screen, the young man doesn’t feel comfortable labeling himself. Growing up, Erik’s father forced him to date girls in public who boosted his image. Now that he’s his own man, the West Coast native has had the chance to find the perfect partner for him.

In 1999, Menendez married his pen pal Tammi Ruth Saccoman, making him the stepfather of her daughter Talia. A few years after their union, she released a book titled “They Said We’d Never Make It: My Life with Erik Menendez,” which chronicled their life together. Around the same time, the killer told People, “It was such a relief to be arrested. My life was over and I was happy. Once I was arrested and put in jail, that person that I was started to come back. I had to find it for myself.”

Who is Lyle Menendez’s wife?

Always a womanizer, Lyle also managed to tie the knot in prison—twice. His first marriage, to Anna Eriksson, lasted from 1996 to 2001. Just a few years later, he met his current partner, Rebecca Sneed, as the true crime icon spoke about in 2017. “I have a very stable, committed marriage, and that helps me stay afloat and brings me a lot of peace and joy,” he said. “It’s a counterbalance to the unpredictable, very stressful environment here.”

Public opinion about the siblings has changed thanks to recent documentaries and TV shows

As seen in MonstersLyle and Erik Menendez rose to fame in the early years of their double murder trial. However, after they were found guilty, public opinion of the couple plummeted, forcing them to quietly serve their life sentences. In the past decade, several documentaries and television shows have reexamined the disturbing case of the parricide, including A&E’s The Menendez Murders: Erik Tells All from 2017.

“I wanted to go back in time. I wanted to undo everything that Lyle and I did,” the youngest member of the fractured family said at the time. Lyle expressed similar sentiments that year, telling People , “This tragedy will always be the most astonishing and regrettable thing that has ever happened in my life. You can’t escape the memories and I stopped dealing with it a long time ago.” In 2023, José’s alleged abuse by boy band Menudo was explored in a Peacock documentary, and along with Monsters In 2024, Fox Nation will have their Menendez Brothers: Victims or Villains.

In the latter case, Lyle reflects, “Looking back at the trials, Erik and I and our family thought we were going into a manslaughter case with a prosecutor who understood the traumatic impact that sexual violence has on a person. And we ended up getting the same sentence as a serial killer.” Today, there is far less stigma surrounding male victims of abuse, which has helped garner sympathy in favor of the Menendez brothers as they try to remain productive and cautiously optimistic in prison.

What does the future hold for the Menendez Brothers?

Despite being sentenced to life in prison without parole, Lyle and Erik’s attorneys are still determined to get them free. In May 2023, a petition was filed to overturn the Menendez brothers’ convictions based on new evidence, including a letter Erik wrote eight months before the murders. The letter was found by José’s sister, Marta Cano, and was addressed to her late son, Andy. “I’ve been trying to avoid Dad. It’s still happening, Andy, but it’s worse for me now. I can’t explain it,” the former tennis player wrote to his nephew. “(He’s) so obese I can’t stand him. I never know when it’s going to happen and it’s driving me crazy. I stay up every night thinking he might come in. I have to get it out of my head.”

A second piece of new evidence also supports the allegations of relentless abuse by the Menendez family patriarch. In the aforementioned Boys betray documentary, former Menudo member Roy Rosselló alleged that José drugged and abused him in the 1980s. “The new evidence not only shows that José Menendez was a violent and brutal man who sexually abused children, but it also strongly suggests that he was, in fact, still abusing Erik Menendez as late as 1988,” the filing said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Instead, the crime was manslaughter, not murder. The killings occurred in imperfect self-defense, after a lifetime of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of their parents.”

The same court documents show that Erik and Lyle’s second trial excluded evidence of their alleged sexual abuse, as prosecutors accused the siblings of fabricating their claims. While they wait for more updates on that, the older brother is keeping his mind sharp, earning a bachelor’s degree in sociology from UC Irvine last summer, along with 23 other inmates. He’s now pursuing a master’s degree in urban planning to further his education.

“I decided that even though I’m incarcerated and there’s no hope of freedom, I still have the opportunity to be proud of what I do with my day. Education seemed like an obvious answer to that question,” he told the crowd at this year’s Nashville CrimeCon by phone. As of September 2024, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office has yet to decide whether to retry the Menendez brother’s case.