Kim Kardashian needs Lyle and Erik Menendez, the brothers convicted within the grisly 1989 murders of their dad and mom, to be freed.
The fact star, daughter of late O.J. Simpson legal professional Robert Kardashian, has usual herself as an advocate for prison justice reform. And, in a private essay for NBC Information, she wrote Thursday that she hopes that the brothers, who’ve already served 35 years in jail, might have their life sentences “reconsidered.”
“We’re all merchandise of our experiences. They form who we have been, who we’re, and who we shall be. Physiologically and psychologically, time modifications us, and I doubt anybody would declare to be the identical particular person they have been at 18. I do know I’m not!,” the Skims co-founder wrote.
Kardashian rehashed broadly identified information within the case — that the brothers, then ages 21 and 18, shot and killed their dad and mom, Jose and Kitty Menendez, of their Beverly Hills residence — in addition to their high-profile 1996 trials. However, she mentioned, “this story is far more advanced than it seems on the floor.”
“Each brothers mentioned they’d been sexually, bodily and emotionally abused for years by their dad and mom. Based on Lyle, the abuse began when he was simply 6 years outdated, and Erik mentioned he was raped by his father for greater than a decade. Following years of abuse and an actual worry for his or her lives, Erik and Lyle selected what they thought on the time was their solely means out — an unimaginable approach to escape their dwelling nightmare,” she mentioned.
Erik Menendez, left, and is brother Lyle, in entrance of their Beverly Hills residence.
(Ronald Soble / Los Angeles Occasions)
Itemizing points with the trials and different authorized missteps, Kardashian argued that “the media turned the brothers into monsters and sensationalized eye sweet” and that they “had no likelihood of a good trial in opposition to this backdrop.”
The sweetness mogul has visited the brothers in jail and vouched for his or her “exemplary disciplinary information,” including {that a} warden there informed her that “he would really feel snug having them as neighbors.” She asserted that life in jail is just not the suitable punishment for them and argued that the exclusion of abuse proof from their second trial denied them a good go.
“The killings usually are not excusable. I wish to make that clear. Neither is their conduct earlier than, throughout or after the crime. However we must always not deny who they’re at present of their 50s,” she wrote. “The trial and punishment these brothers acquired have been extra befitting a serial killer than two people who endured years of sexual abuse by the very folks they cherished and trusted.”
On Thursday, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón mentioned his workplace would evaluation what he described as new proof that the brothers have been molested — a transfer that would result in revised sentences.
Whereas there was no query the brothers dedicated the murders, Gascón mentioned, the difficulty is whether or not the jury heard proof that their father molested them. Proof detailing sexual abuse was offered throughout the brothers’ first trial, which resulted in hung juries, however was largely withheld throughout their second trial, the place they have been convicted and sentenced to life in jail.
Lyle Menendez, left, and Erik throughout a courtroom look in Beverly Hills on April 2, 1991.
(Kevork Djansenzian / Related Press)
In the meantime, a sequence of inventive tasks over the previous yr have contributed to renewed curiosity within the brothers’ case and their extremely scrutinized trials. Ryan Murphy’s splashy “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” for instance, raised questions, very like his previous anthology sequence revived the discourse across the O.J. Simpson trial and the impeachment of former President Clinton. The Menendez brothers have been additionally the main focus of the Fox Nation documentary sequence “Menendez Brothers: Victims or Villains,” which premiered in March, in addition to the Peacock docuseries “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,” which offered new proof and included an accusation of rape in opposition to patriarch Jose Menendez.
Citing proof associated to molestation claims, attorneys for the brothers filed petitions final yr to reopen the case, and members of the family have rallied to get the lads launched. Others, like Kardashian, have argued that occasions have modified, and that the brothers’ allegations of abuse may need been acquired in a different way at trial at present.
Occasions workers authors Salvador Hernandez, Hannah Fry and Richard Winton contributed to this report.