Should Sex Abuse Evidence Set The Menendez Brothers Free? A Judge Will Decide
Huff PostLOADING ERROR LOADING LOS ANGELES — Aunts of Erik and Lyle Menendez testified on their behalf Monday as the brothers seek to have their 1989 convictions reexamined in the shotgun murders of their parents in their Beverly Hills home more than 30 years ago. Joan Andersen VanderMolen, Kitty Menendez’s sister, and Teresita Baralt, Jose’s older sister, asked for their release Monday, saying 35 years was a long time for the brothers after suffering abuse. The new evidence includes a letter Erik Menendez wrote in 1988 to his uncle Andy Cano, describing the sexual abuse he had endured from his father. Rossello spoke about his abuse in the Peacock docuseries “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,” and provided a signed declaration to the brothers’ lawyers. Had these two pieces of evidence been available during the brothers’ trial, prosecutors would not have been able to argue that there was no corroboration of sexual abuse, or that their father Jose Menendez was not the “kind of man that would” abuse children, the petition argues.