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 appeared before the California Board of Parole Hearings on a live feed from the Richard J Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego on Thursday, after a judge decided to reduce his and his brother Lyle’s sentences of life in prison without the possibility of 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.
They brought up prison reports of fights and other violations dating back to 1997.
‘Contrary to your supporters beliefs, you have not been a model prisoner and frankly we find that a little disturbing,’ the board said, according to reporter Brian Entin.
The decision came after a full-day hearing during which commissioners on the board questioned Erik about why he committed the crime and why he violated prison rules.
They began by asking him about his involvement in a burglary at the age of 17.
‘It began as a prank with a couple of other people at a party and it escalated, and became a serious instance,’ Erik recounted, according to NBC Los Angeles. ‘I wanted to impress them and I was very immature and I made very poor decisions, and I ended up hurting those individuals that I burglarized.’
He then went on to tell the commissioners that he was ‘dealing with tremendous self-worth issues’ at the time.
‘I was not raised with a moral foundation,’ he continued. ‘I was raised purposely without the moral foundation that I should do no wrong when I know the difference between right and wrong.
‘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.
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.’
Erik’s lawyers now have the ability to request a board review of the case for errors of fact.
Meanwhile, Lyle, now 57, is set to go before the California Board of Parole Hearings on Friday.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
