Anamaria Baralt says she is often asked what her cousins Lyle and Erik Menendez are like.
“Lyle’s humor is sharp and quick, it’s one of the things that’s kept him and our family going,” says Baralt as she talks about the brothers, who fatally shot their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez at their Beverly Hills, Calif. home in 1989. “And Erik, he’s got this deep compassion that makes him someone everyone can lean on. But what stands out most about them is their resilience.”
While serving life sentences in prison, Erik, 54, and Lyle, 57 — who claim they killed their parents because they feared for their lives after years of sexual abuse by Jose — have “managed to build meaningful lives,” says Baralt, 53, who spoke about the brothers’ much-anticipated resentencing hearing at a National Press Club event in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 23.
“What’s driving me, and my family, is love,” she tells PEOPLE. “Their continued incarceration serves no societal purpose and only prolongs our family’s pain. They’ve taken responsibility for their actions, they’ve committed their lives to helping others and they’ve done it all while carrying the weight of their past and the judgment of the world. All we want is to welcome them home.”
California Dept. of Corrections via AP
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In October 2024, the Menendez brothers appeared to be on the verge of release when then-L.A. District Attorney George Gascón filed a re-sentencing request that could have ultimately freed them. However, Gascón lost his bid for reelection, and what newly elected district attorney Nathan Hochman plans to do is unclear.
Damian Dovargane/AP
“We are still figuring it out,” Hochman told PEOPLE when asked if he would support or withdraw his predecessor’s resentencing motion.
The brothers’ journey to what they — and nearly two-dozen supportive family members like Baralt — hope will pave the way to their release has been a long time coming. Their fate took an unexpected twist last year when a new generation of supporters joined the call for their release from prison, owing to a cultural shift in understanding of the devastating toll that sexual abuse survivors face, along with the impact of Netflix’s hit drama Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story and a documentary on the streaming service, The Menendez Brothers.
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By last October, efforts to re-sentence the men to 50 years to life — making them immediately eligible for parole as “youthful offenders” since Lyle was 21 and Erik was 18 at the time of the murders—seemed to be on the threshold of success. But many now wonder if their best shot at walking free is fading due to the November election of Hochman, who ordered a re-examination of the case and replaced members of the D.A.’s re-sentencing unit with attorneys of his own picking.
At this point,” says Laurie Levenson, a professor at L.A.’s Loyola Law School who has followed the case for decades, “Hochman is reviewing the case because he’s not quite sure that he feels the same way about it as Gascón.”
Asked if Gascón losing the election was a setback for the brothers, Cliff Gardner, one of the attorneys representing the Menendez brothers, tells PEOPLE that it “remains to be seen.”
“In the typical homicide case, of course, a more conservative prosecutor would want to pay great attention to views expressed by family members of the deceased,” he says. “Here, it is very much an open question if the new district attorney will seriously consider the many, many family members of both Kitty and Jose Menendez who have come forward repeatedly to plead for Erik and Lyle’s release after 35 years in prison.”
Even by big-city standards, the grisly shotgun murders of former beauty queen Kitty, 47, and wealthy music executive Jose, 45, as the couple watched TV in their Beverly Hills home in August of 1989 was a shocking crime. Arrested seven months later, Erik and Lyle were charged with murder and tried together before separate juries, with both trials ending in mistrial. In a second trial in 1996, the brothers were found guilty and sentenced to life without parole.
Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office
“This tragedy will always be the most astounding and regrettable thing that has ever happened in my life,” Lyle told PEOPLE in 2017. “You can’t escape the memories, and I long ago stopped trying.”
For much of the past three and a half decades, the Menendezes — who have both been active in organizing support for their fellow inmates — filed appeals but knew the odds of being released were slim. In 2023, however, their attorneys, riding a groundswell of public support, filed a habeas corpus petition asking for a review of newly discovered evidence, including a letter Erik purportedly sent to a cousin months before the killings that mentioned Jose’s ongoing sexual assault, and an affidavit by a member of the boy band Menudo who alleged that Jose, who headed the band’s record label, raped him in the 1980s. The habeas petition remains a possible avenue for freedom.
But Levenson isn’t convinced that this new evidence would be enough to overturn the Menendezes’s 1996 convictions. “I don’t think that’s likely to succeed,” she says.
And now, exactly what will happen at the resentencing hearing beginning on March 20 is anyone’s guess.
The brothers, according to their cousin, are trying their best to take things day by day. “Erik and Lyle are cautiously optimistic,” says Baralt. “They’re grateful for the support they’ve received and for the opportunity to have their sentence reconsidered.”
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.
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