LOS ANGELES — Multiple generations of family members of Erik and Lyle Menendez pleaded for the brothers' release from prison on Wednesday, saying they deserve to be free despite life sentences for the 1989 killings of their parents in Beverly Hills because they had been ''brutalized'' and sexually abused by their father.
At a news conference in downtown Los Angeles, relatives of the Menendezes said the American public ''vilified'' the brothers in the wake of the notorious crime, which received national attention, and the jurors who sentenced them to life without parole in 1996 were part of a society that was not ready then to hear that boys could be raped.
Joan Andersen VanderMolen, Kitty Menendez's sister, said the wider family did not know about the extent of the abuse, and she's spent years struggling to come to terms with it all.
''It became clear that their actions — while tragic — were the desperate response of two boys trying to survive the unspeakable cruel of their father,'' the 92-year-old aunt said Wednesday.
The news conference was the largest gathering of the multigenerational family since the brothers' sentencing. The public call for their release — by some 30 relatives from both sides of their parents' families — comes less than two weeks after the Los Angeles County district attorney announced his office would review new evidence to determine whether the brothers should be serving life sentences.
Lyle Menendez, who was then 21, and Erik Menendez, then 18, admitted they fatally shot-gunned their entertainment executive father, Jose Menendez, and their mother, Kitty Menendez, but said they feared their parents were about to kill them to prevent the disclosure of the father's long-term sexual molestation of Erik.
Several of the family members emphasized that in today's world — which is more aware of the impact of sexual abuse — the brothers would not have been convicted of first-degree murder. The relatives walked to the district attorney's office after the news conference Wednesday to speak with prosecutors about the case.
''If Lyle and Erik's case were heard today, with the understanding we now have about abuse and PTSD, there is no doubt in my mind that their sentencing would have been very different,'' said Anamaria Baralt, a niece of Jose Menendez.