After 22 Years, Menendez Brothers Are Reunited

They're now in the same unit at a California prison
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Apr 6, 2018 1:00 AM CDT
Updated Apr 6, 2018 6:00 AM CDT
Menendez Brothers Reunited in Prison
In this March 20, 199 photo, Lyle Menendez, right, is comforted by his lawyer Charles Gessler as the verdicts are read at Van Nuys Superior Court in Los Angeles.   (Hans Gutknecht/Los Angeles Daily News via AP, Pool, File)

The Menendez brothers, who were convicted of killing their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion nearly three decades ago, have been reunited in a southern California prison. Erik Menendez, 47, has moved into the same housing unit as his 50-year-old brother, Lyle Menendez, Corrections department spokeswoman Terry Thornton said Thursday. The brothers are serving life sentences for fatally shooting their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in 1989. Lyle Menendez was moved in February from Mule Creek State Prison in Northern California to San Diego's RJ Donovan Correctional Facility, after his security classification was lowered. But the brothers lived in separate housing units and would not have seen each other, Thornton says. The prison houses nearly 3,900 male inmates.

That changed Wednesday, when Erik moved into the same housing unit as his brother, a unit where inmates agree to participate in educational and other rehabilitation programs without fighting or creating disruptions. "They can and do interact with each other, all the inmates in that facility," Thornton says. The brothers had asked more than two decades ago, after they were sentenced in 1996, to be sent to the same prison. Lyle, who was then 21, and Erik, then 18, admitted they fatally shot heir entertainment executive father and their mother, 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. Prosecutors contended there was no evidence of any molestation. They said the sons were after their parents' multimillion-dollar estate. (Lyle spoke about his brother in early 2017.)

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