Hazel Thornton, who served as a juror all through Erik and Lyle Menendez’s 1993 trial for the homicide in their oldsters, mentioned that the boys at the jury were not swayed by means of the brothers’ claims that their father abused them sexually.Â
“It used to be a vintage struggle of the sexes,” juror #9, Hazel Thornton, informed NewsNation. “The boys didn’t imagine that Jose [Menendez] have been abusing his sons. The boys by no means did back off and settle for the truth that they are going to were abused.”
In August 1989, when Erik and Lyle have been 21 and 20, respectively, they shot their father six instances, and their mom ten instances, within the den in their Beverly Hills mansion.Â
Police to begin with suspected the murders to be mob-related. The brothers spent lavishly within the months after the killings, main investigators to suspect that they killed their oldsters for monetary acquire. However there wasn’t enough proof to arrest the brothers till Judalon Smith, the mistress of Erik’s therapist, Jerome Oziel, informed police about Erik and Lyle’s involvement.
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Erik Menendez (C) and his brother Lyle (L) are pictured, on August 12, 1991, in Beverly Hills. They’re accused of killing their oldsters, Jose and Mary Louise Menendez of Beverly Hills, Calif. (Mike Nelson/AFP by the use of Getty Photographs)
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Prosecutors in Los Angeles are reviewing new proof to resolve whether or not the siblings must be serving lifestyles sentences for killing their oldsters of their Beverly Hills mansion greater than 35 years in the past, the town’s district lawyer mentioned previous this month.
The brothers’ legal professionals have argued that they must were convicted of manslaughter, fairly than homicide, because of their father’s alleged abuse, in which case they already would were launched from jail. Thornton writes on her web site that she voted for voluntary manslaughter.Â
MENENDEZ BROTHERS, CONVICTED OF KILLING PARENTS, DEFENDED BY RELATIVES AS THEY FIGHT FOR FREEDOM
Trial of the Menendez brothers in Los Angeles – Lyle Menendez along with his lawyer, Jill Lansing. Los Angeles, March 9, 1994. ( Ted Soqui/Sygma)
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Their case is being highlighted in a brand new Netflix scripted sequence, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Tale,” and any other documentary on October 7.Â
Thornton informed NewsNation that she does not intend to look at the Netflix sequence, which the brothers’ members of the family referred to as a “a phobic, gross, anachronistic, serial episodic nightmare that’s not handiest riddled with mistruths and outright falsehoods, however ignores the newest exculpatory revelations” in a commentary on X.Â
“Why would I wish to watch a tale that doesn’t replicate the reality as I are aware of it?” Thornton mentioned.
For seven months, Thornton served at the Los Angeles jury within the brothers’ first of 2 trials.
MENENDEZ BROTHERS, CONVICTED OF KILLING PARENTS, DEFENDED BY RELATIVES AS THEY FIGHT FOR FREEDOM
An undated photograph of the Menendez circle of relatives as it sounds as if on display screen all through a panel at CrimeCon 2024 in Nashville, Tennessee, on Sunday, June 2. The brothers Lyle and Erik have been convicted of fatally taking pictures either one of their oldsters in 1989. (Michael Ruiz/Fox Information Virtual)
KIM KARDASHIAN CALLS ON MENENDEZ BROTHERS TO BE FREED, CITING SEXUAL ABUSE CLAIMS: ‘NOT MONSTERS’
“The ladies who voted for voluntary manslaughter have been ridiculed and considered indecisive, emotional, enamored of the brothers, and too silly to know the jury directions,” Thornton wrote in her account of the enjoy.Â
After a month of deliberations and two hung juries, then-Los Angeles District Legal professional Gil Garcetti introduced that the brothers could be retried.Â
On the end result in their 2nd trial in 1996, each brothers have been convicted on two counts of first-degree homicide with particular cases for mendacity in wait, and conspiracy to homicide. Each have been sentenced to lifestyles in jail with out the potential of parole.
Erik Menendez, left, and his brother Lyle, in entrance in their Beverly Hills house. They’re high suspects of their oldsters’ homicide. (Los Angeles Instances by the use of Getty Photographs)
Erik and Lyle Menendez have appealed their conviction more than one instances over time with out good fortune, however their newest petition for freedom issues to 2 new items of proof.
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The primary is a letter from Erik Menendez to his cousin Andy Cano, mailed 8 months prior to Kitty and Jose Menendez have been murdered. Cano’s mom discovered the letter 9 years in the past, in step with the brothers’ legal professionals. Cano testified at probably the most brothers’ trials that Erik had informed him in regards to the alleged sexual abuse, however he died in 2003.Â
The second one is a sworn commentary from Roy Rossello, a former member of the band Menudo, claiming that Jose Menendez had sexually abused him. Jose, who used to be managing the boy’s band, allegedly drugged and sexually assaulted the boy when he visited the Menendez family at 14, in step with the commentary.
