Lyle and Erik Menendez

ABC’s 20/20 aired the newest twist in the Lyle and Erik Menendez story this past weekend: Young millennials, specifically those on TikTok, are calling for the release of the murderous brothers. They claim that after enduring a lifetime abuse at the time of the murders, these two shouldn’t have to serve a life sentence.

In our modern day, it seems if you can generate enough interest in a case, perhaps you can renew interest and free people? I’m all for freeing the wrongly convicted and those who confessed to a crime they didn’t commit, but to free two cold-blooded murders like the Menendez brothers?

It boggles my mind.

To the younger generation, I say this:

Lyle and Erik weren’t children when they killed their parents. They were not dependent to their parents for food, shelter or freedom. These “boys” were actually grown MEN, ages 18 and 21 at the time they intentionally killed their parents. They were capable of taking care of themselves.

They had the FREEDOM to leave at any time, to file complaints against their parents and take responsible action for the abuse they suffered if they felt they were seriously wronged. They say they were afraid their parents would kill them if they did. And if so, they still could have moved out, started their own lives, secured their safety and cut contact. They had other options besides murder.

Furthermore, it wasn’t like they snapped that day at the abuse of their parents. They planned the murder. They could have planned their escape equally.

Erik wrote a screenplay detailing what he eventually did–before he did it. He wrote of the murders. The motive in his screenplay? Money. And then once they committed the atrocity, they lied about it and denied it, and hello, spent the money! It doesn’t take rocket science to see this.

They didn’t show any signs of pain and agony over the destruction of their family in such a brutal way–their parents harm to them or their harm to their parents. No, the men went out and lived lavishly on their parents money as if they won the lottery. They estimate when this happened they spent upwards of $700K before their arrest and that was 30 plus years ago!

The men acted callous, cold, arrogant, selfish and calculating.

Do I think the father was sexual abusive to the boys? That’s a good question.

I see pain, when the men testify at times, even agony, however, their story doesn’t 100% jive for me as honest. Erik says as to the reason they killed their parents was, “Me telling Lyle, that uh, my dad had been molesting me” (see video below). He suggests that was the final blow.

But what doesn’t ring sincere here is this: Erik says, “…it was Lyle who first penetrated him with a toothbrush as they played in the woods when he was 5.” It wasn’t his father, ironically, who molested him first. And Lyle admits to doing this to his brother multiple times.

So your brother molested you first and you find him a reasonable and trustworthy person to say hey dad did this too me too?

It could happen (it’s not impossible as many years past), but the odds are low.

And now that news breaks your brother, the brother who molested you?

Think of it another way, if you were Lyle: If you come from an incest family, and you too committed incest. How would you feel about it?

You would feel intense shame. You would want to hide it because you took part in it too. You would feel sick, dirty and gross and would want to bury that memory once you learned it was wrong. You would likely shun the topic and avoid it at all costs because you would think you were as sick as dad — even if you knew better. Emotions are hard to shake from an experience like this–even decades later as an adult who got therapy and understands you were a victim. That’s how a normal person would think in this experience: Bury it, deny it and do not talk about it. If your brother tried, you’d shoot him down. Quick. Right?

Does that make sense?

Personally, if this story is true that Lyle sexually abused Erik in real life, I honestly don’t think they would say a word in public either. What would be the benefit? It’s way too humiliating and not needed to be shared. I think most people who endured something like this would rather die than talk about it. Normal people who feel shame would have to hide this at all costs. Someone who doesn’t feel shame, remorse or guilt wouldn’t know this.

So something is off.

Was there abuse? Potentially.

Could it just be they are showing excruciating pain because they had to testify to something –“a story”–that is so humiliating as this a last ditch attempt to try to stay out of prison? They needed a defense and there were few they could claim.

Imagine saying you abused your brother when he didn’t to save yourself. How would that feel? That’s a possible explanation too. It would be utterly humiliating.

Terry Moran says seeing the vein pop in Lyle during the testimony of the sex abuse made him believe the abuse. For me, that blood popping vessel was anger. Why was Lyle angry at this point? Was it anger that he had to say this stuff “a story” to fight for their lives? At first, in that segment of the video I feel Lyle has empathy towards his brother, and then as his brother tells the story I see anger and disgust.

We just aren’t getting the true unfiltered story here, plain and simple.

You are getting a mix of truth and lies that would take me hours of testimony watching to ferret out. There likely was some abuse, but they embellished it for sympathy. That’s most probable by the behavior I see, and where I sit after watching the 20/20 clips.

Several of their abuse stories are pure fabrications–100% to garner sympathy for them–without doubt. Do I believe an abused son would get into bed with his mom and touch her “everywhere”? And she would tolerate it? I absolutely do not. They had to paint mom a villain too.

I believe the Menendez brothers lived a very affluent lifestyle, and were raised by a narcissist father who fostered and nurtured narcissist/psychopathic thinking in his children, which ultimately was his and his wife’s undoing. I do not believe these men should be set free.

What do you think?