Erik Menéndez and Lyle Menéndez‘s legal issues resulted in two high-profile trials — but where are the key players from their murder case now?
The Menéndez brothers’ parents, José and Kitty Menéndez, were found dead at their Beverly Hills home in 1989. After Lyle called the police, they discovered José was shot six times and Kitty was shot 10 times. Lyle and Erik weren’t initially persons of interest but were arrested one year later after their therapist recorded sessions where they confessed to the murders.
During their high-profile trial, the brothers accused their parents, José and Kitty, of alleged physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Erik and Lyle were found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole in 1996.
Their case received renewed support in September 2024 after becoming the focus of Ryan Murphy‘s Monsters series. Erik, however, slammed how he and Lyle were portrayed in a public statement. Less than one week after Monsters was released, Netflix announced that Lyle and Erik were interviewed for The Menéndez Brothers documentary. The October 2024 release includes footage from conversations with juror Betty Oldfield, Kitty’s sister Joan Vander Molen and prosecutor Pamela Bozanich.
Amid the new interest in their case, Erik and Lyle have continued to file requests for a retrial with no success yet.
Keep reading for a breakdown of all the major players in the Menéndez murder trials and where they are now:
Erik Menendez
The youngest Menéndez sibling has been serving out his sentence at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility since his conviction. After initially remaining in the same prison, Erik and Lyle were transferred after their sentencing. They reunited in 2018 when they were moved into the same housing unit at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility.
Erik married Tammi Ruth Saccoman in 1999 and he became a father figure to her daughter from a previous marriage, Talia. He has largely remained out of the public eye until his and Lyle’s murder case served as the inspiration for season 2 of Murphy’s Monsters.
In a public statement, Erik slammed the show but has had positive interactions with Cooper Koch, who played him on screen.
“They’ve done so much amazing work in prison. Erik teaches meditation. He teaches speech classes. They’re both incredible people,” Koch told The Hollywood Reporter in September 2024. “I think back then, people just didn’t believe that sexual abuse between males was something that you could believe and the easier pill to swallow was that they killed their parents for money. But now, after so much time, I think people are more open to understanding that something like that did happen.”
Koch added: “In fact, the warden told me himself that he feels like he’d be happy to have them as his neighbors and that he would be comfortable letting them watch his children. I think that says a lot!”
Lyle Menendez
Lyle was initially taken to Mule Creek State Prison after the sentencing while Erik moved around from Folsom State Prison to Pleasant Valley State Prison. They reunited in 2018 when they were moved into the same housing unit at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility.
In 1996, Lyle exchanged vows with Anna Eriksson in 1996 but they divorced five years later. He later found love with Rebecca Sneed and they got married in 2003.
Erik and Lyle attempted several times to receive a retrial after being sentenced to life without parole. In 2023, Peacock released a docuseries titled Menéndez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed, where singer Roy Rosselló alleged he was drugged and raped when he was a teen by Erik and Lyle’s father, José. The accusations from the former Menudo band member was included in a petition filed with Los Angeles County Superior Court.
The court documents requested a retrial while citing new evidence in the case such as Rosselló’s allegations against José and a newly discovered letter Erik wrote to his cousin Andy Cano describing his father’s alleged sexual abuse months before the murders.
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office released a statement about how the office “is investigating the claims submitted in the petition.”
“The matter is pending the filing of an informal response, which is currently due on September 26, 2024,” the district attorney’s office told the outlet at the time.
Leslie Abramson
Abramson came under fire during the trial when she appointed Dr. William Vicary to evaluate and treat her client Erik. Vicary later testified that he believed Erik’s claims of abuse. However, it was also revealed during the trial that Abramson allegedly had Vicary delete and rewrite passages of his notes to prevent potentially incriminating information from being mentioned.
Abramson invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during the trial but an investigation was launched. The case was closed three years later due to insufficient evidence. Vicary, meanwhile, was placed on probation twice before losing his license to practice medicine in California in 2019.
The attorney remained an ABC legal commentator amid the O.J. Simpson trial, which led to her writing her 1997 “The Defense Is Ready: Life in the Trenches of Criminal Law” memoir. Abramson replaced Robert Shapiro in 2004 after Phil Spector was accused of fatally shooting actress Lana Clarkson at his home. After she resigned, Spector was ultimately convicted of Clarkson’s murder.
Abramson was married to Los Angeles Times reporter Tim Rutten during the Menéndez trial. He died in November 2022 after a fall in his home.
Dr. Jerome Oziel
Erik and Lyle were arrested after their therapist recorded their conversations where they discussed the murders. At the time, Oziel was having an affair with Judalon Smyth and told her about his sessions with the Menendez brothers. Smyth was the only to report what she knew to the police after Oziel ended their relationship. Oziel subsequently lost his license to practice in 1997 for violating patient confidentiality and after being accused of having sex with female patients, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Oziel told Bustle in 2017 that claims of his professional impropriety were “flatly and completely false” and that scripted recreations of the case were “a junk soap opera” that was “entirely fiction.”
Judge Stanley Weisberg
The former prosecutor presided over the Menéndez case in addition to the trials of the police officers charged with the beating of Rodney King. Weisberg’s rulings have since been referred to by some as controversial as outsiders continue to criticize his legal decisions.
During the Menéndez trial, Weisberg allowed cameras in the courtroom the first time before barring them the second time around. The second trial approved the prosecution’s objections to most of the evidence surrounding the abuse which meant Erik and Lyle — who were being tried together — needed to present a new defense.
The Menendez brothers were ultimately found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole in 1996. Weisberg, for his part, retired from the judgeship in 2008.
Dominick Dunne
Dunne covered the Menéndez murder trial in 1993 after the brothers were accused of killing their parents. Dominick covered the high-profile trial for Vanity Fair while grieving the loss of his daughter. Seven years before the Menéndez brothers killed their parents, Dominique Dunne was strangled by ex John Sweeney. She fell into a coma and died five days later. Sweeney was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and served three and a half years in prison.
According to Dominick, a private investigator was initially hired by the family to keep track of Sweeney. The last they heard he continued to work as a chef under the name John Maura, but Dominick eventually stopped requesting updates.
Before his death in 2009 from bladder cancer, Dominick wrote about Dominique’s murder trial for Vanity Fair based on diaries he kept throughout the ordeal. He was originally a Hollywood producer known for films such as 1970’s The Boys in the Band and 1971’s The Panic in Needle Park. In addition to covering the Menéndez trial, Dominick wrote about the Simpson trials in 1995 and Spector’s trial in 2007.
Les Zoeller
The policeman was the prime detective involved with the Menéndez case. He told the Los Angeles Times in 1996 that he suspected the brothers but it took seven years for him to justify the accusations in the trial.
Zoeller retired from the force in 2002 and died in October 2021.
