In an emotional and rare public statement, the aunt of Erik and Lyle Menendez has declared that after 35 years of incarceration, it is time for her nephews to be freed. The brothers were convicted and sentenced to life without parole for the 1989 killings of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez.
Terry Menendez-Baralt, the sole surviving sibling of the brothers’ late father, spoke out on the eve of a critical resentencing hearing for the pair. In her first interview on the subject in over three decades, she framed the case not as a notorious true-crime story, but as a devastating personal family tragedy.
“Thirty-five years is a long time,” Menendez-Baralt stated. “It’s a whole branch of my family erased. The ones that are gone and the ones that are still paying for it, which were kids.” She described Erik and Lyle as “the boys that I didn’t have,” expressing a deep, enduring familial bond.
The brothers have long maintained that they acted after enduring years of sexual abuse by their father, a claim that multiple family members in the interview said they believe without doubt. Menendez-Baralt spoke of a profound sense of helplessness, contrasting the simple fixes of childhood problems with the immovable reality of a life sentence. “I can’t help them. There is nothing I can do,” she said, noting that her visits to prison often end in tears.
Now 85 years old and battling colon cancer, Menendez-Baralt voiced a poignant fear that time is running out. “I don’t have that much time,” she confessed, concerned she may not live to see a potential release.
The interview featured eight family members who presented a unified front in support of the brothers’ release. A cousin relayed a message from Erik Menendez, stating the brothers are “truly, deeply sorry” and “filled with remorse,” adding that they have become “pretty remarkable people” during their imprisonment.
The heartfelt appeals from the family add a new, personal dimension to a legal saga that has captivated the public for generations, shifting the focus from the brutality of the crime to the complex legacy of trauma and the price of a punishment now entering its fourth decade.
