Lyle Menendez and Erik Menendez’s family is holding out hope.
As the brothers—who in 1996 were convicted of murdering parents José Menendez and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez seven years prior—await their April 11 hearing to determine whether the court will proceed with their resentencing, their aunt Terry Baralt shared her perspective for the first time in decades.
“They are like the boys that I didn’t have,” Terry—José’s only living sister—told ABC News April 10, going on to express that their suffering has gone on long enough. “It’s time—35 years is a long time.”
“It’s a whole branch of my family erased,” she continued. “The ones that are gone and the ones that are still paying for it, which were kids.”
In recent years, Terry has been battling colon cancer. So, she has been making the extra effort to visit her nephews often while she still has the strength.
“I have tried to go see them as much as I can,” she told the outlet, “but it’s hard because I live in New Jersey and I’m 85. I don’t have that much time.”
Indeed, witnessing her nephews—who are currently serving life in prison with no possibility of parole—fight for their freedom after all these years has been tough for her to watch from a distance.
“When kids are little and they come to you, you fix the problem,” Terry noted. “I can’t help them. There is nothing I can do—just go visit them and cry when I leave.”
“This is why I don’t give interviews,” she added, overwhelmed by her emotions. “It’s hard.”
Along with Terry, many of Lyle and Erik’s relatives—including Kitty’s sister Joan Anderson VanderMolen and José’s niece Anamaria Baralt—have shown their support in their quest for release. And they’ve further stood behind the brothers—who were 21 and 18 respectively at the time of the murders—as they’ve spoken about the sexual abuse they allegedly endured at the hands of their father.
“The truth is, Lyle and Erik were veiled by the very people who should have protected them, by their parents, by the system, by society at large,” Joan, 93, said during a press conference at the time. “When they stood trial, the whole world wasn’t ready to believe that the boys could be raped, or that young men could be victims of sexual violence. Today, we know better. We know that abuse has long lasting effects, and victims of trauma sometimes act in ways that are very difficult to understand.”
“If it were tried today, the evidence of their father’s abuse would not only be admitted in court, it would provide essential context for why they acted as they did,” she continued. “No jury today would issue such a harsh sentence without taking their trauma into account.”
But while Joan and Terry both testified on Erik and Lyle’s behalf in court last November, where judge Michael Jesic ultimately ruled to postpone the brothers’ resentencing hearing to give District Attorney-elect Nathan Hochman time to review files for the case, Kitty’s brother Milton Anderson has been less supportive of their release.
“Mr. Anderson believes that the reason that his nephews murdered Kitty and her husband was because of greed,” the 90-year-old’s attorney Kathy Cady said, per NBC4, in October. “He prefers that [the Menendez brothers] stay in prison because he believes that’s what justice requires.”
