Erik Menendez Reacts to Brother Lyle Menendez's Apology for Molesting Him

Erik Menendez and Lyle Menendez are reflecting on their harrowing testimonies. 

In Netflix's new documentary Menendez Brothers, the siblings shared rare insight into the 1989 murders of their parents José Menendez and Mary Louise "Kitty" Menendez, as well as the trials that followed. It was during their first trial that began in 1993—the brothers were ultimately convicted in 1996—Lyle and Erik detailed being sexually abused by their father, which they said ultimately led to the murders. 

While on the stand at the trial, Lyle admitted that the abuse—he recounted José had sexual contact with him and also raped him between the ages of 6 and 8—let to his own molestation of his younger brother when they were adolescents.

"Yes," a tearful Lyle replied to his lawyer Jill Lansing asking if he "did something" to Erik in video from the trial. "I took him out to the woods, and I played with Erik…in the same way. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

And the moment was especially poignant for Erik, now 53, as he looked back on his brother's apology all these years later. "I remember when he apologized to me on the stand for molesting me," Erik explained in the documentary. "That was a devastating moment for me."

He added, "He had never said he was sorry to me before."

During his testimony, Lyle, now 56, also shared that he had told his mother Kitty about their father's abuse, but that she hadn't expressed concern for the issues.

"She told me to stop it and that I was exaggerating," Lyle said during the trial. "And that my dad has to punish me when I do things wrong. And she…she told me that he loved me."

But despite that, Erik in particular wanted to set the record straight about how much he loved his mother and how guilty he still feels over her loss.

"I miss my mother tremendously," he said in the documentary. "I wish that I could go back and talk to her and give her a hug and tell her I love her and I wanted her to love me and be happy with me and be happy that I was her son and feel that joy and that connection. And I just want that."

The brothers also discussed the difficulty in laying out so much of their life during the trial, with Lyle saying that he "deeply did not want to talk about anything that happened in our past."

But as defense experts Dr. Ann Burgess noted in the documentary, after meeting with the boys—Lyle and Erik were 21 and 18 respectively at the time—shortly after the murders, "I had said there has to be something going on in the family for this to have happened."

"That is not something that they need money, or any other motive, or revenge, or all of the other motives that we could think of," she continued. "I said, ‘Something is very wrong in the family.'"

Following their second trial in 1996—their first trial ended in a hung jury—Lyle and Erik were convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

The duo's case has gained more attention in recent months in part thanks to the Netflix documentary, as well as Ryan Murphy's Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez story miniseries.

Lyle and Erik also recently got a boost from Kim Kardashian, who visited the brothers at their San Diego prison in September and wrote in an op-ed that they deserve a new trial.

"I have spent time with Lyle and Erik; they are not monsters," the Kardashians star said in the op-ed. "They are kind, intelligent, and honest men."

"I don't believe that spending their entire natural lives incarcerated was the right punishment for this complex case," she added. "Had this crime been committed and trialed today, I believe the outcome would have been dramatically different."

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