On Wednesday, some 30 relatives from both sides of their parents’ families, and an attorney for the The Menendez brothers, gathered in front of a Los Angeles courthouse to issue a public plea for the pair’s release.
This comes as a California court prepares to examine new evidence in the case about the alleged abuse and whether it could warrant a retrial.
Jose Menendez’s niece, Anna Maria Baralt, said “If they were the Menendez sisters, they would not be in custody.”
“We have evolved.”
Kitty Menendez's sister, Joan Anderson VanderMolen, said the wider family wasn’t aware of the abuse, and she’s spent years struggling to deal with it.
“It became clear that their actions — while tragic — were the desperate response of two boys trying to survive the unspeakable cruel of their father,” the 92-year-old aunt said.
“They were just children” who were “brutalised in the most horrific ways,” she said.
“The whole world wasn’t ready to believe that the boys could be raped, or that young men could be victims of sexual violence".
VanderMolen argued that today, “we know better" and "a jury today would never deliver such a harsh sentence".
The family’s public call for the release of the Menendez brothers comes less than two weeks after it was announced that the Los Angeles County district would be reviewing new evidence to determine whether the brothers should be serving life sentences.
