While Erik Menéndez’s wife, Tammi Menéndez, is thrilled at the prospect of having him released from prison, she has mixed feelings about the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office recommending a resentencing.
“Yesterday was a difficult and emotional day,” Tammi, 62, wrote via X on Friday, October 25, after Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón recommended that Erik, 53, and brother Lyle Menéndez’s sentences be reduced to 50 years. “I am Grateful to DA Gascon for his courage to seek resentencing for Erik.”
Tammi noted that she was hoping Gascón would suggest a different option, adding, “I am naturally disappointed he did not go further and act on his own belief that Erik and Lyle have served enough time in prison.”
Now that Gascón submitted his decision, it is up to a judge to approve the request, and Erik and Lyle, 56, could be released on parole. Tammi’s suggestion of time served would have allowed Erik and Lyle to be released sooner without having to go through the Board of Parole Hearings.
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Erik and Lyle were originally arrested in 1990 on two counts of first-degree murder after their parents, José and Kitty Menéndez, were found dead in their own Beverly Hills home. Two subsequent trials resulted in Erik and Lyle’s conviction and a life sentence without the possibility of parole. The brothers, meanwhile, have maintained that their mother and father were physically, emotionally and sexually abusive and that their actions were that of self-defense.
While serving out his sentence, Erik got married to Tammi in 1999. The couple met when she started writing letters to him in prison and Tammi has remained his loyal spouse despite his incarceration.
“Not having sex in my life is difficult, but it’s not a problem for me. I have to be emotionally attached, and I’m emotionally attached to Erik,” Tammi, who has a daughter from a previous marriage who considers Erik her father, told People in 2005. “My family does not understand. When it started to get serious, some of them just threw up their hands.”
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Erik, meanwhile, credited Tammi for helping him endure the emotional toll of prison.
“Tammi is what gets me through,” he explained to People that same year. “I can’t think about the sentence. When I do, I do it with a great sadness and a primal fear. I break into a cold sweat. It’s so frightening I just haven’t come to terms with it.”
Erik continued: “Tammi’s love was a major step in my choosing life. Having someone who loves you unconditionally, who you can be completely open with, is good for anybody — to know that this person loves me as I am.”
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Lyle also found love while behind bars. He initially met Anna Eriksson by mail and they exchanged vows in 1996. Lyle and Anna called it quits in 2001 after she found out he was writing letters to other women. Two years later, Lyle married Rebecca Sneed, a woman he’d been corresponding with for nearly a decade.
“People are judgmental, and she has to put up with a lot,” Lyle shared with People in 2017 about how he “feels guilty” for what his wife endures in public. “But she has the courage to deal with the obstacles. It would be easier to leave, but I’m profoundly grateful that she doesn’t.”
