The Menendez brothers, who were convicted of killing their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion nearly three decades ago, have been reunited in a southern California prison.



Erik Menendez, 47, has moved into the same housing unit as his 50-year-old brother, Lyle Menendez, the California corrections department spokeswoman Terry Thornton said.

The brothers are serving life sentences for killing their parents, Jose and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez, with a shotgun in 1989.

Lyle Menendez was moved in February from Mule Creek state prison in northern California to the RJ Donovan correctional facility in Sand Diego after his security classification was lowered.

The brothers had lived in separate housing units and would not have seen each other, Thornton said. The prison houses nearly 3,900 male inmates.

That changed this week when Erik Menendez was moved into the same housing unit as his brother, where inmates agree to participate in educational and other rehabilitation programmes.

Thornton said all inmates in that facility “can and do interact with each other”, but she did not comment on how the brothers reacted during their reunion.

The brothers had asked two decades ago, after they had been sentenced, to be sent to the same prison.

At the time, prison officials had said they often avoided putting partners in crime together, and the Beverly Hills detective who investigated the killings argued they might conspire to escape if they were together.

Leslie Abramson, then Erik Menendez’s attorney, had called housing the brothers separately “exceedingly cruel and heartless”.

Lyle Menendez, who was then 21, and Erik Menendez, then 18, admitted they had fatally shot their entertainment executive father and their mother, but said they had feared their parents were about to kill them to prevent the disclosure of the father’s long-term sexual abuse of Erik Menendez.

Prosecutors contended there was no evidence of any molestation and said the sons were after their parents’ multimillion-dollar estate.

Jurors eventually rejected a death sentence in favour of life without parole.

