RESENTENCING STATEMENT
I want to express my gratitude for the opportunity to address the court and my family. It is an incredible privilege to be able to speak before the court today. I do so with deep recognition of the gravity of these proceedings and with profound sorrow for everyone in my family, all of whom are still deeply impacted by the tragedy I created.
Thirty-five years ago, on August 20, 1989, I committed an atrocious act of brutality against two people who had every right to live. I took the lives of Mary Louise Menendez and Jose Enrique Menendez, my mother and father.
My actions were criminal; they were also selfish, cruel, and cowardly. I stole from my parents the right to a full life. I took from my relatives the right to share a life with my parents. I stole from the neighbors the right to a peaceful and safe community. I have no excuse, no justification for what I did, there is nothing that can make it any less wrong.
- I take full responsibility for my crime and blame no one else.
- I was the one who reached out to my 21-year old brother that Tuesday for help.
- I was the one who convinced him that we couldn’t escape.
- I was the one who was too ashamed to turn to my family or anyone else for help,
- I was the one who didn’t trust in the police when I should have;
Instead, I bought guns, I bought ammunition, and I barged into the den where my parents were watching television. I fired all five rounds at my parents. Then I ran back out to the car to get more ammunition. Neither my brother nor I stopped until my parents were dead. Afterwards, I tried to create an alibi at the movie theater, I discarded the guns, and I did everything I could to get away with my crimes. I lied to police about what I had done. I lied to my family.
I am truly sorry. This crime should never have happened. My parents should be alive. They’re not, and I know that’s because of me.
I often find myself reflecting on what the week of August 20 must have been like for my relatives, and my heart breaks as I try to imagine it. What was that phone call like for them? I replay it over and over in my mind. I try to imagine the shock and grief they must have felt the moment they learned of their daughter’s death, their sister’s death, their aunt’s death. What crushing torment they must have felt. I can only imagine the fear, the pain, and the trauma it caused them.
I had to stop being selfish and immature to really try to feel what my parents must have gone through on August 20, 1989. I remember trying to put myself in their shoes, to see my crime through their eyes. I imagined the terror they must have felt when their own son pointed a gun at them. I tried to understand the fear, the confusion, the overwhelming sense of betrayal. I thought about my mother witnessing her husband’s death and the physical and emotional anguish she must have felt, unable to stop it. I imagined their last moments, over and over again, with my eyes closed, until the true weight of my actions began to sink in.
And then, only then, could I finally face just how horrific what I did really was.
My crime was not just criminal and wrong and immoral, it was cruel and vicious; it was more than the murder of two people, it was the infliction of unimaginable and horrible suffering on them and everyone who loved them. I am directly responsible for it all.
My choices that night robbed my parents of their full lives, My choices stole their love and companionship from everyone who loved them.
My choices drained their joy from Christmas gatherings, holidays, and family gatherings. Rather than celebration and togetherness, a heaviness hung in the air-crushing sadness that became a numbness and emptiness in the hearts of my Aunt Terry, my Aunt Joan, my Uncle Carlos, my Aunt Marta, my Uncle Brian and Uncle Milton, and every niece and nephew who loved them.
I don’t have to imagine this painful truth. My family has shared this deep sorrow with me. As if this was not enough, my family has had to endure a public spotlight that they did not ask for or deserve, even until today.
After the killings, I denied all responsibility.
I lied to the police investigators at the scene, and I lied to the Beverly Hills detectives investigating the murder of my parents.
I lied to my relatives even as they grieved and I lied to everyone else about my involvement in the crime. I even blamed others.
I am sorry for these lies and for failing in my responsibility to my family and community. There is no excuse for my behavior.
My arrest and trials compounded the tragedy and grieving of my family. I could not find enough ways to apologize. But no apology could ever reduce their suffering by even a degree. Continually apologizing, I realized, was a selfish act. As much as I wanted release from my guilt and shame, there was no release from it. I had done the crime, and now I must live with it.
As I have matured, I have been able to face my devastating 18-year old decisions.
The killing of my parents isn’t something I could fold away inside me. I live with it every day, it is a part of my being, always present.
One of the truths that is not well known, but I have shared with my relatives, is that I talk to my mom. I cannot make peace with what I have done, but sharing my life with her, sharing my fears and hopes and asking for her guidance has become a daily practice for me. I miss my mom, but I also know I have no right to miss her, so I talk to her instead. And in the past year, I have started talking to my father.
During the past 35 years, I have worked hard to better understand how I became a person capable of killing my parents; I sought, selfishly, to loathe myself less; I sought to lessen the anguish that made me so self-destructive; I have sought to find a path to healing.
I have come a long way on this path, but I also believe it has no end. There can never be full healing from this crime. For me or for my family.
For most of my life, I believed I would die in prison. The weight of a life sentence without the possibility of parole broke me. I fell into a life on the maximum-security yard, where violence and misery were routine, the only constants.
For a long time, I lost all hope.
I lost myself.
I wasn’t the husband I should have been, and I became self-destructive.
My LWOP sentence felt like being trapped in a prison within a prison. I felt isolated from the opportunities for growth and redemption that others have, and I believed that I was beyond saving, not worthy.
Maybe that’s the point of the sentence, but for me, that hopelessness devastated me. It stifled my ability to heal and experience love within the prison community.
Depression spreads like wildfire here, and when hope is gone, pain takes its place. That pain hangs over so many of us and makes it hard to grow and heal.
In 2013, something shifted in me.
It became a turning point — I was given the opportunity to serve others. I began caring for the elderly, the disabled, and the terminally ill.
It may seem small, but that act of service changed everything for me. I mattered to others. I had purpose. I created the Life Care & Hospice program, and through that work, I discovered a new way of seeing life. I started focusing on living with purpose.
I began to understand what it means to form real connections—even in here. To be part of a community. To show up as a husband and a father, even from behind these walls.
I began getting involved in self-help programs.
I started educating myself, and then I began leading and encouraging others.
Thank you to my family for supporting me to have this opportunity today.
I know this has been a painful process.
You do not deserve what I did to you, but you inspire me to be better.
Website by Dennis Wilen, WEBMASTER
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