They were the men who ignited two of the most notorious legal trials of the 1990s.
Lyle and Erik Menendez, two brothers who seemingly enjoyed a privileged upbringing, shocked the nation by turning a shotgun on their parents in their Beverly Hills, California, home in August 1989. Then O.J. Simpson, a football Hall of Famer turned actor and TV personality, became the top suspect in the June 1994 slaying of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in nearby Brentwood. Simpson’s apprehension was marked by an epic car chase through the sprawling freeways of Los Angeles.
While they were linked in the public consciousness through their association with gruesome murders, they also forged a tight bond behind bars as they waited out the high-profile jury deliberations that would decide their freedom.
The Menendez brothers first met Simpson at the height of his fame
The Menendez brothers and Simpson had previously met in the mid-1970s, when he was a record-setting running back with the NFL’s Buffalo Bills. Lyle and Erik’s father, José Menendez, was a Hertz rental car executive at the time who helped ink the famed athlete to an endorsement deal.
The business ties led to a more personal connection, as Simpson became a guest at the Menendez home. Lyle later recalled to People playing catch in the backyard with the larger-than-life sporting hero and the signed footballs Simpson gave the him and his younger brother.
More than a decade later, Lyle ran into Simpson in an Los Angeles restaurant alongside his Princeton University tennis teammate. A few months, Lyle’s life was upended by the shotgun blasts he and his brother fired at José and Kitty Menendez.
Erik became Simpson’s neighboring cellmate
When they all met again at Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail, it was the Menendez brothers who were in a position to offer guidance. At that point, Lyle and Erik had already been incarcerated for more than four years and were preparing for a retrial after their first one resulted in hung juries.
As told in Robert Rand’s 2018 book The Menendez Murders, Simpson wound up in the cell next to Erik following the conclusion of his infamous car chase. While the former NFL star was treated “like royalty” by the awed guards, he also was in shock from the abrupt change to his lifestyle and despondent about his tarnished reputation.
Erik warned his neighbor about the relentless media scrutiny to come and advised him to avoid discussing his case with fellow inmates or guards. He also earned Simpson’s gratitude for penning a letter that urged him to start thinking more about his life and future. “When you cry—remember those tears,” Erik wrote. “Hold them because you’re crying for your children, you’re crying for everything you’re losing.”
Additionally, as revealed in the 2018 A&E docuseries The Menendez Murders: Erik Tells All, it was the younger brother who used his connections to hook the athlete up with Johnnie Cochran, the lawyer who would have an outsize impact on the soon-to-come Simpson trial.
Lyle advised Simpson to admit guilt
Lyle had his own frequent interactions with Simpson. The men shared more than 100 conversations as they awaited meetings with legal representation in the jail’s attorney room.
Believing Simpson to be guilty of the murders, Lyle suggested he accept a plea bargain and offered pointers on the difference between murder and manslaughter charges, though Simpson again seemed a little too preoccupied with his reputation to consider admitting guilt.
Lyle also wrote Simpson a letter in which he urged him to come clean with the full story. “I told him I thought the public would understand,” the older brother relayed to Rand for The Menendez Murders. “I expressed my concern that [lawyer] Robert Shapiro wouldn’t let him tell the truth. I said I knew it obviously wasn’t planned and that he had snapped in the heat of passion.”
Erik believes the Simpson verdict affected his own trial
While Simpson and the Menendez brothers grew close during their shared time in prison, their paths soon diverged with the outcomes of their contentious and exhaustively covered trials.
On October 3, 1995, Simpson was found not guilty of double homicide. The retrial of Lyle and Erik began just eight days later, eventually ending with their conviction on first-degree murder charges and double life sentences. Today, 56-year-old Lyle and 53-year-old Erik remain behind bars as they try yet again to gain their freedom. Simpson died in April 2024 at age 76.
While the brothers have largely shied away from publicly discussing their old jailhouse confidant, it’s clear there remains some lingering resentment over the perception that Simpson’s victory spelled bad news for their chances of acquittal.
“O.J.’s verdict had a very negative effect on our case,” the younger brother said in The Menendez Murders: Erik Tells All. He suggested the L.A. County District Attorney’s office needed to bounce back from letting a Simpson conviction slip through their grasp.
“Because this verdict was so shocking, there was this sense an extreme injustice had happened and now we’re gonna have to right it with every defendant that comes up,” said Erik. “We were the next defendant.”
Watch Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, the latest dramatized version of the brothers’ criminal saga, on Netflix
