Rosie O’Donnell Continues Her Campaign to Free the Menendez Brothers With This Tweet

Rosie O'Donnell is still pushing for the release of Erik and Lyle Menendez from jail. The two, known as the Menendez brothers, were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 1989 killings of their parents, José and Kitty Menendez.

The case, which was featured in the limited Law & Order True Crime series in 2017, has since resurfaced after a Los Angeles Times reporter questioned in a headline, "Have the Menendez brothers been behind bars long enough?"

José and Kitty were fatally shot on Aug. 20, 1989, while eating ice cream and watching television in their Beverly Hills mansion. The brothers had used shotguns they purchased with cash days before to shoot José in the head multiple times. They fatally shot their mother as she crawled on the ground.

O'Donnell shared a photo of the printed version of the article on Sunday and tweeted, "la times today #freethem."

O'Donnell previously said in a TikTok video that she believes the brothers are "innocent." She captioned the post, "Free the menendez brothers - new evidence."

Kitty's sister, Joan VanderMolen, defended the brothers in the LA Times article and stated, "They would have been out a long time ago if they'd had a fair trial. They had a terrible childhood."

After two juries reached a deadlock over manslaughter and murder convictions, Lyle and Erik went to trial for a second time in 1995. That trial only had one jury. "The same judge who had earlier allowed the defense to call 50 witnesses and present evidence of abuse, restricted testimony that would have supported an 'abuse excuse' in the second trial. That sealed the brothers' fate," the article noted.

In an article published last week, The Times said a letter from Erik has surfaced and, per the brothers' lawyers, could back their claims that they murdered their parents after suffering physical and sexual abuse. Erik's letter alleges that their father abused him throughout his teenage years. (Roy Rosselló, a former member of Puerto Rican pop band Menudo, alleged the record exec sexually assaulted him when he was 13 or 14. He made the claims in Peacock's Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed docuseries.)

Due to the brutality of the murders, investigators initially suspected that the crimes were mob related. When Lyle and Erik became suspects, it was believed they did it after their parents warned they'd be cut out of their $14-million estate.

Still, their lawyers alleged in both trials that they had been victims of abuse from José, the executive vice president and chief operating officer of RCA Records.