Yahoo Lifestyle Menendez Brothers Prosecutor Warns TikTok Users She's Armed: 'So Don't Mess With Me'
The rising push to free the Menendez brothers has left their former prosecutor stunned.
Although her efforts during the 1993 trial famously resulted in a hung jury, Pamela Bozanich reminded viewers in Netflix’s new documentary “The Menendez Brothers” that Lyle and Erik Menendez eventually were convicted of killing their parents — and also warned potentially violent skeptics not to try her.
“The only reason we’re doing this special is because of the TikTok movement to free the Menendi,” Bozanich says toward the end of the documentary, which was released Monday. “If that’s how we’re gonna try cases now, why don’t we just, like, have a poll?”
“You present the facts, everybody gets to vote on TikTok, and then we decide who gets to go home,” she continues. “Your beliefs are not facts. They’re just beliefs. And by the way, all you TikTok people, I’m armed. We got guns all over the house. So don’t mess with me.”
Bozanich’s comments spurred backlash on X, formerly called Twitter, from people who called her “a horrible person” for using “her 15 minutes of fame” to threaten TikTok users for supporting the siblings. (A search for “free the Menendez brothers” on TikTok spawns millions of results.)
The brothers have maintained since their first trial that they killed their parents, José and Kitty Menendez, in self-defense and in fear for their lives after years of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. The proceedings spawned untold media attention — and a retrial in 1995.
They were ultimately convicted on two counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances for lying in wait, as well as conspiracy to murder.
The case has had a resurgence recently because of the documentary and Ryan Murphy’s high-octane Netflix series about the brothers. Following the series’ release, Kim Kardashian used her status as an advocate for criminal justice reform to meet with them.
Murphy’s nine-episode drama, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” stars Oscar winner Javier Bardem as José Menendez and Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch as Lyle and Erik Menendez, respectively. It was notably slammed from behind bars by Erik Menendez himself as “slander.”
As for the documentary, which was directed by Alejandro Hartmann, it delivers intriguing nuance and contains new prison interviews with both siblings, including Erik Menendez speaking on his parents’ killing.
“There should have been a police response,” he admits in the documentary. “We would have been arrested. We had no alibi. Gunpowder residue was all over our hands. Under normal circumstances, they give you a gunpowder residue test. We would have been arrested immediately.”
On Thursday, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon announced that his office is reviewing the brothers’ case. A hearing on their petition to have their conviction vacated due to new evidence is currently scheduled for Nov. 29.
