Lyle Menendez Breaks His Silence, 26 Years After He and Brother Erik Were Locked Up in Murder of Parents

One of the Menendez brothers has spoken out for the first time in decades as a TV special revisits the notorious murder of their mother and father.

The brothers were found guilty of slaying their wealthy parents at their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989.
Now, Lyle Menendez is speaking out from his prison cell for the first time in two decades.

Read: Could a New California Law Bring a New Chapter in Menendez Brothers' Killings?

“I am the kid that did kill his parents, and no river of tears has changed that, and no amount of regret has changed it,” he said in a phone interview which airs Thursday night on in an ABC News special Truth and Lies: The Menendez Brothers.

The 48-year-old added: “I accept that. You are often defined by a few moments of your life, but that’s not who you are in your life, you know. Your life is your totality of it… You can’t change it. You just, you’re stuck with the decisions you made."

"He is trying to make his life meaningful in prison, as many people do," ABC News' Terry Moran told Inside Edition. "He is owning what he did saying, 'yes, I am the guy who killed his parents.'" 

Menendez, who has spent 27 years in jail, added: “It’s shocking to think... that I could have been involved in taking anyone’s life — and my parents’ life... It seems unimaginable because it seems so far removed from who I am."

The last time Lyle Menendez saw his younger brother, Erik, was when they were interviewed in 1996 by Barbara Walters for 20/20.

Lyle has now lost his hair and he and his brother are serving life sentences in separate California prisons. They communicate only via letters and even play chess by mail.

"They are in prison without the possibility of parole for the rest of their lives and they will never see each other again," Moran told Inside Edition. 

The ABC special looks back at the night the brothers used shotguns to kill their father, Jose, and mother, Kitty, while the couple watched TV at home.

Since their convictions, the Menendez brothers somehow managed to have something of a life behind bars.

Lyle has been married twice, including to a former Playboy model Anna Eriksson, who reporters nicknamed "Rapunzel" for her long blonde hair. They got married in 1996 and were divorced in 2001.

His second wife is a lawyer named Rebecca Sneed, whom he married in 2003.

Read: 'Seriously Ill' Charles Manson Transferred From Prison to Hospital: Reports

Erik married Tammi Saccoman after she struck up a correspondence with him in 1999.

"I get the feeling that he has made peace with the fact that he is never getting out of here," Moran told Inside Edition.

“I’m at peace with my life growing up," Lyle told ABC. "I’m at peace with it, because I’ve just sort of accepted [that] it’s okay not to understand."

The Menendez brothers claimed their father had sexually abused Erik, but prosecutors claimed in court that they murdered their parents to collect their inheritance. 

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