Are Lyle and Erik Menendez married?
Lyle and Erik Menendez are serving two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole for killing their parents, José and Kitty Menendez, in 1989.
But their personal lives have continued to evolve. Both have been married since being convicted of murder in 1996 and have spoken about their marriages in interviews, as have their wives.
“I question myself,” Tammi Menendez, who has been married to Erik Menendez since 1999, told Dan Abrams of MSNBC’s “The Abrams Report” in 2005. “Everybody questions me. You know, ‘Is she crazy? Is she nuts?’It has been a very emotional experience.”
Neither brother is eligible for conjugal visits, the L.A. Times confirmed for Lyle Menendez, and MSNBC confirmed for Erik Menendez.
Who is Erik Menendez's wife?
Tammi Ruth Saccoman and Erik Menendez began corresponding while he was in prison.
"We did get very close through letters and then you know the relationship moved forward when I did meet him. But it was the correspondence that he became a really good friend of mine and understood what I was going through and I understood what he was going through," she told MSNBC.
She wrote about their relationship in the self-published memoir, “They Said We’d Never Make It: My Life with Erik Menendez,” which informed the 2010 A&E documentary "Mrs. Menendez."
Tammi Menendez told People she originally had doubts that Erik and his brother had been abused by their parents, which is what their defense team argued during their first trials in 1993, which ended in hung juries. During a second trial in 1995, which unfolded before a single jury, the brothers’ evidence of abuse was not allowed. Both were sentenced to life in prison.
Tammi Menendez's opinion shifted in 1996, when she learned her husband had been abusing her daughter, who was his stepdaughter, starting when she was 15, she told People. Tammi’s husband turned himself into the police, and then died by suicide two days later. Tammi was left to care for their 9-month-old.
“I reached out to Erik,” she recalled. “He comforted me; our letters started taking on a more serious tone.”
But as she told MSNBC, “I didn’t set out to have a relationship with Erik; it’s something that happened.”
Erik Menendez proposed in a prison visiting room and in 1999, they married in the waiting room of Folsom State Prison.
Tammi Menendez told MSNBC that she was in touch with a psychologist to help her explain everything to her daughter.
“She loves Erik,” she said. “She loves to go visit him. She… wants to see him every weekend. And he’s very good to her and very kind and is very sweet to her.”
In a 2005 interview with People, Erik Menendez spoke about the effect marriage had on his life in prison.
"Tammi’s love was a major step in my choosing life. Having someone who loves you unconditionally, who you can be completely open with, is good for anybody. To know that this person loves me as I am," he said.
He said their marriage has transformed him. "You can’t imagine what it was like those first five years in prison never being told, 'I love you.' It makes you a colder, harder person. Tammi’s love has propelled me to become a better person. I want to be the greatest possible husband to her. And this affects the choices I make every day in prison," he said.
Both have addressed making a marriage work without intimacy.
"Tammi has taught me how to be a good husband. There is no makeup sex, only a 15-minute phone call, so you really have to try to make things work," Erik Menendez told People.
“It’s very difficult,” Tammi Menendez told MSNBC. “But I do get emotional support from Erik. He‘s my best friend.”
TODAY.com has reached out to Talia and Tammi Menendez for comment.
Who are Joseph Lyle Menendez's wives?
Lyle Menendez found his first bride, Anna Eriksson, the same way Erik had: via letters.
Eriksson was Chicago-born and began modeling as a teen for Lord & Taylor, then began modeling in Europe in the 1980s, she told People in 1996.
She told the publication she wrote Lyle Menendez a letter during his first trial with the message, "Hang tough."
They began a correspondence and drew closer when Eriksson moved to L.A. “All I can say is that we’ve connected, even though we’ve never touched," she told People.
"The Menendez Murders" by Robert Rand, which inspired the new Netflix show about the brothers, details their 1996 wedding, which took place over the phone in what Leslie Abramson, Erik Menendez's lawyer, called a "proxy wedding."
"Now since you are not here in person in Leslie's office right now, I'm going to say that at some future date you are going to place the wedding band on Anna's ring finger, and you, Anna, will place the band on the ring finger of Lyle," the judge said. Abramson placed the ring on Eriksson's hand.
Rand, who was at the wedding ceremony, recalled in the book that Eriksson called Lyle Menendez a "guardian angel." Lyle Menendez said it was the "best day" of his life.
A year later, the two split. The L.A. Times reported the California Department of Corrections did not "recognize the wedding," and that theirs was "not a legal marriage" since it took place over the phone.
Lyle Menendez then married Rebecca Sneed in November 2003, NBC News reported at the time.
In 2017, Lyle Menendez spoke to People about his marriage to Sneed.
“We try and talk on the phone every day, sometimes several times a day,” Lyle says. “I have a very steady, involved marriage and that helps sustain me and brings a lot of peace and joy. It’s a counter to the unpredictable, very stressful environment here.”
He said his wife puts up with "a lot" from "judgmental people."
“But she has the courage to deal with the obstacles. It would be easier to leave, but I’m profoundly grateful that she doesn’t," he said.
More about the Menendez brothers
<a href="https://www.today.com/popculture/menendez-brothers-now-rcna82206" target="_blank">Where are the Menendez brothers now? About Lyle and Erik Menendez’s lives since killing their parents </a>
<a href="https://www.today.com/popculture/tv/monsters-lyle-erik-menendez-cast-vs-real-people-rcna168424" target="_blank">How the cast of Netflix’s ‘Monsters: Lyle and Erik Menendez’ compare to the real people </a>
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
