This story was originally published in Northeastern Global News on Oct. 22, 2024.
A Northeastern University professor says the case of Lyle and Erik Menendez, who are serving life imprisonment for the shooting deaths of their wealthy parents in 1989, indicates a major societal shift in how male victims of childhood sexual abuse are perceived — and believed.
Around the time they were convicted of first-degree murder for killing Jose and Kitty Menendez, the young men were ridiculed in newspaper columns, talk shows and even “Saturday Night Live” as being motivated by greed.
But 28 years after their sentencing, family members are calling for the brothers’ release, saying they were driven to desperation by longtime sexual abuse at the hands of their father, a well-known executive in the entertainment industry.
Carlos Cuevas, Northeastern professor of criminology and criminal justice, says in the decades since the Menendez sentencing there has been growing recognition that childhood sexual abuse affects boys as well as girls.
“As time has gone by, there has been more openness about talking about abuse in general and particularly abuse of boys,” Cuevas says.
Eyes also have been opened by investigations and lawsuits concerning the involvement of powerful institutions in covering up the abuse of boys and young men, with the Boston Globe’s 2002 Spotlight series about the Catholic Church coverup winning a Pulitzer Prize for public service.
In recent years, the Catholic Church and...
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