Originally appeared on E! Online
As Lyle Menendez awaits his fate in prison, he’s doing so as a single man.
The 56-year-old—who has been serving a life sentence alongside his brother Erik Menendez for the 1989 murders of their parents—and his wife Rebecca Sneed are separated after 21 years of marriage, according to a post shared to Facebook by Rebecca.
“Lyle and I have been separated for a while now but remain best friends and family,” she wrote on Nov. 22 on her official Facebook page, as verified by the brothers’ attorney to NBC News. “I continue to run his Facebook pages, with input from him, and I am forever committed to the enduring fight for Lyle and Erik’s freedom, as has been so evident over the years.”
Rebecca continued, “I’ll continue to update you all on the progress of the case because I believe we all have the common goal of seeing the guys walk free! I will never stop fighting for them.”
Her post also confirmed, “This is NOT a cheating scandal.”
E! News has reached out to contacts for Rebecca and Lyle for comment but has not yet heard back.
More from E! Online
The separation news comes just weeks after a personal statement from Lyle—included as part of an amended resentencing request memo, dated Nov. 7 and obtained by NBC News—referenced his and Rebecca’s marriage without mentioning a separation.
“This coming November will be my 20th wedding anniversary,” Lyle wrote in the statement. “Learning to be a husband and a partner from inside a prison has been challenging. It has also changed my life in so many positive ways.”
He continued, “Her unwavering support and belief in me is something I am most grateful for and has played no small part in my journey to be a better person.”
Ted Soqui/Sygma via Getty Images
The Menendez brothers’ legal journey and battle has long been the subject of public fascination, made increasingly so in recent months by the release of Ryan Murphy’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story and subsequent Menendez Brothers documentary from Netflix.
And as public scrutiny over the alleged abuse the brothers endured at the hands of their parents Kitty and Jose Menendez rose, so too have calls to reexamine their sentences, as well as an official attempt by the now-outgoing Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón to have the brothers resentenced.
While he expressed his support for the brothers’ petition for clemency and then formally submitted letters submitted to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office in October, Gascón lost his reelection bid to former U.S. Assistant Attorney General Nathan Hochman just days later.
Now, Newsom has sent the case back to the D.A.’s office, to be handled by Gascón’s successor.
“The Governor respects the role of the District Attorney in ensuring justice is served and recognizes that voters have entrusted District Attorney-elect Hochman to carry out this responsibility,” Newsom’s office said Nov. 18 in a statement obtained by NBC News. “The Governor will defer to the D.A.-elect’s review and analysis of the Menendez case prior to making any clemency decisions.”
VINCE BUCCI/AFP via Getty Images
For his part, D.A.-elect Hochman has not shared publicly his opinions on the Menendez brothers’ case.
Gascón had previously acknowledged during an election debate in October that the Menendez Brothers documentary helped expedite the brothers’ case.
“When a recent Netflix documentary came out, we immediately started getting bombarded with media requests and calls because the case came back again to the surface,” he explained. “The decision was made that rather than answer one media request at a time, we would actually just come out and very clearly say where we are.”
For more on the love lives of the Menendez brothers, keep reading.
(E! and NBC News are part of the NBCUniversal family).
Anna Eriksson
Lyle Menendez, then 28, married model and salon receptionist Anna Eriksson on July 2, 1996, the day he and brother Erik Menendez were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 1989 double murder of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez.
Anna started writing to Lyle in 1993 during his first trial, which ended in a mistrial, and then moved to California to be near him the following year. She became a reliable presence at the months-long retrial that began in 1995 and resulted in convictions in March 1996, according to the Los Angeles Times.
They couldn’t take their vows in person, however, Lyle instead taking the plunge over speaker phone, the groom in custody and the bride in the office of defense attorney Leslie Abramson.
He seemingly hoped to be able to wed Anna in person, once he knew where he’d end up.
“We do have a marriage proceeding,” California Correctional Institution spokesman Lt. Jack Pitko told the LA Times in September 1996 once Lyle and Erik had been ordered to separate prisons. “There’s a waiting list…But I don’t see why he shouldn’t be able to get married if he follows all the rules.”
Anna filed for divorce in 2001 after, according to multiple reports from the time, she allegedly found out Lyle was exchanging letters with other women.
Rebecca Sneed
Lyle didn’t rush into anything when he married journalist Rebecca Sneed, reportedly 33 at the time, in November 2003: He had known her for 10 years, first through letters and eventually from in-person visits, a prison spokesperson told the Associated Press in confirming the nuptials.
The ceremony took place at Mule Creek State Prison near Sacramento, where Lyle resided until he was reunited with Erik in 2018 at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in southern San Diego County.
“Our interaction tends to be very free of distractions and we probably have more intimate conversations than most married spouses do, who are distracted by life’s events,” Lyle told People in 2017. At the time, Rebecca was living in Sacramento and was said to visit weekly.
“We try and talk on the phone every day, sometimes several times a day,” Lyle added. “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.”
Rebecca “put up with a lot,” he acknowledged. “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.”
Tammi Saccoman
Erik’s wife Tammi Menendez, now 62, was married to Chuck Saccoman when she first spied the younger Menendez brother on TV in 1993 and felt a special place in her heart for the 22-year-old murder defendant.
As she later told People, she informed her husband she was going to write to Erik and Chuck gave her his blessing.
“I saw Tammi’s letter and I felt something. I received thousands of letters, but I set this one aside. I got a feeling,” Erik told the publication. “And I wrote her back. Tammi and I continued to correspond. I enjoyed writing to her. It was a slow friendship. It was special to me because it was not associated with the trial and the media. Tammi was someone not in the craziness.”
However, as Tammi detailed in her 2005 book They Said We’d Never Make It: My Life With Erik Menendez, she doubted the brothers’ abuse defense at first. (And she told MSNBC that Erik mentioned having a girlfriend of several years early on.)
But in 1996, as Tammi has detailed in her book and interviews, she found out that Chuck had abused her teenage daughter from a previous relationship. (They also shared a then-9-month-old daughter.)
Chuck turned himself into police and died by suicide two days later, according to People.
After Chuck died, “I reached out to Erik,” she told the publication in 2005. “He comforted me. Our letters started taking on a more serious tone.”
Tammi admitted she was “really nervous” when she finally met Erik in person at Folsom State Prison in August 1997.
“Erik had no idea what I looked like; I’d only sent him a tiny, 1-by-1 picture,” she explained. “But when he walked into the room, he was so full of life, he hopped down the stairs. It was like I was meeting an old friend.”
They married in 1999, a Twinkie serving as their wedding cake.
And they’ve been together ever since, though Tammi has acknowledged that the lack of conjugal visits can be tough.
“A kiss when you come in, a kiss when you leave,” she described the routine on MSNBC in December 2005. ‘You can hold hands and that part of it is very difficult, and people don’t understand.”
Erik said he tried not to think about what was then the likelihood that he would never get out of prison.
“Tammi is what gets me through,” he told People in 2005. “I can’t think about the sentence. When I do, I do it with a great sadness and a primal fear. I break into a cold sweat. It’s so frightening I just haven’t come to terms with it.”
But on a more optimistic note, Tammi had also taught him “how to be a good husband,” Erik said. “There is no makeup sex, only a 15-minute phone call, so you really have to try to make things work.”
For the latest breaking news updates, click here to download the E! News App