Lyle Menendez separated from wife Rebecca Sneed, but he and Erik Menendez, who’s been…
Lyle Menendez’s Wife Rebecca Sneed Announces Their Separation After 21 Years of Marriage
Love knows no bounds, but in some cases it does know bars.
Lyle Menendez, 56, and his brother Erik Menendez, 53, have been locked up since March 1990, when they were first arrested for the Aug. 20, 1989, murders of their parents, Jose and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez.
Since each was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in 1996 at the end of their second trial, they’ve been serving life sentences without the possibility of parole.
And each has been married for decades, though it’s recently come to light that Lyle is separated from his second wife, Rebecca Sneed.
The brothers are awaiting judge’s decision in their bid to be resentenced (i.e. possibly set free in due time) for their crimes, which, once they’d been arrested they never denied committing.
It was their first trial in 1993, which put Court TV on the map and triggered a four-ring media circus, that turned Lyle and Erik into full-blown celebrities. Mostly they were deemed villains, but also tragic figures. And, once the defense alleged that the siblings had been sexually abused by their father, some saw them as victims, too.
And in a not uncommon turn of events when it comes to criminal defendants, including convicted murderers, they became objects of desire to more than a few women on the outside.
A new generation crushing on them over TikTok were out of luck, though: While California law doesn’t allow conjugal visits for prisoners serving life sentences, both brothers paired off pretty early.
Erik tied the knot with Tammi Saccoman in 1999 and Lyle swapped vows with Anna Eriksson in 1996 and Sneed in 2003.
While these women lead relatively private lives, notorious spouses aside, Tammi has figured prominently in the conversation swirling about her husband and brother-in-law’s fate since she started relaying statements from Erik through X after the premiere of Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series about the case, Monsters: The Menendez Brothers. (In a nutshell: Erik thinks it’s trash. Murphy’s response: “The Menendez brothers should be sending me flowers.”)
But the 35-year-old case has never been far from the headlines, not least because Lyle and Erik have always had their champions who believe they acted in self-defense, including numerous family members who held a press conference Oct. 16 to call for the siblings’ release from prison.
Later that evening, Tammi posted on X, “Erik feels deeply grateful and profoundly humbled by the overwhelming outpouring of love and support from his family today. Their belief in him and encouragement, care, and understanding mean more to him than words can express.”
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Attorneys for the brothers filed a habeas corpus petition in 2023 requesting that the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office open an evidentiary hearing or vacate the convictions and sentences in the wake of alleged new evidence coming to light, including a letter purportedly written by Erik in 1988 in which he mentions being abused.
L.A. County District Attorney George Gascón told NBC News after the press conference, “I think that there is a certain level of evidence that points out that there were a lot of problems in the household.”
On Oct. 24, he said he would submit a request to have the brothers’ resentenced.
Gascón, however, lost his bid for re-election in November and incoming DA Nathan Hochman has said he still wants to review the brothers’ case before his office issues a decision.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he will wait to review Lyle and Erik’s clemency request until Hochman makes his own recommendation.
In the meantime, Tammi posted that she was “Grateful to DA Gascon for his courage to seek re-sentencing for Erik,” yet also “naturally disappointed he did not go further and act on his own belief that Erik and Lyle have served enough time in prison.”
On his Politickin’ podcast, Newsom talked about how he gets asked about the Menendez case all the time.
“The thing that’s perhaps the most determinative when you come up to the parole board process is what kind of prisoner have you been?” the governor said. “Have you been focused on your rehabilitation, have you taken responsibility for your crime, and whether you’re coming out more of a broken person, or you’re coming out as a better person and, all of that, is also determinative.”
While the proverbial jury is still out, get to know the women who married Erik and Lyle after they were convicted of murder:
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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.
Oxygen
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.”
Kim Kulish/Sygma via Getty Images
The bloom has since come off the rose, however: Ahead of a decision on whether Lyle and Erik should be resentenced and possibly set free in the near future, Rebecca confirmed that she and Lyle are separated.
“Lyle and I have been separated for a while now but remain best friends and family,” she wrote Nov. 22 on her official Facebook page. “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.”
She added, “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.”
And because tabloid rumors don’t stop outside the prison gates, the post also noted, “This is NOT a cheating scandal.”
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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.
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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.
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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.”
(Originally published Oct. 19, 2024, at 6 a.m. PT)
