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 Sneed.
“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.”
Sneed 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 Sneed and Menendez for comment but has not yet heard back.
READ Erik Menendez’s Wife Tammi Menendez Shares Plea for His Release After Resentencing Decision
The separation news comes just weeks after a personal statement from Menendez — included as part of an amended resentencing request memo, dated Nov. 7 and obtained by NBC News — referenced his and Sneed’s marriage without mentioning a separation.
“This coming November will be my 20th wedding anniversary,” Menendez 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.”
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.”
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.”