Biden eulogizes Ethel Kennedy as 'hero' who put her own stamp on country

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Biden eulogizes Ethel Kennedy as 'hero' who put her own stamp on country

2024-10-17 06:46 Last Updated At：06:51

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden eulogized the late Ethel Kennedy in deeply personal terms at a memorial service Wednesday, hailing the wife of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy as “a hero in her own right, full of character, full of integrity and empathy" who helped him through one of the darkest periods of his life.

Biden was joined by former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton in speaking at the memorial service in Washington. All three reflected on Ethel Kennedy's humor and warmth, her work championing social causes and her unflappable resolve in the wake of tragedy.

“We’re a better nation and a better world because of Ethel Kennedy,” Biden said.

Biden became emotional as he recalled the Kennedy family helping him cope more than 50 years ago when his wife, 30-year-old Neilia, and their 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, were killed in a car accident, broadsided by a tractor-trailer while out shopping for a Christmas tree. The couple’s two sons, Beau and Hunter, who were just about to turn 4 and 3 at the time, were also in the car and were seriously injured.

“Along with Teddy (Kennedy), she got me through a time I didn't want to stick around,” Biden said. “I wanted no part of being in the Congress, the Senate. ... The fact is like she did for the country, Ethel helped my family find a way forward with principle and purpose.”

Ethel Kennedy died on Thursday at age 96 following complications related to a stroke suffered earlier this month. She raised their 11 children after her husband was assassinated in 1968.

She was by Robert F. Kennedy’s side when he was fatally shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles just after winning California’s Democratic presidential primary. Her brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy, had been assassinated in Dallas less than five years earlier.

Obama said her life was marked by more tragedy and heartbreak than most could bear.

“She would have been forgiven, I think if, at any point she had stepped away from public life or allowed bitterness to fester after all she and her family had been through,” Obama said. “But that is not what Ethel did because that is not who she was.”

Obama said she became a passionate advocate for everything from juvenile justice to civil rights to environmental protection. He described her as “a big dose in a small package.”

“Well into her 80s, she was still out there marching for something,” Obama said.

The service Wednesday was held at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, the same church where John F. Kennedy's funeral was held in November 1963. Members of the Kennedy family gathered earlier this week to attend her private funeral.

The Kennedy matriarch was mother to Kathleen, Joseph II, Robert Jr., David, Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Max, Douglas and Rory. She was one of the last remaining members of a family generation that included President John F. Kennedy.

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend recalled how her mother was fierce and fun-loving, rigorously faithful and reflexively dismissive of authority.

“Stop signs were always mere suggestions,” she said.

And while other mothers would take their children to the playground, she remembered her mom taking her to the Senate Rackets Committee where “daddy was investigating the mob.”

“I think my first sentence was, 'I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me," Kathleen Kennedy Townsend joked.

“She thought it was important that we knew what daddy was doing, and only afterwards would she take us to the botanical gardens and the natural history museum," she said.

Clinton said he was grateful that Ethel Kennedy lived to be 96.

"She was an amazing fireball of continuous energy. It was wonderful to be around her," he said.

During one of several light-hearted moments during the service, Clinton remembered her phoning him after Hillary Clinton had been elected to the Senate to the same seat that Robert Kennedy held.

“Ethel called me and said if I need any instruction in how to be a Senate spouse from New York, she'd be happy to provide it free of charge,” Clinton said.

Ethel Kennedy was a millionaire’s daughter who married the future senator and attorney general in 1950. She endured more death by the age of 40 than most people would in a lifetime.

She went on to found the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights soon after her husband’s death and advocated for causes including gun control and human rights. She rarely spoke about her husband’s assassination.

The center she founded still advances human rights through litigation, advocacy, education and inspiration, giving annual awards to journalists, authors and others who have made significant contributions to human rights. She also was active in the Coalition of Gun Control, Special Olympics, and the Earth Conservation Corps.

The memorial service featured remarks from some of her children, prayers from dozens of her grandchildren and musical performances from Kenny Chesney, Sting and Stevie Wonder.

Martin Luther King III, the son of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., recalled meeting her shortly after his father was assassinated in April 1968, just two months before she would lose her husband. He said it was not random luck that his father found a wife who was strong enough to endure the daunting challenges of the civil rights movement. And it was no accident that Bobby Kennedy found a wife and partner who could handle the slings and arrows that surrounded his leadership.

“One thing I learned from my mother is that beside every great leader, stands a stalwart and very strong partner who refuses to be intimidated or distracted by the many side-dramas that come with notoriety,” King said.

Family of Erik and Lyle Menendez call for their release and say they're victims who were vilified

2024-10-17 06:49 Last Updated At：06:50

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Multiple generations of family members of Erik and Lyle Menendez pleaded for the brothers' release from prison on Wednesday, saying they deserve to be free despite life sentences for the 1989 killings of their parents in Beverly Hills because they had been "brutalized” and sexually abused by their father.

The American public “vilified” the brothers in the wake of the notorious crime. The jurors who sentenced them to life without parole in 1996 were part of a society that was not ready then to hear that boys could be raped, their relatives said Wednesday during a news conference in downtown Los Angeles.

Joan Andersen VanderMolen, Kitty Menendez’s sister, said the wider family did not know about the extent of the abuse, and she’s spent years struggling to come to terms with it all.

“It became clear that their actions — while tragic — were the desperate response of two boys trying to survive the unspeakable cruel of their father,” the 92-year-old aunt said Wednesday.

The news conference was the largest gathering of the multigenerational family since the brothers’ sentencing. The public call for their release — by some 30 relatives from both sides of their parents’ families — comes less than two weeks after the Los Angeles County district attorney announced his office would review new evidence to determine whether the brothers should be serving life sentences.

Lyle Menendez, who was then 21, and Erik Menendez, then 18, admitted they fatally shot-gunned their entertainment executive father, Jose Menendez, and their mother, Kitty Menendez, but said they feared their parents were about to kill them to prevent the disclosure of the father’s long-term sexual molestation of Erik.

Several of the family members emphasized that in today’s world — which is more aware of the impact of sexual abuse — the brothers would not have been convicted of first-degree murder. The relatives walked to the district attorney's office after the news conference Wednesday to speak with prosecutors about the case.

Prosecutors at the time contended there was no evidence of molestation, and many details in their story of sexual abuse were not permitted in the trial that led to their conviction. The district attorney's office said the sons were after their parents’ multimillion-dollar estate.

“If Lyle and Erik’s case were heard today, with the understanding we now have about abuse and PTSD, there is no doubt in my mind that their sentencing would have been very different,” said Anamaria Baralt, a niece of Jose Menendez.

But not every family member agrees.

Kitty Menendez’s brother, Milton Andersen — who is 90-years-old — said through an attorney that he believes “the appropriate sentence” is life in prison without possibility of parole. Andersen was not available for an interview.

“He believes that there was no molestation that occurred. He believes that the motive was pure greed, because they had just learned that they were going to be taken out of the will,” said Kathy Cady, Andersen’s attorney.

District Attorney George Gascón has said there is no question the brothers committed the 1989 murders, but after his office looks at the new evidence, prosecutors will make a decision on whether resentencing is warranted in the notorious case that captured national attention. A hearing was scheduled for Nov. 29.

The evidence includes a letter written by Erik Menendez that his attorneys say corroborates the allegations that he was sexually abused by his father.

Roy Rossello, former member of the Latin pop group Menudo, also recently came forward saying he was drugged and raped by Jose Menendez, the boys’ father, when he was a teen in the 1980s.

Menudo was signed under RCA Records, which Jose Menendez was the head of at the time.

Rossello spoke about his abuse in the 2023 Peacock docuseries “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed.” These allegations are part of the evidence listed in the petition filed last year by the Menendez brothers’ attorney to review their case. Per the petition, Rossello said he was raped twice by Jose Menendez.

Though Kitty Menendez was not mentioned as abusing her sons, she appears to have facilitated the abuse, according to the petition. One cousin testified during the first trial that Lyle told her he was too scared to sleep in his room because his father would come in and touch his genitals. When the cousin told Kitty Menendez, she “angrily dragged Lyle upstairs by his arm,” the petition said.

Another family member testified that there was a rule in the Menendez home that when Jose Menendez was in the bedroom with one of the boys, no one was allowed to walk down the hallway past the bedrooms, according to the petition.

“They tried to protect themselves the only way they knew how,” said Brian A. Andersen Jr., nephew of Kitty Menendez. “Instead of being seen as victims, they were vilified.”

“They are no longer a threat to society,” he continued.

The brothers’ attorneys said the family believed from the beginning they should have been charged with manslaughter rather than murder. Manslaughter was not an option for the jury during the second trial that ultimately led to the brothers’ murder conviction, attorney Mark Geragos previously said.

“The whole world was not ready to hear that boys could be raped,” Joan Andersen VanderMolen said, adding “today we know better.”

The case has gained new traction in recent weeks after Netflix began streaming the true-crime drama “ Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. ”

Geragos said he hopes to get them released in time for Joan Andersen VanderMolen's 93rd birthday next month.

“There’s nothing she’d like more than to have them home for Thanksgiving,” Geragos said.

——

Associated Press journalists Jaimie Ding and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles and Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report.

This story has been corrected to show Kitty Menendez’s brother’s name is Milton Andersen, not Milton Anderson.

Biden eulogizes Ethel Kennedy as 'hero' who put her own stamp on country

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Biden eulogizes Ethel Kennedy as 'hero' who put her own stamp on country

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