Erik Menendez's Daughter Says Her Father Taught Her to Be Kind and Compassionate

In a 2005 interview with NBC's Dan Abrams, Tammi Menendez told him that "you'd be surprised how well you can get to know someone through letters." At the time, she had been married to Erik Menendez for eight years. He and his brother Lyle Menendez were both in prison serving life sentences for murdering their parents in 1989. Their trial was so heavily publicized, it essentially launched Court TV and put the brothers on the true-crime map.

What Tammi did not go into was the fact that she already had two children from a previous relationship. Just like their mother, one of her kids was able to get to know Erik and quickly grew to love him. Talia Menendez was 2 years old when Tammi married Erik, and in September 2020, she joined Instagram in order to clear up any rumors about her dad. Here's what we know about Erik Menendez's daughter (which is how she refers to herself, rather than stepdaughter) and her relationship with one of the infamous Menendez brothers.

On her Instagram, Talia explained that she also has a sister named Lisa who has less of a relationship with Erik. Talia, however, joined the mega popular social media app not only to "shed light on what an amazing human my dad is, but to also answer the hundreds of questions people ask me anytime my dad is brought up." It's clear she loves Erik very much, and is fiercely protective of him.

Talia was born Sept. 2, 1995, and met Erik for the first time two years later, while he was at Folsom State Prison. Her biological father didn't mind the fact that Tammi wrote Erik a letter. According to Talia, her biological dad thought it was "pretty cool that a guy on TV wrote back my mom, this small town girl." Sadly he passed away when Talia was 10 months old, and soon after that, Tammi was flying to California from Minnesota to meet Erik for the first time. The rest, as they say, is history.

Because Talia met Erik when she was so young, she didn't question the circumstances very much. "I thought that is where my dad lived, in a big gray concrete mansion filled with bodyguards and his other friends," she wrote in an Instagram post. Tammi never hid the truth from Talia, and explained what was going on to the best of her ability. "From a very young age, I knew my dad had done something bad that kept him from coming home with us," Talia said.

Despite their difficult situation, Erik and Tammi kept things as normal as possible for their daughter. She was allowed to bring up to 10 pages of homework into the prison so Erik could help her out. Talia played board games with Erik and some of the other inmates, back when they were able to communicate with each other in the visiting area. At one prison, she was even allowed to play soccer outside with her dad, his cellmates, and their children. She wouldn't change a thing, except for the prison part.

In an Instagram Story, Talia shared a favorite memory she has of her father. Evidently Erik knows how to turn an average day in prison into a teachable moment for his daughter. He told Talia that he was once asked by a guard to "clean something up," who then threw a can of bug spray at him. Confused, he followed the guard to a door between the dayroom and outside. There was a trail of ants coming inside.

After being told to "take care of it," Erik ditched the bug spray and grabbed a sheet of paper. He began herding the ants back outside as if they were sheep and he was an enthusiastic Australian shepherd. Once they were all gone, Erik fixed the door so they could't return. When asked why he didn't just kill them, Erik said, "It's our job on Earth to protect the ones that cannot defend themselves, even the littlest of creatures. They are the ones that need it the most."

In a separate Instagram Story that was framed as a Q&A, Talia was asked to describe Erik in five words. She chose compassionate, gentle, outgoing, hilarious, and charismatic.