What to know : NPR

Lyle and Erik Menendez will each go before a California parole board this week to make the case for their freedom, after spending over three decades behind bars for their parents’ murders.

Erik’s hearing is scheduled for Thursday morning, while Lyle’s is set for Friday. Their lawyer, Mark Geragos, said earlier this week that parole board members are expected to ask the brothers questions directly, likely focused on their respective rehabilitative projects in prison.

“It’s a very interactive experience, it’s very robust and something people don’t realize: The parole board members that day will retire, deliberate and make a decision each day,” Geragos said in an interview on NewsNation’s Cuomo, adding, “I would expect a decision on both of them separately, sequentially, and hopefully it’ll be a decision that gives them their freedom after almost 36 years.”

The brothers were found guilty in 1996 of murdering their parents, Kitty and José Menendez, in their Beverly Hills mansion in August 1989 — when Erik was 18 and Lyle was 21. They were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The brothers admitted to the killings but maintained they were done in self-defense, saying they had been sexually abused by their father and feared for their lives. They repeatedly appealed their convictions in the years that followed, without success.

But tides changed in 2023, after their lawyers presented new evidence bolstering their sexual abuse claims. The following year, after a Netflix documentary and docudrama brought renewed interest — and sympathy — to the brothers’ case, then-Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón recommended their resentencing.

A judge did just that in May, reducing their sentences to 50 years to life. While both brothers are now in their 50s, they are eligible for parole under California’s youthful offender law because they committed the murders before they were 26.

LA’s current district attorney, Nathan Hochman, tried to block the resentencing process and has consistently opposed the brothers’ release. His office said in a statement on Wednesday that “justice should never be swayed by spectacle,” but pledged to “evaluate our final position based on the evidence presented at the hearing.”

The brothers’ fate now rests with the state parole officials and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

If the panel denies them parole, it must do so for a period of three, five, seven, 10 or 15 years, at which point they would get a subsequent hearing. Even if the panel does approve parole, Newsom’s office has 30 days to review and potentially veto it.

Newsom said on a July episode of his podcast, This is Gavin Newsom, that he would make a decision by Labor Day.

He told his guest, Ryan Murphy, the creator of Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, that he had specifically avoided watching the show so it would not influence his thinking.

Geragos, the brothers’ attorney, said it is theoretically possible that only one of them gets released, but said “on the merits, it shouldn’t happen.”

“I have spent, I can’t tell you how much time, with both of them,” he said. “They are fascinating, intriguing and deserving of getting parole … They both should be out.”

Here’s a look at how we got here — and what might happen next.

Who are the Menendez brothers?

Lyle and Erik Menendez spent their early years in New Jersey. The family moved to the Los Angeles area in 1986 as their father, José — an immigrant from Cuba and successful RCA record executive — rose through the ranks of the entertainment industry.

They moved into a seven-bedroom mansion in Beverly Hills two years later. But the brothers say there was a dark undercurrent to their privileged lifestyle, alleging that their parents subjected them to years of emotional, physical and sexual abuse.

In August 1989, as José and Kitty Menendez were watching TV in their living room, the brothers walked inside and shot them to death with newly purchased 12-gauge shotguns. The brothers later called 911 and said their parents were killed by intruders.

Authorities initially suspected potential mafia involvement, due to the extreme nature of the crime scene and José’s business connections. But they increasingly focused their attention on the brothers, who had embarked on a lavish spending spree in the days and weeks after the killings.

In early March 1990, Beverly Hills Police arrested Lyle in connection to his parents’ murders. Erik, who was in Israel for a tennis tournament at the time, turned himself in days later.

What happened in court? 

The case captivated much of the country, in part because Court TV broadcast the brothers’ 1993 trial live.

Defense lawyers for the brothers argued that they had acted in self-defense, with the brothers saying they feared their parents would kill them to silence stories about the alleged abuse. They alleged that José subjected them to physical and sexual abuse for years while Kitty — described as an unstable alcoholic who also abused them — let it happen.

Prosecutors, however, argued that the brothers were motivated by greed and money — their father’s estate was worth nearly $15 million at the time of his death.

In that trial, each brother had his own jury. Both of them deadlocked, resulting in a mistrial.

In their second trial, the judge limited the amount of testimony and evidence presented about the brothers’ claims of sexual abuse, a core pillar of the brothers’ self-defense strategy.

That trial ended in 1996 with each brother convicted of first-degree murder. They were sentenced to two consecutive life prison terms without the possibility of parole.

While watching their May hearing from prison via video, the brothers apologized for killing their parents and lying in the ensuing court proceedings, according to ABC News.

Erik said there was no justification for his actions, which he called “criminal, selfish and cowardly.” But he also said he had “come a long way on this path of redemption,” adding, “I will not stop trying to make a difference.”

What have the brothers done in prison? 

The first 20 years of that prison sentence saw the brothers kept in separate prisons, but they have been housed in the same San Diego correctional facility since 2018.

The brothers’ lawyers have described them as model prisoners who have given back to others. That work is outlined in Gascón’s 2024 memo advocating for their resentencing, which says they have each proven themselves to be an “incredible asset to his prison community.”

Erik is credited with co-founding and facilitating several prison programs, including Life Care and Hospice Connections, Victim Impact & Victim Empathy for Vulnerable Populations and a Twelve Step Recovery and meditation class.

Lyle also created a number of programs, including an inmate advisory bulletin, a mentorship group of youth offenders without the possibility of parole and GreenSpace, a prison beautification project involving the painting of murals and landscape redesign.

“What I think you’re going to see on Thursday with Erik is you’re going to see a lot of discussion about the programs that he’s instituted, not the least of which is the hospice program which he pioneered in California, it’s kind of a template,” said Geragos, their lawyer. “And I think when you get to Lyle on Friday, you’re going to hear about the GreenSpace program.”

What new evidence has emerged? 

Lawyers for the brothers filed a habeas corpus petition in May 2023, asking a judge to consider new evidence of their father’s sexual abuse.

That evidence includes a letter Erik wrote in 1988 to his cousin Andy Cano, describing sexual abuse by his father. Their lawyers had not known of the letter before the brothers saw it mentioned in a 2015 Barbara Walters television special and asked about it, according to the Associated Press. The LAist reports it was only discovered after Cano’s death.

Another piece of evidence comes from Roy Rossello, a former member of the Latin boy band Menudo — which was signed under RCA during José Menendez’s tenure. He claimed in a 2023 docuseries that José had drugged and raped him in the 1980s, when he was a teenager.

The brothers’ case reentered the spotlight the following year, not only because of the emerging evidence but because of new coverage: the true-crime drama Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story (which Erik has criticized) and The Menendez Brothers documentary both arrived on Netflix in the fall of 2024.

Weeks later, two dozen Menendez relatives gathered in Los Angeles to push for the brothers’ resentencing.

Joan Andersen VanderMolen, Kitty Menendez’s sister, told reporters the brothers “were failed by the very people who should have protected them.”

“[In the 1990s] the world was not ready to believe boys could be raped … Today, we know better,” she added. “It’s time to give them the opportunity to live the rest of their lives free from the shadow of their past.”

Alana Wise contributed reporting. 

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story first published in May 2025.