Lyle and Erik Menendez will go before a California parole board this week, 36 years after murdering their parents in their Beverly Hills home.
Officials resentenced the brothers to 50 years to life in prison, making them eligible for parole after their conviction for killing their parents, José and Kitty Menendez, in 1996.
The parole hearings, originally set for June 13, will now take place August 21 and 22.
NBC Los Angeles reports that Erik Menendez’s hearing is scheduled for Thursday, and Lyle Menendez’s hearing is scheduled for the following day.
They’ll appear via video from San Diego’s Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility. Each hearing is expected to take around two to three hours.
The parole board will consider multiple factors, including criminal history, their behavior behind bars, a release plan, self-control, and their youth offender status when the murders occurred.
The brothers were under the age of 26 when the crime occurred, and after the resentencing, they became eligible for parole under the “Youth Offender Parole Hearings,”
According to the California Board of Parole Hearings, the program is based on “scientific evidence showing that parts of the brain” are still maturing “through late adolescence and that adolescent brains are not yet fully mature until a person is in his or her mid-to-late 20s.”
If the chief counsel approves a parole grant, Governor Gavin Newsom will have 30 days to make his decision.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, a jury initially sentenced the brothers to life in prison without parole for fatally shooting their parents in the den of their Beverly Hills home on August 20, 1989.
The brothers said they killed their parents after suffering years of sexual abuse by their father. They also alleged their mother ignored the abuse.
In 2023, their attorneys filed a habeas corpus petition in Los Angeles County Superior Court, citing newly uncovered evidence, including a letter Erik wrote to his cousin Andy Cano months before the killings. The letter described alleged sexual abuse by their father.
Newsom has asked the parole board to conduct a full risk assessment to determine if the brothers pose a threat to public safety.
Check back for updates.
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[Feature Photo: An Oct. 31, 2016 photo provided by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation shows Erik Menendez, left, and a Feb. 22, 2018 photo provided by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation shows Lyle Menendez. The Menendez brothers, who were convicted of killing their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion nearly three decades ago, have been reunited in the Southern California prison San Diego’s R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility. The brothers are serving life sentences for fatally shooting their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in 1989. (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation via AP)]
