Why the Menendez brothers' family is calling for their release

FFamily members of Erik and Lyle Menendez, the two brothers serving life sentences for fatally shooting their parents – Jose and Kitty Menendez – in their Beverly Hills home in 1989, called for their release and release at a news conference Wednesday in Los Angeles re-conviction of the couple.

During the press conference, family members announced a new coalition to advocate for “justice for Erik and Lyle” and urged people to sign a petition calling on the district attorney to pursue a resentencing of the couple. Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón Earlier this month, he announced that he was “open-minded” about the brothers' possible resentencing. Erik and Lyle were convicted of the murders in 1996 and are both serving life sentences without parole.

“Like so many others, I struggled to process the events of that fateful August day and the loss I felt over time. It became clear that there were two other victims there that day, my cousins ​​Lyle and Erik,” said Anamaria Baralt, a cousin of the brothers. “If Lyle and Erik’s case had been tried today with the understanding we now have regarding abuse and PTSD, there is no doubt in my mind that their sentencing would have been very different.”

Mark Geragos, an attorney representing the brothers, cited new evidence in the case, including a letter Erik wrote to his cousin mentioning the abuse months before the murders and a statement from member Roy Rossello The boy band Menudo, in which he claimed Jose Menendez had committed abuse, also abused him.

The case recently came back into the spotlight following the release of the Netflix series Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez in September, although there have been previous documentaries detailing the case.

Read more: How Ryan Murphy's Menendez Brothers Show reignited a decades-long controversy

Some celebrities, including Rosie O'Donnell and Kim Kardashian, who wrote a personal essay for NBC News calling for the pair's release, have spoken out on behalf of the brothers.

Here's what you should know.

What happened

In August 1989, police began investigating the murder of Jose and Kitty Menendez, the parents of Erik and Lyle Menendez. The first officers went to her Beverly Hills home on August 8, 1989, after Lyle called 911 and claimed that “someone killed my parents.” Lyle, then 21, and Erik Menendez, then 18, initially told police they came home to find their parents had been shot. But the following March, investigators received a tip that the Menendez brothers had admitted on tape to a psychologist that they had killed their parents.

Read more: The true story behind Ryan Murphy's Menendez Brothers series

On March 8, 1990, Lyle was arrested. Erik turned himself in to authorities two days later when he arrived at Los Angeles International Airport. The first trial came three years later. Eventually the brothers confessed that they had shot their parents in self-defense. During the first trial, family members and friends testified that the Menendez brothers suffered abuse, including sexual abuse, in their home. The brothers claimed they shot their parents because they thought they were killing them so they wouldn't reveal that their father had abused them.

But prosecutors argued that the brothers shot their parents because they wanted their parents' estate. Shortly after their parents were murdered, the brothers spent their fortune primarily on Rolex watches and business investments. The jury at the first trial disagreed, and the trial was ultimately declared invalid.

A second trial in 1995 went in a different direction. The brothers were tried together and parts of the abuse evidence were declared inadmissible in court. In March 1996, Lyle and Erik were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. You have served for 34 years so far.

Why the prosecutor might re-examine the case

In 2023, Geragos said he filed a lawsuit petition of habeas corpus with the The Los Angeles Superior Court is seeking to overturn her conviction. “If habeas were granted, you would get a new trial,” he said during Wednesday’s press conference. “If they are resentenced, under California law the judge has the opportunity to recall them and sentence them to a wide range of options.”

Lawyers for the Menendez brothers say Erik and Lyle would have received different sentences if the trials had taken place today because today's culture is more supportive of victims of abuse.

Read more: The Menendez brothers are back in the spotlight. Here's what you should read and watch to understand her case

Lawyers representing the couple have pointed to new evidence in the case that supports allegations that Erik's father sexually abused him. This evidence includes a letter Erik wrote to his cousin Andy Cano. In the letter, written in December 1988, Erik said: “I tried to avoid Dad. It still happens, Andy, but now it's worse for me… Every night I stay awake thinking he might come in.”

Rossello's testimony that he was also abused by Jose Menendez is also presented.

“Given the totality of the circumstances, I don't believe they deserve to stay in prison until they die,” L.A. District Attorney George Gascón told co-host Juju Chang on an IMPACT x Nightline episode airing on Set to be released Thursday on Hulu.

A hearing on the habeas petition is scheduled for November 29 in Los Angeles.

“I had no idea the extent of the abuse they endured at the hands of my brother-in-law. None of us did, but looking back I can see the fear their father instilled in them,” Kitty Menendez's sister Joan VanderMolen said at the news conference. “They were just children, children who could have been protected, and instead they were abused in the most horrific ways.”