What to know about Menendez brothers’ case and when could they be launched

In 1989, brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez killed their mother and father by capturing them repeatedly at close vary at their mansion in Beverly Hills.

They were discovered guilty of first-degree homicide and conspiracy to homicide in 1996, and sentenced to life imprisonment without the risk of parole.

Public curiosity in the case has grown since a new Netflix drama, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, was launched in 2024. Their story continues to divide opinion.

In a resentencing listening to in May 2025 a decide made them eligible for parole. However in August, both brothers were denied release.

Erik, now 54, appeared before a panel at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation on 21 August. He was informed that he still posed a risk to public security and had not been a model prisoner.

A day later 57-year-old Lyle, long regarded as the dominant sibling, was denied parole by a completely different board.

It cited the brutal nature of the killings and Lyle’s lack of self-control.

“We find your remorse is genuine,” parole commissioner Julie Garland informed him. “But despite all those outward positives, we see … you still struggle with anti-social personality traits like deception, minimisation and rule-breaking that lie beneath that positive surface.”

They can strive for parole again in three years’ time – although this can be decreased to 18 months with good behaviour.

California Governor Gavin Newsom is analyzing a separate request to offer the brothers clemency – probably in the kind of a pardon.

Newsom, who is in the midst of a political transformation and might have his eyes set on a White House run, has the energy to settle for or reject any parole board advice.

In 2024, the earlier district attorney of Los Angeles, George Gascón, requested that the brothers’ sentence of life without the risk of parole be modified to 50 years to life.

During a listening to at Los Angeles County superior court, the brothers apologised for their actions. Their bid for resentencing was supported by relations and a former fellow inmate.

Prosecutors said the brothers had continued to “make excuses” for their conduct instead of taking full duty and were not rehabilitated.

But the decide agreed to resentence the brothers, saying they had “done enough in the past 35 years that they should get that chance”.

The ruling made them eligible for parole under California’s youthful offender law which permits those who dedicated crimes before the age of 26 to search a decreased sentence.

The siblings were aged 18 and 21 at the time.

Lyle and Erik Menendez killed their mother and father, Jose and Kitty Menendez, on 20 August 1989 at their home in Beverly Hills.

Their father, a 45-year-old Hollywood govt, was shot six instances with a shotgun the brothers had bought days before the attack.

Their mom died after struggling 10 shotgun blasts to several elements of her physique.

The brothers initially informed police they discovered their mother and father lifeless when they arrived home.

They were arrested after the girlfriend of a psychologist who had been treating Erik Menendez went to police to say that he had bodily threatened the physician.

The brothers claimed they dedicated the murders in self defence after years of alleged bodily, emotional and sexual abuse, although no molestation was ever confirmed in court.

They said they feared their father would kill them after they threatened to expose him.

However, prosecutors argued that the younger males had killed their profitable mother and father to inherit their multi-million-dollar property.

The brothers were taken into custody in 1990, and in 1993 they were tried for the murders, first individually, with one jury for each brother.

However, both juries were deadlocked in 1994, ensuing in a mistrial, and the pair were later tried again collectively in 1995.

During their joint trial the decide excluded obvious evidence of abuse from their defence case. Taped classes with a physician, in which the killings were mentioned, were ruled admissible in court by the decide.

A jury discovered them guilty and the pair were convicted of first-degree homicide and conspiracy to homicide in 1996.

The brothers, who were separated during their detention after a detective who investigated the slayings said they may conspire to escape if housed collectively, reunited in jail in 2018.

The case was thrust back into the highlight after Netflix launched a drama collection about the brothers in September 2024.

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, shot to the high of the platform’s streaming chart and was reported to have had more than 12 million views in the first weekend after release alone.

The programme explores what might have led the siblings to kill their mother and father and presents the murders from completely different views.

Its creators said the collection was based mostly on in depth analysis.

It consists of the brothers’ claims of abuse as properly as exhibiting issues from the mother and father’ level of view.

The show launched the case to a new technology and garnered consideration from celebrities – including Kim Kardashian and Rosie O’Donnell – who called for the brothers to be launched.

The collection was a follow-up to the controversial first Monsters collection about US serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

Following its release, Erik Menendez shared a assertion, launched on X by his spouse.

He said the show was “disheartening slander” and he “believed we had moved beyond the lies and ruinous character portrayals of Lyle”.

“It is sad for me to know that Netflix’s dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime have taken the painful truths several steps backward – back through time to an era when the prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused, and that males experienced rape trauma differently than women,” he added.

Members of the household also spoke out and said the brothers had been “victimised by this grotesque shockadrama,” and the show was “riddled with mistruths”.

Ryan Murphy, who created the show, informed Variety that the feedback were “predictable at best”.

He added that the household’s response was “interesting because I would like specifics about what they think is shocking or not shocking. It’s not like we’re making any of this stuff up. It’s all been presented before”.