Erik Menendez was denied parole on Thursday after serving decades in prison for killing his parents. Lyle Menendez, his brother, will be next to get a chance to plead his case in front of a panel of California state parole board commissioners.
Erik and Lyle Menendez were sentenced in 1996 to life in prison for killing their father, José Menendez, and mother, Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989. They were 18 and 21 at the time. Defense attorneys argued the brothers acted out of self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, while prosecutors said the brothers killed their parents for a multimillion-dollar inheritance.
