The Menendez brothers are scheduled to face separate parole hearings beginning Thursday, marking the closest they have been to winning freedom after spending nearly 30 years in prison in the slaying of their parents inside their Los Angeles home.
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.
