Lyle Menendez will face parole board a day after brother Erik was denied release. Follow every key event from arrest to parole hearings 35 years later
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.
A panel of California commissioners denied Erik Menendez parole for three years, after which he will be eligible again, in a case that continues to fascinate the public. A parole hearing for his brother Lyle Menendez, who is being held at the same prison in San Diego, is scheduled for Friday morning.
The two commissioners determined that Erik Menendez should not be freed after an all-day hearing during which they questioned him about why he committed the crime and violated prison rules.
