Here are the highlights from the history of the Menendez case:

August 1989: Jose Menendez, an executive at RCA Records in Los Angeles, and his wife, Kitty Menendez, were shot to death at their mansion in Beverly Hills.

March 1990: Lyle Menendez, then 21, was arrested. Eighteen-year-old Erik Menendez turns himself in a few days later. They are charged with first-degree murder.

July 1993: The Menendez brothers are being tried by separate juries. Prosecutors argued that they killed their parents for financial gain. The brothers’ lawyers do not dispute that the couple killed their parents, but argued that they acted in self-defense after years of emotional and sexual abuse by their father.

January 1994: Both juries deadlocked.

October 1995: The retrial of the brothers begins, this time with a single jury. At the second trial, much of the defense evidence regarding the sexual abuse allegations was excluded.

March 1996: Jurors found both brothers guilty of first-degree murder.

July 1996: The brothers were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

May 2023: Lawyers for the Menendez sisters are asking the court to reconsider the conviction and sentence in light of new evidence from a former member of the boy band Menudo who says she was raped by Jose Menendez when she was 14 years old. Erik wrote about the abuse his father suffered before the murders.

September 2024: Netflix released “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” a nine-episode crime drama about the murders.

October 4, 2024: Gascón said his office is reviewing new evidence in the case.

October 16, 2024: Multi-generational family members of the Menendez brothers held a press conference pleading for their release from prison. Relatives say the jurors who sentenced them to life in prison without parole in 1996 were part of a society that was not ready to hear that boys could be raped.

October 25, 2024: Gascón petitions the court to resentence the brothers, which could lead to their release.

How soon will the Menendez brothers be released?

First Publication Date: 26 October 2024, 10:45