Should the Menendez Brothers Be Released? Relatives Ask Judge to Give Pair Break in Connection with Parents’ Grisly Murders

Brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez were just 21 and 18 respectively when they gunned down their multi-millionaire businessman father Jose, 45, and their mother Kitty, 48, in the den of their family's Beverly Hills mansion.

The trial caused a national sensation when it was broadcast in 1993 on the then-new cable network Court TV.

On August 20, 1989, Lyle called 911, frantically telling the operator: “Somebody killed my parents!"

During the trial, it was determined the Mendez brother's father was repeatedly shot at point-blank range in the back of the head. Their mother was blasted as she tried to flee, suffering bullets to the leg, arm, chest and face.

Cops at the grisly scene determined the victims were killed by 15 shotgun blasts.

The brothers initially seemed to have an airtight alibi. However, the pair raised suspicion with investigators when they almost immediately started running through their father's fortune, spending nearly $1million on the high life in mere months.

In March 1990, the case broke wide open when Erik confessed to his shrink, who then told cops after being threatened by Lyle.

However, it wouldn’t be easy to convict the deadly pair. Their emotional testimony — weaving a tale of a lifetime of physical and sexual abuse — ended in a mistrial. After a second trial in 1996, the brothers were convicted.

Lyle, 56, and Erik, 53, were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

However, as Front Page Detectives previously reported, the brothers recently appealed their convictions and are seeking reduced sentences under a new California law, which gives district attorneys the authority to make resentencing recommendations.

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The Menendez brothers have the support of more than two dozen family members, who all signed a letter to the judge asking him to resentence them, Fox News now reports.

In addition to the family support, their attorney, Mark Geragos, believes the brothers should have been convicted of manslaughter, not murder. If that was the case, he states they likely would have already been released from prison.