The California Board of Parole Hearings on Thursday denied parole for Erik Menendez.
He and with his brother Lyle were convicted for the 1989 murder of their father Jose Menendez and mother Kitty Menendez.
Menendez will be eligible for parole again in three years.
The brothers have served 35 years of a life sentence for shooting their parents at their mansion in Beverly Hills, California.
Lyle Menendez’s parole hearing is scheduled for Friday morning.
Their case has garnered massive media attention and public scrutiny. A Netflix true-crime series based on their case was released in 2022.
What did the parole board decide?
After a hearing that lasted all day, the panel of California commissioners said Erik Menendez should not be released.
The inmate, 54, “was denied parole for three years at his initial suitability hearing,” the California corrections officials said, after the panel was not convinced that he no longer poses a threat to the public.
Commissioner Robert Barton said the main reason for the decision to deny parole was Menendez’s behavior in prison.
The trial of the Menendez brothers captivated US television audiences much like the trial.
In subsequent years, the story of the killings and the trial became the stuff of television drama, spawning numerous films and series, including “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” on Netflix.
Sentenced to life in prison in 1996, the two became eligible for parole this May, when a Los Angeles judge reduced that sentence to 50 years to life.
Family and friends say brothers have changed
Before the parole hearing, celebrities, friends and family in the Justice for Erik and Lyle Coalition, a support group for the two, had called for their release.
“For more than 35 years, they have shown sustained growth,” their family said in a statement. “They have taken full accountability.”
Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman had opposed the Menendez’s May resentencing.
“The Menendez brothers have never fully accepted responsibility for the horrific murders of their parents,” the prosecutor said in a statement Wednesday.
“Instead continuing to promote a false narrative of self-defense that was rejected by the jury decades ago.”
Edited by: Zac Crellin and Karl Sexton
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