Erik Menendez was denied parole for three years after a parole board found him unsuitable primarily because of his prison behavior. Two commissioners questioned him during an all-day hearing about why he committed the 1989 murders of his parents and about rule violations in prison. The decision came despite family advocacy and a recent sentence reduction that made him immediately eligible for parole. His brother Lyle faces a parole hearing the following day at the same San Diego prison. The brothers were convicted in 1996 of killing their parents; defenses claimed years of sexual abuse while prosecutors alleged a motive of seeking inheritance.
A panel of two California commissioners denied 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 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.
The parole hearings marked the closest they have come to winning freedom since their convictions almost 30 years ago for murdering their parents. The brothers were sentenced to life in prison in 1996 for fatally shooting their father, Jose Menendez, and mother, Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills mansion. While defense attorneys argued that the brothers acted out of self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, prosecutors said the brothers sought a multimillion-dollar inheritance.
Collection
[
|
...
]