A chronology of the 35-year history of the Lyle and Erik Menéndez case – Daily News

Below are the highlights of the story of the Menéndez case:

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

March 1990: Lyle Menendez, then 21 years old, is arrested. Erik Menéndez, eighteen years old, turns himself in a few days later. They are charged with first degree murder.

July 1993: The Menéndez brothers go to trial, each with a different jury. Prosecutors argued they killed their parents for financial gain. Lawyers for the brothers 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 reach a deadlock.

October 1995: The brothers’ new trial begins, this time with a single jury. Much of the defense evidence about alleged sexual abuse is excluded during the second trial.

March 1996: The jury convicts both brothers of first-degree murder.

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

May 2023: Attorneys for the Menéndez brothers 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 said he was raped by José Menéndez when he was 14 years old. Additionally, they present a letter that Erik wrote about his father’s abuse before the murders.

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

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

October 16, 2024: Several generations of relatives of the Menéndez brothers hold a press conference calling for their release from prison. Family members say the jurors who sentenced them to life in prison without parole in 1996 were part of a society that was not prepared to hear that children could be raped.

October 25, 2024: Gascón asks the court for a new sentence for the brothers, which could lead to their release.