Lyle and Erik Menendez, who have spent more than three decades behind bars for the grisly shotgun murders of their parents in the family’s luxury Beverly Hills home, could soon walk free after a US judge on Tuesday reduced their life sentences.
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The ruling came after an emotional court hearing in Los Angeles during which the men took full responsibility for the 1989 double killing.
“I do believe they’ve done enough over the last 35 years that one day they should get that chance” to be freed, Judge Michael Jesic said.
Jesic reduced the men’s original sentences of life without the possibility of parole to a term of 50 years to life. The time they have already spent behind bars means they are already eligible to apply for parole, with a hearing scheduled for next month.
The pair have spent two years trying to get their sentences reduced, with a public campaign bolstered by celebrity support from the likes of Kim Kardashian and supercharged by the hit Netflix miniseries Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.
Blockbuster trials in the 1990s heard how the men killed Jose and Kitty Menendez in their Beverly Hills mansion, in what prosecutors said was a cynical attempt to get their hands on a large family fortune.