Lyle and Erik Menendez have been behind bars in California for more than three decades for the 1989 murder of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. In the infamous case that drew national attention, they were found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Now the brothers hope that new evidence will reopen their case and free them.

“48 Hours” contributor Natalie Morales speaks from jail with Lyle Menendez as he awaits a judge’s decision in a rerun of “The Menendez Brothers’ Fight for Freedom” airing Saturday, Sept. 28 at 9/8c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.

The Menendez brothers admit that they killed their parents. Instead, the focus of the case has long been on why they did it. They insist they killed out of fear and in self-defense after a lifetime of physical, emotional and sexual abuse from their parents.

One of their lawyers, Cliff Gardner, tells “48 Hours” that new evidence bolsters these long-standing claims and lessens their guilt. Gardner argues that Lyle and Erik Menendez should have been convicted of manslaughter rather than first-degree murder, and that if they had been, they would have received a much shorter sentence and been released from prison long ago.

The new evidence includes a letter that Gardner says Erik Menendez wrote to Erik’s cousin Andy Cano in December 1988, about eight months before the crime. The letter reads, in part: “I’ve tried to avoid Dad. It still happens, Andy, but it’s worse for me now. … Every night I stay awake thinking he might come in. … I’m scared. … He’s crazy. He warned me a hundred times not to tell anyone, especially not Lyle.”

Andy Cano testified at the brothers’ trials. He said that when he was 13, years before the murders, Erik Menendez told him that his father had touched him inappropriately. Prosecutors at the trial suggested that Cano was lying.

The brothers were tried twice. Their first trial ended in a miscarriage of justice when two juries – one for each brother – could not reach a unanimous decision on whether Lyle and Erik Menendez were guilty of manslaughter or murder. When they were tried a second time, prosecutors attacked the abuse allegations more aggressively, calling the allegations an “abuse excuse.” That trial ended with the brothers being convicted of first-degree murder.

Gardner says this letter is proof that the abuse allegations were not fabricated. He says the letter was not presented at either trial and was discovered in recent years by Andy Cano’s mother in a storage facility. Andy Cano died in 2003.

The letter is not the only piece of evidence that has surfaced. Roy Rossello, a former member of Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, has come forward to claim that he was also sexually abused by Jose Menendez in the early 1980s, when Rossello was a minor and a member of the band. At the time, Jose Menendez was working as an executive at RCA Records, and RCA signed Menudo.

Rossello is now 54 years old. In a 2023 affidavit, he says he went to Jose Menendez’s home in the fall of 1983 or 1984. Rossello would have been between 14 and 15 years old at the time. He says he drank “a glass of wine” and then felt like he had “no control” over his body. He says Jose Menendez took him into a room and raped him. Rossello also states in the affidavit that he was sexually abused by Jose Menendez on two other occasions, shortly before and shortly after a performance at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

“When I first heard about it … I cried,” Lyle Menendez told Morales. “For me, it was very meaningful that things were coming to light that really made people realize, OK … at least this part of what this is about is true.”

The Menendez brothers’ attorney, Cliff Gardner, filed a habeas corpus petition in May 2023, citing Rossello’s letter and affidavit as new evidence that his clients’ convictions should be overturned.

“The boys were abused as children. They were abused their entire lives. … And this is a manslaughter case, not murder. It’s as simple as that,” Gardner told “48 Hours” of the Menendez brothers. “My hope in this case is that the judge will recognize that this new evidence is actually credible and compelling and he will overturn the convictions.”

If that happens, it would be up to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office to decide whether to retry the case. In a statement, the district attorney’s office told 48 Hours that it is investigating the allegations made in the habeas corpus petition. It is unclear when a judge will rule on the case.