Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted of murdering their parents in Beverly Hills in 1989. The second part of the Netflix anthology series by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, Monster: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendezrevisits the infamous true crime story. Read on to find out where the Menendez brothers are now and what new evidence could free them.

On August 20, 1989, Jose and Kitty Menendez were found shot multiple times at close range in the living room of their Beverly Hills mansion. Due to the gruesome nature of the killings, police initially suspected mob involvement. Lyle and Erik, who were 21 and 18 at the time, told investigators they found their parents shot dead when they returned home.

After their parents died, the Menendez brothers appeared to spend their inheritance lavishly on Rolex watches, real estate, and business ventures. A major breakthrough in the case occurred when Judalon Smyth, the lover of Erik’s psychologist Jerome Oziel, informed authorities. She revealed that Erik had confessed to the murders during therapy sessions and that there were tape recordings of the confessions.

Why did Lyle and Erik Menendez kill their parents?

In March 1990, the brothers were arrested for the premeditated murder of their parents. The case led to a high-profile, multi-year legal battle involving two juries, two trials, and one mistrial. Menendez’s defense team argued that the brothers killed their parents in self-defense. Both brothers testified that they had been abused by their mother and father.

Prosecutors, however, argued that money was the motive, claiming the brothers wanted control of their parents’ $14.5 million inheritance. The brothers reportedly spent up to $700,000 of their inheritance on luxury goods, business ventures and travel.

The first trial ended in a miscarriage of justice on January 13, 1994. The jury could not agree on whether the brothers should be convicted of manslaughter or premeditated murder for the alleged abuse.

At the end of the second trial, the jury found Lyle and Erik Menendez guilty of first-degree murder. The brothers were sentenced to two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.

Where are Lyle and Erik Menendez now?

Erik and Lyle Menendez are serving their life sentences at the RJ Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, California, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The brothers are not eligible for parole.

After their conviction, the two men were transferred to different prisons. The last time they saw each other was in 1996. At that time, they could see each other across the prison yard, but could not communicate with each other. They were transported separately to different facilities.

Over the years, Lyle repeatedly requested a transfer closer to his brother. On February 22, 2018, he was transferred from Mule Creek State Prison in Northern California to the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, where Erik had been incarcerated since 2013.

On April 4, 2018, the brothers were finally reunited when Erik moved into Lyle’s apartment. Journalist Robert Rand told ABC News that when the security guard opened the door, Lyle saw his brother and they both “immediately burst into tears.”

“They just hugged for a few minutes without saying a word to each other,” Rand added. “Then prison officials made them spend an hour together in a room.”

In January 2017, Lyle said ABC News that he has come to terms with his actions. “I am the boy who killed his parents, and no amount of tears has changed that, and no amount of regret has changed that,” he explained. “I accept that. You are often defined by a few moments in your life, but that is not who you are in your life, you know. Your life is your totality of it… You can’t change it. You are just stuck with the choices you made.”

Lyle still claims they were abused by their father, which left him and his brother Erik bound by secrets. “It’s so painful and complicated and confusing,” he said. “We have an intimacy based on that shared experience … (and) the bond has become very deep and intense.”

“I’m the older brother, so I try to be pretty protective of Erik during his childhood, but also really survive,” Lyle continued. “In the end, it was pretty devastating to realize that I couldn’t protect or save him from such horrific abuse as I thought. I thought we got through early childhood pretty well, but that turned out to be wrong.”

While Erik declined an interview with ABC News in 2017, he told ABC’s Barbara Walters in a 1996 interview that he felt “incredible remorse” for the murders. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about what happened and wish I could take that moment back,” he said at the time.

What new evidence supports Lyle and Erik Mendendez’s abuse allegations?

The question now is no longer whether Lyle and Erik Menendez killed their parents, but whether they did it out of fear and self-defense after suffering a lifetime of abuse. New evidence may support that claim, and the brothers’ defense attorney, Cliff Gardner, hopes to win their release.

According to CBS News, the newly discovered evidence includes a letter that Gardner said Erik Menendez wrote to his cousin Andy Cano in December 1988 – about eight months before the crime.

The letter states 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’s warned me a hundred times not to tell anyone, especially not Lyle.”

Andy Cano testified at the brothers’ trials and said Erik told him years before the murder that his father touched him inappropriately. However, prosecutors at the trial suggested Cano was lying, CBS News reported.

In April 2023, Roy Rosselló, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, claimed that Erik and Lyle’s father Jose sexually abused him when he was a teenager.

In a 2023 affidavit, Rosselló said he visited Jose Menendez’s home in the fall of 1983 or 1984 when he was a teenager. He said he drank “a glass of wine” and then felt like he had “no control” over his body. He claimed Jose took him into a room and raped him. Rossello also stated in the affidavit that Jose sexually abused him on two other occasions.

“I know what he did to me in his house,” Rosselló said in the Peacock documentary series Menendez + Menudo: Betrayed Boysaccording to People. “This is the man who raped me…This is the pedophile.”

Erik responded to Rosselló’s statement in a phone call with Rand, the journalist who has kept in touch with the brothers. “It is sad to know that my father was another victim. I always hoped and believed that one day the truth about my father would come out, but I never wished for it to come out in this way – as a result of trauma suffered by another child,” he said.

In May 2023, Gardner filed a habeas corpus petition, submitting the letter and Rossello’s affidavit as new evidence arguing to overturn his clients’ convictions. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office told “48 Hours” it is investigating the allegations made in the habeas corpus petition, according to CBS News.

Watch the official trailer for Monster: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez below.