SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Family members of Erik and Lyle Menendez called for their release Wednesday, more than 30 years after the men killed their parents.
In a press conference, members from both sides of the family asked the Los Angeles District Attorney for their release.
The Menendez brothers are in prison at Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego County.
The press conference comes less than two weeks after the Los Angeles D.A. first announced he would review new evidence in the case.
On the day of that announcement, in early October, ABC 10News reporter Laura Acevedo spoke with Dr. Ann Burgess, an expert witness who testified in the brothers' defense during their first trials.
The first time, the men were tried separately, which ended in hung juries.
Dr. Ann Burgess is a psychiatric nurse and a forensic expert. She spent hours interviewing the men in the 90s and always believed their claims of sexual abuse by their father, Jose.
Dr. Burgess believes those claims of abuse carried a lot of stigmas during that period.
"It was, and it still is, for men to believe that males can be raped and second of all that it can be an incest-type situation," says Dr. Burgess about how sexual assault was viewed in the 1990s versus today.
The issue of abuse wasn't allowed in the men's second trial, which ended in their convictions. Burgess says she never bought into the prosecution's claims that the brothers killed their parents for money.
"Working as many cases as I have, and especially whether it's incest, family secrets, etc. It had to be something in the family; you had to have a dysfunctional family of some type," says Burgess.
Wednesday, Menendez's family members agreed, saying they think the men were also victims, referring to the alleged abuse by their father.
A hearing on the future of the brothers' sentences is set for late November.
