Menendez brothers ‘don’t deserve to die in jail’, says LA District Attorney in biggest sign yet that they’ll be freed

Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón has said the Mendez brothers do not deserve to die in prison as their families demand their punishment.

“Given the totality of the circumstances, I don’t think they deserve to be in jail until they die,” Gascón told IMPACT x Nightline, as reported by PEOPLE.

The prosecutor made the comments for the episode titled Menendez Brothers: Monsters or Victims?, which airs Thursday on Hulu.

It comes as the extended family of Erik and Lyle Menendez will hold a news conference in Loa Angeles on Wednesday to call for the brothers’ release from prison while prosecutors review new evidence to determine whether they should serve life sentences for killing their parents.

Erik Menendez, now 53, and his 56-year-old brother, Lyle Menendez, are currently incarcerated in state prison without the possibility of parole after being convicted of murdering their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion more than 35 years ago .

Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted in 1996 of murdering their parents, Jose and Kitty, after their first trial was overturned

The news conference, which is being billed as “a powerful show of unity” by more than a dozen family members — including the brothers’ aunt — traveling across the country to Los Angeles, will take place less than two weeks after Gascón announced that his office was looking into the brothers’ case again.

Lyle Menendez, who was 21 at the time, and Erik Menendez, then 18, admitted to fatally shooting their father, Jose Menendez, and their mother, Kitty Menendez, in 1989.

They said they feared their parents were about to kill them to prevent the revelation of Erik’s father’s long-term sexual abuse.

The extended family’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, previously said they strongly support the brothers’ release. Comedian Rosie O’Donnell also plans to join the family on Wednesday.

“She wants nothing more than for them to be released,” Freedman said earlier this month about Joan VanderMolen, Kitty Menendez’s sister and the brothers’ aunt.

Jose and Kitty (pictured) were shot 14 times with 12-gauge shotguns in their $1 million Beverly Hills home in August 1989.

The two men were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole in 1996 after a retrial.

Earlier this month, Gascón said there is no doubt the brothers committed the 1989 murders, but that his office will review new evidence and make a decision on whether a recidivism is justified in the infamous case that drew national attention .

A grudge match could free the brothers, as they have already spent more than thirty years in prison.

The brothers’ lawyers said the family believed from the start that they should have been charged with manslaughter instead of murder. Manslaughter was not an option for the jury during the second trial that ultimately led to the brothers’ murder conviction, defense attorney Mark Geragos said earlier.

The new evidence includes a letter from Erik that his lawyers say confirms allegations that he was sexually abused by his father. A hearing was scheduled for November 29.

They were sentenced to life in prison in 1996, and the two had not seen each other since

Prosecutors argued at the time of their sentencing that there was no evidence of any abuse. They said the sons were after their parents’ multimillion-dollar estate.

But the brothers have said they killed their parents in self-defense after suffering a lifetime of physical, emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of them.

Their lawyers argue that because of society’s changing views on sexual abuse, the brothers may not have been convicted of first-degree murder today and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Jurors rejected a death sentence in 1996 in favor of life without parole.