LOS ANGELES (AP) — After serving nearly 30 years in prison for killing their parents, the Menendez brothers will plead their case in front of a panel of California state parole board commissioners starting Thursday.

Erik and Lyle Menendez were sentenced in 1996 to life in prison for fatally shooting their father, Jose Menendez, and mother, Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills mansion in August 1989. They were 18 and 21 at the time.

For years after their convictions, the brothers filed petitions for appeals of their cases that were denied. But the brothers became eligible for parole after a Los Angeles judge in May reduced their sentences from life in prison without the possibility of parole to 50 years to life, marking the closest they’ve been to freedom since their convictions.

Even

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