LOS ANGELES - Erik Menendez, who along with his brother Lyle has served 35 years of a life prison term for fatally shooting their parents as they watched television in their Beverly Hills, California, home in 1989, was denied parole on Thursday.

The decision by California parole commissioners was announced after a 10-hour hearing in which Erik Menendez, appearing via video from a San Diego prison, argued that he had been rehabilitated and that setting him free would help heal his family. Several relatives argued in favor of his release.

Members of the California Board of Parole Hearings, however, found that Erik Menendez still posed "an unreasonable risk to public safety," Parole Commissioner Robert Barton said, according to a media pool report.

The seriousness of the crime was "not a p

See Full Page