California parole board denies release of Erik Menendez

Panel declines to grant parole to Menendez, convicted over parents' deaths, while brother Lyle faces hearing on Friday

The California board of parole hearings denied the release of Erik Menendez, on Thursday who has spent nearly 30 years in prison since he was convicted with his brother in the shooting deaths of their parents.

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 1989. They were 18 and 21 at the time. While defense attorneys argued the brothers acted out of self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, prosecutors said the brothers killed their parents for a multimillion-dollar inheritance.