Family not yet celebrating possible release of Erik and Lyle Menendez

• Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón wants to organize a hearing in which prosecutors and the defense will present arguments for and against the release of the Menendez brothers. However, their family is “a little afraid to put the cart before the horse” when it comes to expecting an impending release
• “I think that would be great,” Annamaria Baralt, whose mother is Jose Menendez’s sister, tells PEOPLE. “I think my mother and Joan VanderMolen, Kitty’s sister, couldn’t possibly be happier than to see that happen”
• “Even though we have the family together, we never forget that Lyle and Erik are not there,” Baralt added. “So we are all really looking forward to that day when we are together again. It will be our dream come true”
  

The call came just minutes before Anamaria Baralt’s 6:15 p.m. yoga class on Wednesday, October 23. A lawyer representing her cousins Lyle and Erik Menendez told her that relatives needed to be at his office in Los Angeles at 11 a.m. the next morning.

After 34 years behind bars, the Menendez brothers, who fatally shot their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez in their Beverly Hills, California, home in 1989, could soon be coming home against all odds.

‘Drop everything. We need you,” Baralt, 53, wrote in an email to other members of the family, who like her have called for the brothers’ release from prison.

The next day, she jumped on an early morning flight from Seattle to Los Angeles, where Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón was scheduled to speak about the case at an afternoon news conference.

“We didn’t know what he was going to say until we actually got there,” says Baralt, who adds that a dozen family members flew from across the country to get there, tells PEOPLE. “We just wanted to make sure the world knew how much support they have.”

Want to stay up to date with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

Surrounded by several members of the brothers’ extended family at LA’s Hall of Justice, Gascón announced he would recommend that Erik, 53, and Lyle, 56 – who claim they killed their parents because they feared for their lives after years of sexual abuse by their father – will each be sentenced to 50 years to life.

Based on their ages at the time of the murders – Erik was 18 and Lyle 21 – the brothers would qualify as “youthful offenders” and thus be immediately eligible for parole. “We are very confident not only that the brothers have been rehabilitated and that they will be safely reintegrated into our society, but that they have paid their dues,” Gascón said, adding that they had been working in prison to “improve of the lives of so many others.”

In making that decision, attorneys from the district attorney’s Resentencing Unit reviewed statements from the siblings and from prison officials and family members. They also took into account evidence of psychological trauma and physical abuse that contributed to the commission of the crimes.

As part of the motion to seek resentencing, Gascón said he would argue that keeping Erik and Lyle behind bars for life without parole is “no longer in the interest of justice,” noting that the cultural understanding of sexual abuse they claim to have suffered has changed. changed.

For more information about Lyle and Erik Menendez, subscribe now to PEOPLEor pick up this week’s issue on newsstands on Friday.

For Erik and Lyle, Gascón’s resentment request – which must then be approved by a judge – was a stunning victory. Their push for release began last year, when lawyers filed a request habeas corpus petition on their behalf based on new evidence from a letter Erik allegedly sent to a cousin
months before the 1989 murders that referenced Jose’s persistent sexual assaults, as well as an affidavit from a former member of the boy band Menudo, Roy Rosselloclaiming he was raped by Jose in the 1980s. The efforts accelerated in recent months when Netflix struck Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez and a separate Netflix documentary, The Menendez brotherswere watched by a largely sympathetic audience.

Mark Geragos, the brothers’ post-conviction attorney, spoke to them shortly after Gascón’s announcement and declined to comment on their response. “I just say they’re happy,” he tells PEOPLE, “and it’s a huge step.”

Meanwhile, Gascón’s office has begun scheduling a hearing — in which prosecutors and the defense will submit written and oral arguments for and against the brothers’ release — needed to present the case to the judge who will make a ruling doing.

Geragos believes this could happen before Thanksgiving.

“I think that would be great,” said Baralt, whose mother is Jose’s sister. “I think my mother and Joan VanderMolen, Kitty’s sister, couldn’t possibly be happier than to see that happen.”

But Baralt noted the family is not making plans for a Thanksgiving reunion.

“I think we’re all a little bit afraid of putting the cart before the horse,” she reveals. “You have to understand that this has been many, many years of not-so-great results from the courts, so to plan something now doesn’t feel superstitious, but it is a little bit scary. It’s been very difficult. There’s just a hole in your heart that never quite gets filled, and there’s something bittersweet about every holiday. Even though we have the family together, we never forget that Lyle and Erik are not there. So we are all really looking forward to that day when we are together again. It will be our dream come true.”

If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text “STRENGTH” to the crisis text line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.