Erik and Lyle Menendez, who was convicted of murdering their parents in 1989, have reunited for the first time in over 20 years after being placed in the same California prison, according to ABC News.
The brothers last saw each other July 1996 when they saw each other across a prison yard, but could not speak to one another.
A spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation confirmed with CNN that Lyle Menendez requested to transfer to his brother’s prison in San Diego in February and finally placed in the same housing unit on Wednesday.
Both brothers “burst into tears immediately,” said Robert Rand, a reporter who covered the pair’s 1989 murder trial. “They just hugged each other for a few minutes without saying any words to each other.” “Then the prison officials let them spend an hour together in a room.”
The Menendez brothers killed their wealthy parents, Jose and Kitty, at their Beverly Hills home on Aug 20, 1989.
Their defense lawyers argued that the two suffered years of abuse at the hands of their parents and they acted in self-defense, the prosecutors alleged that the brothers killed their parents to get the family fortune.
A mistrial was declared at their first trial, but the two were found guilty of first-degree murder in their 1996 trial. They each received two consecutive life prison terms without the possibility of parole, per ABC.
