• Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón is seeking to schedule a hearing in which prosecutors and the defense will present arguments for and against the release of the Menendez brothers. However, his family is “a little afraid to put the cart before the horse” in terms of expecting an imminent release.
• “I think it would be amazing,” Annamaría Baralt, whose mother is José Menéndez’s sister, tells PEOPLE. “I think my mom and Joan VanderMolen, Kitty’s sister, couldn’t be happier to see this happen.”
• “Even though we have the family together, we never forget that Lyle and Erik are not with us,” adds Baralt. “So we are all looking forward to that day when we will be together again. It will be our dream come true.”
  

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

After 34 years behind bars, the Menéndez brothers, who shot and killed their parents José and Kitty Menéndez in their Beverly Hills, California, home in 1989, may, against all odds, soon return home.

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

The next day, he took 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 got there,” Baralt tells PEOPLE, adding that a dozen family members took flights from across the country to be there. “We just wanted to make sure the world knew how much support they have.”

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Surrounded by several members of the brothers’ extended family at the Los Angeles Hall of Justice, Gascón announced that 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, be resentenced to 50 years to life in prison.

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

To make that determination, attorneys with the District Attorney’s Resentencing Unit reviewed statements from the brothers and from prison officials and family members. They also considered evidence of psychological trauma and physical abuse that contributed to the commission of the crimes.

As part of the motion to request a 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 that they claim to have suffered has changed. change.

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For Erik and Lyle, Gascón’s request for a new sentence, which must then be approved by a judge, was a surprising victory. Their push for release began last year, when lawyers filed a lawsuit. habeas corpus petition on his behalf based on new evidence from a letter supposedly sent by Erik to a cousin
months before the 1989 murders that referred to José’s continued sexual assaults, as well as a sworn statement from a former member of the Menudo boy band, Roy Rossellóalleging that she was raped by José in the 1980s. The effort gained momentum in recent months with the success of Netflix. Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menéndez and a separate Netflix documentary, The Menendez brotherswere seen by a largely sympathetic public.

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

Meanwhile, Gascón’s office has begun scheduling a hearing, in which prosecutors and the defense will present written and oral arguments for and against the brothers’ release, necessary to present the matter before the judge who will issue a ruling. failed.

Geragos thinks that could perhaps happen before Thanksgiving.

“I think it would be fantastic,” shares Baralt, whose mother is José’s sister. “I think my mom and Joan VanderMolen, Kitty’s sister, couldn’t be happier to see that happen.”

But Baralt notes that the family is holding off on making plans for a Thanksgiving gathering.

“I think we’re all a little afraid of putting the cart before the horse,” he reveals. “You have to understand that there have been many, many years of not so good results from the courts, so planning something right now doesn’t seem superstitious, but it is a little scary. It has been very hard. There is just a void in your heart that is never fully filled, and every holiday has been bittersweet. Although we have the family together, we never forget that Lyle and Erik are not with us. So we are all looking forward to that day when we will be 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 connect with a certified crisis counselor.