who have spent more than 30 years behind bars for the murders of their parents in their Beverly Hills home. "My brother and I are cautiously hopeful," Lyle Menendez, 57, said in a recent jailhouse interview with TMZ, which was aired on Fox.

"Hope for the future is really kind of a new thing for us. I think Erik would probably agree with that. It's not something we've spent a lot of time on," he added. The Menendez brothers were convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to life without parole for the 1989 shotgun killings of their parents, Kitty and Jose Menendez.

The case shocked the nation - not only for the brutal nature of the crime, but also for the courtroom drama that followed. Their first trial ended in a hung jury after both brothers detailed years of sexual abuse they claimed to have suffered at the hands of their father, a high-powered music industry executive.

But prosecutors in the second trial cast doubt on those claims, arguing the brothers had acted out of greed and wanted to inherit their parents' wealth. The jury agreed, and the brothers were convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Over the decades, the brothers have kept up their appeals - and recently learned that they would get a parole hearing after all. With that hearing scheduled for June, and a resentencing hearing in the middle of April, the brothers are reflecting on how they will lead their lives if freed.

"What it is that I want to do in terms of my day-to-day life is much of what I'm doing in here. I want to be an advocate for people that are suffering in silence," 54-year-old Erik Menendez told TMZ. "Lyle and I aren't talking about leaving prison - should we be able to get out - and not looking back. Our lives will be spent working with the prison and doing the work that we're doing in here, out there," he added. (BBC/ California department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)