Family members of Erik and Lyle Menendez gathered outside a downtown Los Angeles courthouse on Wednesday to demand their release from prison. The more than 20 relatives gathered amid ongoing concerns that key evidence was ignored or simply “discarded” when the brothers were convicted and sentenced in the shocking shotgun killings of their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez more than 30 years ago.

At the news conference, Kitty's 92-year-old sister, Joan Andersen VanderMolen, said she believes evidence that the brothers were regularly sexually abused by their father would have been accepted and presented in a very different light if the trial had taken place today.

“No jury today would impose such a harsh sentence without taking her trauma into account,” Andersen VanderMolen said, his voice shaking. “Lyle and Erik have already paid a heavy price, rejected by a system that failed to recognize their pain. It’s time to allow them to live the rest of their lives free from the shadow of their past.”

Other relatives said they believe the outcome of the case would have been very different if the siblings had been sisters rather than brothers. “It’s time for Erik and Lyle to come home,” said Kitty’s niece Karen VanderMolen. “We live in a time where we understand the impact trauma has on a child’s brain development. The evidence of her father’s abuse would have been a key part of her defence.”

Anamaria Baralt, a niece of José Menendez, called the brothers “victims of a culture that was unwilling to listen.” She said it was time to acknowledge the injustice suffered. “If Lyle and Erik’s case were tried today, and given the understanding we now have about abuse and PTSD, there is no doubt in my mind that their sentencing would have been very different.”

The statements came after Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said he would “review evidence” in the brothers' case following an increase in calls from their supporters. Lyle and Erik rose to national fame decades ago after they were implicated in the murder of their parents in the family's $4 million Beverly Hills mansion in 1989. Late one night in August, Beverly Hills police responded to a 911 call from Lyle that his parents had been mysteriously murdered. Investigators found the parents' bodies covered in shotgun wounds amid a horrific, blood-soaked scene. While Lyle and Erik were initially treated by police as grieving orphans, the brothers were arrested in 1990 and charged with first-degree murder.

During their now infamous first trial, broadcast live on CourtTV in 1993, Erik and Lyle testified that they killed their parents because they were sexually abused by their father and feared for their lives. Prosecutors claimed the boys wanted their inheritance and were murdered out of greed. Separate jurors for each of the brothers were deadlocked after an initial trial. Lyle and Erik were convicted of first-degree murder in a retrial.

In a new writ of habeas corpus, a motion to challenge a person's detention, lawyers for Lyle and Erik argue that their retrial, in which jurors were told that Erik and Lyle's sexual assault allegations, was a “complete fabrication.” there was nothing new to support their claims. Her father, Jose, was considered someone who would never abuse children, which directly led to the jury's decision. However, the jury was not aware of a 1989 letter from Erik to his cousin Andy confirming his attack. The trial also did not include Menudo band member Roy Rossello's recent allegations that he was raped by Jose Menendez when he was about 14, which the Menendez brothers' lawyers say warrants a response from the state.

In the current Netflix documentary The Menendez brothers, Joan VanderMolan said she was disheartened by how much the public had made light of Lyle and Erik's sexual abuse claims. “I once called into Jay Leno's show to protest that they were making fun of her. And that's all they did. They just made fun of her,” her aunt said. “I was told that we were now public property and they could do whatever they wanted.”

Since American horror story Creator Ryan Murphy released his retelling of the case in Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez In October, Kim Kardashian also launched a public campaign for the brothers' release from prison. “With their case back in the spotlight – and in light of the revelation of a 1988 letter from Erik to his cousin describing the abuse – I hope that Erik and Lyle Menendez’s life sentences will be reconsidered,” she wrote in an NBC commentary. “We owe it to the little boys who lost their childhood and never had the chance to be heard, helped or saved.”

The brothers' criminal defense attorney, Mark Geragos, said he hopes Erik and Lyle will be released from prison by Thanksgiving. A representative for the district attorney confirmed that there was no news from his office yet: “A decision has not yet been made in the Menendez case,” the spokesman wrote. “Once Prosecutor Gascón makes a decision, the victims’ family members and the public will be notified.”