Menendez Recording Is Sought in Virginia : Courts: Woman who talked to Lyle the day his jury deadlocked says her home was searched. The recording, in which he allegedly talks of fooling jurors, was not found.

A Virginia woman said Thursday that authorities unsuccessfully searched her house this week for new evidence in the Menendez brothers’ murder trial.

Accompanied by a Beverly Hills police detective, the chief prosecutor in the Menendez case served warrants on Martha (Marti) Shelton, 30, of Falls Church, Va., and searched her house Tuesday and Wednesday, she said.

The search, she said by telephone, was fruitless--and left her aggravated. “They tore the hell up out of my house and my storage bin,” she said, “and my family’s not too happy with them.”

The trip to Virginia underscores the prosecution’s focus on new evidence for the Menendez brothers’ retrial. At their first trial, separate juries deadlocked between murder and lesser manslaughter charges for Lyle Menendez, 26, and Erik Menendez, 23, the Beverly Hills brothers who shot their parents to death Aug. 20, 1989.

A new trial date is scheduled to be set June 27 in Van Nuys Superior Court.

The older brother’s jury deadlocked Jan. 28. That night, according to a court affidavit filed for the warrant, Lyle Menendez allegedly told Shelton, with whom he had been talking by phone for months, “I snowed half the people this time. . . . All I have to do is snow the other half the next time.”

Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. David Conn and Detective Les Zoeller also searched for other tapes and letters showing Shelton’s relationship with Lyle Menendez, according to the affidavit.

Shelton said they did leave with three tapes--but not the one they wanted. Conn and Zoeller declined to comment.

Shelton said Thursday that the Jan. 28 conversation did take place, that it is on tape and that she has a number of other taped conversations.

Asked where those tapes are, she replied, “I’ll tell you this much. They’re in the state of Virginia.”