The Fight Against Crime: Notes From the Front : Samuels Trial Not Menendez Extravaganza

For the past two months, a steamy little courtroom drama has been playing in Department Q of the Van Nuys Courthouse. Unlike other, similar trials, getting a seat here never has been a problem.

Salacious details of allegations involving erotic letters, child molestation, a dysfunctional family, insurance money, limousines, cocaine snorting, beer-guzzling hit men, a nose and boob job, male strippers, shopping sprees and a gigolo boyfriend have failed to draw in either spectators or speculators from the book- and movie-of-the-week world.

Tabloid TV film crews pop in from time to time. But on most days, Judge Michael Hoff’s courtroom has been nearly empty.

Mary Ellen Samuels, 45, is charged with soliciting a hit man to kill her estranged husband. Then she allegedly got two beer buddies to kill the first hit man so he wouldn’t give her up to the police. Between the deaths, she inherited and spent about half a million bucks.

Jurors start deliberating this week and, if they find Samuels guilty of first-degree murder, they must then decide whether she deserves the death penalty--a rarity for women in California. Right now, there are only five women on death row.

The trial has revealed plenty of allegations of money-grubbing and duplicity, usually sure-fire dramatic grabbers. But the bottom line is, People vs. Mary Ellen Samuels “ain’t no Menendez,” as defense attorney Phil Nameth has said, referring to the publicity circus surrounding the Beverly Hills brothers that packed a courtroom just three floors below for months.

Like the Menendez brothers, Mary Ellen Samuels and her look-alike daughter, Nicole, who prosecutor Jan Maurizi alleges is an unindicted co-conspirator in the two murders, have told uncorroborated tales of alcoholism and child abuse by the dead man.

The Menendez family preferred ferrets. Samuels had a foul-mouthed parrot. According to testimony, Samuels taught the bird to say nasty things about the investigating officer. On the stand, she denied teaching the bird anything, saying she grew frustrated when it wouldn’t say her name.

The entertainment industry provided another glittery common thread. But while Jose Menendez was a powerful executive, Robert Samuels was a lowly camera operator’s assistant.

Therein lies the key. Samuels is lowbrow stuff. When it comes to crowd-pleasing prurience, a restless housewife from the San Fernando Valley who sold beepers and ran a sandwich shop is no match for Beverly Hills’ tennis-playing scions and their pastel sweaters.

Compared to the Menendez boys, the Samuels women are trailer park-adjacent. If Joan Didion were writing this, she might call it “Slouching Toward Reseda.”

That did not keep away one faithful spectator, a very normal-looking woman with waist-length blonde hair: Susan Conroy, Robert Samuels’ younger sister. Although she lives more than two hours away, in Corona, she rarely misses a session.

She says she has never felt so alone in her life. “I do it for Bob, because I know he would have done it for me,” Conroy, 44, said during a lunch break last week. “It’s something I have to do, something I can’t explain except that I have to be here for Bob. He can’t be here for himself to say these (abuse) stories are lies. So I guess I’m here as his voice.”

Every day in court is emotionally exhausting, Conroy said. “I’d say I go home more frustrated and angry than anything else because I have to believe that the truth will come out. You have to sit there, showing no emotion. None of it! You can’t express yourself in a courtroom.”

She said the trial has only reinforced her animosity toward her former sister-in-law, who grew up a block away from her family. “He was such a fun-loving guy, but Bob didn’t have a chance,” Conroy said. “It’s the ultimate betrayal.”

Conroy is amazed to find herself in the middle of such a courtroom soap opera. “I’m such an ordinary person,” Conroy said. “Like everybody else out there, I never thought this was going to happen to my family, or even to people I know. But I guess it just goes to show you it can happen to anyone.”