Passion Returns, Crowd Doesn’t in Menendez Retrial : Audience: The case was a hot ticket two years ago, but in the fallout of the O.J. Simpson trial spectators are relatively few. Almost all ardent fans are seated.

Maybe people don’t like reruns. Maybe they’re simply O.J.ed out when it comes to courtroom drama.

Whatever the reason, there was hardly a rush for seats at the Van Nuys courthouse as Lyle and Erik Menendez went back on trial Wednesday in the murders of their parents.

Two years ago the brothers’ first trial was the hottest ticket in town. Three dozen people often lined up in the morning for the handful of seats reserved for the public. Some camped out overnight to guarantee themselves admission. Reporters jostled one another for space in a nearby press room.

But even some of the hard-core Menendez groupies--those mostly female court watchers who lined up day after day in hopes of getting into the courtroom--were missing this time.

Only four people were left standing in the hallway after the tiny courtroom was filled Wednesday. And all of them seemed confident they will get in today.

“It seems like none of the old people are here,” said trial regular Richie Berlin, who was seated with no problem. “The boys had a big fan club last year.”

Berlin, of Beverly Hills, said she spends $135 a day for a chauffeur to take her to court because she doesn’t drive.

“I love the boys--I think they generate a lot of excitement. I was in the courtroom 92 times last year and I couldn’t get in 17 times. I wish this one was going to be on TV.”

She’s not the only one.

Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg ruled that there will be no TV coverage of this trial. That meant that news reporters had to show up in person if they wanted to hear opening arguments.

Mary Jane Stevenson of Court TV showed up before the courthouse opened to make sure she at least got inside. When KTLA-TV’s Warren Wilson arrived, he discovered he couldn’t even put his TV camera outside the courthouse’s front door; it ended up down the street next to a hot dog cart.

“It makes it difficult when you don’t have pictures or sound,” said Gay Yee of KCAL-TV. “We do have an artist, but I was told he might not get in.”

She was right. Before sketch artists Bill Robles and Mona Edwards could draw their first views of prosecutor David Conn or defense lawyer Leslie Abramson, both were ejected from the courtroom for reasons that were unclear.

“Maybe her markers are too squeaky . . . or her colors too loud,” Robles joked of Edwards.

Only 20 reporters showed up for the start of the retrial. The small turnout was a surprise to some of them.

“I’ve worked in Los Angeles since August of ‘94, mostly covering the Simpson case,” said court reporter Matt Krasnowski of Copley News Service. “You get to thinking that maybe every trial in Los Angeles is that way.”

Martin Berg, a reporter for the Daily Journal legal newspaper, said the first Menendez trial was a major event--until the O.J. Simpson trial came along, that is.

“This trial is supposed to last until maybe March,” he said. “But without TV coverage it will probably only last two weeks.”

Menendez trial regulars agreed that the lack of television makes things different this time.

“TV brings the looky-loos out of the woodwork,” said Judith Spreckels, a daily spectator who became the unofficial historian of the first trial. Spreckels, of North Hills, made photocopies of every news article written about the case, assembled them in books and sold them for $85 each to other trial junkies.

She isn’t sure she’ll prepare the books this go-round, Spreckels said, “although my New York subscriber still wants me to.”

Other book writers--real ones like author Dominick Dunne who attended the first trial faithfully--have apparently written off the retrial.

The only author on hand Wednesday was Robert Rand. His partially completed manuscript--titled “Strange Sins”--has even become part of the trial itself.

When Rand, of Hollywood, shopped his 1,200-page manuscript to several publishers during the first trial, a copy was leaked to the prosecution. Then the defense got a copy and Rand found himself on the witness stand, testifying out of the presence of the jury about what he had learned in interviews for the book. “It’s a great story, much more interesting than the Simpson case,” Rand said of the Menendez murder trial.

Ruth Davidson of North Hollywood, Bill DeHaven of North Hills, Marybeth Breen of Valencia and Gena Uphoff of Littleton, Colo., agreed as they waited in the hall.

“It’s not because Lyle and Erik are young and good looking,” said Uphoff, formerly of Van Nuys. “They’re not that good looking anyway, they just think they are. It’s just why would two people kill their parents. That’s what makes this whole thing interesting.”