SANDRA LORD cannot wait for the trial of Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay to begin on Monday morning, even though she is one of the few Houston residents who never worked for or invested in Enron, the bankrupt energy company formerly run by the pair who stand accused of multiple fraud counts.

Ms Lord is hoping to cash in on what has been billed as the trial of the century by offering guided tours of the city, taking in the homes and favourite haunts of Mr Lay, Mr Skilling and their various associates embroiled in a scandal that has become a symbol of corporate fraud.

“Enron is a piece of history,” Ms Lord said. “Enron is part of our language. It has become so ubiquitous I could do this tour ten years from now and still have a lot of interest I am sure.”

“Lifestyles of Houston’s Rich and Infamous — The Enron Tour” is the first visitor attraction to take advantage of the maelstrom of publicity surrounding the Enron trial, jury selection for which begins in a Houston court on Monday morning.

For $30 (£17), up to 50 people at a time are expected to board Ms Lord’s tour bus for a five-hour excursion around Houston that takes in the Enron HQ as well as luxury former residences of the Lays, the Skillings and Andrew Fastow, the former finance director who has pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud and is expected to be the star witness in the forthcoming trial of his former chairman and chief executive.

“The mansion that Fastow was building when he was caught is a particularly spooky part,” Ms Lord said. “The poor man who bought it had some very bad luck — soon after the sale a crazy vagrant broke in and burned the thing down.”

It is four years since Enron collapsed. If the hype is to be believed Houston has been left a devastated city.

Almost 40,000 people used to work for Enron, a company that paid a vast amount of the city’s taxes and wages and even built its football field. But the many reports of Houston’s post-Enron plight do not reflect the truth, according to Ms Lord.

“Life has moved on. Nobody is sitting around in Houston wringing their hands about Enron today. They have bills to pay and mouths to feed. Enron is history.”

But the past will be dragged up in court during the trial of Mr Lay and Mr Skilling, which is expected to last about four months. Both men have pleaded not guilty.

A favourite stopping point in the tour is the small computer store on Houston’s east side that now houses Enron’s famous rotating “E” sign. The owner bought it at a bankruptcy auction for $44,000.

Ms Lord is something of an amateur detective as well as a tour guide. She has been following the Skillings and the Lays for weeks, putting international journalists to shame by snapping candid pictures and gleaning gossipy tit-bits she hopes to include in a book on the trial. The tour concludes where the Enron story will continue next week — on the steps of the federal courthouse.

“I don’t know if they are guilty or innocent, that’s for the jury to decide,” Ms Lord said. “What I do know is I wouldn’t want either one of them running my little tour company. That’s for sure.”

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