Metro escalates Binion investigation

Tuesday, Oct. 6, 1998 | 4:02 a.m.

Metro homicide detectives today are pressing ahead with an investigation into the Sept. 17 death of Ted Binion.

Homicide Lt. Wayne Petersen said a team of two detectives and a sergeant have been assigned the case.

The investigation is moving forward, Petersen said, even though detectives have been unable to interview two of the people who may know the most about Binion's death, his girlfriend Sandy Murphy, and Rick Tabish, the man accused of trying to steal a fortune in silver from Binion in Pahrump.

"We're not stifled yet," Petersen said late Monday. "There are things we're working on."

Some of those things may include interviewing a slew of Binion friends and employees who have told the SUN about several unusual occurrences at the late gaming executive's home in the days leading to his death.

Detectives also are said to be working closely with private investigator Tom Dillard, who has been hired by Binion's multimillion-dollar estate to probe Binion's death.

Dillard, a retired homicide detective, already has questioned several people who believe foul play may have been involved in Binion's demise.

Binion's sister, Horseshoe Club hotel-casino operator Becky Behnen, said today homicide detectives asked to interview her a week after her brother's death, but they have not yet set up an appointment.

Behnen, the first to suspect foul play, said claims by Murphy that she may be the beneficiary of a $1 million life insurance policy aren't true.

Behnen said the only insurance policy she recalls her brother having is a a $700,000 policy he took out more than 20 years ago. The Horseshoe Club, not Murphy, is the beneficiary, she said.

"Ted was smart enough not to make out a $1 million insurance policy for Sandy Murphy," Behnen said.

Her brother, she said, had asked her about the policy a couple of weeks before his death, but the policy was never changed.

Murphy, who is said to have had a stormy relationship with Binion the past three years, reported his death to police Sept. 17. His body was found in his den next to an empty bottle of the prescription sedative, Xanax.

Police found no evidence of foul play at the scene, and an autopsy did not find signs of trauma on Binion's body.

But homicide detectives began viewing Binion's death with more suspicion last Wednesday after a toxicology report found lethal levels of both heroin and Xanax in his body.

Clark County Coroner Ron Flud has classified the manner in which Binion died as "undetermined."

Binion, who had a history of heroin use, occasionally used Xanax to get himself off of the addictive drug.

Friends believe it was unlikely that Binion would have taken both drugs at the same time.

Lawyers from Binion's estate found nothing of value in Binion's safe, after they obtained a court order to reclaim his home from Murphy the day after his death.

Among the items missing from the safe was his valuable rare coin and currency collection.

Murphy stands to inherit the home and $300,000 in cash, but most of the millions in Binion's estate will go to his daughter, Bonnie.

Nye County sheriff's deputies, meanwhile, continue to suspect Murphy may have been romantically linked to Tabish, who was charged with two other men in Pahrump last week with trying to steal as much as $4 million in buried silver from Binion less than 36 hours after his death.

Deputies found what they believe is documentation of a romantic relationship when they arrested Tabish Sept. 19.