Binion family against push to exhume

Monday, Dec. 20, 1999 | 11:19 a.m.

Those close to slain gambling figure Ted Binion oppose efforts by defense attorneys to exhume his body.

"If I had that decision to make, I would oppose it," Binion's sister, Horseshoe Club owner Becky Behnen told the Sun today. "He's been gone a year. I believe in letting him rest in peace."

Behnen added that she found it "disturbing" that lawyers for one of her brother's accused killers, Rick Tabish, now want his body re-examined before the March 13 murder trial.

"I don't know what purpose would be served by doing that," she said.

Tabish, 34, and Binion's 27-year-old girlfriend, Sandy Murphy, have been charged in his Sept. 17, 1998, slaying.

Attorney James J. Brown, who is overseeing Binion's $50 million estate, also voiced opposition to the exhumation.

"I'll let the state know I'm opposed to it," said Brown, a longtime lawyer and friend of the 55-year-old Binion. "I'd like to see him stay at rest. This just has to make anybody who cares for him uncomfortable."

Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger, the lead prosecutor in the well-publicized case, said today he couldn't recall such a motion in his 13 years here as a crime-fighter.

"It's an unusual motion for an unusual case," he said.

Roger said he planned to respond to the defense by the end of the week.

Harry Claiborne, who represents Bonnie Binion, the late Horseshoe Club executive's 19-year-old daughter and chief heir, joined Brown and Behnen in expressing concerns about the defense requests to conduct new tests.

"It's rather unprecedented," he said. "To disturb the dead, that bothers me."

Claiborne, who has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Tabish and Murphy stemming from Binion's slaying, said he planned to poll family members today for their thoughts on the latest sensational development in the case.

Late Friday Tabish attorneys Louis Palazzo and Robert Murdock filed a motion asking District Judge Joseph Bonaventure to order the exhumation.

Palazzo and Murdock said in their motion that it is "imperative to the administration of justice" to re-examine the body, which is entombed at a Las Vegas mausoleum.

The new tests, they added, are needed to help the defense fight the prosecution's theory that Binion was suffocated. A tentative hearing has been set for 9:30 a.m. on Dec. 28.

At a preliminary hearing for Tabish and Murphy in August, Dr. Michael Baden, a well-known New York pathologist, testified for the prosecution that his review of tissue slides and autopsy photos found evidence that Binion had been suffocated.

Baden, who has worked on many high-profile cases, including the O.J. Simpson trial, said blood vessels under Binion's eyelids appeared ruptured, and abrasions around his mouth may have been the result of pressure being exerted by someone using a pillow.

His testimony contradicted Dr. Lary Simms, Clark County's chief medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Binion's body. Simms testified that he believed Binion had died of lethal doses of heroin and the prescription sedative Xanax.

Baden said that had he performed the autopsy, he would have looked for pillow or cloth fibers in Binion's nose and mouth. Simms did not do that.

In their motion, Palazzo and Murdock said it was necessary to examine Binion's nose and mouth to determine whether Baden's suffocation theory is valid.

If no fibers are detected, they said, such evidence would "obviously be exculpatory and invaluable" to the defense.

Lawyers for both Tabish and Murphy previously have suggested that Binion, a known heroin user, killed himself, either by accident or suicide.

Following Baden's testimony in August, Roger amended in open court the murder charges against Tabish and Murphy to include suffocation as a cause of death.

Though they disagreed on how Binion died, both Baden and Simms said they believed Binion was the victim of a homicide.

A third pathologist, Dr. Ellen Clark of Reno, also has concluded that Binion's death was the result of foul play.