Autopsy: Binion may have had fatal cocktail

Friday, July 16, 1999 | 11:09 a.m.

An autopsy report on Ted Binion's body suggests his killers may have forced him to drink a fatal cocktail of heroin and Xanax.

At the time of his Sept. 17 death, Binion's stomach contained "40 milliliters of gray-brown fluid" later identified as a mixture of heroin and Xanax, a copy of the autopsy report obtained by the Sun shows.

The Sept. 18 report, written by Clark County Chief Medical Examiner Lary Simms after he had performed the autopsy, said there was nothing, including food, in Binion's stomach but that fluid.

Less than three weeks after Binion's death, toxicology tests found lethal levels of heroin and Xanax, a prescription sedative, in his body, primarily his stomach. Binion was a heroin user, but he was known to smoke the street drug, not ingest it.

No heroin was found in the 55-year-old Binion's lungs, and his esophagus appeared normal, Simms wrote.

There also were no chunks of heroin or undigested tablets of Xanax in his stomach, the report said. The former casino executive had obtained a prescription for 120 tablets of Xanax the day before his death. The empty bottle was found near his body.

Following months of investigation by police, Clark County Coroner Ron Flud officially declared Binion's death a homicide on March 15. Simms then listed homicide on his autopsy report as the manner in which Binion had died.

Simms said the autopsy revealed that Binion had "multiple skin and soft tissue injuries" on his body -- conclusions that led homicide detectives to theorize the death scene was staged and that his body was moved after he died.

Attached to the autopsy report was a synopsis of what Simms saw at Binion's 6,000-square-foot home at 2408 Palomino Lane home during an Oct. 15 visit.

Simms said that while walking from the marbled-floor dining room to the death scene in the den, he noticed "a number of dried drops in the carpeting of apparent gastric contents-like fluid. The drops were arranged in a line stopping in the area where the body was found."

Homicide detectives believe Binion, in all likelihood, had vomited before his death, but Simms found no evidence of that on his body or the bedding where his body was discovered. The area around his mouth and nose, however, was discolored, Simms said.

Ellen Clark, a Reno pathologist asked to review the autopsy results said in a five-page report to Flud that the purple-red discoloring was evidence that Binion's body had been cleaned after his death.

"Abrasions and excoriations on the decedent's face are consistent with the face having been vigorously rubbed or cleaned prior to initial viewing of the body by death investigation personnel," Clark wrote in a copy of the report obtained by the Sun.

"The absence of vomitus or purge in the decedent also strongly suggests that cleaning of the body occurred."

Clark said she found it odd that Binion's stomach was nearly empty despite inferences that he had "ingested large quantities of pills within a short time preceding his death."

Pressure patterns on Binion's face, she said, indicated his body was moved from a face-down to face-up position.

Simms concluded Binion, who had a 20-40 percent narrowing of the arteries leading to his heart, died within 1-2 hours after ingesting the fatal dozes of heroin and Xanax. He said settling of the blood in the body showed that the body was lying on its right side for about four hours.

Fresh bruises on Binion's right side and back, as well as injuries to his wrists and left knee and chest also suggested his body was moved after his death, Simms and Clark said in their reports.

Detectives called to the scene of Binion's death at the sprawling $900,000 home found his body lying on its back.

In a 109-page affidavit filed last month, Homicide Detective James Buczek said the bruises on Binion's side and back could have been the result of "recent blunt force trauma."

The affidavit was made public after detectives arrested Binion's girlfriend, Sandy Murphy, and her reported lover, Montana contractor Rick Tabish, on charges of murdering Binion.

Tabish remains in jail without bond, and Murphy, who had reported Binion's death to police, was released Thursday under house arrest on $300,000 bail.

In her report, Clark left little doubt that she sided with the conclusions of Simms.

"Based upon observations that the body and death scene were tampered with, that the drugs, which killed Mr. Binion, were ingested in an atypical fashion ... it is my opinion that another person or persons were involved in the death of ... Binion. The manner of death is therefore determined to be homicide," she said.