Childhood friend: Tabish wanted him to kill Binion

Friday, June 25, 1999 | 11:07 a.m.

A childhood friend and employee of Rick Tabish has told Las Vegas authorities that the Montana contractor wanted to pay him to murder Ted Binion before his Sept. 17 death.

Kurt Gratzer, an Army veteran who lives in Missoula, Mont., surfaced in Las Vegas on March 17, just two days after Clark County Coroner Ron Flud had ruled Binion's death a homicide.

In a sworn police affidavit obtained by the Sun, Homicide Detective James Buczek said Gratzer told detectives on March 19, after receiving a grant of immunity from prosecution, that the plot was hatched by Tabish in late August or early September.

Tabish told Gratzer that he was mad at Binion, whom he described as "arrogant," because he was refusing to pay Tabish $13,000 for building an underground vault in Pahrump to store the former gaming executive's silver fortune.

"As a result, Tabish solicited Gratzer to murder Ted Binion," Buczek wrote.

But Binion ultimately was killed without Gratzer's help.

Tabish, nevertheless, had promised Gratzer proceeds from a $900,000 life insurance policy he thought was made out to Binion's girlfriend, Sandy Murphy, and a 1999 Pontiac Trans Am to participate in the plot, Buczek said.

Tabish, who police alleged was having an affair with Murphy at the time, told Gratzer she was in "his back pocket" and would do whatever he wants her to do.

Gratzer said Tabish told him he also planned to profit from Binion's death.

The Montana contractor, who had befriended Binion earlier in the year, indicated he would take "all of the money, silver and valuables that Ted stored in his Las Vegas home," Buczek said.

Tabish also told Gratzer he planned to dig up the estimated $4 million in silver in Pahrump, and if caught would tell authorities he was merely securing, not stealing, the silver so that Binion's brother, Jack Binion, would not get the fortune.

Binion's valuables, including a $300,000 collection of rare coins and currency, were stolen from his home after his slaying.

And two days after his death, Tabish was arrested with two other men in Pahrump after they had dug up the silver bars and coins in the middle of the night.

Buczek said Tabish also bragged to Gratzer that he intended to get all of Murphy's assets, as well.

Gratzer and Tabish, according to the affidavit, discussed several ways to carry out Binion's murder.

One plan called for Gratzer to act as a sniper and shoot Binion through a window at Binion's Pahrump ranch. But that idea, Buczek said, was rejected by Gratzer, who was afraid he might miss his mark.

Tabish also suggested bringing Gratzer to Binion's home to see his gun collection, where Gratzer could grab a weapon and "shoot Ted in the head." Tabish reportedly said the two men could dispose of Binion's body by wrapping it in carpet and placing it in a rock crusher. But Gratzer rejected that idea, too.

Also talked about was the possibility of "staging a suicide by means of a drug overdose" because Tabish knew Binion to use both heroin and the prescription sedative, Xanax, Buczek said.

"Tabish," Buczek said, "pondered out loud in Gratzer's presence the idea of forcing Ted to take a lethal mixture of heroin and the anti-anxiety drug, Xanax."

Flud ruled early into the investigation that Binion had died of overdoses of heroin and Xanax.

At one point, Gratzer told detectives, Tabish asked him to find out what would constitute a lethal Xanax dose.

Tabish also suggested the drugs could be forced down Binion's throat with a tube, Buczek said.

Over the next several days, Buczek added, Tabish telephoned Gratzer repeatedly to discuss Binion's murder.

Several times in Gratzer's presence, Murphy reportedly called Tabish.

On one occasion, according to the affidavit, Murphy complained that Binion was smoking heroin.

"Tabish commented to Gratzer: 'The guy's a piece of s ...' and (he) 'didn't want the guy around anymore,' " Buczek said.

Prior to Binion's Sept. 17 murder, Buczek said, Gratzer told a friend in Missoula, Timothy Boileau, that Tabish had offered him $100,000 to kill a guy in Las Vegas. Gratzer and Boileau, a corrections officer at Missoula's jail, also discussed different ways to kill a person.

After the murder, the affidavit said, Tabish and Murphy told Gratzer in Missoula not to talk to anyone about his conversations with Tabish, and Tabish later gave Gratzer a $2,000 check.