Computer disk adds to Binion murder mystery

Thursday, Oct. 21, 1999 | 11:15 a.m.

It's one of the many mysteries surrounding the investigation into Ted Binion's murder.

Homicide detectives still don't know what's on a computer disk and two micro-cassette tapes seized from Sandy Murphy's Henderson apartment last February.

The items, which were sealed immediately after they were confiscated, now are in the possession of District Judge Joseph Bonaventure, who is presiding over the murder trial of Murphy and her reported lover, Rick Tabish, a 34-year-old Montana contractor.

Murphy's lawyers contend the disk and the cassettes contain attorney-client information and should not be turned over to authorities.

Prosecutors have charged Murphy and Tabish with pumping Binion with drugs, suffocating him and stealing his valuables. They expect to ask Bonaventure prior to the March 13 murder trial for permission to view the disk and listen to the tapes.

In April Murphy's friend, Linda Carroll, gave prosecutors an inkling of what may be on the disk, when she testified before a county grand jury probing Binion's Sept. 17, 1998, death.

Carroll, a 42-year-old Huntington Beach Calif., woman who appeared reluctantly before the panel, said the tape contained information on Murphy's "life story."

Though she has since denied it, Carroll reportedly told Binion lawyer, Richard Wright, after the gambling figure's death that Murphy was planning to sell the literary rights to her story.

The 27-year-old Murphy, a transplanted Southern Californian, moved in with Binion a month after she had met him at Cheetah's adult nightclub in March 1995. She lived with the wealthy former casino man until his well-publicized death.

At the grand jury, Carroll testified that she had a conversation with Murphy about the disk last October.

"She had said she had made a disk from birth to present about her life or something," Carroll said in a transcript obtained by the Sun.

Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger pressed Carroll for more details, but she couldn't provide any.

One thing prosecutors know for sure about the disk is that Murphy didn't want homicide detectives to take it during the Feb. 19 raid at her Henderson apartment.

According to a previously secret report filed by homicide detective James Buczek, police found the disk in a nightstand on the left side of Murphy's bed.

While conducting the search, police set the disk on the floor of the bedroom along with other items they later planned to confiscate, Buczek said. When they went to impound the items, they noticed the disk was missing.

"I confronted Murphy, and she said that she had the disk in her pocket, that she was going to give it to her attorney, Oscar Goodman," Buczek said. "Murphy then handed the disk to me."

Goodman, who later was elected mayor of Las Vegas, no longer represents Murphy.

In a 109-page affidavit signed by Buczek in June, the detective said police also found a map of Binion's 125-acre Pahrump ranch in Tabish's briefcase at the apartment.

"Affiant found this map to be significant in light of Sandy Murphy's claim she knew where Ted Binion hid assets on the Pahrump ranch," Buczek wrote.

Buczek said the discovery of the map also gave credence to information provided by Harry Ford, a Binion neighbor who told investigators he saw a man and woman dressed in Army fatigues digging with a backhoe on the ranch after Binion's death.

Buczek said the couple "may well have been Rick Tabish and Sandy Murphy."

Prior to the August preliminary hearing in the murder case, intruders believed to be looking for buried treasure slipped onto the ranch and dug two holes near an orchard in front of Binion's house. The area is near the site where Murphy once suggested valuables had been buried. Nye County sheriff's deputies are investigating the unauthorized digging.

In his two-page report on the Henderson raid, Buczek described how detectives found Murphy and Tabish together at the two-bedroom luxury apartment when they knocked on the door at 7:05 a.m.

The couple has denied being romantically involved, despite a wealth of evidence suggesting otherwise that prosecutors have presented in court.

"I rang the door bell and waited for approximately one minute," Buczek wrote. "I rang the door bell a second time and approximately 30 seconds later I heard a female voice ask, 'Who is it?'

"I responded 'Metro Police. We have a search warrant authorizing us to search your apartment.'

"The female then said, 'First I'm going to call my attorney.' I said, 'No. First you are going to open the door or I am going to kick it in, and I don't want to damage it.' "

Buczek added: "The front door opened, and there was Sandra Murphy wearing black and white pajamas, squinting and disheveled."

He said it was apparent that she had been awakened.

Tabish was observed on the couch in the living room in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, Buczek said.

"Sandy and Rick both said that they knew we were coming," Buczek reported. "Sandy said that she woke up at 4 in the morning after dreaming that we were in the apartment."

Detectives saw Tabish's black four-door Mercedes in a garage attached to the apartment, Buczek said.

During the search of the apartment, he added, they also found cuff links and a money clip with "engravings that suggested that they once belonged to Ted Binion."