Murphy killed for money, prosecutors say

Angie Wagner

Wednesday, Sept. 1, 1999 | 10:22 a.m.

The girlfriend of Ted Binion killed him because she wanted to end the relationship but still wanted the gambling figure's money, prosecutors argued Wednesday.

Binion's live-in girlfriend, Sandra Murphy, knew she had been written out of his will and that their relationship was on the rocks, prosecutor David Roger said during closing arguments in the preliminary hearing for six people linked to the case.

Roger alleged Ms. Murphy's new lover, Missoula, Mont., contractor Rick Tabish, needed money to buy into a sand pit operation, so the two plotted to kill Binion and steal his fortune.

Roger said Ms. Murphy and Tabish planned to slowly overdose Binion on heroin and the prescription drug Xanax, but when they were interrupted, the two suffocated Binion.

"This wasn't an accidental overdose. This was murder," Roger argued.

Ms. Murphy, 27, and Tabish, 34, are charged with Binion's Sept. 17 murder.

Roger said the other four defendants got involved in the case because they were going to become wealthy very quickly.

Tabish, David Mattsen and Michael Milot were arrested two days after Binion's death trying to dig up his silver fortune in Pahrump, 60 miles west of Las Vegas.

Defense attorneys, who have sought to portray Binion as a sick drug addict who overdosed, attacked the credibility of some of the hearing's witnesses, including Leo Casey, a 64-year-old Jean sand pit operator.

Casey had testified that Tabish and co-defendant Steven Wadkins tortured him until he gave up his interests in the pit. Casey said the torture two months before Binion's murder was ordered by defendant John Joseph.

"He is making this up and there's no other way to put it," C. Stanley Hunterton, Joseph's attorney, said.

Justice of the Peace Jennifer Togliatti will announce Tuesday whether the case will go to trial.

Ms. Murphy, Tabish, Wadkins and Joseph are charged with kidnapping, assault and extortion in the kidnapping of Casey.

Tabish, Mattsen and Milot are charged, along with Ms. Murphy, with the attempted theft of about $7 million in silver.