Prints sought to link new suspects to Binion death scene

Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2000 | 11:10 a.m.

A prosecutor filed court papers today seeking to determine whether two men charged with stealing Ted Binion's silver fortune were at his home the day of his September 1998 slaying.

Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger, the lead prosecutor in the Binion murder case, asked District Judge Joseph Bonaventure to force David Lee Mattsen and Michael David Milot to provide finger and palm print samples.

Roger also is seeking to compel similar prints from Binion's girlfriend, Sandy Murphy, who is charged with her reported lover, Montana contractor Rick Tabish, with killing Binion.

A Jan. 14 hearing has been set.

"This motion is being made so that a comparison can be made between samples obtained and the evidence recovered by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department ..." Roger wrote.

Metro Police fingerprint expert Edward Guenther wants to compare the prints of all three to unidentified prints found on the floor of the bathroom next to the den where Binion's body was discovered at his 2408 Palomino Lane home.

"Latent prints from the floor of the southeast bathroom were not identified with the palm prints of Tabish, Murphy or Binion," Guenther wrote in a Sept. 15 report. "No known palm prints of Milot or Mattsen are on file for comparison purposes."

Guenther said he needed prints of all five people to make "conclusive comparisons" with the prints found in the bathroom.

He said he also wants to compare the fingerprints of Milot and Mattsen to one unidentified print found on evidence seized by police from Binion's home.

Mattsen and Milot are charged with Murphy and Tabish with stealing $4 million to $5 million in silver Binion had buried in an underground vault in Pahrump. The theft occurred less than 36 hours after Binion's Sept. 17, 1998, death in Las Vegas.

Though Mattsen, a former Binion ranch manager, and Milot, a Tabish employee, are not charged in Binion's slaying, Roger's motion suggests investigators have not ruled them out as possible suspects.

The Sun reported in July that police first tried to place Mattsen and Milot at Binion's home as early as February. Homicide detectives made requests in February to match fingerprints found on evidence impounded from the Palomino Lane house. The requests, copies of which were obtained by the Sun, were sent to the Metro Police crime lab.

Fingerprints of Murphy, who lived with Binion, were identified on some items. But records show prints of Tabish, Mattsen and Milot were not found.

More tests, however, are being conducted.

On March 28 Guenther wrote a memo to homicide detectives saying he needed more comprehensive fingerprint samples of all three men before making a final determination.

"Additional inked standards of Milot, Tabish and Mattsen are needed for conclusive comparisons with all the remaining latent prints," Guenther wrote.

In an 109-page affidavit made public in June, homicide detective James Buczek said cellular phone records revealed numerous calls between Mattsen, Milot, Tabish and Murphy in the hours before and after Binion's murder.

Most of the evidence that detectives removed from Binion's home after his death was tested for the fingerprints of the four suspects, records show.

That includes the empty bottle of the prescription sedative, Xanax, disposable lighters and a pack of Vantage cigarettes found near Binion's body the day of his slaying.

Evidence seized in a Jan. 14 sweep of Binion's home also was tested, records show. Those items included an empty bottle of red wine, several wine glasses, an empty bottle of imported beer, a San Francisco 49ers plastic cup and other "drinking tumblers."

On Oct. 7 detectives hauled away numerous items, including drug paraphernalia, several disposal cameras, several dead insects found underneath a sink in a bathroom, an address book and a hand-written note on an index card with the name of Nye County Sheriff Wade Lieseke.