Murphy, Tabish found guilty of murder

Friday, May 19, 2000 | 6:09 a.m.

A jury Friday convicted Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish of killing wealthy gambling figure Ted Binion on Sept. 17, 1998.

The 12 jurors, nine women and three men, also found Murphy and Tabish guilty of stealing Binion's valuables after his death, including his $6 million silver fortune in Pahrump.

Tabish also was convicted in the July 28, 1998, torture scheme against Las Vegas businessman Leo Casey two months before Binion's death.

Tabish was found guilty of 11 felony counts and Murphy six counts. Both defendants face a penalty as harsh as life in prison without the possibility of parole. First-degree murder carries a minimum sentence of 20 years.

District Judge Joseph Bonaventure set a 9:30 a.m. Tuesday penalty hearing for both defendants. The jury will hear evidence and then make a recommendation on a penalty to Bonaventure.

Tabish hung his head when the jury foreman, a retired aerospace engineer, read the guilty verdict involving one of the murder charges.

Tabish's parents were sitting in the audience. His father, Frank Tabish, shook his head as the verdicts were read. His mother, Lanni Tabish, broke into tears.

There were tears throughout the courtroom, including from one of the jurors.

Four of the jurors walked into court wearing sunglasses, an indication they did not want the defendants to see their eyes. The tears and sunglasses did not escape the notice of defense attorneys Louis Palazzo and John Momot.

"In 25 years (of practicing law), I've never seen a juror wear sunglasses," Momot said during a press conference after the verdict.

"I feel there is a problem here. I've never seen a jury crying. We're going to look into it."

Murphy showed no emotion as the verdicts were read. Prior to the jury entering the courtroom, she smiled and talked to her attorney, Momot.

"She expected an acquittal on all counts. She's in shock. She's very disappointed," Momot said.

"There's no homicide here."

Tabish's attorney Palazzo too wasn't expecting the verdict.

"I'm just shocked that we had this verdict rendered. I've never seen this kind of verdict on this kind of case.

"My knees kind of buckled when I heard the verdicts," Palazzo said.

After the penalty phase of the trial, sentencing will follow in about 45 days. Both defense attorneys said they were considering appeals and would be meeting with the defendants over the weekend.

Momot said a decision on whether Murphy would testify during the penalty phase too would be made over the weekend.

In closing arguments, prosecutors told the 12 jurors that Murphy and Tabish forced Binion to drink a lethal cocktail of Xanax on the morning of Sept. 17, 1998, and then suffocated him to speed up his death after his gardener showed up to mow his lawn.

Then, prosecutors charged, the two lovers looted his Las Vegas home and its safe of all of its valuables, including his $300,000 collection of antique coins and currency, and conspired to steal his $6 million silver fortune that was buried in an underground vault in Pahrump.

Chief Deputy District Attorneys David Roger and David Wall told the jurors that Binion was the victim of a "classic murder" plot. Murphy and Tabish, they said, killed the wealthy gambling figure because of their "lust" for each other and their "greed" over his millions.

Roger and Wall said the killers also arrogantly left their signature in their crimes, a lone silver dollar on the floor of the Pahrump vault and a single dime in the middle of the safe at Binion's 2408 Palomino Lane home. A Halloween decoration with the letters "R.I.P." also was left above the front entrance to the home. Halloween was six weeks away at the time.

While plotting Binion's demise, the defendants weaved a tale of deception that prosecutors said continued during nine-month homicide investigation with manipulation of witnesses. During the seven-week trial, prosecutors said, Murphy and Tabish tried to blame Binion's death on everyone but themselves.

The case pitted the politically connected family of the eccentric, drug-addicted casino man against two little-known Las Vegas outsiders.

There was Murphy, a 28-year-old transplanted Southern Californian with a reputation for being a gold digger who met Binion while dancing topless at a local adult nightclub. And there was Tabish, a 35-year-old married contractor and convicted felon who came from a prominent family in Missoula, Mont.

Prosecutors said the greed of both defendants fed off of each other and resulted in the plot to kill Binion, who had returned to using drugs after Nevada gaming regulators in March 1998 revoked his license and forced him to sell his 20 percent interest in his family-owned Horseshoe Club, a popular downtown gambling joint founded by his late legendary father, Benny Binion.

Binion's body, Roger and Wall charged, was laid out in a "mortuary pose" on the floor of his den surrounded by an empty bottle of Xanax with no fingerprints on it and other personal items to make it look as though he had committed suicide.

At first police thought Binion had indeed died of an overdose because of his known drug use and the lack of signs of foul play at the death scene.

But in a Sun story the next day, Binion's sister, Horseshoe Club President Becky Behnen, urged police to investigate her brother's death. Other friends and employees also raised suspicions about Binion's death in interviews with the Sun. And on Sept. 19, 1998, Nye County sheriff's deputies arrested Tabish and two other men after they had dug up Binion's silver fortune in Pahrump.

Two days later Binion estate lawyers Richard Wright and Jim Brown asked Metro homicide detectives to probe Binion's death. But detectives informed the lawyers that they wanted to wait for the results of drug tests on his body before entering the case. At that meeting, Brown related a conversation he had with Binion the day before his death in which he was instructed to take Murphy out of the former casino executive's will. Brown said Binion predicted Murphy might try to kill him.

Shortly after that meeting, Wright and Brown hired private detective Tom Dillard to investigate Binion's death on behalf of the $55 million estate. Homicide detectives later entered the case after drug tests found lethal levels of heroin and Xanax in Binion's system.

But it wasn't until March 15, 1999, when Clark County Coroner Ron Flud changed the manner in which Binion died from undetermined to homicide. Three months later on June 25, 1999, Murphy and Tabish were arrested and charged with killing Binion.

Throughout the investigation, Murphy and Tabish continued to insist that Binion had committed suicide.

And suicide was their defense during the trial even in the face of testimony from renowned New York pathologist Michael Baden, who insisted Binion was the victim of the 19th Century suffocation method known as "burking," in which pressure is exerted on the victim's chest and his mouth and nose are covered, leaving few marks.

Defense attorneys paraded a string of medical experts during their case hoping to discredit Baden, including his good friend Cyril Wecht of Pittsburgh, who enjoys a similar celebrity status in the world of forensic pathology. Wecht testified that he saw no signs of suffocation and that Binion had died of a self-induced overdose of heroin and Xanax.

But under cross-examination, Wecht was forced to acknowledge that defense lawyers never gave him access to statements from the dozens of prosecution witnesses who had detailed the murder conspiracy. Wecht essentially came to his conclusions in a defense-created vacuum.

Complicating matters for prosecutors, however, was the testimony of Clark County Chief Medical Examiner Lary Simms, who performed the autopsy on Binion's body. Simms testified that he also did not see signs of suffocation. But Simms agreed with Baden that Binion was the victim of a homicide. He said he died of a forced overdose of heroin and Xanax.

Prosecutors called about 90 witnesses to the stand in a streamlined case that took five weeks to present. They originally had listed 276 witnesses, but decided at the last moment to go with a leaner case to avoid confusing the jury.

The trial was sped along by Bonaventure, a "no-nonsense" jurist with more than 21 years of experience on the bench. Bonaventure ruled the trial with an iron hand but a touch of humor that often put the jury at ease under the watchful eye of the media.

Following the verdict, Momot complimented Bonaventure of the way he handled the case, noting that the judge had complete control of the trial.

Much of the trial was aired live on Las Vegas 1, a local cable news channel, and Court TV, a national legal network. The trial attracted interest from such network magazine shows as "20/20" and "Dateline," as well as the tabloids, "Inside Edition" and "Hard Copy." Reporters from as far away as London and Dublin also took an interest in the proceedings.

The prosecution's case was made easier when defense attorneys John Momot and Louis Palazzo acknowledged in opening arguments that Murphy and Tabish were romantically involved at the time of Binion's death.

The admission came as prosecutors were prepared to present numerous witnesses confirming the relationship. Prosecutors traced hundreds of cellular phone calls between Murphy and Tabish in the weeks before Binion's death and uncovered records of secret trysts between the two at posh Beverly Hills hotels, including one the weekend before Binion died.

Among the key witnesses who testified for the prosecution were three Montana men close to Tabish, all of whom were given immunity.

Steven Kurt Gratzer, a former Army Ranger and childhood Tabish friend, testified that Tabish asked him to think of ways to kill Binion. Gratzer stepped forward and struck a deal with prosecutors a year before the trial.

About six weeks prior to the trial, Jason Frazer, a 29-year-old Tabish friend who once ran his trucking businesses, agreed to testify that Tabish had sought his help in a scheme to pay off alibi witnesses.

And just days before the trial got underway, Tabish's brother-in-law, Dennis Rehbein turned in 100 pounds of silver Tabish had given him as collateral for a $25,000 loan. Prosecutors alleged the silver was stolen from Binion's safe by Murphy and Tabish after his death.

Last July, Tanya Cropp, a close Murphy friend, agreed to cooperate with investigators. She testified at the trial that she was told to fax a seven-page list of coins believed to have been stolen from Binion to Tabish in Montana. The list was written by Murphy.

Cropp also testified that Murphy and Tabish persuaded her to lie to investigators probing Binion's death.

Defense lawyers brought in experts to attack the crime scene they alleged was contaminated by the Binion estate, which took control of the home the day after Binion's death.

They accused the "Binion Money Machine" of railroading their clients.

But when it came time to present their defense, the attorneys never called any witnesses, such as Behnen and Dillard, to the witness stand to substantiate that claim.

And Wall in his closing argument said a desire for Binion's money is what drove Murphy and Tabish to kill Binion.

Attorneys for Murphy also tried to portray her as a victim of Binion's drug-addicted world. They called Murphy's parents, Sandra and Kenneth Murphy, to the witness stand to bolster that claim.

And they passed blame on his death to his "Dr. Feelgood" neighbor, Enrique Lacayo, who gave him a prescription for Xanax the day before he died, and his heroin supplier, Peter Sheridan, who brought him 12 balloons of tar heroin that evening.

There were moments of high drama during the trial.

After presenting witnesses who testified Murphy's hysteria the day of Binion's death appeared "theatrical," prosecutors played a 20-minute videotape of Murphy giving a tour of Binion's home the day after his death.

The tape showed a dramatic change in Murphy's demeanor. In less than 24 hours, Murphy went from being the grieving girlfriend to the foul-mouthed greedy heir. She was observed using profanities and pointing to items she said were hers at the home.

But most importantly for prosecutors, Murphy appeared to be take a wine glass from a kitchen counter-top and slip it in her purse with her back to the camera. Defense lawyers suggested Murphy had been drinking wine out of the glass that day, but prosecutors alleged the glass was used to mix the deadly Xanax cocktail that Murphy and Tabish had forced Binion to drink. Murphy laid her head on the defense table while the videotape was played.

Toward the end of the trial, the defense played the 911 audio tape on the day of Binion's death in which Murphy reported to police that "her husband stopped breathing."

Tears began to swell up in Murphy's eyes as the tape was played. And then when defense lawyers played a garbled 13-minute tape of a police detective trying to interview Murphy at the hospital the evening of Sept, 17, 1998, Murphy openly sobbed.

Roger later accused her of acting for the benefit of the jurors. Her suggested she laid her head down on the table and poked herself in the eyes to create tears.

Murphy was observed crying several other times during the trial, especially when photos of Binion's autopsy were shown in court. Most of the time Murphy played an active role in her defense in court, often whispering in Momot's ear and passing him notes. Tabish, on the other hand, was much less demonstrative and rarely showed emotion. His father, Frank Tabish, a wealthy oil distributor from Missoula, Mont., was in court for every day of the trial.

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Jeff German is the Sun's senior investigative reporter. He can be reached at (702) 259-4067 or by e-mail at german@lasvegassun.com.

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