Town’s biggest murder trial didn’t start out as foul play

Angie Wagner

Friday, May 19, 2000 | 8:31 a.m.

When a member of one of its most prominent casino families was found dead, most in this gambling town figured Ted Binion had succumbed to his heroin habit. But something about his live-in girlfriend and her new lover didn't sit well with Binion's sister.

Becky Behnen knew it was a homicide, even if the county coroner initially wasn't sure. The Sept. 17, 1998, death was ruled an overdose of heroin and the prescription drug Xanax, but the manner of death was undetermined.

"Would he have taken the fatal dose? Absolutely not," Behnen said before the trial that would confirm her suspicions. "He was the eternal optimist."

Behnen, who owns the family's downtown casino - Binion's Horseshoe Club, and Binion's $55 million estate hired a private investigator. Tom Dillard's work eventually influenced police to investigate the case as a homicide. The coroner then ruled the death a homicide.

In June 1999, Binion's girlfriend, Sandra Murphy, and her new lover, Rick Tabish, were arrested and charged with killing Binion, then stealing his valuables. After a six-week trial and eight days of deliberations, a jury found Murphy, 28, and Tabish, 35, guilty Friday of Binion's death and theft of his property.

Prosecutors said Murphy and Tabish forced Binion, 55, to ingest heroin and Xanax, then suffocated him. They say the couple plotted to steal from Binion because Murphy was going to be cut from Binion's will and Tabish was having money problems. Just two days after Binion's death, Tabish was arrested while trying to dig up the gambling figure's buried silver fortune.

The trial was billed as the biggest ever in Las Vegas. Tales of lust, greed and buried treasure brought spectators - Las Vegans and tourists - to the courthouse in droves.

On Friday, some 80 people filled an overflow room after they were turned away from the packed courtroom.

As soon as the first verdict was read against Tabish, the room erupted in cheers.

"It took us away from the casinos," said Miami resident Leonard Aronoff, who came to watch the verdict with his wife and son. The family is a veteran of media circuses; they camped out at the home of Elian Gonzalez when the boy was living with his Miami relatives.

Karen Cucurullo brought a video camera to the courthouse. She videotaped the proceedings off a television screen while the verdicts were being read and got footage of a news conference afterward.

"I live here and this is exciting. Justice has been served," she said.

Barbara Lacoursiere, who brought her 14-year-old granddaughter to hear the verdicts, disagreed.

"That's the worst miscarriage of justice. I think it's another instance of a powerful family with money," she said.

That's the defense's view, too. Defense attorneys said the "Binion money machine" was driving the case, not any real evidence.

Prosecutors said that statement was ironic, since Murphy and Tabish wanted more than anything to be a part of the money machine - so much that they would kill for it.