Private detective shrugged off attacks by defense team

Monday, May 22, 2000 | 10:21 a.m.

Defense attorneys portrayed Tom Dillard as a villain in the Ted Binion murder case.

To them, he was the private investigator who manipulated witnesses for the wealthy Binion estate, contaminated the death scene and manufactured evidence against the two people charged with killing Binion: his live-in girlfriend, Sandy Murphy and her lover, Rick Tabish.

Though they hurled barb after barb at Dillard outside his presence in court, defense lawyers never bothered to call the 53-year-old ex-homicide cop to the witnesses stand for a direct assault.

The conviction of Murphy and Tabish gives Dillard an immense measure of satisfaction.

"I have a sense of gratification," Dillard told the Sun on Sunday. "I also have some empathy for the Tabish family. From all accounts, they're good, hard-working people.

"And I have some empathy for the Murphy family. But it doesn't change the fact that a murder was committed, and the evidence has resulted in a guilty verdict."

Much of that evidence was gathered by Dillard, who interviewed 107 witnesses during his 18 months of probing. Statements from all of those witnesses wound up in the hands of homicide detectives, who after a slow start conducted one of the most intense criminal investigations of all time here.

Dillard said he was hired by the $55 million estate on Sept. 24, 1998, one week after Binion was found dead at his 2408 Palomino Lane home.

His hiring occurred after estate lawyers Richard Wright and James J. Brown came away from a Sept. 21, 1998, meeting with Metro Police homicide supervisors, who were less than enthusiastic about launching a murder probe. At that meeting, Brown for the first time revealed that Binion, fearing Murphy might try to kill him, had given orders the day before his slaying to remove Murphy from his will.

Top homicide officials, aware of Binion's heroin habit and not being told of any immediate signs of foul play at the Palomino Lane home, thought it was more likely that he had died of an accidental drug overdose or had committed suicide.

Dillard, however, said he shared suspicions conveyed to him by Binion's attorneys.

At the time, Murphy -- a one-time topless dancer with a volatile personality and an eye for money -- and Tabish -- a Montana contractor arrested two days after Binion's death for trying to steal his $6 million silver fortune in Pahrump -- were the only suspects.

Dillard and police later would learn that Murphy and Tabish were romantically involved and that the death scene was staged to look like an overdose.

Wright, Dillard said, told him that Binion's 19-year-old daughter and chief heir, Bonnie Binion, wanted to find out the truth about his death.

"He said if they did it, I want you to prove it, and if they didn't I want you to prove that, too."

Dillard said that one of his first tasks was to tour the death scene and take photographs. From there he paid a visit to homicide detective James Buczek, who let him see the crime photos.

Those things served to reinforce his suspicions, he said.

Buczek was onto Murphy and Tabish from the very beginning, Dillard said, but he wasn't given a lot of latitude to conduct his investigation.

"In my opinion Jim Buczek smelled a rat as early in the case as I did," he said. "But the case wasn't a high priority at the time."

Next Dillard began reading stories in the Sun raising questions about Binion's death from those closest to the colorful gambling figure.

From there, he started conducting his own interviews, beginning with Binion's housekeeper, Mary Montoya-Gascoigne, who was told by Murphy not to come to work the morning of the death.

A couple of weeks later, the results of drug tests showed potentially lethal levels of heroin and Xanax in Binion's system. That led to stepped-up efforts by Buczek and other homicide detectives.

"It got to the point where we really had two investigations going on," Dillard said. "They were doing their investigation for Metro, and I was doing my investigation for the estate."

Dillard said he shared everything he picked up with homicide detectives, who were pursuing their own leads.

He said he also met with Clark County Coroner Ron Flud and Chief Medical Examiner Lary Simms, who performed the autopsy on Binion, to persuade them to take a closer look at homicide as the manner in which Binion had died. He even arranged for them to visit the death scene.

The investigation really picked up, Dillard said, after his best friend, Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger, was assigned to the case in late December 1998.

By March 1999 Flud was ready to declare Binion a victim of a homicide, and three months later Murphy and Tabish were arrested and charged with murder.

Dillard takes credit for bringing in famed New York pathologist Michael Baden, who turned out to be the prosecution's star medical witness.

Baden stunned everyone, including Dillard, when he opined that Binion did not die of a lethal drug overdose, but rather was suffocated.

"It wasn't something that I was pleased to hear," Dillard said. "It would have been a whole lot better if his opinion had coincided with Dr. Simms'. But that was not his opinion."

Throughout the trial defense attorneys tried to capitalize on the prosecution's differing theories of death. They paraded a string of experts, including the equally celebrated Pittsburgh pathologist Cyril Wecht to refute Baden.

Dillard credited Roger and Chief Deputy District Attorney David Wall for delivering "stunning" closing arguments that steered the jury in the direction of its guilty verdicts.

The two skilled prosecutors, he said, stressed in their arguments the overwhelming circumstantial evidence that Murphy and Tabish had conspired to kill Binion.

Dillard debunked the defense's claim that he was hired to set up Murphy and Tabish on behalf of the "Binion Money Machine."

"Running amok without any control is something they would like to believe or use to advance their own self-serving interests," Dillard said. "The investigation was conducted aboveboard and in a forthright manner, and it speaks for itself."

Dillard said he expected to be attacked during the trial and was prepared for it.

"My plan was to let the witnesses and the evidence at hand speak for themselves, and I believe that is what happened in this trial," he said.

The veteran private detective said he deliberately kept his mouth shut during the trial out of respect for Roger, his good friend.

"David Roger feels very strongly about his ethical obligations, as an officer of the court and a prosecutor, and I didn't want to give the defense an opportunity to use our friendship against him in that area," Dillard said.

Roger and Wall declined media interviews during the seven-week trial, preferring to do their talking to the 12 jurors in the courtroom.

This was in stark contrast to defense lawyers John Momot and Louis Palazzo, who made regular appearances on national television, including "Rivera Live" on CNBC, "Burden of Proof" on CNN and Court TV, which carried the trial live.

"It bothers you when they're talking trash about you, but you have to just suck it up," Dillard said. "I had great confidence in David Roger and David Wall. I didn't think Geraldo Rivera was going to hurt us."

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