Columnist Jeff German: Binion’s death still a mystery

Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004 | 10:49 a.m.

It may sound hard to believe, but after we've heard evidence now in two lengthy murder trials, Ted Binion's death remains a mystery.

A jury once more, without a "smoking gun," must decide whether Binion was pumped with drugs and suffocated by Rick Tabish and Sandy Murphy -- or simply died of an overdose.

And once again it will have to make that call without hearing from key witnesses who could have shed more light on Binion's death.

Neither side, for example, called David Mattsen, who managed Binion's Pahrump ranch at the time of his death in 1998, to the witness stand.

Cell phone records show that Mattsen, who once inquired about reward money in the case, and Tabish were in constant contact with each other in the hours before and after Binion died. Mattsen later was arrested with Tabish digging up the casino executive's $6 million silver fortune in Pahrump.

Neither side called Linda Carroll, a close Murphy friend who was arrested as a material witness in the first case, yet was never asked to testify at the trial.

Carroll, who was with Murphy in the hours before and after Binion's death, once secretly provided information about Binion's demise to Richard Wright, a Binion estate lawyer. But when prosecutors hauled her before a grand jury to testify under oath, she clammed up, so they abandoned efforts to call her at the trial. She was under subpoena this time.

Other people who had been listed as witnesses, such as Binion's sister Becky Behnen, Binion estate investigator Tom Dillard and James Buczek, the lead homicide detective in the case, also were never called to testify -- again. And William Cassidy, the former Binion defense investigator who had offered to help prosecutors the second time around, never got his chance to talk.

Then there's Tabish's former wife, Mary Jo Jackson, a late addition to the list of no-shows.

Having acquired a blockbuster statement from Jackson in Montana late last month, prosecutors were eager to put her on the stand. But District Judge Joseph Bonaventure wouldn't let them do it.

At a secret hearing in the judge's chambers last week, defense lawyers expressed concern that her testimony would violate the marital privilege, which bars a husband and wife from disclosing their private conversations in court. Prosecutors argued there was case law to allow Jackson to testify as a rebuttal witness, but the judge apparently didn't agree with them.

What Jackson would have done on the witness stand is shoot down Tabish's alibi on the morning of Binion's Sept. 17, 1998 death, which would have made the upcoming task of the jurors a lot easier.

District Attorney David Roger says Jackson wanted the jury to "have the truth about Tabish's whereabouts" the day Binion died.

The jury still has plenty of evidence to determine the fate of both Tabish and Murphy without the testimony of Jackson and the other witnesses who never made it to the stand. More than 120 people ended up testifying during the five-week retrial.

Without those additional witnesses, however, solving the mystery of Binion's death will be a more difficult task.