Woman, Boyfriend Convicted in Slaying of Vegas Casino Heir

A trucking contractor who came to Las Vegas to make his fortune and a young Southern California woman who never left after a gambling vacation were convicted Friday of murdering casino heir Lonnie “Ted” Binion, capping a trial that has riveted the city with tales of lust, betrayal and a treasure of buried silver.

Binion’s girlfriend, Sandy Murphy, and her secret lover, Rick Tabish, registered little emotion as the jury foreman in Clark County District Court pronounced them guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy and robbery.

They will face possible life sentences in a penalty hearing before the same jury, scheduled to begin Tuesday in Judge Joseph Bonaventure’s courtroom. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.

The jury deliberated for nearly 68 hours over eight days on charges that Murphy, 28, and Tabish, 35, drugged and suffocated Binion in a conspiracy to loot the $50-million estate of the onetime Horseshoe Casino executive.

Among the 11 charges of which Tabish was convicted: robbery, for digging up a safe containing $7 million in Binion’s silver from a vault buried in a vacant lot in Pahrump, Nev.

Jurors were apparently so overcome by emotion that one wept during the reading of the verdict and four others wore sunglasses, courtroom observers said, to mask their own tearful eyes.

Tabish set his jaw and shook his head repeatedly after the reading of the verdict. His mother and father, from a prominent Missoula, Mont., family, hung their heads in despair. An 84-year-old mining magnate who had reportedly said he would marry Murphy if she were acquitted also shook his head and appeared crestfallen.

Becky Binion Behnen, the current Horseshoe operator and Binion’s younger sister, wept when she heard the verdict and was cheered by about 50 supporters outside the courthouse. Later she called the decision “an indescribable relief. . . . It’s nice to be right and for everyone to see this crime for what it was.”

The seven-week trial explored not only Binion’s death at 55 but also a vision of a Las Vegas far removed from the sanitized family vacation playground that has become the city’s new public face. The gallery in the plain Clark County courtroom and a national audience on Court TV heard, instead, about an older, seamier Vegas where drug addiction, tawdry sex, double-crosses and a pervasive lust for money seem to be everyday facts of life.

The Binions and the Horseshoe have long been subjects of local renown. Family members, particularly patriarch Benny Binion, were noted for their freewheeling style, and their casino made its name by never turning down a bet, no matter how large.

Tormented by Heroin Addiction

Ted Binion was the troubled younger son in the family, a whiz at running the tables and slots but tormented by a long addiction to heroin.

Defense attorneys argued throughout the trial that Binion had finally succumbed to his addiction. An initial autopsy, indeed, had found that he died of an overdose of heroin and the prescription anti-anxiety drug Xanax.

But police and prosecutors said their suspicions were aroused when they learned Binion had swallowed the heroin. His long-term habit had been to smoke the narcotic, in a process addicts know as “chasing the dragon.”

Becky Behnen pursued her own doubts by hiring a private investigator to look into the death. The work by investigator Tom Dillard would eventually persuade Metro Police, and most of the city, that the drugs had been forced on Binion.

The case began 20 months ago, on an early afternoon when an apparently frantic Murphy called 911 and reported that her “husband” was not breathing.

The couple had met three years before, when Murphy was working at the Cheetah Club, a topless lounge west of the Las Vegas Strip. The couple’s fast-lane lifestyle and Binion’s addiction were well known. Authorities at first believed that the death was a simple case of a longtime junkie succumbing to his habit.

But soon friends and relatives of Binion began to come forward to say he had grown increasingly suspicious that Murphy was having an affair and might try to harm him. Murphy had indeed struck up a relationship with Tabish--buying him expensive clothes and even traveling to Beverly Hills for a romantic getaway, supposedly with Binion’s money.

Binion lawyer Jim Brown would soon tell police that Binion had called him the day before his death with a cryptic message: “Take Sandy out of the will. If she doesn’t kill me tonight. . . . If I’m dead you’ll know what happened.”

Less than 48 hours after paramedics removed Binion’s body from his Las Vegas ranch house, Nye County sheriff’s deputies arrested Tabish and two associates using an earthmover to pull the silver stash from the desert.

Predictions of an Overdose

Telephone records indicated that Tabish and Murphy had been in contact until just minutes before she reported finding the body. And in the weeks before the death, a handful of witnesses had reported hearing Murphy loudly declaring that Binion would soon die of an overdose and she would be coming into a lot of money.

Before Binion’s lawyer scratched Murphy out of the will on the eve of the murder, the young woman had been entitled to inherit his ranch house, all of its contents and $300,000 in cash.

Pathologist Dr. Michael Baden would later say marks on the body indicated that Binion had been suffocated, perhaps after he was forced to swallow the drugs.

Faced with a mountain of incriminating evidence, defense attorneys argued that Murphy and Tabish were being set up by the “Binion money machine.”

Defense attorney John Momot said Murphy appeared so passive after the verdict only because she was “stunned in disbelief.”

Both defense attorneys said they expect to appeal. Said Momot: “This fight is not over by a long shot.”