Pretty girl chased life in the fast lane

The Miss Bellflower pageant was for nice girls -- girls who stayed out of trouble, pretty girls with quick smiles and clean lives who could represent the small working-class city at ribbon cuttings and awards dinners.

In 1989 at the age of 17, Sandy Murphy was selected by the city of Bellflower, Calif., to be a pageant princess -- a runner-up, but a member of a court of blue-collar debutantes nevertheless.

In the years to come -- years that included a series of trendy Orange County addresses, flashy cars, rich boyfriends, minor arrests that snowballed into more serious legal problems, topless dancing, casino fortunes, drug and alcohol abuse, rehab and an arrest on murder charges -- Murphy reportedly held onto the Miss Bellflower princess sash.

In the months prior to the death of her casino heir boyfriend Ted Binion, she is said to have taken the sash from her bedroom closet in the Binion home and shown it to a friend.

Today Murphy's image has strayed from that of a small-town beauty queen. Most recently she has been photographed in courtrooms -- sometimes smirking, sometimes smiling -- as she faces trial for murder. Murphy and her reported lover, Rick Tabish, allegedly killed Binion in a scheme aimed at acquiring his fortune. Murphy remains under house arrest at her Green Valley apartment.

"I can't believe this has happened to her," said Mindy, a longtime childhood friend who asked to have her last name withheld. "Sandy was always the nicest girl. She is the kind of person who I would call if I was broken down on the freeway, because I knew she'd come to help.

"She was a really good-hearted girl."

The daughter of a repo man and his wife, Murphy and her two brothers and one sister grew up in a weathered south central Los Angeles suburb that is surrounded by auto shops and industrial warehouses.

Murphy was a student clerk in her middle school attendance office -- "She was such a pleasant, responsible girl," said one school administrator -- and she is listed as a member of the choir in the Warren High School yearbook, one of two high schools she attended.

"She was kind of an eye-catcher, a head-turner," said Mario Rottino, 27, a high school friend. "She was popular with people. She hung with the athletes, and her boyfriend was the star running back.

"We would all go to movies, drive around and raise hell, go swimming -- typical stuff," Rottino said. "She was not a bimbo. She was well-put-together, but she could carry on a conversation -- she could talk."

In Las Vegas, tales of Murphy's animation are easy to come by -- she screamed at an attorney outside a crowded courtroom; she reportedly ranted to a store clerk and to a manicurist about her boyfriend's drug abuse; she has been seen having temper tantrums at restaurants.

As a California teenager, her tendency toward the unreserved led her to routine appearances in the vice principal's office at Downey High School.

"I remember her sitting across from me in here for discipline problems, but it was nothing major," said Allen Layne, now the principal at Downey High. "She was always very mature and accepted her punishment easily.

"But then her senior year was a disaster. Her grades were terrible. There was something going on in her life already at that point -- I don't know what, she kept it to herself."

Some speculated that Murphy had hooked up with a wealthy boyfriend; some suggested she had made friends with a nightclub crowd and slipped out of the work-a-day world of Downey and Bellflower. District officials said she did not graduate from high school.

"I saw her two years after high school, and she was driving a brand new Corvette," Rottino said.

The fast lane

The upscale homes and ocean views of the Newport Beach area are 25 miles and several tax brackets away from the brick houses and railroad tracks of Downey and Bellflower. For Murphy, the allure of luxury cars and fast-crowd nightclubs was apparently irresistible.

In her early 20s, she worked at a Newport Beach import auto dealership as a finance manager and lived in a string of comfortable condominiums and homes.

"A few years after high school she came back to visit, and we went out," Mindy said. "She was doing well. I thought she seemed really successful. She was a finance manager, and she was very smart -- my husband and I were buying a car at that time, and she was helping us understand the financing."

Members of Murphy's family declined to be interviewed for this article. Murphy's criminal attorney, William Terry, did not return messages requesting an interview.

But the picture of her painted by acquaintances and investigators depicts a quick slide into a riskier world -- a world where high-profile jet-setters and low-profile hustlers rub elbows, and where sex appeal and fast talking go further and produce quicker cash than a suit and a college education.

"Sandy had always hung out with club people who like to keep a low profile," said Tom Loveday, Binion's longtime friend and gardener who later befriended Murphy.

By the mid 1990s she had begun skirmishing with the law. In February of 1994 Murphy was arrested for driving on a suspended license and impersonating someone else to the police officer. According to court records, Murphy used the name Tiffany Luna. She was freed on bail, but a month later, her mother wrote this letter to the court:

"I ... am the mother of Sandra Murphy. I bailed her out of jail ... and since that time I am not convinced that she will appear at all of her court appearances. For this reason I have asked (the bail bondsman) to place Sandra back into the custody of the court. I no longer wish to assume the $10,000 liability."

She was arrested again in Orange County in February of 1995 -- this time for driving under the influence of alcohol. Her blood alcohol content was 0.13, 0.03 above the legal limit. With her prior arrests and a suspended license, she was sentenced to 45 days in jail, which she failed to promptly serve. The unfulfilled sentence would keep her in and out of court for two more years. She also was required to have an ignition interlock device installed on her 1992 Lexus so that she could not start the vehicle before passing a breathalizer test.

One of her attorneys in the matter was Randall Hite, who has represented a number of dancers and topless clubs in the Orange County area.

"I don't know if Sandy worked for the clubs in Orange County," Hite said. "I don't know what she did. But I can tell you that a lot of Southern California dancers go to Las Vegas a few days out of the month to dance. Girls make a lot more in Vegas -- thousands in a weekend. Then they come back here and lead very normal lives.

Murphy reportedly met the drug-addicted heir to the famous Binion's Horseshoe while sharing a booth with him and some other young women at Cheetah's topless nightclub in Las Vegas one night in early 1995.

Binion handed Murphy a wad of bills when he got up to leave, according to Sid Lewis, a friend of Binion who retold the story to Binion estate investigator Tom Dillard.

"He said there was a couple thousand in it, you know," Lewis said. "And she got the money and threw it back in his face and said, 'I don't want your goddamn money.'

"So that's what impressed Ted because she didn't want his money, so he picked up his money, put it back in his pocket, and said, 'Hmmm, well maybe this little gal is different.' "

Other sources confirm the story, and add that throughout their relationship, Murphy's confrontational attitude appealed to Binion.

"She could be brazen, and anyone who could spend a couple of years with Ted would have to be. She was the type who wouldn't take s... from anyone. She'd just get in anybody's face, and that's probably what Ted liked about her," said a friend who asked not to be identified. "So they hit it off, and he paid for her attorney."

Lewis said Murphy moved into the Binion home without any belongings beyond a few personal effects -- no furniture, no car.

Living large

On Thursdays -- the day gardener Loveday clipped and coiffed the Binion yard -- Murphy would sometimes crank open her bedroom window and chat with him.

"At the very beginning she was happy," Loveday said. "I mean, she was 23 or so, and Ted's a wealthy man who shows up at the club in a limo and spends tons of money on her for lap dances. Then he takes her to this house, she sees this big house -- that's what she was looking for, you know.

"She may have told herself that he loved her, and she may have told herself that she loved him, but it was about money."

Soon she was riding in Horseshoe limousines and wielding comp power at the casino, remodeling the Binion home and spending freely with credit cards Binion provided her.

She also became familiar with the backstage world of Las Vegas gaming, where she was privy to deals with high-stakes players and legendary underworld figures such as the late Herbie Blitzstein, a one-time lieutenant to the late Chicago mobster Anthony Spilotro.

Before his gangland-style death in 1997, Blitzstein met with Binion on dozens of occasions. According to the state Gaming Control Board, Blitzstein cashed thousands of dollars worth of checks in 1995 at the Horseshoe, through either Murphy or Binion.

When Murphy was asked to testify before the board about the Blitzstein matter she took the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer.

Binion also used Murphy to schmooze high-rollers. In November 1995 he sent her and two Horseshoe employees to Taiwan to attend the opening of a Taiwanese businessman's shopping plaza -- a high-roller who was in a gambling-debt dispute with the Horseshoe. Control Board records indicate she is suspected of trying to collect debts for Binion.

"Sandy was just in over her head," Loveday said. "She thought she knew what she was doing. But he just had her there because she was pretty."

But if Murphy's showgirl appearance and mouthy rapport gave her entrance to Binion's gambling world, it gave rise to conflict at Binion's home, where his 19-year-old daughter, Becky, lived and from which his ex-wife, Doris, had recently moved.

"I actually told my dad that she would have to change her behavior and the way she dressed and acted," Becky Binion told Dillard. "Because I wasn't going to have ... basically a whore living in our house.

"Sandy hung out with dancers. Big-busted girls. Girls who didn't mind showing it to strangers -- they didn't care," said Loveday. "They'd be walking around in the house in tiny T-shirts with no bras. These girls got everything done -- plastic surgery -- I remember seeing her girlfriends in there with Bandaids over their noses after having their noses done."

Murphy reportedly toned down her appearance, but quickly spread her sense of style in the Binion home: She got rid of Doris' bedroom furniture and had a handmade bedroom set shipped in from Italy; she ripped out Doris' new carpet and replaced it with marble floors.

And the spending continued.

By 1998 Murphy's daily expenses on her Binion-paid, $10,000-limit MasterCard had climbed to more than $5,000. She tooled around Las Vegas in a 1997 Mercedes, she took trips to Europe, she dined at posh restaurants and rubbed elbows with the movers and shakers -- from Nevada politicians to professional athletes.

But the liberties and luxuries were laced with sacrifice. Along with money came routine beatings from Binion, several sources alleged.

Tom Martinet, a longtime Ted Binion friend, told Clark County District Attorney investigator Mike Karstedt that he had once seen Murphy's bruised face and a bare spot on her head where her hair had apparently been pulled out. Murphy told Martinet that Binion had beaten her.

Martinet said Binion bought her the Mercedes in attempt to make amends.

"She took a lot of crap from him," Loveday said. "She would show me the bruises. She'd put makeup on to cover it, but you could see it. I would get Ted's side and then her side. She got beaten a lot. Ted had a temper," Loveday said. "And Ted always had a gun beside him. Always.

"She fought back though. Ted used to show me where she scratched him. He'd say, 'I'd get rid of her if she wasn't so pretty.'

"Sometimes I'd come over and all her clothes would be packed, and she'd be saying she was going to leave, and then the next thing I know she's sitting in the living room next to the grand piano, staying."

Becky Binion told investigators that Murphy once threatened to shoot both her and her father in 1997.

"And she threatened to hit me a lot of times," Becky Binion said. "She would definitely get in my face. She would definitely scream at me ...

"She just wasn't that mentally stable, and she had gotten kind of crazed ... she was constantly jealous (of my relationship with my dad.)" If emotions ran high, they may have been goaded by alcohol and drugs. The couple was notorious for substance abuse -- at various times in his life, Binion admitted to using marijuana, cocaine and heroin in addition to prescription medicines.

Friends said the two regularly partied all night and slept all day during their first couple of years together.

"Ted always had marijuana all over the place. He buried it in the back yard. I used to find bags of marijuana buried in the back yard. I'd be digging in the flowers, and I'd find it," Loveday said.

Murphy's reported marijuana use became an issue for Binion in his trouble with the Control Board in 1996.

Binion, whose gaming license had been suspended, came under fire for allegedly allowing Murphy, who was on probation for a DUI arrest in California, to smoke marijuana in his house.

Investigators also wanted to know about Binion's role in helping Murphy avoid her DUI jail sentence. Murphy was supposed to be on in-house arrest and gaming agents charged that Binion persuaded the county sheriff in Jordan, Mont., where Binion owns a ranch, to write a letter to California authorities saying that Murphy was serving her house arrest at the ranch.

In the end, her DUI sentence was fulfilled in 1997 when Binion paid $15,000 for her to attend Sober Living by the Sea, a substance abuse rehabilitation program in Newport Beach. Murphy reportedly stayed in one of several small houses just a few blocks from the beach with the other clients. In a letter to the court, program director Anthony Fusco wrote:

"... Sandra Murphy has completed the court ordered requirement at Sober Living by the Sea. With the exception of a few minor 'glitches,' Sandra followed all of the rules and regulations that were established during her last appearance before the court."

But sobriety appears to have been at odds with much of the couple's lifestyle.

"Partying was big with them, and sex was the thing with them, big time, at first. But then after a while it petered out, and you go looking for different things. Once he went back on heroin, he couldn't perform sexually and that pissed her off," Loveday said.

The two kept separate bedrooms in the Binion home, and Loveday said that after the first few years of the relationship, Murphy went out to restaurants and clubs without Binion.

"One time Sandy invited me in to smoke (marijuana) with her -- but I didn't go. She said, 'Tom, I'm 26 and I need sex. Ted hasn't made love to me in a long time.' "

A different person

When Murphy visited Downey in 1996, she dropped in at South Middle School, where she was once a student and at which her old friend Mindy was now a teacher.

"She had blond, blond hair, and she dressed differently, but besides that she was the same Sandy. She told me she was living in Vegas, but mostly she wanted to know how I was doing, how my family was. She was very sweet. She gave me a hug, and we stood in the classroom talking for quite a while," Mindy said.

That same year, Ted Binion told the Control Board that Murphy was "not the bad person she's made out to be. She's not a low life."

"I think Sandy is basically a nice person," Loveday said. "She was always very pleasant to me. She'd tell me to help myself to a drink if I was thirsty. She was polite to me.

"But money and drugs can do things to people, and she seemed to want that life -- more, more, more all the time."

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