Wednesday, Feb. 17, 1999 | 12:26 p.m.
Five months after Ted Binion's suspicious death, his sister said Tuesday she's confident a just-launched grand jury investigation will provide answers to his untimely demise.
"I think it has a life of its own, now," Becky Behnen said. "I think the truth will come out ... and justice will prevail."
Behnen, owner of the Horseshoe Club founded in 1951 by her legendary father, Benny Binion, was the first to urge police to investigate her brother's death as a homicide.
The 55-year-old Binion's body was discovered at his home Sept. 17 next to an empty bottle of the prescription sedative, Xanax. Police found no signs of foul play at the scene, but drug tests later revealed lethal levels of both Xanax and heroin in his system.
Though Binion had a long history of heroin use, the coroner has left open the possibility he was murdered, classifying the manner in which he died as "undetermined."
Behnen said Tuesday she still believes her brother did not commit suicide or die of an accidental overdose.
"He had such a knowledge of drugs and was such an active drug user, I would never think that Ted would accidentally overdose on drugs," Behnen said. "I was speaking to him all that week, and I knew that his personality was such that he wasn't inclined to suicide. So that's two elements ruled out."
A team of homicide detectives has been investigating Binion's death the past five months, but has yet to publicly say he was murdered.
Last week, the grand jury, under the supervision of Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger of the elite Major Violators Unit, was asked to assist homicide detectives. The panel subpoenaed friends of Binion's girlfriend, Sandy Murphy, who is said to be the focus of the probe.
On the day the grand jury convened, the 26-year-old Murphy asserted her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 200 times when asked in probate court about valuables missing from Binion's estate.
Behnen acknowledged publicly for the first time that Murphy's activities in the days before and after her brother died appear suspicious.
She said there must be something to the questions about Murphy for police and the grand jury to go to such great lengths to investigate her brother's death.
"They must have some kind of reason or they wouldn't just do this stuff," she said.
Behnen's other brother, former longtime Horseshoe Club President Jack Binion, has alleged in a sworn affidavit that Ted had asked his lawyer to cut Murphy out of his will the day before he died.
Jack Binion, who is overseeing his brother's multimillion-dollar estate, also alleged that Murphy was having an affair at the time of Ted's death with a man who later was arrested for trying to steal a fortune in silver from Ted in Pahrump.
Theft suspect Rick Tabish, a 33-year-old Montana contractor, also took the Fifth Amendment in court earlier this month when asked about hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of valuables missing from Ted's Las Vegas home.
The estate has offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in Ted's death, and it has retained private investigator Tom Dillard, a retired homicide detective, to conduct its own probe.
This month's sensational developments in the estate case again have attracted the national media to the story. The Los Angeles Times recently ran an update on the Binion mystery, and ABC's "Good Morning America" is planning a segment next week.
Behnen, meanwhile, said she's "come to terms with the fact that nothing's going to bring Ted back."
She said she's letting the investigations take their course.
"Whatever happens, happens," Behnen said, adding she has empathy now for families involved in similar tragedies who must withstand the horror of not knowing what really happened to their loved ones.
"My heart goes out to people who are going through this, because I'm going through it myself," she said.
Behnen said that even though she often argued with her brother, she still misses him, especially the daily phone calls she used to receive.
She described her brother as an intellectual who had an interest in a wide range of subjects.
"I don't know if people knew all of these things about Ted," she said. "But he was a very interesting person."
Despite the uncertainty over her brother's death, life goes on for Behnen and the Horseshoe Club.
Behnen said things have gone well since she took over the downtown hotel-casino in July.
"My father set down the policy in 1951 that made the Horseshoe what it is today," she said. "That policy still exists. It's still a friendly place. There's still lots of action. It still has the best odds, the best limits, the best food ... It's still the same place."
Behnen said she feels overwhelmed at times but is up to the challenge of taking the Horseshoe to greater heights.
"I feel like I'm in a football game, and they keep throwing me the ball and they're saying, 'Becky, you've got to run,' " she said. "So once again, I'm carrying the ball."
But people, she said, forget that she grew up at the Horseshoe.
"Being at the Horseshoe (for me)," she explained, "is like being at the family grocery store."
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