Judge to rule on Murphy, Tabish trial

Justice of the Peace Jennifer Togliatti was to disclose today whether Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish should stand trial in Ted Binion's murder.

Togliatti, nearly a year after the former casino executive's Sept. 17 slaying, also was to decide the fate of four other defendants charged in crimes related to his death.

Prosecutors, in one of the longest preliminary hearings in Las Vegas history, spent 13 days presenting evidence in August against Murphy, Binion's 27-year-old girlfriend, and Tabish, her reported lover.

More than 30 witnesses, including Binion's 19-year-old daughter, Bonnie Binion, were called to testify during the hearing, which stretched over three weeks.

Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger, in his closing argument Sept. 1, unveiled the prosecution's new suffocation theory in Binion's death.

Roger charged that Murphy and the 34-year-old Tabish had suffocated Binion after pumping him with drugs at his 2408 Palomino Lane home.

Binion's body was discovered on the floor of his den next to an empty bottle of the prescription sedative Xanax that he had obtained a day earlier. The evening before his death, Binion also had bought 12 doses of tar heroin.

Roger suggested that Binion's longtime gardener, Thomas Loveday, may have showed up for work in the middle of the murder, which investigators now believe happened between 9 a.m. and 12:30 p.m on Sept. 17.

During closing arguments, defense lawyers Bill Terry and Steve Wolfson did not challenge the facts surrounding Binion's death that Roger had laid out, preferring to attack the charges against Murphy and Tabish on technical grounds.

The lawyers also contended the evidence was based on perjured and bought testimony.

Togliatti said during the arguments that she needed time to examine the legal issues before announcing her decision in court at 2 p.m. this afternoon.

By law, prosecutors only had to present a slight amount of evidence to persuade the judge to bind over the defendants.

The suffocation theory surfaced during the preliminary hearing, which was carried live on Las Vegas 1 cable television, when well-known New York pathologist, Dr. Michael Baden, took the witness stand.

Baden, a forensics expert in the death of John Belushi and the murder trial of O.J. Simpson, contradicted the testimony of Dr. Lary Simms, Clark County's chief medical examiner, who for months had led investigators to believe Binion died of lethal doses of heroin and Xanax.

Baden, who has performed 20,000 autopsies during his celebrated 40-year career, testified that he believed the levels of heroin and Xanax in Binion's system were not enough to kill him.

He said congestion under the 55-year-old Binion's eyelids and abrasions on his chest and back indicated he was suffocated.

Prosecutors contend Murphy and Tabish had a financial motive to kill Binion.

Murphy, who had met Binion at a topless nightclub in 1995, was being cut out of the former Horseshoe Club executive's will, and Tabish, a Montana contractor who had befriended Binion several months earlier, was deep in debt, Roger alleged.

Both Murphy and Tabish also were charged with stealing Binion's valuables, including his silver fortune in Pahrump, after his murder.

Two other men, David Mattsen of Pahrump and Michael Milot of Missoula, Mont., were arrested in the Pahrump theft.

Murphy and Tabish also were charged in separate counts with torturing businessman Leo Casey into turning over his interests in a Jean sand pit two months before Binion's murder.

Prosecutors contend Tabish needed access to Binion's fortune to keep the sand pit open. Also named in the torture plot were Steven Wadkins of Las Vegas and John B. John B. Joseph of Orange County, Calif.

Roger charged during his closing argument that Murphy and Tabish committed "cruel" signature crimes against Binion, leaving a single dime in his safe in Las Vegas and one silver dollar in the underground vault that had housed the silver in Pahrump.

A Metro Police crime scene analyst testified he noticed a Halloween decoration on a light fixture above the front entrance to Binion's Palomino Lane home that read, "R.I.P."

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