Attorney says estate has paid $200,000 pursuing murder theory

LAS VEGAS - Ted Binion's estate has paid $200,000 trying to prove the gambling figure's death was murder and not a drug overdose or suicide, a longtime attorney and friend testified Friday.

Jim Brown recounted how he and fellow attorney Richard Wright pursued the murder theory because Binion earlier had told Brown he feared girlfriend Sandra Murphy would kill him.

Brown and Wright went to Las Vegas Metropolitan Police homicide detectives four days after Binion's death to relay their concerns. He said police seemed ''interested'' but wanted more proof.

The attorney testified the estate then hired Tom Dillard, a retired Metro homicide detective, to pursue the murder theory.

Under cross-examination, Brown said $200,000 had been paid in pursuing the private investigation. Much of the evidence uncovered has been turned over to prosecutors in their pursuit of Murphy and her lover, Rick Tabish, as Binion's killers.

Murphy, 28, and Tabish, 35, were arrested last June and charged with Binion's murder and with stealing valuables from his home.

Prosecutors contend Binion was forced to ingest a fatal dose of heroin and the prescription anti-depressant Xanax, then was suffocated.

Defense attorneys say Binion, a known drug user, died of an overdose or committed suicide.

Brown testified Thursday that Binion ordered Murphy, his live-in lover, removed from his will in a Sept. 16, 1998 phone call.

''He said 'Take Sandy out of the will. If she doesn't kill me tonight ... if I'm dead you'll know what happened.'''

Binion was found dead at his home the next day.

In the will, Murphy was to receive the $900,000 home, its contents and $300,000 in cash.

Brown said he scratched Murphy's name from the will and left it for his secretary to retype on the morning of the 17th, learning later in the day of the death of his boyhood friend.

A district court judge has ruled that the change was invalid because Binion was not present when the will was altered. The ruling is on appeal to the state Supreme Court.

''We're gonna let the Supreme Court decide that,'' Brown said when asked under cross-examination about the district court ruling.

Defense attorney Louis Palazzo, in a lengthy cross-examination, suggested the only other way the estate could remove Murphy from the will would be to convict her of Binion's death.

Brown estimated the Binion estate at $55 million.

At one point Palazzo asked Brown if the estate had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars pursuing the murder theory, and if the targets were Murphy and Tabish.

Brown responded that it was a compound question, prompting District Judge Joseph Bonaventure to retort ''There are too many lawyers in this courtroom.''

Brown testified Binion paid Tabish $17,000 to build a vault along a heavily traveled road in Pahrump, Nev., 60 miles west of Las Vegas, where Binion stored about $7 million in silver. Tabish and two others were arrested 36 hours after Binion's death, digging up the silver. Attorneys for Tabish contend he was directed by Binion to retrieve the silver if anything were to happen to the gambler.

Housekeeper Mary Montonya-Gascoigne said Binion unloaded the ammunition from all of his weapons in the weeks before he died, saying he didn't want anyone to catch him by surprise.

She testified Murphy sent her home early on Sept. 16, then called her on the morning of the 17th, saying the housekeeper did not need to come to work that day. She said Murphy told her Binion did not feel well and had been up all night.

She also described how Binion kept large amounts of cash in the house, including one time in which he let her handle crisp new $100 bills in stacks of $10,000 each. She said on Sept. 16 he had her take a $20,000 cash deposit to the bank, the money stuffed in her pockets.