Housekeeper testifies to spats, missing items

LAS VEGAS - Ted Binion's housekeeper testified Monday about fights between the gambler and his girlfriend, saying many were sparked over his drug usage.

Mary Montonya-Gascoigne also recounted how she toured the Binion house with a detective three weeks after her employer's death to catalog items that she says were missing.

The housekeeper spent her second day on the witness stand, recalling her contacts with Binion the day before he died and of being told not to come to work Sept. 17, 1998, the day he was found dead of a drug overdose.

Prosecutors contend Binion was forced to ingest a lethal dose of heroin and the prescription anti-depressant Xanax.

Defense attorneys contend Binion, a known drug-user, was the victim of an accidental overdose or committed suicide.

Binion's live-in girlfriend, Sandra Murphy, and her lover, Missoula, Mont. contractor Rick Tabish, are charged with the murder.

Montonya-Gascoigne repeated earlier testimony that Murphy sent her home early Sept. 16, then called on the 17th and said she did not need to come to work that day.

She looked at various photos taken during a tour of the house she made with a police detective Oct. 7, listing items she said were missing from the house. The housekeeper and other witnesses have claimed that Binion left large sums of cash and other valuables around his home, and they were missing after he was found dead.

Murphy and Tabish are also charged with stealing valuables from the Binion home.

Under cross-examination, the housekeeper said many of the arguments she had testified about between Murphy and Binion were over his use of drugs and Murphy's efforts to get him to quit.

After the housekeeper's testimony, prosecutors brought medical experts to the stand trying to solidify their contention that Binion was forced to ingest a lethal dose of drugs or was suffocated.