by Gary C. King

On September 17, 1998, police found Las Vegas gambling magnate Ted Binion lying dead on the floor with an empty bottle of Xanax beside him. The police had been called by Binion’s live-in-lover, Sandra Murphy, 23, a California girl who had been working in a Las Vegas strip club when Binion first met her. A few days later, Binion’s “friend” Rick Tabish was arrested for trying to break into a vault where the millionare had stored seven million dollars. Binion’s family hired a detective to start digging into the case. The evidence that was uncovered and tunred into the Las Vegas police eventually lead to the arrest of Murphy and Tabish. The state said they were greedy lovers who conspired for binion’s millions while the defense claimed that his vengefulfamily was trying to railroad Murphy to keep her from inheriting her fair share. The two sides collided in court in what became the Southwest’s murder trial of the century.