CRIME HUNTER: Was dope death of Vegas gambling scion murder?

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Benny Binion was one of the pistol-packing pioneers who transformed Las Vegas from a dusty outpost into the gambling mecca we know today.

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Tough and colourful, Binion had been the crime lord of Dallas before shifting his operations to the Nevada desert. And he never hesitated to use murder as a convincer.

For decades, Binion lorded over the Horseshoe in Glitter Gulch where high odds, cheap booze and $2 steaks were on offer 24/7.

The native Texan also founded the World Series of Poker and made millions.

The gambling guru died in 1989. His empire and son Ted didn’t have much longer to go either.

In 1998, Ted Binion lost his gaming license. Reason? The mob connections his wily father had nurtured were past their best before date.

On Sept. 17, 1998, Ted was found dead in his mansion by leggy gal pal Sandy Murphy, a stripper. She said the scion had pegged out from a lethal mix of Xanax and heroin.

Known on stage as the Irish Venus, Murphy, 26, was a teen pageant queen who dropped out of school when she discovered the boffo bucks that could be earned in adult entertainment.

She met Binion at a peeler bar, Cheetah’s Lounge, in 1995. He gave her a $2,000 tip.

With Binion, Murphy hit the jackpot. There was the monthly $5,000 credit card bill, jewelry, and European vacations – all, of course, on Ted’s dime. There was also the plastic surgery addiction.

His family didn’t buy the overdose theory. Neither did cops.

“Ted loved life way too much to kill himself,” former casino manager Tony Cook told Texas Monthly. “He had such a knowledge of drugs and was such an active drug user, Ted wouldn’t accidentally overdose,”

Murphy also had a clandestine lover named Rick Tabish, a business partner and buddy of Ted’s. When cops caught up with Tabish, he was hiding in a secret bunker in Binion’s mansion.

Besides Tabish, there was $14 million in silver, silver dollars, rare coins and casino chips in the hideaway.

Murphy and Tabish were convicted of murder in 2000, but that’s not where the story ends. They were acquitted four years later but remained caged on burglary and grand larceny charges.

“This was a big, big case in Clark County history and throughout the United States,” former District Attorney David Roger told the Review-Journal in 2019. “People were riveted because you had drugs, sex, betrayal, buried treasure, old Las Vegas history. It was a fascinating case.”

Ted Binion was found face-up on the floor in his 6,700-square-foot mansion. He was 55.

But while his father was a dedicated family man, Ted was something else. Around Sin City, he was notorious for his sexual hijinks with the small army of strippers that worked the city’s numerous jiggle joints.

He did little to dispel his mob connections but there was something worse – he was a drug addict.

Still, the Review-Journal noted he had a genius for the business and the ability to spot cheats and calculate odds off the top of his head. That was all muted by a heroin addiction that compelled him to disappear for days at a time.

With Binion lying in the morgue, one medical expert said there were tell-tale signs the Horseshoe heir had been murdered: Bruises, abrasions and red pinpoint marks.

Dr. Michael Baden said Ted Binion had been asphyxiated.

“This was a difficult case to investigate and prosecute simply because it was not your typical murder case,” Roger told the Review-Journal in 2019. “Here we had to prove that Ted Binion did not commit suicide, it wasn’t an accidental overdose. We had to prove that someone caused his death, and from there, who did it.”

At trial, the prosecution honed in on Binion’s relationship with Murphy. In the days before his death, he had told his lawyer to cut the dirty dancer out of his $30 million estate. Most would go to his daughter. All Sandy would get was $300,000, the mansion and its contents.

“It was ironic because the Binion money is what they were after from the beginning,” prosecutor David Wall said. “It’s why she was with him. It was why Rick befriended him, and it was the motive for all of it.”

It took the jury a staggering eight days to come back with guilty verdicts. Wall said the jury went through every cough and spit.

Four years later, though, the murder verdicts were overturned.

In the retrial, legal eagle Tony Serra – who previously defended the Black Panthers and Hells Angels – zeroed in on Ted Binion’s lewd lifestyle. He was successful in casting doubt on the original theory, instead arguing that Binion indeed died of a heroin overdose.

However, the couple was again convicted of conspiracy, burglary and grand-larceny. Both have since been sprung from prison and she now owns an art gallery in Laguna Beach, California.

And the Binion empire on the strip? Busted like a degenerate gambler pawning the family jewels.