4.2.12 WC: 191694
The Binion case: murder or drug overdose?
The classic “thriller” case is a “whodunit.” The fact of a murder is clear, as it was in the OJ Simpson case. The only question is who committed it. (Remember the “one armed killer” in The Fugitive!)
Many of my homicide cases have not been who-dunits, but rather, was anything criminal done at all. Was the dead (or comatose) body the result of a criminal act, or the result of natural causes, self-induced harm, or accident?
That was the issue in the Von Bulow and Sybers cases. It was also the question presented when Ted Binion, the owner of the famous Binion Casino in Las Vegas—the home of the World Series of Poker—was found dead in his home on September 17, 1998.
Binion’s live-in fiancé, Sandra Murphy—a young, sometimes exotic dancer—and her equally young lover, Richard Tabish, were accused of murdering him, by an unusual means harking back to the days of Sherlock Holmes. Dr. Michael Baden, one of the world’s leading forensic pathologists (and a friend of mine) had concluded that Binion had been “burked” to death.
The term “burke” derives from two notorious 19" Century Scottish murderers, who killed their victims in order to provide fresh cadavers to doctors and medical students for research. The case was so notorious that it became the subject of a short story, “The Body Snatchers” by Robert Louis Stevenson, and of several films including one by the same name that starred Borris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Burke and colleague Hare, compressed the chest of their victims, thereby smothering them to death, without leaving any bruises on the body.
Dr. Baden surmised that Sandra Murphy and her lover had done the same thing to Binion, so as to leave no trace of murder. And her diabolical plan—if there was such a plan—worked—at least for a while. Since it was well known that the high-living Ted Binion was a heroin addict, and since there was evidence that his regular drug supplier had delivered a large quantity of black tar heroin just before his body was found, the police concluded that this was just another Las Vegas drug overdose, albeit by one of the city’s most famous celebrities. Since no crime (other than those relating to the drugs) was suspected, the home was not declared a “crime scene,” but an autopsy the next day noted various marks on the body and the examiner photographed them. It was these marks that led Dr. Baden to conclude that Binion had been murdered—burked to death—and had not died of an overdose. Other medical experts also concluded that Binion had been murdered, but not by “burking.” Their theory was that he had been forced to swallow a deadly mixture of heroin, xanax and valium—a cocktail of death.
In addition to the scientific evidence, there was testimony by Binion’s estate lawyer that on the day before his death, Binion had said to him: “Take Sandy [Sandra Murphy] out of the will if she doesn’t kill me tonight. If I’m dead, you’ll know what happened.”
The prosecution thus had evidence of motive, means and opportunity and they charged Murphy
and her lover with “murder by suffocation and/or poisoning.” At trial, they presented what I later characterized as a “multiple choice” prosecution: the jury could choose either suffocation or
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