If you believe Sandy Murphy conspired with her lover Rick Tabish in a plot to kill Ted Binion, prosecutor David Wall told jurors, then you must convict both defendants of murder, even if only one of them did the actual killing.

By Laura Barandes
Court TV

Prosecutor David Wall, in his closing rebuttal for the Ted Binion murder case, cast the defendants as manipulators and liars who were only interested in the millionaire's money. When he was done, both sides retired to wait for the jury's decision.

Wall asked jurors to "refocus" their attention to Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish, "whose capacity for greed and deception is eclipsed only by their ability to blame everyone else."

Murphy, Binion's live-in girlfriend, and Tabish, her lover, are accused of killing the casino mogul for his money and to free Murphy from her relationship with him.

Prosecution Theory: Circumstantial Evidence to Put Tabish at Scene of Binion's death Sandy Murphy's calls to Tabish cease Tabish's statements to officers Howard and Huggins Tabish giving Binion's coins to brother-in-law Tabish purchasing an alibi Sandy Murphy left purse in Tabish's car

Wall challenged defense attorney John Momot's depiction of Murphy as a "caregiver" to Binion, corrupting this title into a sarcastic refrain he would use throughout his rebuttal.

Murphy was a former stripper and "at 23, you heard that this was not her first live in-relationship with an older man," Wall told jurors. A high school dropout, Murphy moved in with a man 10 years her senior while she was still living in California.

And during the three years Murphy lived with the Las Vegas millionaire, remarked Wall, "her job was to spend Ted Binion's money — and she had a talent for it."

Wall listed the large charges Murphy racked up on Binion's credit cards, reminding jurors of the hours Murphy would spend in salons and in expensive boutiques. She even bought clothes for her new boyfriend, Rick Tabish, on Binion's credit card. For Murphy, "Ted Binion was the human ATM machine," said Wall. "No more sex...she saved that for her new lover."

The defense had argued that Murphy's sexual relationship with Binion deteriorated because of his increased drug use and abusive behavior. Prosecutors claim Murphy withdrew from all of Binion but his money because she had fallen for another man.

And for a while, said Wall, she enjoyed both: Binion's money and Tabish's affection.

"How many people did [Murphy] tell that she didn't love [Binion] anymore?" Wall asked jurors. He recounted for them testimony that Murphy was deceiving Binion for months and even traveled to Montana where she "rubbed it in Rick's wife's face." Tabish and his wife live in Missoula, Mont., with their two young children.

And Tabish, who met Binion in a restaurant bathroom in early 1998, had no problem looking Binion in the eye "and pretending to be Ted Binion's new best friend," said Wall. All the while, Tabish was having an affair with Binion's girlfriend behind his back.

Wall also addressed the defense claim that there is no direct evidence that puts Tabish in Binion's house around the time of death. The prosecutor pointed to several pieces of circumstantial evidence, including the sudden absence of phone calls from Murphy to Tabish on Sept. 17, 1998. On almost all the other days of that month, Murphy called Tabish up to 31 times — even when he was visiting his family in Montana. "Even a schoolgirl doesn't do that," chastised Wall.

"The only time she doesn't call him, is when she's with him," said the prosecutor, suggesting that Tabish was with Murphy at the house when Binion died.

Wall also directed jurors' attention to the statements Tabish allegedly made to Nye County authorities that he was at Binion's house the day he died. The defense has argued that these supposed statements were not noted by officials until more than a day after Tabish was interrogated. Furthermore, in a recorded statement, Tabish says he was at the Binion house the day before the millionaire died.

Sandy Murphy listened as the prosecutor accused her of manipulating and killing her live-in lover. (Court TV)

Wall explained to jurors that as long as they believed Murphy and Tabish were conspiring to kill Binion, and that one of them did it, both could be convicted of first degree murder.

"If they're both part of the conspiracy to kill Ted Binion...the act of one is the act of all," said Wall. "They are both equally responsible."

Moving on to the medical testimony, Wall told jurors that they could convict Murphy and Tabish of murder even if there is no unanimous decision as to what killed Binion. According to the court's instructions, jurors can convict even if some think Binion was drugged and suffocated, while others believe his death was caused by a simple forced overdose.

The defense has argued that this double theory of death weakens the prosecution's case; the state insists that it gives jurors more room to convict.

Finally, Wall took on the defense contention that Murphy and Tabish are targets of the 'Binion money machine,' that the two are victims of a powerful family that could not accept the death of one of its own. If that's true, "a whole lot of people have to be lying," said Wall, pointing to his list of 89 state witnesses.

Murphy and Tabish were both after money, Wall told jurors, and they were willing to kill an eccentric millionaire to fill their pockets. The defendants say they blame the Binion money machine for their problems, said Wall, but that belies their true feelings.

"They would have given anything to be part of the Binion money" machine, Wall told the jury — including murder.