LAS VEGAS — It's not a sequel, but it's not exactly a rerun. It's the desert soap opera that never ends.

With the prospect of revisiting the lurid details of sex, drugs, millions in silver buried in the desert, and the death of the troubled son of a legendary casino family, Las Vegas is now officially in round two of the Ted Binion murder trial.

Former stripper Sandra Murphy and her onetime lover, Rick Tabish, are facing a jury for the second time on charges of murder, robbery and burglary for the death of Binion, a millionaire gambling heir and admitted heroin addict.

Binion was found dead in his mansion of an apparent overdose on Sept. 17, 1998.

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Prosecutors say that subsequent medical examinations and actions by Murphy and Tabish prove Binion's death was anything but an accident and that the two conspired to kill him and take his millions in buried silver.

A jury agreed and convicted the pair of murder, burglary and robbery after a highly publicized trial in 2000, when Las Vegans seemed almost as interested in Murphy's courtroom attire as they were in the murder itself.

But the Nevada Supreme Court overturned the convictions in 2003, ruling that Judge Joseph Bonaventure erred in two key areas: in his decision not to hold a separate trial for Tabish on charges he assaulted and blackmailed another businessman, and his instructions to jurors concerning testimony about a conversation between Binion and his estate lawyer, James Brown, the night before his death.

Murphy has been free since then. Tabish remains in prison because his convictions for blackmail and assault stand.

Bonaventure again presides over the trial, and the former lovers face up to life in prison if convicted again.

'Desperate' for a way out

Although they both wore beige suits Thursday and sat just feet apart, they did not appear to acknowledge one another.

During opening statements, a prosecutor painted the pair as desperate lovers who saw the eccentric Ted Binion as a ticket to riches.

Prosecutor Christopher Lalli described the lavish lifestyle that Murphy was able to lead after moving in with Binion in 1995. From a $90,000 Mercedes to a $10,000 monthly spending cap on her credit card, plus the guarantee that she would gain ownership of the $300,000 home they shared if he died, Binion spared no expense for Murphy.

But in early 1998, Lalli said, Murphy began an affair with Rick Tabish, who owned a trucking company and also worked off and on for Binion.

Tabish, married and the father of two children, and Murphy became more enamored with each other while Binion increasingly abused heroin after Nevada officials rejected his gaming license in 1998.

At the same time, prosecutors contend, Tabish's business concerns were failing miserably -- the IRS had a lien on his home and he owed hundreds of thousands in back taxes -- and he began to look desperately for a way out.

"It's hard to imagine how much worse things could have got," for Tabish, Lalli told the jury.

While showing jurors graphic photos of Binion's body as it was found in his house the day he died, Lalli alleged that Murphy and Tabish killed Binion by suffocating the 51-year-old man after forcing him to drink a mixture of 12 packages of Mexican black tar heroin and 90 Xanax sleeping pills.

Murphy called authorities on Sept. 17, 1998, and reported that she had found Binion dead from an overdose on the floor of his den.

Fewer than 12 hours after Binion's death, authorities arrested Tabish in the small town of Pahrump while he was attempting to excavate a vault holding $7 million in silver that Binion had contracted him to bury for safekeeping.

Merely an overdose

Lawyers for Murphy and Tabish emphasized during their opening statements that the evidence pointing to murder was circumstantial at best and that, in the months preceding his death, Binion's growing heroin use made him an obvious candidate for an early demise.

Tabish's lawyer, Tony Serra, the ponytailed San Francisco criminal defense attorney who once defended "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski, described Binion's demise as an "involuntary, inadvertent death by overdose by a confirmed heroin addict."

Murphy's lawyer, Michael Cristalli, portrayed her as a loving woman with a domestic streak who took care of Binion, despite his addiction and physical abuse of her.

Both lawyers tried to negate their client's economic motive for murder. Cristalli pointed to stock worth more than $1 million that Binion had given Murphy. Serra said Tabish was working out his problems with the IRS and his business concerns were worth more than $5 million, although on paper he was cash poor.

Both lawyers hinted that the Binion family's political connections, vast wealth and dislike of Murphy influenced investigators in seeking murder charges, although a medical examiner had ruled Binion's death an overdose.

Troubled millionaire

Prosecutors' first witness was Ted Binion's ex-wife, Doris, who was married to Binion for 15 years and romantically involved with him for 30, she said.

Doris Binion described a loving yet troubled man who hid a quarter of a million dollars in the engine of a motorboat in his garage, always carried a loaded gun, and would stay up all night smoking heroin but sleep in the basement during the day so as not to disturb their daughter.

Binion broke down in tears several times as she described her former husband's addiction to heroin, his philandering and an incident of physical abuse, which ultimately drove her to leave him.

But she also smiled when asked about her husband's peculiarities, one of which was carrying large sums of money.

"If he had $2,000 cash in his pocket, he thought he was broke," she said.

The prosecution has listed about 200 potential witnesses, and the trial is expected to take 6 to 8 weeks.