LAS VEGAS — A defense witness told jurors Monday that famed forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden's theory that casino mogul Ted Binion was killed by an esoteric form of strangulation known as "burking" was both "imaginary and fictional."

Dr. Charles Wetli, chief forensic pathologist for Suffolk County in New York, said that all medical and toxicology reports made after Binion's death point to an accident.

Citing "a degree of reasonable medical certainty," Wetli testified that Binion "died as a result of a drug overdose, mainly heroin and the drug commonly known as Xanax."

Baden previously testified that Binion's autopsy and other evidence suggested the 54-year-old was killed by someone either kneeling or pressing on his chest while he was knocked out by a mixture of drugs — called "burking" after a serial killer in 18^th Century London.

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Prosecutors say Rick Tabish and Sandra Murphy forced Binion to drink a nearly lethal cocktail of heroin and pills and then suffocated him with a pillow on Sept. 17, 1998, and then looted the house of money and rare coins.

The defense contends that Binion, a long-time heroin addict, died of an accidental overdose after consuming 12 balloons of Mexican black tar heroin and scores of Xanax pills.

Murphy and Tabish, who were involved in a secret affair at the time, are charged with six counts including murder, burglary and grand larceny. A jury found the couple guilty of all charges in 2000, but an appeals court overturned the convictions and paved the way for the retrial, now in its fifth week. The two face from 20 years to life in prison if convicted on all counts.

Expert v. expert

Like Baden, Wetli is one of the foremost forensic pathologists in the United States. He appeared confident on the stand as he went over point by point the findings of Binion's autopsy.

Though he worked from the same photographs and medical records, Wetli contradicted his colleague on almost every point.

The much-discussed marks on Binion's chest were not from buttons being pressed down into skin, Wetli said, but most likely from a side effect of Binion's heroin addiction.

"These most likely represent cigarette burns from 'going on the nod,' i.e., heroin narcosis," Wetli said under direct questioning from Tabish's lawyer, Tony Serra.

Baden previously testified that the marks were from buttons and that redness around Binion's mouth was from someone suffocating him with a pillow or some other object.

Wetli said he saw no evidence of suffocation, around the mouth, or in Binion's eyes.

Key to Baden's testimony was evidence of "petechiael hemorrhaging." That type of injury, characterized by red dots the size of pin's heads, could be indicative of a sudden oxygen deprivation or a significant rise in blood pressure.

Wetli said Binion's eyes were merely bloodshot from dehydration when they opened after death.

In his report on his review of Binion's medical records, Wetli called the millionaire's death accidental and any suggestion of suffocation by other pathologists — most notably Baden — "specious and apocryphal."

"[Suffocation] sounds good, but is without scientific fact," Wetli testified. "There's no evidence to support it."

Dealing with drugs

Intent on discrediting Baden's burking theory, the defense called to the stand Monday another forensic pathologist, Dr. Vincent DiMayo, chief medical examiner of San Antonio, Texas, and surrounding communities.

Though he contradicted Wetli on some of the findings about the lividity of Binion's body at the time of examination and therefore the time of death estimate, DiMayo echoed many of his colleague's criticisms of Baden's findings.

DiMayo said that based upon toxicology reports Binion had a lethal combination of drugs in his system at time of death, no matter how he ingested them.

"It doesn't matter if you smoke it, shoot it or put it in a rectal suppository," DiMayo told jurors. "What matters is what's in the blood."

The levels of Xanax and heroin in Binion's blood, Dimayo testified, should be the main factor in determining cause of death.

"There's absolutely no objective evidence, no physical evidence, nothing that you can say this man has been burked," he said. "The only concrete evidence you have are the drugs, there's nothing else there."

Neither DiMayo nor Wetli testified in the first trial.

Holiday for jurors

After court recessed for the day Judge Joseph Bonaventure met with attorneys from both sides to discuss scheduling matters.

With the trial in its fifth week and Thanksgiving approaching, Bonaventure addressed the possibility of sequestering the jury during the holidays or postponing closing arguments until after the four-day weekend.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys, however, agreed to waive sequestration for jury deliberations.

Court TV Extra is streaming the trial live on the Web.