LAS VEGAS — Sandra Murphy loved her millionaire boyfriend Ted Binion and tried to get him to stop abusing the heroin that eventually killed him, her defense attorney told jurors Friday just hours before they began deliberating her case.

"Sandy didn't kill Ted. Ted killed Ted," said defense attorney Michael Cristalli.

Cristalli characterized Murphy as a loving, innocent woman, incapable of killing anyone or anything. He said the case against his 32-year-old client was rife with reasonable doubt.

"The state has not met its burden," Cristalli said. "The only way they can sell their case to you is to portray her as a cold-hearted person."

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Murphy, an attractive brunette who met Binion at a strip club and lived with him for more than three years, was visibly upset, her nose red and her chin quivering throughout her attorney's two-hour argument.

"The medical evidence clearly indicates that Ted Binion died of a drug overdose," Cristalli said.

Murphy made a frantic 911 call on Sept. 17, 1998, at about 4 p.m. to report that Binion wasn't breathing. Paramedics found him lying on a mat in his den with a blanket pulled up to his chest.

There was heroin paraphernalia in the bathroom, and near his lifeless body was an empty bottle of Xanax, three lighters and a pack of Vantage cigarettes. Prosecutor Robert Daskas reminded jurors during a brief rebuttal closing argument that no fingerprints were found on any of those items.

"Not a smudge, not a partial print, nothing," Daskas said. "Does that suggest perhaps that those items were wiped clean?"

The longtime heroin addict's cause of death was initially deemed an overdose. But nine months later, after an investigation by the Binion family, Murphy and her secret lover, now co-defendant, Richard Tabish, were arrested and charged with murder.

Prosecutors say that the greed-driven couple forced the drugs down Binion's throat, suffocated him, and then pillaged his home of cash and valuables.

The next day, authorities caught Tabish and two assistants uploading the last of Binion's $7 million in silver from an underground vault on his desert ranch into a waiting hauler. Phone records indicate that Murphy called Tabish three times while he was allegedly stealing the treasure.

Tabish claims he was securing it for Binion's daughter.

"'A man's character is what he does when no one else is looking,'" Daskas quoted as he told jurors that Tabish may have held himself out as Binion's "new best friend" when he took the stand in his own defense, "but he was stabbing his back when no one was around." He also asked jurors to consider Tabish's three prior felony convictions for assault with a deadly weapon, false imprisonment and extortion.

Murphy's defense attorney maintained that she knew nothing about the vault filled with silver and that she had remained with Binion through his struggle with addiction.

"We know for a fact that she hated Ted's drug dealer," Cristalli said, reminding jurors of the testimony of Peter Sheridan, who sold Binion 12 balloons of Mexican black-tar heroin the night before his death.

"Rick didn't order the balloons. Sandy didn't order the balloons. She was disgusted by it," Cristalli said.

Cristalli also focused on the medical testimony of defense experts who said that Binion's body showed no evidence of trauma consistent with forced suffocation — for instance, a lack of injury to his esophagus and trachea, and fluid in his lungs consistent with overdose.

Although medical experts disagree about the time of Binion's death, most agree with the state's theory that Binion died several hours before Murphy's 911 call, based on autopsy and crime-scene photos.

But Cristalli discussed the findings of a coroner's office investigator who was on the scene at 5 p.m. and noted slight rigor in Binion's jaw.

"That is so important," Cristalli said. "Because we know through medical evidence that rigor begins to set in the jaw between one and two hours [after death]."

As he laid out his case, one female juror appeared to be nodding her head in agreement.

Cristalli concluded his argument with a video clip, previously viewed by jurors, of Murphy and Binion in happier times. She played piano, while he sat in the kitchen, listening and eating chicken wings.

"She is a good person who got put in a bad situation and has suffered ever since," Cristalli said.

Prosecutor Daskas rebutted by recounting a series of events before Binion's death that pointed to the couple's guilt.

On July 9, Binion put Murphy in his will, providing her with $300,000, the house and all of its contents in the event of his death. A manicurist testified that on Sept. 10, Murphy told her Binion would die of a heroin overdose within three weeks and that she and her boyfriend would get his silver.

A friend of Tabish's also testified that the pair discussed ways to murder the casino heir in the weeks before his death.

The day before his death, according to a witness, Binion instructed his attorney to take Murphy out of his will. Cellphone records indicate that Murphy made 24 calls to Tabish that day, according to Daskas, "because she knew that the window of opportunity was closing."

"When you consider that Ted Binion died on the day he was set to sign the will," Daskas said, "the only reasonable explanation is that these two are guilty."

The panel of five women and seven men began their deliberations at about 2:30 p.m. and will work on Saturday.

Murphy and Tabish 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.

They face 20 years to life if convicted.

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