Early Grave A True Story of Love, Deceit, and Murder in the American Desert

OVERDOSE OR MURDER? On September 17, 1998, police found Las Vegas gambling magnate Ted Binion lying dead on the floor of his palatial home, an empty bottle of Xanax beside him. They'd been called by Binion's live-in lover, Sandra Murphy, 23, a California girl who had been working in a Vegas strip club when Binion had first met her. At first it seemed it was a fatal drug overdose that had killed the handsome multi-millionaire. But was it? A LUST FOR LOOT A few days later, Binion's "friend" Rick Tabish was arrested for trying to break into a vault where the eccentric millionaire had stored $7 million dollars' worth of silver bars & coins. Family members hired ex-homicide detective turned private investigator Tom Dillard to start digging into the case. Dillard turned over the evidence he collected to Las Vegas police. What they found led to Binion's death being ruled a homicide and Murphy and Tabish's arrest for murder. LETHAL LOVERS? The state said they were greedy lovers who'd conspired to kill Binion before he could strike Murphy out of a will, while the defense claimed that his vengeful family was trying to railroad her to keep her from inheriting her fair share of the estate. The two sides collided in court, amid lurid charges & counter-charges of physical abuse, drug use and illicit passion, in what became the Southwest's Murder Trial of the Century!King, Gary C. is the author of 'Early Grave A True Story of Love, Deceit, and Murder in the American Desert' with ISBN 9780312979263 and ISBN 0312979266.