Just hearing the names Sandy Murphy or Rick Tabish makes me want to take a sleeping pill and hope I wake up and find it was all just a nightmare. That I could hop in my car and truck downtown and see Teddy Binion hanging out by the front crap table. Benny would be sitting in his booth downstairs eating a Porterhouse and sipping whiskey. But no pill would work and now I get up every morning and instead of going for coffee and a Review Journal, I just get the coffee. I can't bare to read the names Sandy Murphy or Tabish and not heave last nights chicken tacos. Thanks to lots of money from some sad old man who thinks this is his last chance at a piece of ass if he gets her out of jail and off the hook for the murder. But let's take a look at what we're talking about to those 4,000 people moving here every month who if you mentioned the name Binion they'd picture a big pimple on your foot.

Ted Binion was running the Horseshoe after daddy passed away and brother Jack was looking to build in Mississippi. Ted was ready to take over, at least when Jack wasn't in town. And he knew the business as well as Jack did but no one knew it like Benny. Ted was a nice guy, a rich, a little paranoid thanks to his Cocaine usage. And one day while at a strip club fell in love with one of the dancers. Her name was Sandy Murphy and when she found out who he was and the kind of money he had she was in love. He bought her a new black Mercedes, moved her into his palatial home. The had fun together as long as Ted had drugs. One day she was introduced to Rick Tabish, a guy who owned the Jean sand pit and a much better looking guy than Ted and she thought he was rich too. Ted kept them both high but for Rick; his life was starting to crush down around him. He was in debt over a million dollars to his business in Montana as well as the Jean operation. Sandy was growing tired of Ted as she fell in love with Rick, she knew Ted had money and she knew just where it was, and he was so in love with her he included her in his will for the time being.

Then one afternoon Sandy called the maid and told her she was sick and didn't have to work that day, she called the real estate lady Ted had an appointment with to see the house since Ted wanted to move out. They fought constantly and Ted knew it was over and Sandy and Rick didn't try to hide it very much anymore so he called his lawyer and told him to "Take Sandy out of the will, I don't trust her anymore. And was even quoted as telling his lawyer "If you ever find me dead, she's the one that did it." (But the only knowledge we have of any of that is the phone records that showed a lengthy call to his lawyer. The next day the maid did not come in, the security system that was fixed on the front door, driveway, and exterior, was all dismantled and given to someone to fix, it would take a few days. (It was attested to that it worked the day before by the cleaning lady, and the person that was to fix it said it looked like the cameras were tampered with. The next day Sandy called 911 to tell them she found Ted dead lying on a sleeping bag in front of the TV. Of course anyone that knew him knew he couldn't see up close and had the couch in the back of the room so he could see the TV or wear glasses, which weren't found anywhere.

The autopsy said Ted died from an overdose of Xanex and Heroin. They said he swallowed both when everyone that knows about Heroin users either inject it or smoke it, some maybe even snort it but nobody swallows it. It just doesn't work that way. But the only way they could describe the black and blue mark on his chest and the marks on his face was that someone knelt on his chest while someone suffocated his nose and mouth, an old term called Burking. The real estate lady that had an appointment Sandy cancelled testified that she said she sounded nervous and shaken up but that was all she could say. The cleaning lady never took a day off so she was concerned when called by Sandy and told to stay home.

Does this mean she turned over on Tabish because with the way I understand the murder laws if you're at the scene and helping a murder, If you have knowledge or evidence of a murder,even if you didn't pull the trigger, you're still just at guilty as the murderer since you know about the plot, the plot stemming from the thievery of monies, in this case silver by the ton, as well as hundred thousand dollar coin collections, cash stashed in the house she lived in, none of which was found, not the cash and not the coin collection which were pretty much the only things in the house that were worth that kind of money as well as cash by the tens of thousands, these were all easily to hide, just a suitcase would take care of that, and then since you're dealing with the simplest of excuses for death these days, drug over dosage.

Now drug over dosage is usually due to someone giving you bad drugs if you're into drugs like Heroin or Cocaine, but two days later when Rick and two friends were caught in Pahrump digging up Ted's 7 million dollars of pure silver bars hid in a vault that Rick himself dig and built for Ted, with the fact that the $200,000 money line he owned to the Bank of the West was due the next day on Sept. 18th. There was a contention that they were planning on killing Ted a week earlier, this was testimony from Sandy's manicurist that was told "Ted would be dead in he was exactly three weeks away from a drug overdose, her excuse was that he was doing so much heroin that she figured by the amount and how much more he was doing that she scientifically figured three weeks, that was just a few days off due to some unforeseen happenings in the family.

The problem was Rick was going to have to get helpers to get that silver out that night, he could only find two people he thought he could trust and were strong enough to get the silver into the lifts and lift it into his dump truck which was how the Pahrump police said they actually caught them. There are weight limits on their streets and the cop drove by and noticed the bulging belly of the truck was actually bulging in the bottom from all the weight of the silver. And had plans to dump most of it off the next day so he could cover the $200,000 that he'd sell the rest of the silver to pay off the businesses he owed money to and he and Sandy would split the rest after he put some money into his businesses and had plans to enlarge his home he lived in with his wife and children. Then Sandy would sell Binions house and sell his silver coin collection which if were legal could now fetch closer to $200,000 with Ted's name on it.

But I had to ask myself if I had to pick one of the two that I thought might me more innocent than the other, the one I might vote out of jail than the other I probably would have said Sandy first. I figured the murders of passion of two lovers are much more common than the murder from a person just seeking money. Murder for money is something mostly pre-conceived arranged to hide the bodies, cover the evidence and all for the need for cash. The crime of passion is usually done on the spur of the moment in the heat of an argument, catching someone in a compromising position and so on. Now put the two of them together, the murder of two out of passion and money now you have a crime that should have included the death penalty. Had Sandy waited she could have married him at anytime, divorce him after getting well written up in his will, kept the affair private had they used a little smarts instead of going to places like the Beverly Hills Hotel, sign their own names and be seen in the bars and restaurants as well as room service bills signed in Rick's name. Dozens of cell phone calls between the two of them.

They remembered to keep the cleaning lady at home but forgot the Gardner who saw a guy who resembled Rick get out of Sandy's black Mercedes in the driveway that afternoon and gone less than an hour later, the drapes were closed but he was able to see Ted's lifeless body on the floor in front of the TV on the sleeping bed which to me was one of the more damning evidence since he never took out his sleeping bag and he was farsighted and couldn't see close so certainly wouldn't be sitting less than three feet away from the TV which means he was moved after death. Personal things were removed from the house which means Sandy was there at the time of death or just after to retrieve the things she needed before the police showed up. She even did a personal video at the house where she is seen sneaking something out of a drawer ad washing out a wine glass. Theorist claim on dozens on things she could have removed from the drawer, it probably nothing special, it could have been a picture or a music box or Ted's 18kt. Gold Rolex, who knows? But why wash one of the wine glasses out except they wouldn't shove the Xanex down his throat, they'd crush it up and put a few in his wine glass. Ted loved Merlot, a dark red wine.

But the prosecution's biggest mistake was almost as bad as letting O.J. put on the gloves with rubber gloves underneath (I'll never understand why the prosecution, already stupid enough to let him put them on, didn't demand he remove the rubber gloves and try them on again. Marsha Clark, and Chris Darden, both rookies to a murder of this magnitude is tantamount to having two college baseball player being put into the world series in the 9th with the game on the line. They were so far over their heads.) But one of the most damning testimonies came from one of the least suspectable people in the case; she was one of the most innocent only because she really liked Sandy.

Her name is Deanna Perry. You see, Sandy had a regular weekly appointment at Neman Marcus's beauty salon. She'd have a special facial, a massage, her nails and toes done and Ted got her a charge card to make it easier. Most of their arguments were over the money she spent. So after years Deanna and Sandy had become good friends. Sandy did most of the talking since her and Ted didn't speak and Ted didn't let her have any friends. Along with the camera system he knew if any calls were made from his phone as long as take Sandy's cell phone to see who she was calling. That was how he found out about her and Rick since there were numerous calls ever day between her and Rick, but by then the silver vault was dug and the silver stored in there since Gaming Commission didn't take too kindly to tons of silver bars being stocked in the Horseshoe vault.

The IRS was eventually going to get to him and his silver but who knew how much he really had and where he stashed it. So Sandy and Deanna became good friends and she made the statement that she was worried because their relationship was not going well and he was a millionaire and what would she do without the kind of money she was used to? He threatened to take her out of the will and take back the Mercedes as well as some other valuable items along with half a $300,000 home and his silver collection that nobody had an idea for sure but the closest an assayer could put it was at $4 million dollars, but if he left her she would get NOTHING. But the one thing was that he was a heroin addict and was "sure to die anytime. Sooner if not later." When Deanna asked how long she though Ted had she had only one answer "Three weeks." She could have said anything like "the way he's doing heroin he could die in the next weeks or months, but instead she said three weeks. That was on a Wednesday; Ted was dead three weeks later on a Thursday. Then she asked how she thought he would die (Deanna was under the impression he injected heroin) So when she asked how she thought he would die Sandy answered "in a happy, bubbly mood" said "He does Xanex,, it's a sleeping pill, probably an overdose of both."

The significance of this was that her statement was made before any of the evidence was told by the newspapers so Deanna had no way of knowing he died exactly the way Sandy "predicted", nor could Sandy have predicted exactly when he would die. But I blame Tabish for most of this if for no other reason than he had no money, no way of raising it and within two days his business would be sold. He was broke and desperate. Sandy had ways of making money so even though she was going to get a large sum of money for helping Rick she could have come to her senses and let Tabish do what he wanted and just stayed away from it all, except she knew about the phone call Ted made to his attorney the night before cutting her out of the will and she would be broke. He would have left her nothing so people were showing up out of "good will hunting" or do they call that "treasure hunting?" Either way Sandy put on a great performance trying to get Ted to believe she loved him and would help him get off the heroin, her suggestion was the Xanex, something that would relax him or even put him to sleep to stop the urge of taking Heroin. But she got him so strung out on the Xanex, then when she knew he was still smoking Heroin she saw the perfect opportunity to prove an overdose of drugs. It's so simple yet people still believe they had nothing to do with it.

There's a sleeping pill on the market, I won't name it but they advertise it on TV. It causes sleep in minutes; the problem is it causes complete forgetfulness. You can't possibly remember what happened ten minutes after you take the pills, yet you can still function. The first time I took them and went shopping, the next morning I woke up with all the groceries under the kitchen sink, not a great place to store chicken and cheese. Xanex has some of the same medicine and after the Xanex is given, anything can be done without the drugged person knowing what they did. That's why it was so easy to stuff the Heroin down his throat so he would die. They couldn't inject him, and then they'd know it was murder, they couldn't make him smoke enough to kill him, it's almost impossible to kill yourself that way since you'd just pass out before you'd die. So Sandy crushed the pills in the glass of wine she removed during the film, put him to sleep, waited for him to fall asleep in less than 30 minutes, and then simply put enough Heroin to kill him. A while later, when his breathing was shallow but he wasn't dead Tabish just suffocated him. It wouldn't take much, that's why there weren't many tell tale signs around his face and nose due to suffocation, but he didn't need to put his knee on his chest, he could have stopped his heart with the combination of drugs and suffocation, but the mark left from the shirt button was the give away and Judge Joe Boneventure who judiciated the first case will be sitting on the bench for this case too, he didn't cut them any slack and most people believe, especially the Las Vegas Press, believed they were both guilty. They've yet to come up with an alternative cause of death that makes any sense, and the two causes of murder are money and passion, am I missing anything here? Money? Passion? I'll leave the rest to you.

With the money Sandy's benefactor is coming up with there's a chance she might get off, money does that in Las Vegas. But Rick won't be so lucky. Sandy will be some sort of celebrity in town for a while but they won't be cheering her, they'll just be calling her a murderer. Nobody every knew Sandy Murphy -Ken Pearlman