Binion Hoard
Binion had a safe installed 12 ft (3.7 m) deep in the ground of a vacant lot that he owned in Pahrump, Nevada, United States.
After an investigation into Binion's death, his girlfriend Sandy Murphy and her purported lover Richard Tabish were arrested and convicted of his murder: they were also charged in the theft of his silver.
Four other people were also arrested and charged with grand larceny and burglary for helping Richard Tabish enter the safe and take the silver from Binion's property.
[3] He was a long time user of illicit drugs;[1] for many years, he was known to smoke tar heroin and take the anti-anxiety medication Xanax.
[4] In 1997, the Nevada Gaming Control Board gave Ted Binion a one year license suspension after he failed a drug test.
[3] The license ban was permanent, and Ted Binion made plans to move his silver from the casino vaults.
Alder stated that Ted Binion supervised the operation in which two hundred carts of silver were moved from the casino.
[3] Cathy Scott, an investigative journalist who wrote Death in the Desert: The Ted Binion Homicide Case, stated in an interview: "I think he didn't trust banks or he was filing money from the IRS and so he put it in mattresses, buried it in the backyard, as did his father.
"[13] Ted Binion was found dead lying on the floor face up in his home in Las Vegas on September 17, 1998.
[15] On September 23, 1998, the Los Angeles Times reported that the police did not initially see a connection between the death of Ted Binion and the theft of the silver and they did not suspect murder.
[5] Police were able to connect Binion's girlfriend, a former topless dancer named Sandy Murphy, to the theft of the silver.
[15] Tabish, a trucking contractor and a convicted felon, became a suspect when he was seen by a sheriff's deputy removing the treasure from an in-ground safe on Binion's lot in Pahrump just two days after his death.
That same day, Binion reportedly told his lawyer Jim Brown "Take Sandy out of the will, if she doesn't kill me tonight.
[22] In the first trial, the evidence presented by the prosecution's medical expert Michael Baden helped convict Murphy and Tabish.
[21] Baden, a pathologist, testified in court that Binion was "burked" (suffocated) from someone covering his mouth and placing their weight on his chest.
A local medical examiner who testified for the prosecution gave a different account, stating that Binion died of a "forced overdose".
[20] In the retrial, the defense called a number of expert witnesses which the Associated Press referred to as "an army of forensic pathologists, toxicologists and dermatologists to contradict Baden's theory".
[24] Tabish was released from prison in 2010, after which he began working in the field of cryptocurrency mining as the president of FX Solutions in Montana.
[14] In July of 2000, the Las Vegas Sun reported that some of Ted Binion's rare coins with a Carson City Mint mark were presumed stolen after his death.
Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger estimated that the missing coins were worth between US$10 and $15 million.
Ted Binion's estate also said that an unknown number of double eagle $20 gold pieces, a collection of antique coins and currency from the Civil War era were also missing.
While the trial was proceeding through the courts, Judge Joseph Bonaventure did not allow the estate of Ted Binion to sell the silver.
[10] In October of 2001, Ted Binion's estate sold the silver coins to Spectrum Numismatics International for US$3.3 million (equivalent to $6,200,000 in 2023).
[29] Many people, including investigative journalist Cathy Scott, believe that there is more buried treasure on Binion's property.
