Tom Dillard emerged from District Court Friday afternoon riding the biggest victory of his investigative career. For the first time in a long time, he managed a smile.
He'd not only won a long series of steak dinner bets with friends and associates who failed to believe a jury would convict Rick Tabish and Sandy Murphy of murder in the death of Ted Binion, but he had finally closed what will go down as perhaps the biggest murder case in Las Vegas history.
To the defense, he was the key agent of the Binion Money Machine.
To the prosecution, he was all that stood in the way of having the death of Ted Binion declared a heroin-and-Xanax overdose, the fate that befalls junkies every day from New York to Seattle.
But the signs were there early. Not only did several key witnesses in the case play far better than anticipated, but the defense team's premise that Tabish and Murphy were being victimized by the "Binion Money Machine" became an unsubstantiated theme. When the defense stressed its belief that Binion died of a drug-related suicide, it all but walked the defendants into the penitentiary.
Neither Becky Binion Behnen nor her husband, Nick Behnen, were called by the defense as witnesses. In the end, Dillard also received a pass as attorneys Louis Palazzo and John Momot framed their case with the thought that there was overwhelming evidence that would lead to reasonable doubt in the jurors' minds. The attorneys were wrong.
In their defense, perhaps Momot and Palazzo knew what others already knew: They were unlikely to get anything helpful from the 53-year-old Dillard, who in 23 years at Metro testified hundreds of times and worked 217 homicide cases, solving approximately 80 percent in partnership with Bob Leonard.
The defense's dossier on Dillard included critical comments made during an improper contact with District Judge Stephen Huffaker during the Howard Haupt murder trial. Not a line of the material was used attrial.
Why didn't the defense follow through?
Perhaps the attorneys recognized the care Dillard took to ensure a near-flawless investigation. Of the 107 interviews he conducted, 105 were recorded. Parts of those interviews served to help the defense, and in his interrogation Dillard kept his opinions to a minimum.
In other words, he gave the defense very little to hit. Once District Judge Joseph Bonaventure ruled in favor of the prosecution in allowing Dillard's work product without defining him as an agent of the state, the defense was forced to refocus its theory.
"I believed a murder had been committed from the day I walked into the house," Dillard recalled. "The crime scene, in my opinion, was clearly staged. When I saw the crime scene photos, I was pretty convinced in my mind there had been a homicide. Whether it could be proven or not was another matter."
Embarking on the case as a representative of the Ted Binion estate, he began interviewing witnesses and quickly discovered that not only were Binion and Murphy in the process of ending their stormy relationship, but that Tabish, a man with huge business and personal debts, had been linked romantically to Murphy. When estate attorney Jim Brown, Dillard's friend, swore Ted Binion had instructed him on Sept. 16, 1998, to take Murphy out of the will before she killed him, the detective knew he had established a powerful motive for murder.
Dillard turned over his interviews to Metro homicide. He lauded the efforts of his associates, Leonard, Jack Holder and Phil Needham, as well as those of Metro detective James Buczek. Contrary to any defense contention, Dillard said Metro established an investigation that was separate and distinct from his own. Buczek's effort ensured he would be of little use to the defense at trial.
"My plan from the beginning was never to be a state witness in this case," he said.
Obviously, the plan worked. Murphy and Tabish face life in prison.
Two defense attorneys are second-guessing their strategy. While Tom Dillard has won the case of a lifetime.
John L. Smith's column appears Wednesdays in the Nevada Appeal. Reach him at (702) 383-0295 or Smith@lasvegas.com.