Death in the Desert: The Ted Binion Homicide Case

by Cathy Scott

Multi-millionaire Ted Binion, son and heir to the estate of cowboy gangster and gambler Benny Binion who helped mold Las Vegas, was found dead in his million-dollar home on September 17, 1998. Binion’s girlfriend, a one-time exotic dancer, and her lover, Rick Tabish, a contractor from Missoula, Montana, both were convicted of killing Binion by forcing him to swallow a mixture of black tar heroin and the sedative Xanax. Death in the Desert: The Ted Binion Homicide Case takes you inside this incredible case surrounded by drugs, gambling, mobsters, and a $14 million silver stash. It explores whether it was murder, as the prosecution contended, or an accidental overdose, as the defense claimed. The book includes never-before-seen historical photos of the Binion family.

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime

322 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2000

About the author

Cathy Scott, a Los Angeles Times bestselling author, investigative veteran journalist and blogger for Psychology Today, has written twelve books. Her work has appeared in New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Reuters and Las Vegas Sun. Best known for penning The Killing of Tupac Shakur and Murder of a Mafia Daughter, she taught journalism for five years at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her latest books are The Millionaire’s Wife and Freeway Rick Ross: The Untold Autobiography, which won a best non-fiction award in 2014. Recent TV appearances include The Dr. Oz Show, Dateline NBC, the Today Show, Vanity Fair’s crime series. She lives in a renovated miner's cabin in the mountains of San Diego County with her three rescued dogs.

Reviews

[Autumn Kearney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Skip the introduction if you read this book. It’s kinda trashy and turned me off. The actual chapters are more Las Vegas Review Journal and less The National Inquirer. In other words worth reading at least once.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent well documented book about the Murder of Ted Binion

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting Read.

Interesting and well researched book for anyone interested in this event. I won’t be a spoiler and say any more!

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Y

[Tambra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love true crime books, This was a great read, Now ill sell it for 25 cents.

[Sheree Norman · Rating 4 out of 5]

An accounting of the events. Brought back many memories of this case and so many others that were interlinked.

[Natalie Myers · Rating 3 out of 5]

good info on this case, but holy hell this author needs an editor or maybe some grammar lessons

[Christina]

Seems like a sloppily slapped-together story... there is a lot of good information but the organization is a bit off and there were a lot of typographical or sentence structure errors or repetitive paragraphs. Perhaps a result of the ebook conversion? It came with the book about Susan Berman's murder (which I'm interested in after watching The Jinx) so I read it but I didn't have any connection to the Ted Binion case it covered.

[Cora · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent read. I've live in Vegas on and off since 1971 and know most of the places mentioned as well as knowing of many of the players. There is some repetition in the book but a lot of good accurate information. Personally I always thought Ted died of an OD without any foul play involved and that Murphy and Tabish simply saw opportunity knocking when it came to the silver.

[Tabitha Rohm · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an awesome book. I bought two off Cathy Scott's books when they were on sale and both were great. After you read this one, you should read Murder in Beverly Hills, too because they have a lot of the same people in them.

[Timothy Gaines · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining. I'd lived in Vegas for a couple of years and was interested in its history, especially the time before it became an adult Disneyland. By an odd quirk of fate, I ended up working on the film base on this story.