The original trial was the backdrop of Jim McManus' excellent book Positively 5th Street. Now the conviction is overturned.
A jury in Las Vegas, Nevada, acquitted a former stripper and her lover of murder Tuesday in the 1998 death of casino heir Ted Binion.
But the seven-man, five-woman jury convicted the pair of plotting to steal an $8 million cache of silver Binion kept buried in the desert.
It was the second trial for Sandy Murphy, 32, and Rick Tabish, 39, in Binion's death.
They were convicted of murder in 2000 and faced life in prison, but the Nevada Supreme Court overturned the verdicts in July 2003 and ordered a new trial.
Murphy sobbed when the retrial verdicts were read. Tabish smiled as his lawyers slapped him on the back.
McManus paints such a nasty detailed picture of his murder in the book that this acquital changes everything. I wonder he'll have a new chapter in upcoming editions.
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