Among those who testified for the defense was Dr. Cyril Wecht, an equally famous pathologist from Pittsburgh. Wecht, a close Baden friend, testified that he believed Binion committed suicide by overdosing on heroin and Xanax, a prescription sedative. But he acknowledged under cross examination that he was never given access to most of the prosecution's conspiratorial evidence. Baden said it was unusual for him to be on opposite sides with Wecht, who consulted with him on the O.J. Simpson case. Baden, who has conducted more than 20,000 autopsies, said he was intrigued by the Binion case because of the burking factor.
Suffocation is very hard to detect.
From that point of view, it's a great challenge, and I like challenges. Prosecutors later asked him to be a witness for them. Chief Deputy District Attorneys David Roger and David Wall didn't learn of Baden's suffocation theory until shortly before they put him on the witness stand last August in the preliminary hearing for Murphy and Tabish. Baden said he was summoned to Las Vegas by prosecutors to back up Simms, but eventually found that he had to disagree with him. He said he told Roger and Wall that they didn't have to put him on the witness stand knowing he would contradict Simms.