Thrill killings saga to unfold in court

Metro Police detectives seeking the culprits responsible for a sophisticated gun store burglary in 1996 didn't need long to catch wind of their suspects.

Fliers for assault-type weapons like those stolen began surfacing in areas of Clark County that are known as stomping grounds for drug addicts and criminals.

The detectives, however, didn't anticipate the bonus of their already good fortune -- that their probe would lead to the murder weapons used in three thrill killings near UNLV and the arrest of 22-year-old Tony Amati and two others.

Amati's trial begins today on murder charges that allege he was responsible for a particularly brutal string of slayings characterized by what police termed "overkill." Details of the those slayings and how police tracked down Amati will emerge in the next three weeks as the trial unfolds, but much of that information already is available in the court records.

The first slaying occurred just a day after an arsenal of weapons was stolen on May 26, 1996, from Master Shooters Supply on West Sahara Avenue, the court records say.

The gun store thieves had disabled an alarm system and gained entry through an air-conditioning vent on the roof -- an approach that Amati is alleged to have used in earlier burglaries.

Police had few clues until the fliers were distributed several months later.

At the same time a group of gang detectives sought the gun store bandits, a team of homicide detectives pursued a parallel probe of the murders of three men in separate but, they suspected, related incidents between May and August 1996.

The officers had no idea their paths would cross.

But they did after the officers buying the guns served a search warrant on one of those alleged to be involved in the sale -- Amati -- and recovered 23 stolen guns, most from the Master Shooters Supply theft.

Three of the guns were linked to the thrill killings, according to the FBI.

One of the guns was a 9mm semiautomatic handgun found in the nightstand of Amati's bedroom, court records say.

The tale of the converging paths and the evidence that was gathered along the way will be laid out in the courtroom of District Judge Joseph Bonaventure's courtroom as a jury decides whether Amati was responsible for the three killings. During one of the slayings, a witness has told police, a gunman laughed as the volleys of shots were fired.

If Deputy District Attorneys Christopher Lalli and Michael O'Callaghan win a first-degree murder conviction, they will ask the jury to impose the death penalty.

The slayings reflected a brutal nature the prosecutors are expected to impress upon the jury.

The first victim was Michael John Matta, 27, who was rummaging through Dumpsters in a condominium complex in the 5100 block of Gray Lane, near Hacienda Avenue and Maryland Parkway.

He was shot so many times that the paths of the bullets could not be determined and documented by the county's medical examiner, Lalli said.

More than 20 bullet casings were recovered from the murder scene.

The second victim, 48-year-old John Garcia, died of a single gunshot wound to his head in his garage at 5147 Greene Lane, near Tropicana Avenue and Maryland Parkway, just a block away from the scene of Matta's slaying.

While only one round hit him, four other bullets were fired.

The third victim was 22-year-old Keith Dyer, who was walking a teenage fellow employee from Pizza Hut to her apartment when they were approached by three men outside 4995 S. Maryland Parkway for what police believe was a robbery.

There was a shout and one of the men -- alleged to be Amati -- opened fire.

Like the first victim, Dyer died in a flurry of bullets.

He was hit 13 times in the back and the girl, who did not clearly see the attackers, suffered a minor wound to her leg.

At the time Metro homicide Sgt. Ken Hefner said, "The murders were, to a large degree, overkill. They were unnecessary and particularly brutal. The victims were minding their own business."

But there were no witnesses who could positively identify the killers.

Amati and the two other men initially were arrested on weapons charges, but they bailed out of jail while homicide detectives worked to find additional links to the homicides, since the possession of a murder weapon is considered insufficient evidence to bring charges.

Lalli said that the break came when Metro criminalists found blood drops on a sidewalk at the scene of the third slaying that could not have come from the victim.

The prosecution theory is that the slide mechanism from Amati's pistol sliced open his hand as he fired, Lalli said. The mechanism ejects the spent cartridges and reloads live bullets.

He noted that traces of blood were found on the slide of the nightstand gun and police learned that the day after the third murder Amati sought treatment at a hospital for a cut on his hand.

Amati was called to Metro under the guise of talking about the stolen guns, and police were able to take a blood sample for comparison, Lalli said.

But before it could be analyzed and compared with the blood drops found on the sidewalk, Amati fled Las Vegas and stayed on the run until Feb. 27, 1998. During that time he became the first Nevadan to make it onto the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.

The murder charges and the "most wanted" designation came after the DNA tests were conducted on the blood samples, showing there was only a 1 in 600 billion chance that the blood on the sidewalk wasn't Amati's.

Amati, Lalli said, took an evasive path from Las Vegas before winding up in Carbondale, Ill. He was arrested on a telephone tip less than a week after his case was featured on the syndicated television show "America's Most Wanted."

"He was really on the run," Lalli said, noting Amati admitted he was traveling on false identifications that apparently got him through police checks on several occasions. The trail wound through California and Utah and eventually to Illinois.

Lalli said that after Amati's arrest, FBI agents asked him if he wanted to make a statement, and the defendant replied, "No, I know the evidence against me. I'm done."

The prosecution wants to hear about that statement and wants to argue that Amati, in essence, was admitting that he was going to be convicted.

Defense attorney David Schieck claims that Amati is stating merely that he is through talking and has asked Bonaventure to keep the statement from the jury because to reveal it would violate the defendant's Fifth Amendment rights.

Bonaventure is scheduled to make a decision on the issue this week before FBI agents testify.

Although two other suspects had been arrested by police, murder charges were dropped against Edward James, 23, and Troy Sampson, 27.

The decision to drop the charges came in May 1998 following a ruling by Bonaventure that prosecutors could not tell a jury that Sampson and James were alleged to have been involved -- but not charged -- in the burglaries of the gun stores.

O'Callaghan decided there was not enough evidence to proceed against the pair, although Lalli noted last week that there is nothing to prevent the refiling of charges should new evidence surface.

"We had charged Sampson and James because we felt they were involved" but there was no DNA or other corroborating evidence to provide the necessary link to obtain convictions, Lalli said.

He explained the original charges resulted because three weapons were used in the first and third murders and two guns were used in the second slaying.

Lalli said Amati's trial is expected to take nearly three weeks because it is, in essence, seven trials in one, requiring the calling of 70 to 80 prosecution witnesses.

There are the three murders, the gun store burglary, the purchase of the stolen guns by undercover gang officers and evidence of two prior burglaries committed by Amati.

Those burglaries, when Amati was still a juvenile, also involved rooftop entries through air-conditioning vents.

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