Thrill killer gets 40 years in prison

Jace Radke and Bill Gang

Thursday, Dec. 9, 1999 | 11:10 a.m.

When the jury announced that Tony Amati would not receive the death penalty for what police call a thrill killing, his father let out a strangled whimper and began to cry.

At the same time Stacie Dooley, the friend of Keith Dyer who watched the 22-year-old Pizza Hut worker die after being shot several times near UNLV in 1996, put her hands over her face.

Dooley, who wore a Pizza Hut shirt to the courtroom, said she had nothing to say about the verdict as she left the courthouse.

Amati, 22, was sentenced to life in a Nevada prison for killing Dyer. He will be eligible for parole after he has served 40 years.

Amati showed little emotion as first the jury foreman and then the court clerk read the verdict.

After court was adjourned Amati's father asked the bailiff if he could give his son a hug, but he was denied and his son was led out of the courtroom. Amati will return to District Judge Joseph Bonaventure's courtroom Jan. 13 for his formal sentencing.

Amati took the witness stand as his penalty hearing came to an end Wednesday and apologized as tears ran down his face.

The words, however, were carefully crafted so he would not admit the culpability he had denied during the trial.

"I'm so sorry this happened," he said, specifically naming his mother and Dooley, who was shot in the leg during the August 1996 incident that claimed Dyer's life.

Dooley, who testified at both the trial and the penalty hearing and was sitting in court to watch closing arguments, broke down in sobs.

She had recalled for the jury that the three masked gunmen in black garb had "cackled ... laughed like it was a big joke" and jumped around while they fired numerous bullets into Dyer.

"I wish I would have stopped hanging around with the wrong people," Amati had told jurors who held his fate in their hands.

Amati had admitted that he was present when Dyer was gunned down in a flurry of bullets but denied having a gun or firing any shots.

While the jurors concluded in convicting him of first-degree murder that he played a role in the slaying, the decision to give the lightest sentence apparently indicated they didn't believe he played an instrumental role.

Deputy District Attorney Christopher Lalli had argued that because Dyer's death was a "thrill killing ... for the mere pleasure of it," the murderer should never be eligible for release back into the community.

"The only option is life without the possibility of parole or death," Lalli said, urging the jury to "give Tony Amati what he gave Keith Dyer -- give him death."

But defense attorneys said that Amati's age of 20 at the time of the murder should be considered.

Attorney David Schieck noted that even the lightest sentence would keep Amati behind bars until he is 63 years old before eligibility for parole.

Co-counsel Christopher Oram reminded the jury that Amati's two friends -- Troy Sampson, 27, and Edward James, 23 -- have escaped any punishment although authorities had once charged them in the murders.

Amati had testified they were the actual killers, and he was merely with them as they all walked to scout a nearby Radio Shack store for a future burglary.

While Amati was still on the loose and eluding police around the country, prosecutors dropped the murder charges against Sampson and James because of a lack of evidence.

Deputy District Attorney Michael O'Callaghan said the jury shouldn't consider the fates of the other suspects but focus on the appropriate punishment for Amati.

O'Callaghan said Amati's deeds were "pure evil, and pure evil deserves pure retribution."

The nine-woman, three-man jury already had acquitted Amati of involvement in two earlier shooting deaths in the same area near UNLV where Dyer was killed.

The only connection in those cases to Amati was that the murder weapons were found in his house by Metro Police gang officers after an undercover gun purchase sting operation.

One of the murder weapons was found in Amati's nightstand.

In the first of the three killings, Michael Matta, 27, died in a hail of bullets as he rummaged through a dumpster near Hacienda Avenue and Maryland Parkway on May 27, 1996.

The second incident was on July 28, 1996, when John Garcia, 48, was shot in the head in his garage at 5147 Greene Lane, near Tropicana Avenue and Maryland Parkway.

At the third murder, of Dyer, the evidence escalated.

Amati's blood from a cut on his hand was found along the path the killers used to flee the scene.

Amati had testified that he cut his hand on a car bumper as he ran in a state of shock from the scene. The shock, he said, was the result of seeing Sampson unexpectedly pull his pistol and shoot Dyer and Dooley.