Tony Ray Amati

Sampson faced a federal arson charge since the store was involved in interstate commerce. In 2002, he pleaded guilty to arson and sentenced to 150 months in prison. Sampson was released from prison on December 11, 2012.

Sampson was released from prison in August 1999. On November 14, 2000, he robbed and burned down a Las Vegas convenience store. He cut the telephone lines to the store in an attempt to disable the alarm system, cut a hole in the roof to get inside, and cut the power lines to the store security cameras. However, Sampson missed one camera, which filmed him breaking into video poker machines, trying to drill open an ATM, and pouring lighter fluid around the store and lighting it on fire.

Four weeks later, in August 1996, the trio fatally shot 22-year-old Keith Dyer just outside of a friend's home, killing him. Stacie Dooley, a friend of Dyer and a witness to the shooting, was shot in the leg. During Amati's trial, she started sobbing as she recounted how three masked gunmen were "laughing like it was a big joke" and jumped around as they shot Dyer 13 times. Dyer's mother died on September 22, 1999. Her husband later said she couldn't deal with the death of her son and had been extremely dedicated to pursuing his killers.

In 1999, he stood trial, denying his guilt, claiming the murders were primarily committed by Sampson and James, and that he himself never pulled the trigger.

On February 27, 1998, Amati was officially added as number 452 on the FBI's ten most wanted list, and they subsequently took control over the case. It was found that in the two years Amati was a fugitive, he went under multiple pseudonyms including Anthony Ray Jones, Phillip D. Gitlitz, Debon Restivito and Shane William Wade. The FBI found that he was arrested multiple times in Utah, but managed to convince police that he was a different person each time.

Before the initial spree, Amati along with two accomplices, 27-year-old Troy Sampson and 23-year-old Edward James, robbed a gun store of $30,000 in southern Las Vegas, as well as stealing 75 firearms. Their crime spree began on May 27, 1996, when Amati, Sampson and James fired over 20 rounds into 27-year-old Michael Matta in a parking lot in southern Las Vegas, ultimately killing him. Matta was homeless, and was reportedly rummaging though bags of trash when killed. In July, two blocks away from where Matta was gunned down, the trio shot 48-year-old John Garcia to death in his garage near Tropicana Avenue.

At the scene, Amati cut his hand, leaving blood that police eventually collected and used to implicate him. In October 1996, Amati, Sampson and James sold stolen guns to a dealer. Unknown to them, the buyer was an undercover policeman, and both Sampson and James were apprehended, while Amati remained at large. Their trailer was subsequently seized and searched by investigators, who uncovered the stolen weapons, which were eventually matched to the guns used to kill all three victims. Since Amati couldn't be located, his two accomplices remained in police custody until he was found.

In 1996, Sampson pleaded guilty to possession of stolen property and being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, and was sentenced to 20 to 50 months in prison.

Amati was born in Carbondale, Illinois. He and his family moved to Las Vegas in 1992. He graduated from Clark High School with honors in 1994. Amati was still in high school when he got a job as a telemarketer. During his murder trial, a doctor said he was highly intelligent, able to discern right from wrong, and exhibited many of the traits of obsessive–compulsive disorder. "He has the personality characteristics that you would see in a good accountant", the doctor testified.

Anthony "Tony" Ray Amati (born June 28, 1976) is an American serial killer who shot and killed three people during a series of "thrill-killings" in Las Vegas, Nevada between May and August 1996. The FBI was brought in to find Amati's whereabouts, adding him to the FBI's ten most wanted list in 1998. Following his arrest, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, and is currently serving his sentence in Nevada.