Smooth-talking Swindler Caught By Lies And A Few Grains Of Sand
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday June 24, 2000
Dale Pike was dead within hours of arriving in Miami.
The Sydney man was shot twice in the head and dumped face-down, bloodied and naked in scrub alongside Sewer Beach at Virginia Key, one of the city's many gay haunts.
He had flown in to save his aging and senile father from falling victim to a multi-million dollar fraud, but became the victim of a vicious crime that would captivate and sicken the citizens of Florida's capital.
The hunt for his murderer led detectives on an international trail, from the glitzy European playground of Ibiza to Miami's celebrity circuit.
The eventual brief of evidence read like a script from Miami Vice, with a list of characters that included several conmen, a movie producer, a famous clothing designer and an international sportsman.
It ended in a Miami court this week when an Italian film-maker, Enrico Forti, 39, was sentenced to life in prison for the killing.
Forti was notorious in Miami for buying the houseboat in which Andrew Cunanan had hidden from police for three days after killing the fashion godfather Gianni Versace. Cunanan took his own life before police found him.
Regarded as a smooth-talking businessman, Forti had secured a deal to make a movie about Cunanan's life, but his plans to use the houseboat as part of the set sank when the boat was mysteriously destroyed.
Miami homicide detectives could hardly contain their elation this week at securing Forti's conviction. Their case had been built, literally, around a good hunch and a few grains of sand.
``We were sure Mr Forti was our man. It was just a matter of working the case to the point where we had the evidence," said the supervising detective in the investigation, Sergeant Willie Everett.
Dale Pike, 42, went to the US in February 1998 after his father, Mr Tony Pike, had told him of business deals he was negotiating with Forti, involving the family's exclusive Pikes Hotel on the Spanish island of Ibiza.
The Miami-Dade Court was told Mr Tony Pike was suffering from AIDS-related dementia and that Forti had planned to swindle him out of his hotel.
``Greed. Determination. Outright murder. That is what this case is about," Florida State Attorney, Ms Gail Levine, said in her opening statement.
Forti had met the elderly Mr Pike while staying at the resort with a group of gay friends. Forti had then returned to his Miami home.
Dale Pike wanted to meet Forti and cancel the deals with his father. Mr Pike had already been conned out of a big amount of money.
Police said Forti greeted Dale Pike at Miami Airport and drove him to a secluded area at Virginia Key, where he shot him. They said Forti had chosen the site to leave the impression the death was a gay killing. Dale Pike was not gay. He had a girlfriend, Ms Vaike Neene, in Collaroy, in Sydney.
Forti initially denied he had been at the airport at all, or that he had driven his Range Rover to the beach with Mr Pike.
Instead, he tried to divert suspicion from himself by implicating a friend and neighbour, German tennis pro Thomas Knott.
Knott had already come to police notice when he was charged with fraud for taking Mr Tony Pike's credit card and using it to buy video equipment.
Forti's story disintegrated into a mire of lies and self-contradiction. He finally admitted he had collected Mr Pike at the airport but said he had taken him to a restaurant where he had left him with Knott.
However, Knott had an iron-clad alibi and was so enraged by Forti's allegations that he gave evidence against Forti.
The evidence that clinched Forti's conviction was a test on some sand found on his vehicle's towbar. The grains were an exact match of the sand near where Mr Dale Pike's body was found.
``We also had evidence that Forti had made a cellular phone call from the beach around the time when Mr Pike was killed," the sergeant said. ``He told a lot of lies that came back to get him."
Mr Dale Pike's body was flown to Sydney after the killing.
© 2000 Sydney Morning Herald