The Case Against Enrico Forti

In 1998, Dale Pike was discovered dead on a Miami beach. He had been shot twice in the back of the head. Enrico Forti became a suspect when investigators discovered he lied to them about picking up Dale from the airport the day before his body was found. Forti was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison in 2000, but maintained he was wrongly convicted. "48 Hours" correspondent Erin Moriarty reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 12/7/2019. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays and stream on demand on Paramount+.

05/11/202641:59

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In 1998, Dale Pike was found murdered on Virginia Key beach in Miami. Enrico Forte, a world-class windsurfer known as Kiko, was convicted of the crime despite claims of innocence and a lack of forensic evidence. The case involves a luxury hotel deal in Ibiza and another suspicious associate, Thomas Conradi.

Conclusão 1Dale Pike was discovered dead on Virginia Key beach, shot twice in the back of the head.

Conclusão 2Enrico Forte, known as Kiko, was an Italian television producer and former windsurfing champion living in Miami at the time of the murder.

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Transcribed from “The Case Against Enrico Forti” by 48 Hours, who holds all rights to the original and has not licensed or reviewed this page. Rights holders can request removal.

This transcript was generated by speech recognition and the summary and chapters by AI, so they can contain errors. BestPodcast is not affiliated with the creator.

It was a gruesome discovery off a dirt road in Georgia. Hunters had found a body. Was it immediately clear to you that this woman had been murdered? Yes. But who was this mystery woman in the woods? That looks like Mindy. I'm Erin Moriarty and from 48 Hours, this is the woman in the woods. I have never wanted to be wrong like this in my whole entire life. Binge the full series of The Woman in the Woods wherever you get your podcasts.

You want to go back to where your brother was found, why? Yes. I want to go to the beach because that is where it happened.

I just need the rocks could talk. It's my understanding that your brother was actually found in the underbrush over here.

Dale Pike was found on a beach in Miami, naked, face down, dead, shot twice in the back of the head. My name is Joe Tacopina. I'm a lawyer, a former prosecutor, criminal defense attorney who's one of the lawyers for Enrico Forte, an innocent man who's been wrongly convicted and has spent the last 20 years in jail. Mr. Forte? Yes. Did you have anything to do with Dale Pike's death? Absolutely not. Did you ever in your wildest dreams ever think you'd end up in a place like this?

Never. Never. Enrico Forte, his nickname's Kiko, was a world-class windsurfer from Italy. He was a father, he was a husband. There's no forensic evidence linking Kiko Forte to this crime. None whatsoever. People have made comparisons to this case and Amanda Knox. You don't decide this person is guilty and then look for evidence to back it up. Is that what you think happened to Enrico Forte? There's no doubt, without question. The victim in this case is Dale Pike, the son of Tony Pike, who owns the famous hotel in Ibiza, Spain.

It's a place where partygoers go, where people go to do wild things, Spain's version of Las Vegas. She knew you were in this special place. So that attracted all different sorts of people, you know, whether it be Frank Zappa, Julio Iglesias, Wham, George Michael, and of course Freddie Mercury.

Did you know that your father was seriously entering into negotiations to sell the hotel to Enrico Forte? Yes. It just didn't feel right. Dale wanted to go and see this guy face to face. Dale Pike was going to Miami and Enrico Forte was the one that was supposed to pick him up. All I knew that my brother was going over there for the deal. So it's really like it was the deal that created the death. As you're sitting here right now, do you think Enrico Forte either helped kill or actually killed Dale Pike?

No, I do not. But you were one of the 12 jurors who convicted him. Yes. I know. The 1998 murder of Dale Pike has always been and is to this day a true murder mystery. Always questions. Always questions. Brad Pike is Dale's younger brother. I also don't think I'll ever know the truth. What is known is that someone shot Dale Pike twice in the back of the head with a 22 and left his body on a quiet stretch of beach on Virginia Key, minutes from Key Biscayne.

Shawn Crowley, a former captain with the NYPD, is now a private investigator. You know, Virginia Key is a common place for windsurfers. On February 16th, 1998, a beachgoer found Dale's body. He sees indentation in the sand from the waterline into the vegetation. But in that indentation, he sees bloodstains all along. So all the way from here, like from the edge of the water all the way to vegetation? Correct. He's found completely naked? Uh completely naked, yes. His shirt was a little off to the side but bloodied.

And then some key pieces of evidence were under his body or right next to his body. Crowley, who works for Joe Tacopina, Enrico Forte's current lawyer, believes the killer or killers staged the crime scene with obvious clues so the body would be quickly identified. A boarding pass with Dale's name on it, a pendant from Pikes Hotel in Ibiza, Spain, and a phone calling card with only one number dialed. That number belonged to Forte, better known as Kiko, an Italian television producer living in Miami. As if to say to the police, just in case you don't know who commit this murder, it's the guy who picked him up at the airport because he has the boarding pass and check the calling card because Kiko Forte's number is on it three times.

Here you go, police. I was wondering, like how close were you to Dale? We were close, but I guess we were also quite different. I love very much the outdoors. Dale wasn't really interested in that. So he was interested more in the clubbing, that sort of thing. Charming man? Yeah. Yeah, very much so. Brad was home in Australia when he got the news about Dale from a Miami detective. And she said, "Look, I'm sorry to inform you that your brother's been found murdered." I told him the whole story about what was happening.

What was happening was that Brad and Dale's father, Anthony, Tony Pike had signed papers to sell his world-famous Pikes Hotel to Enrico Forte. We had our suspicions about it. Dale wanted to just lay it out in the lie and say, "Look, I understand you want to do the deal. So what's the game? What are you playing up with now?" The brothers believed the hotel was worth a lot more money than the sales price of approximately $1.6 million. In the 1980s, the hotel had become a destination resort after George Michael and Wham chose it as the setting for the iconic video Club Tropicana.

Tony Pike had a cameo role and he played it to the hilt. That video and Tony's sex-crazed persona made Pikes a hedonist hideaway and a haven for celebrities. He was a very, very adventurous and very tenacious man, incredibly charismatic, uh good-looking, very charming, cheeky. Tony had asked Dale to help run Pikes after Tony became very sick in January 1997. They did tests and immediately diagnosed him with AIDS and said he has full-on AIDS and AIDS dementia.

But thanks to medication, in November 1997, Tony was clear-minded enough to travel to Williams Island, an exclusive enclave outside Miami. He was visiting an old friend, Thomas Kounat, a German expat who had a taste for the good life. His idea of living was to drink champagne instead of water. Chantal Mesmer managed a shop on Williams Island and knew Kounat. Well, everything had to be the best. His shoes had to be Gucci, his everything had to be the best. While visiting Kounat, Tony Pike met Kounat's upstairs neighbor, Enrico Forte, and they hit it off.

Very successful. Incredible person. He had contracts going with ESPN World Champion since 1982. In Italy, he had won a popular quiz show Kiko Forte. Signor Forte, complimenti. And later produced extreme sports videos. He was a mover and a shaker, buying up properties right around in Williams Island, seemed to be the perfect life, if you will. Hi. Hi. My name is your mommy. Forte's wife, Heather, was pregnant Wow. and the couple had two young daughters. Woo. Oh my god. The most loving father.

And the way he felt about the baby coming, he was on cloud nine. He loved Heather. Oh, with all his heart and soul.

Then in late 1997, Tony Pike told Forte he wanted to sell his legendary hotel. And a few months later, the hotel deal came together. Tony signed papers to sell it to Forte and that's when Tony's sons got upset. They felt Forte had taken advantage of Tony. The nature of the AIDS dementia as far as I know is that he goes in and out of lucidity. I guess Dale and I were just suspicious that because he wasn't mentally together, that any deal that he was doing anyway needed to be checked and looked at.

Brad says Dale then flew to Miami to deal with Forte in person. Enrico Forte, once a sports champion who traveled all over the world, today is restricted to a prison cell. But he says only his body is behind bars. I still travel a lot in my mind. That's my way to survive in here. He's constantly turning over the events that landed him here. Back in 1998, Uh you Forte was excited about becoming the owner of the legendary Pikes Hotel in Ibiza, Spain.

Sales papers had been signed, but Dale and his brother Brad still had questions. My brother sort of said, "Look, one of us needs to go and and have a look at the deal and just find out what's happening with this."

Forte went to pick Dale up at the Miami Airport on Sunday afternoon, February 15th, 1998. But Dale's flight was late. I almost left. I wait for him almost two hours. And when I didn't find him, I start paging him. These records show Forte and Dale's attempts to locate each other using the airport intercom. They start playing this game of telephone tag via the airport intercom system for about an hour and a half. Joe Tacopina and Dean Nashwat, Forte's lawyers, say Forte was nervous about the time because he had promised Heather he would pick up her father that night at the Fort Lauderdale Airport, about 45 minutes north.

And she said to him, "Don't be late to pick up my father." Forte says that when he and Dale finally did connect, Dale had a request. As soon as he arrived, he asked me for some cigarette. I don't smoke. I didn't have cigarettes. So we stop at the first gas station that I could find for him to buy some cigarettes. Dale Pike went in there, goes into the phone booth and makes a call. And then Dale said, "Could you drop me off at" First he said Key Biscayne and Kiko said, "No, I can't I can't go that far, you know, I have to go pick up my father-in-law."

So he said, "No, no, no, not Key Biscayne, just take me to the Rusty Pelican restaurant." And Kiko said, "Okay." Forte says they never talked about the hotel deal. Instead, Forte says Dale told him he was going to a party with, quote, "friends of Thomas Kounat." Sound like something your brother would do?

It's not out of the possibility if he'd been promised a good party. At the restaurant, Forte says Dale got out of the car and into a white Lexus in the parking lot. He says he didn't recognize the driver.

The guy inside the car that was waiting for him was elegant person with a white shirt, a gold chain, gold watch. After dropping off Dale, Forte made a cell phone call to his wife, Heather, at exactly 7:16 p.m. Forte knew she'd be upset that he had been wasting time with Dale. So Forte lied. And I told I didn't pick him up. I didn't want to have an argument with her. I was extremely late. Forte picked up Heather's father at the Fort Lauderdale Airport and says he didn't give Dale another thought.

The moment that I left him, he was out of my mind. It's not that I was thinking, "Oh, what's going to happen to him?" No, it never for a second uh I came to my mind that something bad or terrible could happen. Dale's body was found nearly 24 hours later on Monday evening on that windsurfing beach on Virginia Key, about 2 mi from the Rusty Pelican. Forte says he heard the news about Dale's murder on Wednesday and that Tony was flying to Miami. I was confused and I was uh I was I was still under shock.

I spent all night trying to locate where Tony Pike was. Nobody knew where he was. And that's because the Miami police had spirited him away. They wanted to know more about Dale's trip and that hotel deal. They certainly were convinced that the deal with the hotel and the purchase of the hotel was, let's say, the impetus for the killing. Forte says he knew none of this when he reached out to the police on Thursday. I thought it was the right thing to do. Unwittingly, Forte was walking into the lion's den and police were ready to pounce.

Suspicious of Forte and the hotel deal, detectives tried to trick him, suggesting that Tony might also be dead. The police lied intentionally to Kiko, and what Kiko thought was, "Oh my god, I was in Miami, I picked up Dale Pike, he's dead. These guys think I killed both of them." And he panicked. Forte then made what he says was the biggest mistake of his life. He repeated the lie he had told his wife. He told cops he had not picked up Dale at the airport. But if you were going to try to help the police, why didn't you tell them you had picked Dale Pike up?

Because when I arrived there, that moment, I realized I was a suspect. And of course, I was I was confused and uh I do believe there is no logic on the way that I behaved that night. Forte returned to the police station the next day and says he had made up his mind to tell the truth. When did you tell them you had, in fact, picked up Dale Pike? As soon I had the opportunity. I don't remember exactly the timing, but But detectives say Forte only admitted picking up Dale after they confronted him with those airport paging records proving that he and Dale had made contact.

That's a lie. They are lies from these policemen. They're way bigger than the lie that I did. Forte insists he came clean about everything, telling cops all he knew about the Pike family. And Forte pointed investigators to that long-time friend of Anthony Pike, Thomas Kounat. And And Thomas Thomas Kounat. Conradi was stealing money left and right from Anthony Pike. The police want to find Conradi, but by then Thomas Conradi had vanished.

The man was just the happiest person I ever met. Shave Mesmer knew Enrico Fforti even before Thomas Conradi arrived on the scene. He was one of the kindest, nicest, most appealing people on the island. But his downstairs neighbor Thomas Conradi, she said, "Well, he was a different story." When did you start to realize this is a con man? Right after I married him. It turned out Thomas Conradi moved to Williams Island straight out of a German prison. Conradi was convicted of 14 counts of fraud, stealing millions.

But when he turned up on Williams Island, the high-flying Conradi told everyone he was a tennis pro. So this guy who told you he was a tennis player and was making money for playing tennis, he wore a lot of tennis clothes. He just wore a lot of tennis clothes. Shave says Conradi was charming and she eventually married him to help him get a green card. But the sham nuptials were quickly annulled when she said she saw his fits of anger. Thomas had a really bad temper.

She wasn't surprised that Conradi vanished when Dale Pike's body was found. I thought they got him for the murder. With 100% certainty, there was not any motive for Kiko Fforti to want Dale Pike dead. Zero. There was plenty of motive for Thomas Conradi. Turns out for months, Thomas Conradi had been illegally running up exorbitant charges on Tony Pike's credit cards. And Dale Pike knew it. Fforti and Tacopina believe that was a motive for murder. Cops caught up with Conradi days later in downtown Miami, but Conradi told police Fforti had his own motive, that Dale's concerns about the hotel sale could ruin Fforti's deal.

Conradi made a very compelling case that Kiko must have killed him. Kiko's trying to swindle him from the hotel. Police had enough to charge both men with fraud, Conradi for running up $90,000 on Tony Pike's credit cards. Fforti for allegedly trying to swindle Tony out of his hotel. But for the Miami police, Fforti was still the prime murder suspect. The police were determined early on that it was Kiko, that it was Kiko. Kiko. After all, Fforti was the last known person to see Dale Pike alive, and he had lied about it to the police.

And Conradi had something Fforti did not, an alibi. He was hosting a dinner that night. At a dinner party in his little apartment, because he had a lot of people in there at this particular time to give him enough witness for an alibi. But Tacopina says, "If that alibi clears Thomas Conradi, then the timeline should clear Fforti. There isn't enough time for Fforti to pick up Dale, murder him, and then meet his father-in-law in 90 minutes." Prosecutors agreed that he might not be the trigger man.

They don't accuse Kiko of being the gunman, the trigger man, the shooter. They don't accuse him of that. They said he was acting an accomplice with someone else. With who? They have no idea. But with someone else. Even if Fforti wasn't the trigger man, prosecutors decided they could prove he had a role in Dale's murder. Prosecutors cut a deal with Conradi to testify against Fforti, even though the convicted con man had failed three polygraph tests. And in October of 1999, they announced they had critical physical evidence linking Fforti to the crime scene.

What's the crucial evidence against Fforti? Grains of sand. Less than a teaspoon. Prosecutors say they recovered that much from Fforti's car and that it matches the sand here on this beach where Dale Pike's body was found. Now let's focus on the evidence of the sand. The first two times they searched that vehicle, they came back with an insufficient amount of sand for the forensic technician to determine where that sand would have come from. The third time they recovered some sand in the trailer hitch. They removed the trailer hitch.

This wouldn't be allowed in a traffic court, let alone a a murder trial. This wouldn't be allowed in a food court. But it was. And at Fforti's murder trial in 2000, prosecutors pored over blowups of microscopic images of sand particles, with their expert saying the grains definitely came from Virginia Key. And he lives in that area and he's got kids and he's a windsurfer. Why wouldn't he have this sand on his vehicle? Veronica Lee had just turned 20 when she was picked for the jury. She had her doubts.

Were you troubled at all about the fact that there was no DNA that connected the defendant? No fingerprints? Right. But the state pathologist did provide damning testimony. Based on undigested food that Dale Pike likely ate on the airplane, the pathologist said the time of death was consistent with sometime between 6:00 p.m. and 7:16 p.m. when Dale Pike was with Fforti and when Conradi was home at his dinner party. How big a mistake was it for the defense not to call their own pathologist? It was an enormous mistake by the defense not to call their own pathologist.

48 Hours asked pathologist Dr. Gregory Davis from the University of Kentucky to review the Miami pathologist's report. I'm shocked that this got entered into evidence. Is there like one word that sums up this affidavit? How would you sum it up? Irresponsible. Dr. Davis says pathologists have known for decades that people simply digest food at different rates. Can you pinpoint the time of death to a minute the way this is, 7:16, as opposed to 7:17? Absolutely not. In fact, Dr. Davis believes the lack of animal or bug bites on the body and the state of decomposition indicates that Dale Pike could have died later, even the following day when Fforti would have an alibi of his own.

Prosecutors stuck to their timeline. They highlighted that 7:16 p.m. phone call Fforti made to his wife when he was supposedly headed north to pick up her father. A cell phone tower instead places Fforti going in the opposite direction. And prosecutors, without any proof, speculated that Fforti was on his way to get rid of evidence. The defense countered that there were too many variables, including the weather, to determine why one tower picked up a call and not another. And they tried to offer Conradi as a better suspect.

Did you want to know more about Thomas Conradi? Yes, I did. Every time they tried to bring him up, oh, he's not the one that's on trial here. Prosecutors ultimately decided against calling the convicted con man. And on June 15th, 2000, the case went to the jury. I tried to voice my opinion and tell them, "Look, there's no smoking gun. How can you put this man away, you know, for for life?" There was a point where I locked myself in the bathroom and started crying. They wouldn' nobody would listen to me.

They said I don't know what I'm talking about, I'm just a little girl, you know, and and it was really hard. Veronica felt forced to vote guilty. He looked right at me and I mean, I couldn't even look at him in the eyes. I felt like I let him down so much. But I tried so hard. Some jurors did not like the fact that Fforti initially lied. That's the only thing they have against me. My lie to my wife and the lie and the lie to the police.

Nothing else. And that was a mistake. I think it was a mistake. Of course it was a mistake. But is a mistake they need to be punished with a life sentence?

Fforti was sentenced to life without parole. I felt like he was done wrong. I don't I don't think it was a fair trial. So if Enrico Fforti did not kill Dale Pike, was it Thomas Conradi? We went to find him.

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The only truth that I know for sure is that Kiko would definitely not kill a person. Like all of Kiko Fforti's friends, Francesco Gualdi who attended the trial will never accept Fforti's guilty verdict. The trial was tragic. And what's more, lawyer Joe Tacopina says the police botched a key aspect of Fforti's story that might have revealed another suspect. Fforti told authorities that after he picked up Dale, they stopped at a gas station where Dale used a payphone. They went and pulled the phone records from that telephone booth and they came back saying he lied.

There's absolutely no record of a call that was made from that phone booth on that day at that time. And what was wrong with that? The problem was they subpoenaed the wrong year. By the time the police subpoenaed the correct year, the records were no longer available. So because of police incompetence, we will never know who was on the other end of that phone call. It's mind-blowing to me that he was convicted. Fforti's friends and family agree and have kept a drumbeat over the years insisting he's innocent.

In 2013, Fforti's case came to the attention of Italian journalist Manuela Moreno. I was in US and I looking for a big story. Uh I start to study Kiko Fforti story and I said, "This is my story." Manuela visited Fforti and he told her he was desperate for legal help. At his suggestion, Manuela contacted Joe Tacopina. She said, "You have to take this case." She asked me to meet with the family.

Few Americans have ever heard the name Enrico Fforti. But 5,000 mi away from his Miami prison cell, it's a very different story. Here in Trento, Italy, he's the hometown hero.

We met some of Fforti's closest friends, including Luisa Mencastroppa, Fforti's first wife, who remembered the days she and Kiko would ski and snowboard. Where are we exactly? It's the place where we used to come with Kiko. You said he always had to be moving. Yeah. Ski, snowboard, jumping with the skis, everything, everything with the snow. Have you stayed in touch with his family, Kiko's family? Oh, yes. They love me. And The mother loves me. She's 91 year old and she's still a young chicken. She's my rock.

You talk to her? Yeah. Yeah, I talk to her. She's great. She speak English? Uh no. She doesn't know. I'll have to bring an interpreter. She's very smart. Italian communicate with their hands, so she will be able to communicate with you. She will give you a big hug and a kiss. We also visited Fforti's uncle Gianni, who is the keeper of all things Kiko. Italian magazines compare Fforti to Amanda Knox. How often do you think about Kiko? It's not that I think of It's not that I think of I have nightmares.

I have spent 20 years looking at all the evidence to see if there was any basis. It's my life. After 20 years, we must say and prove that Kiko Fforti is not guilty and he never was. Gianni's relentless campaign to keep his nephew's case in the public eye paid off when a witness came forward with an intriguing story after seeing a television program about Fforti's case. I met Thomas Conradi by chance on a yacht in Monte Carlo. We found Fabrizio Pandolfi in the small town of Lucca.

He's restricted to his hometown because of his own financial crimes. When he told his story publicly for the first time, he said that in 2011, he met Thomas Conradi at a party in Monte Carlo on a yacht called the Goldfinger. The true reason why I'm here is what I was able to hear and understand. That there is a person who is in prison who is innocent. I heard Thomas Conradi brag of things that he had done, serious things, grave things. And he managed to get away with it.

And others paid for him. He also used to mime the use of a revolver, of a gun like this. He used to say, "I did things that I didn't pay for." Pandolfi says, "Conradi never said he was the trigger man, nor did he use the names Dale Pike or Enrico Fforti. But Conradi did refer to his friend Anthony, who had a hotel in Ibiza. Eventually, Pandolfi provided this information to an Italian investigator, and she gave it to Joe Tacopina. And what is your hope by giving her this information, by giving Kiko Fforti's attorney this kind of information?

What's your hope? That the investigation would be reopened, so that one could show that Kiko Fforti most likely maybe for sure had nothing to do at all with the murder. Conradi has always insisted he had nothing to do with Dale's murder. And after he served 3 years in Florida prisons for stealing $90,000 from Tony Pike, he was deported to Germany. They let him walk out the door and let him take a plane and go to Germany and live the rest of his life. We wanted to ask Thomas Conradi about Pandolfi's story.

So we left Italy and headed north on the Autobahn. The trail then led us here to Munich, Germany. This is where Thomas Conradi says he now lives. He even gave us his phone number. But when it came to sitting down with him for an on-camera interview or just meeting with him, you could see for yourself what happened. Can we just meet with you? I mean, all I'll do is no camera and just meet with you for coffee. We told Canat about the story Fabrizio Pandolfi told us.

Have you ever been on a a yacht called the Goldfinger? So, you have then. He confirmed that much. And so, we have somebody who has come forward who said that he heard you actually say that you had been involved in a murder. We you say he's a crook, but but to be honest, Mr. Canat, you have quite the criminal history as well. Canat said Pandolfi had no credibility. One con man pointing the finger at another. All right, thank you, sir. Just say he's not going to meet with us.

Um he got very, very agitated. He does not say Enrico Fforti is the killer. He just says, "You want to know who killed Dale Pike? Ask Enrico Fforti." Back in the United States, we decided to fly Brad Pike, the brother of murder victim Dale Pike, in from Australia. He brought along family files where we found something written by the homicide commander that was extraordinary. That's the first I'm hearing of that, Erin. My reaction is to want to pound this table right now and say, "Are you kidding me?

That's that's disgusting." It's been 21 years since Brad Pike's brother Dale was murdered on this Miami Beach. And Brad is here from Australia to finally see what it looks like for himself. Does coming here in some way just raise more questions in your head rather than answering them? It does, but then it also answers a lot of questions because now I know what the scenario looks like. I could think of a lot worse places to die. In Miami, Brad had a private meeting with the prosecutor who tried the murder case against Enrico Fforti.

Stopped by the Rusty Pelican and visited William's Island, where his father Tony spent time with Fforti and Thomas Canat. It remains now no longer an imagination, but a reality. Brad brought with him a stack of papers he had collected about the case, including this email. This is a email that was sent to Tony Pike after the trial. In the lengthy email sent to Brad's father after the trial, Lieutenant John Campbell, the homicide squad's commander, writes, "The prosecutors were very uncertain about proceeding, and we almost had to threaten them to get Fforti charged."

I get a little scared. I get a little scared that that's how the system of justice works out there. Lieutenant Campbell also wrote, "I was really nervous that the jury would find him not guilty because we just didn't have a lot of proof. Thankfully, they recognized that truth when they saw it." We showed that email to Fforti. From the beginning, they they wanted to crucify me and uh they were just waiting to see how they could do it. And that faxes you have in your hand, it just uh in other evidence.

Is that hard to read? Yes, it's hard to read. I wish I knew about these things uh when I could still fight on a legal way. Your lawyer has this now. I hope he can do something about that. Campbell, now retired, admits he had a contentious relationship with an administrator in the prosecutor's office, but that he and other detectives all believed Fforti was guilty and that they quote had sufficient weight of evidence to meet our legal burden. Prosecutors refused our request for an interview, but wrote that they stand behind Fforti's conviction.

There's so many doors closed. Getting a sit-down with the prosecutors is impossible. We've asked, they said no thanks, we're not interested. We need somebody to listen. Enrico Fforti hopes that someone will come forward with new evidence, like the identity of the man who Fforti says picked up Dale Pike at the Rusty Pelican. We arranged this sketch to be made based on Fforti's description. That's very accurate. The only thing is missing is a a gold chain, but otherwise is a very accurate drawing of the person. And how do you just keep going every day?

I'm looking forward, you know? I do that for my kids. I do that for my friends. I do that for my family. Fforti's wife Heather was 25 years old and pregnant when he was first arrested, and his only son was born while Fforti was out on bail. The couple also had two older daughters. When you were convicted, you said something to your wife. What did you tell Heather? I I told her then it was time for her to to get her own life because it would have been a long battle.

Eventually, Heather moved back to her native Hawaii with her three children. After divorcing Fforti, she married an old friend and raised a blended family. Fforti's daughter Jenna once appeared on the CBS program Hawaii Five-O. I'm adding it to my to-do list. And Fforti's son, barely 2 years old when his father was convicted, asked his mother for a special present for his 16th birthday, to visit his father in prison. Do you think someday you'll have the life you had back then? I do believe so. I don't want to use the word hope.

I believe in that. I'm very positive. My mind still pretty much free. Remember, prosecutors conceded at trial that Fforti may not have been the trigger man. No one else was ever arrested in connection with Dale's murder, which means the shooter is likely at large.

Tony Pike died in February 2019. As for Brad Pike, he believes Fforti has spent enough time in prison. And what do you want to say to Enrico Fforti? I forgive him. It's just a terrible, terrible, terrible situation, whether he killed Dale or not. It is a Had they met, Brad says he would have told Fforti that he supports the calls to free him. And I don't think anyone will really know what the absolute truth is. There's only two people that know, and one of them's dead.

And the other one pulled the trigger. It's those unsolved mysteries that we have to learn to live with. On March 1st, 2024, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced that he would allow Enrico Fforti to be transferred to Italy to serve out his life sentence. Enrico Fforti is serving the remainder of his life sentence in a prison in Verona, Italy. Now streaming on Paramount Plus. I'm Dexter Morgan. I've been killing killers for half my life. It gets to you. You're having a midlife crisis. I'm not ready for this.

He's back. I'm older. I'm wiser. And sharper than ever. Things are going to get messy. But if I can't believe in myself, I can' believe in anything. Dexter Resurrection. New season now streaming on the Paramount Plus premium plan.

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