Source: San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune Contact: Wednesday, January 21, 1998 Author: Danna Dykstra Page: B-1, SLO County Section Website: www.sanluisobispo.com/ FIORELLA PURSUIT LEADS TO AMADOR GROVER BEACH -- The continuing manhunt for a suspected killer led police to an Amador County home, where authorities seized a cassette from an answering machine hoping to hear his voice. The micro cassette taken during a search of Anthony Fiorella's mother's Ione rental home, however, failed to turn up any clues as to his whereabouts. "His voice was not on the tape," Grover Beach police detective Shelly Sweeton said Tuesday. "We are exploring any possible evidence, but nothing on the tape has been substantial at this point." With the assistance of police in Ione, located east of Stockton, Grover Beach police served a search warrant last Wednesday on the home rented by Fiorella's mother, Betsy Leo. Leo was notified of the search after authorities served the warrant, according to Grover Beach police. Until recently, Leo had been staying at her son's rural Arroyo Grande mobile home. She left the Lyn Road residence this weekend and the phone has been disconnected. "No one is living there any longer," Sweeton said Tuesday. Leo had shared the mobile home off and on with her 20-year-old son. Her name was on the lease and she paid half the rent, even after moving to Ione. Leo traveled to San Luis Obispo County to help her son move just prior to the Jan. 8 shooting of 16-year-old Garrett Hunter outside Boston Market. Authorities say the shooting was over a drug dispute. Fiorella has not been seen since he reportedly fled the area in his mother's light blue Ford Tempo. Police on Tuesday released an updated photograph of the missing man. The FBI was preparing a federal arrest warrant Tuesday, based on information from relatives and witnesses that Fiorella may have left the state. Authorities are focusing on "several states" on the East Coast as well as states in the western United States, but they are not ruling out the possibility Fiorella is dead or hiding in San Luis Obispo County, Grover Beach detective Brian Thomas said Tuesday. Leo told the Telegram-Tribune she believes her son may have committed suicide, but Thomas said he's not so sure. "If the mother's suspicions are true, somebody would have come across the vehicle." . Police believe the murder weapon is a Remington 870 12-gauge shotgun registered to Fiorella. He bought the gun in November from an undisclosed business and picked it up in December, according to police. The sawed-off shotgun was of legal length, detective Sweeton said. It is illegal to possess a shotgun with an overall length of 26 inches or less or with a barrel or barrels less than 18 inches long. Leo told the Telegram-Tribune her son bought the weapon after several home robberies. According to a search warrant report filed in San Luis Obispo County Municipal Court, authorities seized five green Remington 70 mm shotgun rounds with 2 3/4-inch cartridges from Fiorella's bedroom. They also seized an empty Remington cartridge box and one red Winchester shotgun round with a 2 3/4-inch cartridge. Authorities seized bags of suspected marijuana, letters and a framed 1993 photograph of Fiorella with his mother and younger brother, Joseph Fiorella. Joseph Fiorella is serving 26 years to life in prison for the 1995 ritualistic slaying of a 15-year-old Nipomo girl near her home.