Brian D. Crecente of the Rocky Morning News reports that the Bison Dele missing person investigation is about to become a murder investigation. Tahitian officials now believe Dele and two others are dead.

"I think they are dead," Michel Marotte, chief prosecutor for the French territory, told the Rocky Mountain News on Sunday. "We consider that this could be a murder investigation." An arrest warrant has been issued against Miles Dabord, Dele?s brother. Dabord is being sought by the FBI for flight from justice. He was being investigated for attempting to buy gold coins under the name Brian Williams, Dele?s former name and the identity he uses in his financial records.

Dabord left New Zealand on a sailboat with Dele, Dele's girlfriend, Serena Karlan of Boulder, and captain Bertrand Saldo of France on May 2. A month and a half later the 55-foot catamaran, the Hakuna Matata, sailed into the French Polynesian Islands. The boat left again on July 4, listing only Dele, Karlan and Saldo as passengers, and it was missing until it was found empty last week.

The boat, repainted and renamed the Arabella, was discovered Thursday morning docked in a private slip in the hamlet of Taravao, about 40 miles from Tahiti's capital city of Papeete, Marotte said. According to the Los Angeles Times, Dabord signed the registration slip at the dock July 15 under an alias. He left Tahiti two days later.

Forensic experts from France and the Unites States met with Marotte and other Tahitian authorities Sunday to discuss the case. Marotte said no one had yet gone into the boat to inspect it. "Nothing on the exterior of the boat shows signs of a violent act," he said Sunday.

Law enforcement officials are concentrating their search for Dabord in Mexico. Mexican police, under the direction of the FBI, located a hotel room in Tijuana on Thursday with personal items belonging to Dabord.