American homicide; the murderer of fashion designer Gianni Versace on 7/15/1997, 8:44 AM, near the doorway of Versace’s posh South Beach palazzo, Florida. He approached Versace, they struggled briefly over a bag and then Cunanan shot Versace twice in the head and walked away. A massive manhunt began as Cunanan already had been on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list for the past month. He was a suspect in four prior murders, architect David Madson, 33; engineer Jeffrey Trail, 28; real estate millionaire Lee Miglin, 72; and cemetery caretaker William Reese, 45. All had been killed in a two-week period.
Andrew was the youngest of four kids born to Filipino Modesto Cunanan, a career Navy officer turned stockbroker, and Mary Anne, his homemaker wife. He had a good education and discovered while still a teenager that he could be a big man in the gay scene with his charm and good looks. Hungry for the high life and worshipping fame and celebrity, he began dating wealthy older men who provided for him. Delightful and smart, he made himself good company to sugar daddies who were high rollers. He indulged in many pretentious behaviors that he backed up with lies and different fabricated personas and histories for himself. An effeminate gay, he was dapper and smoked big cigars, speaking English, French and Spanish. For years he was a fixture in the San Diego gay community, a charmer who talked big and partied hard.
His dad by then, had fled back to the Philippines just ahead of embezzlement charges. and his mom was living on welfare and food stamps.
When Andrew found himself without a patron, he became a low-life hustler, picking up pocket money with small drug sales.
On 4/29/1997, the body of Jeffrey Trail was found in Minneapolis, bludgeoned to death with a claw hammer. On 5/03/1997, David Madson’s body was found by fisherman on the shores of East Rush Lake, Minnesota, shot three times. The following day, the body of Lee Miglin was found by his wife in the garage of their Chicago home, wrapped head to toe in duct tape, tortured, stabbed repeatedly with pruning shears and his throat cut with a gardening saw. On 5/09/1997, Bill Reese was found shot in a graveyard where he was the caretaker, Pennsville, New Jersey.
With a police dragnet closing in, Cunanan found that his luck had run out, and he was found dead on a Miami houseboat on 7/23/1997 of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head a few miles away from Versace’s palatial mansion. A shot had been heard about 4:00 PM. There was a wound on his stomach and police believe he may have been wounded during his recent spree of torture and murder.
At the time of the crimes, there was much public and press speculation that Cunanan’s motives were tied to a diagnosis of HIV infection; however, an autopsy found him to be HIV-negative.
In order to piece together a motive for his killing spree, police searched the boathouse where Cunanan died. However, Cunanan left behind few personal belongings, surprising investigators, given his reputation for acquiring money and expensive possessions from wealthy older men. Police considered few of the findings to be of note, except multiple tubes of hydrocortisone cream and a fairly extensive collection of the fiction of C.S. Lewis.
His motivations remain a mystery. Various theories include jealousy for Versace’s role as a “gay icon”, as well as necessity and opportunity in some of the other murders. Examination of his behavior from reports also indicates that he may have suffered from psychopathy, a personality disorder characterized by an abnormal lack of empathy.
Link to Wikipedia biography