Looking back at 1997
USA TODAY reporter Maria Puente recalls covering Andrew Cunanan’s crimes.
I had forgotten Andrew Cunanan. But now, Ryan Murphy’s latest offering in his anthology drama,
American Crime Story, is dredging up the ugly memories. Thanks for that, Ryan.
If you know the name, it’s because Cunanan is the spree killer who assassinated Italian fashion prince Gianni Versace, who was shot at the gates of his Miami Beach mansion on July 15, 1997, as he returned from his usual morning coffee-and-paper run to the News Cafe just down Ocean Drive.
Versace, who was 50, was the last victim of Cunanan.
During nearly three months in the summer of 1997, Cunanan killed five men (besides Versace, they were Jeffrey Trail, David Madson, Lee Miglin and William Reese), then managed to elude law-enforcement agencies, including the FBI, while careening around the country in stolen cars.
They never did catch him; eight days after killing Versace, he was found dead at 27 in a Miami Beach houseboat. He had shot himself with the same gun used to kill Versace and two other victims.
I know all this because I was one of a platoon of USA TODAY reporters who covered the madness that summer. I was a breaking-news reporter and had spent a dozen years in San Diego, living near the gay-friendly Hillcrest neighborhood where Cunanan prowled. And I was fast, in that slower, pre-Twitter era.
But it was 20 years ago, and a slew of other bignews headlines have broken since. I had to go back to the clips in the USA TODAY library to refresh my memory. All too soon, the details came rushing back.
The Assassination of Gianni Versace (premiering Jan. 17 on FX, 10 ET/PT) is based on journalist Maureen Orth’s 1999 book, Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History, based on her reporting for
Vanity Fair.
The Versace family has dismissed the series as a “work of fiction.” In a statement, the family said it had neither authorized nor been involved in the series. But the series is at least as much about Cunanan as it is about Versace, and Cunanan remains a maddening mystery, especially regarding his motives, if he had any. Thus, the potential for creative imagining by TV showrunners. Back then, our reporting showed Cunanan was a chameleon-like gigolo with near-legendary charm, who was convivial, mendacious and a stonecold killer.
At the time, the national interest in the case built slowly: His first four victims (two were friends, two were apparent strangers and none were famous) were killed in late April or early May. I could find only a handful of mentions of Cunanan in USA TODAY before our first major story was published on May 13. After the fourth victim was killed May 9 in New Jersey, just so Cunanan could steal his truck, national news media started taking notice.
Who was this guy? Where is he? Who is next? Are gay men his targets? Will gay men be blamed for his crimes? Why can’t the FBI find him?
Gay communities were on high alert as several cities geared up for Gay Pride Month and fears mounted that Cunanan would strike again. Then the murder of the openly gay, world-famous Versace catapulted the story to front pages around the world.
How could I have forgotten all of this? Because 39 days later, a speeding car driven by a drunk driver slammed into a pole in a traffic tunnel in Paris, killing Princess Diana and setting off an outburst of grief around the world and especially in London, to which I was speedily dispatched.
Only weeks before, Diana, 36, attended her friend Versace’s celebrity-packed memorial service in Milan, where she was seen consoling a weeping Elton John, their mutual pal. You can’t make this stuff up.
The summer of 1997 was a big-news bonanza, but not one I’d care to see again.