That tragic July 15, 1997, Gianni Versace’s alarm clock broke its silence at six in the morning. As always when he took refuge in Casa Casuarina – the palatial Miami Beach villa he had bought in 1992 for $2.95 million – he made a few calls to Milan as soon as he woke up. Specifically, he talked to his older brother, Santo, and his younger sister, Donatella. He wanted to make sure that everything was under control in the luxurious empire, valued at 807 million dollars, which the three ran.
At half past eight, dressed in a white T-shirt, shorts and sandals, he went out alone, without the company of Antonio D’Amico, his partner for 15 years. He headed over to the News Café, where he bought a coffee and five magazines. After paying 15 dollars, he returned to walk the scarce 300 meters that separated the popular place from his mansion. However, a quarter of an hour later, as he opened the doors of his private oasis at 1116 Ocean Drive, a 27-year-old man – wearing a gray T-shirt, black shorts, a hat and a backpack – approached him from behind. . his name was Andrew Cunanan.
point blank
Without a word, he pulled out a .40-caliber pistol. And, at point-blank range, he shot twice in the back of the designer’s head. He was quickly rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital, but there was little doctors could do. At 9:15 a.m., barely 50 years old, the fashion titan was officially declared dead. The brutality of the murder, comparable to that of Sharon Tate or John Lennon, revealed the vulnerability of the celebrity.
What few knew then is that, between April 27 and May 9 of that same year, Cunanan had murdered four other people. Born in San Diego, his Filipino father was a stockbroker, and his mother an Italian-American housewife. Already as a child, when he studied at the elite The Bishop’s School in La Jolla, he denied his roots and pretended that he came from a high-born family. In addition to being a born liar, his IQ was 147, well above average.
Prostitution and free fall
After graduating, he had enrolled at the University of California at San Diego. But soon he abandoned his studies and began to associate with men, much older than him, who supported him. In fact, Thanks to prostitution, she filled her closets with extremely expensive clothes, was able to afford to travel regularly and consume all the cocaine and methamphetamines she wanted.
However, to late 1996, after breaking up with a wealthy boyfriend, she lost control. In April 1997 he headed to Minneapolis and there he murdered one of his best friends – Jeffrey Trail, a Gulf War veteran – and David Madson, an architect he had previously dated. Within seven days, in Chicago, he did the same to 72-year-old real estate developer Lee Miglin. Before taking his Lexus, he went into his kitchen and made himself a sandwich.
Hearing over the radio that authorities were tracking him through the phone in the stolen vehicle, he pulled into the parking lot of a New Jersey cemetery and shot William Reese, the groundskeeper. Once he snatched his red truck, he headed for Miami and on May 11 found shelter at the Normandy Plaza hotel. The FBI, faced with this trail of blood perpetrated in three different states, included it on the nation’s most wanted fugitive list. However, despite the fact that every night he went out to the gay clubs of Miami Beach, no one found out his whereabouts. Everything changed, of course, when he savagely struck down his most notorious victim.
First star designer
On July 22, about 2,000 people attended the funeral officiated at the cathedral Milan in honor of Versace, the first of the star designers, the man who fused fashion and entertainment, who invented the supermodel phenomenon and whose style became a fabulous beef against bourgeois taste and decorum.
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That fateful day, in the last ‘front row’ of the designer, they were from his muse, Naomi Campbelleven professional colleagues like Giorgio Armani, going through intimates like Madonna, Elton John, Sting wave Princess Dianain which it was one of her last public appearances: just a month later, she died, besieged by paparazzi, in the car accident she suffered on the Alma bridge in Paris.
All those present were asked one question:what motivated Cunanan to commit such a heinous act? The answer, after a quarter of a century, remains unknown. Twenty-four hours after the ceremony, Miami police discovered the murderer’s lifeless body in a city houseboat. He had shot himself in the head with the same murder weapon. He didn’t leave an explanatory suicide note or anything like that.