Here's Who Else Serial Killer Andrew Cunanan Murdered Besides Gianni Versace
When Andrew Cunanan walked up to the Italian fashion mogul Gianni Versace and shot him twice in the head in front of his Miami Beach mansion on July 15, 1997, the designer became Cunanan's most famous victim. But he was far from the only one. Cunanan's deadly cross-country trip from Minneapolis to Miami that spring left at least four other victims scattered across three states. "Andrew was hunting, getting the thrill of the hunt, the thrill of the kill," an unnamed friend of Cunanan told author Maureen Orth (via the Daily News). "I saw it in his eyes."
Cunanan, who grew up in an upper-middle-class family in San Diego, was highly intelligent, charming, and manipulative. The 27-year-old was also extremely lucky when it came to staying a step ahead of both the FBI and local police. "Cunanan was the luckiest criminal I ever chased," Lee Urness, an FBI agent who tracked the killer, told ABC News. Besides Versace, investigators tied Cunanan to two murders in Minnesota, that of Cunanan's friend Jeff Trail and the killer's former boyfriend, David Madson. In Chicago, police believe he murdered a millionaire real estate magnate named Lee Miglin. In New Jersey, Cunanan executed Bill Reese, a cemetery caretaker, for his truck. Cunanan's bloody rampage ended with killing Versace and then dying by suicide.
Friends and lovers
Toward the end of April 1997, Andrew Cunanan flew to Minneapolis. He hadn't bothered to buy a return ticket to San Diego. "Cunanan was going on this one-way trip to kill off his past," former FBI agent Brad Garrett told ABC News. Cunanan met his first victim, Jeffrey Trail, in San Diego when Trail was in the U.S. Navy. They had been close friends. Trail was a graduate of the Naval Academy, and one of his sisters told The New York Times that Cunanan idolized him. Trail had moved to Minneapolis and was working for a gas company. Cunanan's motive for brutally beating his friend to death with a hammer before rolling him up in a carpet remains unclear. He told friends in San Diego before his flight he had "unfinished business" with Trail, according to Newsweek.
Afterward, Cunanan drove his ex-boyfriend David Madson to a secluded lake near Minneapolis where he shot him in the head with a pistol he'd stolen from Trail. Madson was a 33-year-old architect originally from Wisconsin who often helped older neighbors. "His legacy will be his love for life, his family, his many friends, and especially his Dalmatian dog, Prince," Madson's mother Carol told the Star Tribune in 1997. Cunanan's motive for this murder also remains a mystery. He left Minnesota in Madson's car following the killings and headed to Chicago.
A millionaire and a cemetery worker
In Chicago, Andrew Cunanan repeatedly stabbed and slashed 72-year-old real estate developer Lee Miglin at his mansion, per CBS News. Afterward, he shaved and showered before stealing Miglin's valuable coin collection and his Lexus. Cunanan then headed south. He made repeated calls from the car phone until learning the FBI had begun tracking him via the device. Miglin had been "a devoted and loving husband and father," his family said in a statement at the time (via the Star Tribune).
On May 9, in the fairly remote Finn's Point National Cemetery, Cunanan shot 45-year-old Bill Reese to death. "This was just a cold-blooded, heartless killing," a New Jersey State Police detective recalled (via the Daily News). "He had him kneel down and shot him in the back of the head." Reese had been the caretaker at the cemetery for more than 20 years. Among his survivors was a 12-year-old son, per the Associated Press. Cunanan then fled Pennsville, New Jersey, in Reese's red Chevy truck and continued his journey to Miami. By this time the FBI had placed Cunanan on its most wanted list, but he managed to slip into Miami undetected where on July 15, 1997, he shot and killed Gianni Versace, his final victim. Cunanan would die by suicide eight days later.
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