Andrew Phillip Cunanan: The 1997 Cross-Country Murder Spree
Background
Andrew Phillip Cunanan was an American serial murderer whose crimes became the focus of an enormous nationwide manhunt during the spring and summer of 1997. Born on August 31, 1969, in National City, California, Cunanan grew up in the San Diego area and was remembered by acquaintances as intelligent, articulate, socially confident, and unusually concerned with wealth, status, and appearances. He attended the prestigious Bishop's School in La Jolla and later enrolled at the University of California, San Diego, although he did not graduate.
As an adult, Cunanan circulated among wealthy social circles in San Diego and frequently told elaborate and sometimes contradictory stories about his background, education, family, career, and finances. Friends and investigators would later describe a pattern of exaggeration and fabrication that made reconstructing parts of his life difficult. By early 1997, his circumstances were changing. Relationships that had helped support his expensive lifestyle had ended, and people who knew him reported noticeable changes in his behavior.
In April 1997, Cunanan left California and flew to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Within days, the first of five men associated with his name would be dead. The killings ultimately stretched through Minnesota, Illinois, New Jersey, and Florida and culminated in the highly publicized murder of Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace.
The Murder of Jeffrey Trail
Cunanan's first known victim was Jeffrey Allen Trail, a 28-year-old former United States Navy officer who had known Cunanan in California. Trail had later moved to Minneapolis, where he worked for a gas company. Cunanan also knew Minneapolis architect David Madson, with whom he had previously been romantically involved.
On the evening of April 27, 1997, Trail went to Madson's Minneapolis loft apartment after Cunanan contacted him. What happened immediately before the attack has never been completely established. Investigators determined that Trail was struck repeatedly with a claw hammer and killed inside the apartment. The violence was severe, and Trail's body was subsequently wrapped in a rug and left behind a sofa.
Trail's body was not discovered until April 29, when people became concerned after Madson failed to appear at work. Evidence inside the apartment quickly connected Cunanan to the scene. Police initially had to consider Madson's possible involvement because he was missing and the murder had occurred in his apartment, but investigators soon learned that Cunanan and Madson had left Minneapolis together.
The Murder of David Madson
David Jon Madson, 33, was an architect and a former romantic partner of Cunanan. Following Trail's murder, witnesses reported seeing Madson with Cunanan. Investigators came to believe that Madson may have been under Cunanan's control during at least part of this period rather than voluntarily participating in Trail's death.
The two traveled north from Minneapolis in Madson's red Jeep Cherokee. They were reportedly seen together as late as May 2. Madson was then shot with a .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol that Cunanan had obtained from Trail. His body was discovered by fishermen on May 3, 1997, near East Rush Lake outside Rush City, Minnesota. Investigators believed the shooting probably occurred on May 2 or shortly before the body was found.
Cunanan escaped in Madson's Jeep, transforming what initially appeared to be a complicated Minneapolis homicide investigation into the beginning of a multi-state search for a suspected murderer.
The Murder of Lee Miglin
Cunanan next traveled to Chicago, Illinois. His third victim was 72-year-old Lee Albert Miglin, a wealthy and prominent Chicago real estate developer. Miglin lived with his wife, Marilyn, in Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood.
Miglin was found dead on May 4, 1997, after his wife returned home from a business trip. His body was discovered in the garage area of the residence. He had been restrained and subjected to an exceptionally violent assault before being killed. Investigators found that Madson's Jeep had been abandoned near the Miglin residence while Miglin's green Lexus was missing.
Whether Cunanan and Miglin had known one another before the killing became the subject of extensive speculation. Miglin's family maintained that there was no known relationship between the men. Investigators were unable to establish conclusively why Cunanan selected him.
Cunanan took Miglin's Lexus and continued east. The vehicle was equipped with a cellular telephone, and authorities briefly used activity from the phone to follow his movements. After news reports revealed that investigators were tracking the telephone, the phone stopped providing useful information. By that point, Cunanan was moving through the northeastern United States.
The Murder of William Reese
On May 9, 1997, Cunanan reached Finn's Point National Cemetery in Pennsville, New Jersey. There he encountered 45-year-old William Reese, a longtime cemetery caretaker.
Unlike Trail and Madson, Reese had no known personal relationship with Cunanan. Reese was shot and killed in the cemetery office. Investigators concluded that Cunanan apparently needed another vehicle because the Lexus stolen from Miglin had become too dangerous to continue using.
Miglin's Lexus was abandoned near the cemetery, while Reese's red Chevrolet pickup truck disappeared. Cunanan took the truck and continued south. Reese's killing demonstrated that Cunanan was now willing to murder a stranger apparently to facilitate his escape.
The Nationwide Manhunt
By May 1997, investigators had connected the murders in Minnesota, Illinois, and New Jersey. Cunanan's photographs and identifying information were distributed across the country. On June 12, 1997, the FBI placed Andrew Phillip Cunanan on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list as fugitive number 449.
The search received enormous national publicity. Police agencies, the FBI, and media organizations circulated Cunanan's photograph, while investigators interviewed friends, former partners, relatives, and acquaintances in an attempt to determine where he might go next.
Despite the publicity, Cunanan reached South Florida. He stayed for weeks in the Miami Beach area, sometimes using an assumed identity. The pickup truck stolen from Reese remained parked in a Miami Beach parking garage while Cunanan moved through an area crowded with residents and tourists.
The Murder of Gianni Versace
On the morning of July 15, 1997, internationally famous fashion designer Gianni Versace returned to his mansion, Casa Casuarina, on Ocean Drive in Miami Beach after going out nearby. As Versace approached the entrance to his home, Cunanan approached him and fired two shots.
Versace, 50, was mortally wounded and was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The killing immediately became international news because of Versace's prominence in the fashion industry.
Investigators quickly found an important connection. The red pickup truck stolen from William Reese was located in a nearby parking garage. Evidence inside the vehicle linked it to Cunanan, and authorities announced that he was the primary suspect in Versace's murder.
No definitive motive for the Versace killing was ever established. There were conflicting accounts about whether Cunanan and Versace had ever met before the murder, and investigators never proved that the killing resulted from a prior personal relationship. With Cunanan still at large, police and federal agents launched an intensive search throughout South Florida.
Victims of Andrew Cunanan
- Jeffrey Allen Trail, 28 — Killed April 27, 1997, inside David Madson's apartment in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Trail, a former U.S. Navy officer and acquaintance of Cunanan, was killed with a hammer. His body was discovered on April 29.
- David Jon Madson, 33 — Believed to have been killed around May 2, 1997; his body was discovered May 3 near East Rush Lake outside Rush City, Minnesota. Madson, an architect and former romantic partner of Cunanan, had been shot. Cunanan fled in Madson's Jeep Cherokee.
- Lee Albert Miglin, 72 — Found dead May 4, 1997, at his Gold Coast residence in Chicago, Illinois. Miglin was a prominent real estate developer. Cunanan abandoned Madson's Jeep nearby and stole Miglin's Lexus.
- William Reese, 45 — Killed May 9, 1997, at Finn's Point National Cemetery in Pennsville, New Jersey. Reese was a cemetery caretaker with no known previous connection to Cunanan. Cunanan stole Reese's red Chevrolet pickup truck.
- Gianni Versace, 50 — Killed July 15, 1997, outside his mansion on Ocean Drive in Miami Beach, Florida. The internationally famous Italian fashion designer was shot after returning to his residence.
The Final Manhunt
After Versace's murder, Miami Beach became the center of one of the most heavily publicized fugitive searches of the 1990s. Cunanan's photograph appeared repeatedly on television and in newspapers, while law enforcement searched hotels, neighborhoods, transportation centers, and locations he was thought to have frequented.
For eight days, however, Cunanan remained hidden. He had taken refuge aboard a houseboat in Miami Beach approximately two miles from Versace's residence. On July 23, 1997, a caretaker checking the houseboat realized that someone was inside and contacted authorities. A gunshot was heard, and police surrounded the vessel.
Believing they could be confronting an armed fugitive, officers maintained a lengthy standoff before entering. Inside, they discovered Cunanan dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was 27 years old. The firearm recovered with him was connected to multiple killings in the murder series.
Motive and Unanswered Questions
Cunanan's death prevented investigators from questioning him about his motives, leaving some of the most important questions surrounding the murders permanently unanswered. His first two victims, Trail and Madson, were men he personally knew. Miglin's connection to Cunanan, if any, was never conclusively demonstrated. Reese appears to have been selected largely because Cunanan needed transportation. Versace's selection remains one of the greatest mysteries of the case.
Numerous theories about Cunanan's motives circulated during and after the manhunt, but investigators never established a single explanation tying all five murders together. Claims that disease, revenge, jealousy, financial desperation, or a desire for fame motivated the entire series were never conclusively proved.
Classification and Legacy
Cunanan has been described both as a serial killer and a spree killer because his five murders occurred during a relatively compressed period between April and July 1997. The FBI has classified him as a serial murderer, noting that the murders occurred over a period of months with intervals between the killings.
The case became particularly notorious because Cunanan moved thousands of miles across the United States while being sought by numerous law-enforcement agencies. Each stolen vehicle carried him farther from the previous crime scene, and several days or weeks sometimes passed before authorities knew where he had gone.
The murder of Gianni Versace turned an already major national manhunt into an international story. Cunanan's suicide eight days later ended the immediate danger but also eliminated the possibility of a trial or confession. As a result, investigators were able to reconstruct much of his route and connect him to five murders, yet they were never able to obtain definitive answers explaining why he began killing or why he chose every victim.
Andrew Phillip Cunanan died on July 23, 1997, leaving behind a murder sequence that lasted less than three months but crossed four states and claimed five lives. The combination of personal killings, apparent opportunistic violence, interstate flight, nationwide publicity, and the murder of one of the world's most famous fashion designers has made the Cunanan case one of the most widely remembered American serial murder cases of the 1990s.
