Andrew Cunanan

What secrets can be unearthed from a spree killer who left the world stunned and besieged with questions that would never be answered. Well, today on The Secret Sits, we are going to look into one of these spree killers, who left his mark on the world in one of the worst ways possible. I am speaking of Andrew Cunanan, a man who thought the worst thing in this world was being, ordinary. I’m John Dodson, welcome to The Secret Sits.

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Rancho Bernardo, California is an affluent area of California sitting just outside the San Diego city limit. August 31st, 1969 saw the birth of Andrew Phillip Cunanan. Andrew was the youngest of four children born to MaryAnn and Modesto Cunanan. The family was a quilt of Italian American lineage, from MaryAnn’s side of the family and Pilipino American from his father’s side of the family.

Modesto was serving in the United States Navy in the Vietnam War at the time of his son's birth. After leaving the Navy, where he had served as a chief petty officer, Modesto worked as a stockbroker.

In his youth, Andrew attended Bonita Vista Middle School. In 1981, his father enrolled him in The Bishop's School, an independent day school located in the wealthy La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego. There Andrew Cunanan met his lifelong best friend Elizabeth "Liz" Cote. At school, he was remembered as being bright and very talkative, and testing with an IQ of 147.

Andrew possessed the kinds of qualities advantageous to future success - a solid, highly literate intelligence; an outstanding (some say photographic) memory; an easy charm and clean-cut good looks. According to his mother, MaryAnn, her son read the Bible by the time he was six.

As a teenager, Cunanan developed a reputation as a prolific liar, given to telling tall tales about his family and personal life. This is a habit which would follow him throughout his entire life. He was adept at changing his appearance according to what he felt was most attractive at a given moment and always followed the latest new hot trend. Andrew identified as gay in high school, when he began having associations with wealthy older men. While in school, he was voted "least likely to be forgotten." After graduating from high school in 1987, Cunanan enrolled at the University of California, San Diego, where he majored in American history.

In 1988, when Andrew was 19, his father deserted his family and moved to the Philippines to evade arrest for embezzlement. That same year, Cunanan had begun frequenting local gay clubs and restaurants, and his mother, who was deeply religious, learned about his sexual orientation. During an argument, Cunanan threw his mother against a wall, dislocating her shoulder. Later examination of his behavior indicates that he may have suffered from antisocial personality disorder, characterized by a lack of remorse and empathy.

In 1989, Cunanan dropped out of UC San Diego to join his father in the Philippines, but soon after, Andrew headed back to the US, appalled by the destitute lifestyle his father was living in, he settled in the Castro District of San Francisco, a center of gay culture, moving in with his best friend Liz Cote and her boyfriend, Phil Merrill. From his days at his elite Prep-School in La Jolla, Andrew behaved in a way that seemed, like a healthy display of gay pride, and partly a frantic bid for attention and fame.

Posing in one yearbook photo like a Calvin Klein model - white shirt unbuttoned to display his chiseled abs - and arriving at a school dance in a red patent-leather jumpsuit provided by his older male date, Cunanan seemed determined to live up to the title given to him by his classmates: "Most Likely Not to be Forgotten."

In the early ‘90s, in San Francisco, everyone knew Andrew, he had morphed into a flashy figure around the local gay scene. But he had done so by donning a variety of alter egos. Andrew Desilva was a Hollywood hotshot with a mansion in the Riviera; Another alter ego was Lieutenant Commander Cummings, a graduate of Yale and an officer in the US Navy.

Andrew could always be seen dining at the hottest new restaurant, dressed impeccably, smoking illegal Cuban cigars and sipping only the finest of spirits. Everyone considered Andrew great social company, he made glib conversation easily, he was a self-obsessed narcissist with a rousing personality and he knew, just enough about every topic of conversation to appear well rounded. But most could easily pear through the veil and see that his behavior had a motive, and that motive was Andrew Cunanan’s lust for attention, his desperation for everyone to want him, in any type of way, so Andrew always picked up the tab, another way for him to show off.

In truth, far from being a person of any importance whatsoever, the unemployed Cunanan was entirely dependent on the generosity of others, who really did wield the power. Though his mother would later bitterly describe him as a "high-class male prostitute," Cunanan was actually more of a male gigolo - the kept companion of a string of older gay men who would lavish clothes, cars, money, and gifts on him.

What made Andrew so appealing was not his physical appearance, but his personality, intelligence and his social skills. Add on to that list, his proclivity for kinky sex and this was the package being dispersed out to the world by Andrew, he had developed himself into a product.

By the fall of 1996, however; something caused Andrew's glitzy world to begin to unravel. Some former acquaintances have hinted that the problems may have involved drugs; others point to a crisis in his relationship with his last benefactor, an elderly arts patron who abruptly dumped Andrew.

Whatever the case, one thing is certain: the self-indulgent, status-crazed Andrew Cunanan went, almost overnight, from a life of extreme comfort and to a sordid, desperate existence. Always obsessive about his appearance before, Andrew started to giving up on jogging and started putting on weight, showing up at his old haunts looking dejected and unkempt. He moaned about his loneliness - complained to bartenders that he couldn't even "get a date."

Andrew told a friend that he had only had one perfect relationship during his life, a handsome and successful architect from Minneapolis named David Madson. In December 1995, Andrew met David Madson, a Minneapolis architect, in a San Francisco bar. They began a long-distance relationship shortly after, but Madson ended the relationship in the spring of 1996, telling friends he sensed something "shady" about Andrew. Andrew told friends that Madson was the "love of my life". Madson had started to distance himself from Andrew after finding out that Andrew was peddling drugs to make up for his loss of income, and by income, I mean, gifts from his wealthy male friends.

In April Andrew announced to friends that he was moving to San Francisco. At his farewell party, on April 24, Andrew and four friends attended a going-away party at Hillcrest's California Cuisine, a rare occasion when Andrew did not cover the tab., Andrew dined on beef tenderloin, ostrich and trout. A short time after this party, the already financially overextended Andrew Cunanan convinced his credit card company to allow him to purchase a one-way, first-class ticket. But this ticket would not take him to San Francisco, as he had told his friends, instead he bought a ticket to Minneapolis.

Little did anyone know; this would be the first step which began Andrew Cunanan’s murderous rampage across the country.

Because of the way everything played out in this story, it is doubtful that we will ever know all of the sordid details about the events which took place between April 27th and May 1st, 1997. There had only been three people involved and today, none of those three are alive to tell the tail.

What we do know is this:

Andrew stayed with Madson, a mutual friend of his and Trail's, in Madson's loft apartment. On the night Cunanan arrived in Minneapolis, Madson took him out to dinner and introduced him to some friends at Nye's Restaurant and they then visited The Gay 90's nightclub.. Of course, some were dazzled by Andrew's charm, after all this is the persona, he had cultivated; others at the dinner considered him a pompous, name-dropping egomaniac. I personally believe that Andrew Cunanan was actually a megalomaniac.

On April 26, Cunanan stayed in Trail's apartment while Trail was out of town with his boyfriend, Jon Hackett. The following afternoon, Trail told Hackett that he needed to have a "pretty important" conversation with Andrew. When Trail and Hackett later returned to the apartment, there was no sign of Andrew or his belongings. Trail left his apartment to see Andrew shortly after 9 p.m. and was likely let into Madson's apartment around 9:45 p.m.

This was the beginning of Andrew Cunanan’s killing spree, in Minneapolis on April 27, 1997, with the murder of his close friend, 28-year-old Jeffrey Trail. After an argument in Trail's apartment, Andrew stole Trail's gun and brought it to David Madson's apartment. Andrew then called Trail from Madson's trendy warehouse apartment to come and retrieve his gun. Now, some have described Trail, who was a former San Diego naval officer who had moved to Minnesota in November, 1996, to take a job with a propane-gas company, as a "straight arrow" who played the part of a "big brother" in Andrew's life. Others have suggested that the two men were at onetime lovers and that Trail had subsequently become sexually involved with David Madson.

When Trail arrived at the apartment, Andrew beat him to death with a hammer in front of David Madson. On April 29, one of Madson's coworkers, concerned about his absence from work, visited his apartment to check on him. They discovered Trail's body rolled in a rug and placed behind a sofa Trail's watch had stopped at 9:55 p.m., believed by authorities to be the time of the killing.

Depending on which of these situations is true, the events that followed may well have been precipitated by one of two causes. According to one theory, Trail had antagonized the increasingly unstable Andrew by expressing his intense disapproval of his drug use. This led to a violent falling -out between the two men. The alternate theory holds that Andrew was sent into a jealous frenzy by Trail's affair with Madson.

Whatever the case, we do know that just before ten p.m. on April 27, some neighbors of Madson's heard violent shouting coming from his apartment, followed by several loud thuds.

Two days later, police found Jeff Trail's body rolled up in a carpet in Madson's apartment. He had been bludgeoned to death with over two dozen hammer blows to the face and head.

33-year-old David Madson became Andrew's second victim. Authorities believe Madson remained in his apartment with Andrew for two whole days after Trail's murder, one neighbor witnessed both men in the apartment elevator on April 28, and another neighbor witnessed the pair walking David's dog on April 29. Investigators initially treated Madson as a suspect in Trail's murder, but Madson's family insisted he was held hostage by Andrew Cunanan. On May 2, Madson and Andrew were seen north of Minneapolis, driving in Madson's Jeep and eating lunch together in a bar. The following morning, Madson's body was found on the east shore of Rush Lake near Rush City, Minnesota, Andrew had shot several .40-caliber Golden Saver bullets into the head of the man he had once described as "the love of my life."

By the time a fisherman stumbled onto Madson's corpse, Andrew was long gone, having fled southeast in the victim's red Jeep. He then traveled to Chicago, where he somehow gained entrance to the home of a seventy-two-year-old real-estate mogul named Lee Miglin. There is no evidence that Andrew had ever met, let alone had a personal relationship with, the older man - though he may have known Miglin by name. What Andrew needed from the millionaire developer was cash, a change of clothes, and a new getaway car.

For reasons unknown Andrew subjected Miglin to a horrific form of torture, wrapping Miglin’s head in duct tape with breathing space at the nose, then stabbing him twenty times with a screwdriver before cutting open his throat with a gardening saw. It was a horrible death for the real-estate mogul. Andrew, took Miglin’s 1994 green Lexus and headed east until he arrived in Pennsville, New Jersey.

Here Andrew killed a 45-year-old cemetery caretaker named William Resse. Resse was shot in the head with the same .40-caliber he had used to murder Madson. Andrew then changed vehicles again to Resse’s 1995 red Chevy pickup truck. The date is now Friday May 9th and Andrew has now killed four men in less than 2 weeks. And he’s not done yet.

Andrew Cunanan now had some of the notoriety he had sought all his life, but this may not have been the fame he was looking for, because now Andrew Cunanan was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. News stories came out about this kid from California, who may be the US’s newest serial killer. And the news spread from coast to coast, however; it was mostly a filler story and not big enough news to be featured.

Andrew who had displayed a lifelong yearning for attention that bordered on the pathological now had his mug shot plastered on wanted posters throughout the U.S. and was featured four times on the TV show America's Most Wanted. But this still was not enough for the attention seeking megalomaniac.

Andrew made his way southward, stopping off briefly in New York City, stealing a license plate in South Carolina, and then arriving at his ultimate destination - Miami Beach, where he checked into an art deco style hotel called the Normandy Plaza on May 12. He paid $29 a night cash for the room.

Andrew stayed in this hotel for almost two months, only leaving at night to participate in the glitzy gay nightlife of South Beach. He would spend his days in his hotel room, living off of takeout food and wasting time away watching TV, reading fashion magazines and watching Sadomasochistic pornography.

In the early days of June, Andrew parked his stolen red pickup truck in a parking structure on South Beach, this just so happened to be only two blocks from the residents know as Casa Casuarina, home of the most famous fashion designer alive at the time, Gianni Versace.

Versace, had visited South Beach during a layover on his way to Cuba in 1991 and he had fallen in love with South Beach and it’s 15 blocks of Art Deco hotels and sidewalk cafes facing the open ocean. So not long after this, Versace purchased a pair of dilapidated Ocean Drive buildings and spent 35 million dollars to renovate them into a palatial palace, which was his dream home.

And I know that most people who love fashion have an opinion of Gianni Versace’s designs, they are bold and unique, expensive and luxurious. I personally have a pair of Versace sunglasses I wear everyday and I love them so much. I am also always surprised when people call them out, because if you know Versace, then you know Versace.

The presence of the ultraglamorous designer had a galvanizing effect on the seedy neighborhood, instantly transforming it into a chic and trendy area. Though Versace owned equally spectacular homes in other cities such as Manhattan, Milan and Lake Cuomo the Ocean Drive mansion in Miami occupied a special place in his heart, partly because he felt so safe and free in this neighborhood. He dismissed his bodyguards, unplugged the mansion's security system, and moved around as casually as any unremarkable mortal.

At approximately 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, July 14, Versace, following his usual morning routine, left Casa Casuarina and strolled the few blocks to the News Café, where he purchased coffee and a handful of magazines. A few minutes later, he was back home. As he was opening the ornate wrought-iron gates to his Mediterranean-style mansion, a young man in a white shirt, gray shorts, and black backpack walked up and shot the fifty- year-old Versace twice with a .40-caliber pistol, one shot entered the back of Versace’s head, the other shot entered through his left cheek.

As Versace collapsed onto the stone steps of his palazzo, his companion, Antonio D'Amico, rushed outside and ran after the assassin, who suddenly swung around, aimed his gun at D'Amico, and waved him away without firing. Then the killer dashed into a nearby parking garage. Versace was pronounced dead at Jackson Memorial Hospital at 9:21 a.m.

It was there that police investigators found the red Chevy pickup that had been stolen from the murdered New Jersey cemetery worker, William Reese. Inside the truck were the bloody clothes worn by Versace's killer and a U.S. passport in the name of Andrew Phillip Cunanan.

The news of Versace's assassination sent shock waves around the world. But that shock turned into something like mass hysteria when authorities revealed that the prime suspect was the same "gay serial killer" already sought in four other murders throughout the U.S.

While his family, fans, and a seemingly limitless circle of superstar friends mourned Versace's death, and tourists, literally by the busloads arrived at the Casa Casuarina to snap souvenir photos of the bloodstained steps where Versace had been slain, Andrew Cunanan became the most feverishly publicized psycho killer since Jeffrey Dahmer.

Andrew Cunanan’s face became a front-page fixture on newspapers throughout the country and was splashed across the covers of magazines from Newsweek to People. TV stations and radio talk shows devoted countless hours to the story. Rumors about the reportedly "cunning, brazen, Jekyll-Hyde" killer swirled, some of these rumors were: he was taunting the police, playing cat-and-mouse with the authorities. He had purchased female clothing so he could disguise himself in drag. He was taking revenge on people he suspected of having given him AIDS. Meanwhile, a massive manhunt was launched. But Andrew remained elusive.

In the days after Versace’s murder, I believe Andrew Cunanan finally achieved the ranking of infamy, he had sought, his entire life. Andrew’s ability to elude capture may have had nothing to do with his cunning, or skill and may have simply been because of police blunders.

Friday, July 11th, four days after the assassination of Versace, a cashier in a local sandwich shop recognized Andrew, from watching America’s Most Wanted. Before the clerk handed Andrew Cunanan his tuna sandwich, the employee excused himself for just a moment and stepped into the back of the store to call 911. As this employee was in the back speaking to the 911 dispatcher, another cashier in the store, simply walked up and handed Andrew his sandwich and Andrew walked out of the sandwich shop and back into obscurity, just moments before police arrived.

Andrew, in desperate need for money, pawned a gold coin he had stolen from Lee Minlin. Andrew filled out the pawn slip using his real name and he also listed his correct and current address at the Normandy Hotel. The pawn shop also required a thumb print, which Andrew gave without hesitation.

On Wednesday July 25th, Fernando Carreira, a 71-year-old caretaker of a double-decker houseboat, docked in a marina some 40 blocks from Versace’s house, entered the vessel and saw evidence of an intruder in the home. Fernando hurried back outside to call the police, after exiting the houseboat, Fernando heard a single gun shot come from inside the house.

Police arrived and cordoned off the area and the SWAT team surrounded the houseboat. Now this is where we go back to the police work in this case. So, Fernando heard a gun shot as he exited the house and nothing has been heard or seen coming from inside the house since that gun shot. The SWAT team and negotiators waited, watching the house for FIVE hours, with no signs of life coming from inside the house. They finally fired tear-gas canisters into the house and shouted “Come out! Come out!”, but the boat remained eerily quiet. Around 9pm SWAT entered the house.

In the houseboat, on the main bedroom’s bed, they found Andrew Cunanan, laying face up, dressed only in a pair of boxer shorts. He had committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth with the same .40-caliber handgun he had used on his murderous rampage.

Through the investigation we learn that Andrew had been hiding in the houseboat for over a week, as the county searched for him everywhere from Florida to Alaska. He had not even left the house for food and in the end, he took the way out typical of a spree killer.

And with the death of Andrew Cunanan, a myriad of answers died with him. But over time some pieces of this story have come together in a way, which may have given us some of these answers.

Spree Killers are typically men, they are usually at a point where their lives are falling apart and because of this, their rage and resentment at the world bubbles to the surface. The causes could range from a relationship ending to losing a job, but whatever crises sends them over the edge, it makes a person for whom life is an unlivable nightmare. Sometimes, death offers them the only chance of escape. But before they go, they need to make a splash and wreak vengeance on a world which, somehow, did them a disservice.

Andrew Cunanan may have reached a point in life where his vacuous existence finally weighed on him too much. He worked for nothing, he had no ambition in life outside of just being glamourous, and all of his relationships were simply superficial, trivial and sexually exploitive. His primary source of income was from sugar daddies who would give him money and things for his social companionship and kinky sex favors.

He needed to prove to the world that he was something, but he did nothing to earn or achieve any real power or status in the world. He was simply a play thing for rich, gay men. So, when his final benefactor relationship ended, the vacuum of his life, having no career, no one who truly loved him and no notable accomplishments in life all came crashing down on him. He was 27 years old, too old to continue being a sugar baby for much longer, but his lifestyle depended on it.

Andrew Cunanan had a mental break and, in a drug, fueled frenzy, killed Jeff Trail. After this Andrew knew he was in trouble and he spiraled, gaining momentum in his rampage as he went, maybe never knowing how far it would go. Versace embodied everything that Andrew wanted, an opulent lifestyle, money, and fame. But Andrew could not be bothered to put in the work it took to achieve these things. In the end Andrew’s rage at Versace is undoubtedly symbolic and not personal. It is doubted that Andrew had ever actually even met Versace before murdering him. It is also possible that the fifty-year-old Versace represented, in Cunanan's unconscious, all the rich older gay men who had used him in their lives.

In his unleashed rage and insane resentment, Andrew would get his revenge on the world, and also prove, once and for all, that he was someone special - a person to be reckoned with, a man with the ultimate power: the power of life and death over another. He would finally get his picture on the covers of national magazines and fulfill the destiny his prep school classmates had foreseen: as the fellow student "Most Likely Not to Be Forgotten."

Thank you for joining us today, and don’t forget to follow us on our social media, links are provided in the show notes. I’m John Dodson and this has been The Secret Sits. Audio Engineering by Gabriel Dodson, Original Artwork provided by Tony Ley.

The Secret Sits

Andrew Cunanan

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