A Complete Timeline of Andrew Cunanan's Murders
As you’ve almost certainly heard by now, FX’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story is less a show about Versace than it is about his killer, Andrew Cunanan, a social-climbing narcissist whose desperation to be admired and important ultimately spurs him into a murderous rampage. Prior to killing Versace in Miami in July of 1997, the 27-year-old Cunanan committed four other murders in a nationwide spree before ultimately killing himself a week after Versace's death, as Miami police closed in on him.
The Assassination of Gianni Versace writer Tom Rob Smith and producer Ryan Murphy based the series on a book by veteran Vanity Fair writer Maureen Orth, who reported extensively on the case before writing Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in US History. “There are a few places [in the TV show] where things didn’t happen at all,” Orth told Vanity Fair’s Still Watching podcast. “So I understand it is their choice. Once they decide to base something on my book, they have artistic license to do certain things.”
So what is the truth behind the artistic license? Separate fact from fiction with this timeline of Cunanan’s real-life murders.
October 21, 1990
Andrew Cunanan and Gianni Versace meet in San Francisco.
One of the most ambiguous - and contentious - elements of the series is the relationship between Cunanan and Versace, and whether they even knew each other. The first episode shows Versace and Cunanan meeting in the VIP area of a nightclub, where an initially irritated Versace is eventually won over by Cunanan’s story about his mother’s upbringing in Italy. Later, Cunanan goes on a “date” with Versace to the San Francisco Opera, where the designer is working on Capriccio. The pair engage in an intimate conversation onstage after the show.
It’s unclear how much of this we’re meant to take at face value, and how much is Cunanan’s delusional, grandiose idea of the relationship he feels he deserves to have with Versace. But while the pair did meet in San Francisco, according to Orth, it played out quite differently than the series depicts:
Versace was in town because he had designed costumes for the San Francisco Opera. That night, October 21, an eyewitness recalls, Cunanan was smugly pleased that Versace seemed to recognize him. “I know you,” Versace said, wagging a finger in the then 21-year-old’s direction. “Lago di Como, no?” And Cunanan replied, “Thank you for remembering, Signor Versace.” It's not clear whether there really was anything to remember, or that Andrew Cunanan had ever been near Versace’s house on Lake Como. During Versace’s stay, Cunanan also met Eric Gruenwald, now a Los Angeles lawyer, at Colossus. Cunanan, in the company of a silver-haired gentleman, was still gushing over his Versace encounter. With characteristic hyperbole, he embellished it for Gruen-wald, adding, “I said, ‘If you’re Gianni Versace, then I’m Coco Chanel!’”
To confuse things further, the above version of events is the one we see Cunanan describe to friends in the series, but not the one we actually see play out onscreen. Criss’s Cunanan is nothing if not an unreliable narrator.
April 27, 1997
Cunanan commits his first murder in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Former U.S. naval officer Jeffrey Trail had become friends with Cunanan in San Diego in 1991, while Trail was stationed there. Per Orth, Cunanan considered Trail to be his best friend, and referred to him as “my brother." Trail’s sister told the New York Times that Cunanan had “a strange fascination” with Trail, and often appeared to try and emulate him. Trail had reportedly told friends that he had “had a big fallout with Andrew and never wished to see him again.”
Shortly after Trail, 28, had moved to Minnesota for a new job, his body was found in a Minneapolis loft apartment belonging to his friend, David Madson - an ex-lover of Cunanan’s. Trail had been beaten to death with a claw hammer, and his body rolled up in a rug. His watch had stopped at 9:55 pm, which investigators believed was the time of his killing on Sunday, April 27. Cunanan was visiting Minnesota at the time, had stayed at Trail’s apartment the night before his murder, and called Trail on Sunday evening to invite him over to Madson’s apartment.
May 3, 1997
Madson’s body is found on the shore of Rush Lake in Minnesota.
Madson, 33, failed to show up for work on Monday, April 28, but neighbors saw him walking his dog with Cunanan that day. His body was found five days later on the shore of East Rush Lake near Rush City, Minnesota (approximately one hour from Minneapolis by car), with gunshot wounds to his head and back. Investigators said that Madson’s body showed no sign of restraints, and his only defensive wounds were in his fingers, suggesting that he had raised his hands to try and deflect one of the shots.
Madson’s family members suspected that he had accidentally walked in on the killing of Trail, and subsequently been taken hostage by Cunanan, and this is the version of events that plays out in American Crime Story. Orth called Madson “the great unrequited love of Cunanan’s life” and noted that although the pair had broken up in the spring of 1996, Cunanan kept a picture of Madson on his refrigerator door.
May 3, 1997
Cunanan kills his third victim in Chicago.
72-year-old real estate tycoon Lee Miglin was found dead in the garage of his Gold Coast home on the morning of May 4. He had been bound with duct tape, stabbed more than 20 times with a screwdriver and had his throat cut open with a hacksaw. His wife, Marilyn, first became alarmed when Lee didn’t show up as planned to meet her at the airport, and alerted police when she returned home to find their gate unlocked and the kitchen in disarray. Miglin’s green Lexus was also missing from the garage.
Miglin’s family has consistently and vigorously denied that Lee - or his 25-year-old son Duke, a rising actor whose name Cunanan had reportedly dropped to friends - had ever met Cunanan. However, there were no signs of forced entry into the Miglins’ home, and Orth noted in her coverage that as an older, wealthy, and socially influential man, Miglin was “a type Cunanan was known to research carefully.”
Shortly after Miglin’s murder, Cunanan became the 449th fugitive listed on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.
May 9, 1997
Cunanan commits his fourth murder in New Jersey.
William Reese, a 45-year-old caretaker at the Finn’s Point National Cemetery in Pennsville, New Jersey, was found dead in the cemetery’s office on May 10. He had been shot in the head, and his red pickup truck was gone, replaced by a green Lexus with Illinois plates - the same one Cunanan stole from Miglin’s garage.
It was later determined that Cunanan likely killed Reese solely for his truck, and not for any of the more complex and personal reasons that seemed to define his other four murders.
July 15, 1997
Cunanan kills Gianni Versace.
On July 10, Versace arrived in Miami to stay at his opulent mansion in the South Beach area. On the morning of July 15, he was returning from a walk when Cunanan approached him and shot him on the steps of his house. Cunanan fled the scene on foot. Police responding to the attack found Reese’s stolen truck in a nearby parking garage, along with Cunanan’s clothes, a fake passport, and newspaper clippings detailing his murders.
Cunanan had reportedly been living in Miami Beach for two months prior to killing Versace. He made seemingly little attempt to stay under the radar, despite being on the FBI’s Most Wanted list; at one point, he even used his own name to pawn a gold coin he stole from Miglin. ''He went out in the afternoons and late evening,'' William J. Esposito, the bureau's deputy director, said at a Washington news conference, per the New York Times. ''He was a very visible person, not a recluse, not a shut-in.'' But the high-profile killing of Versace forced Cunanan to keep a lower profile for the final week of his life.
July 22, 1997
Versace’s memorial service takes place in Milan.
The service is attended by some 2,000 people and scores of celebrities, including Princess Diana, Elton John, Naomi Campbell, and fashion power players like Giorgio Armani and Karl Lagerfeld.
July 23, 1997
Cunanan commits suicide.
Versace’s murder prompted a much more vigorous pursuit of Cunanan, with some 1,000 agents across the country taking part in what became one of the biggest manhunts in history. As a police assault team closed in on a houseboat which Cunanan had broken into, Cunanan shot himself in the mouth using the same gun he had used to kill Madson, Reese, and Versace. He left no suicide note or explanation for his crimes.
Some reports - including one in the New York Times - claimed that Cunanan had told friends he was HIV-positive, and that he was murdering former lovers out of a desire for vengeance on whoever had infected him. However, an autopsy showed Cunanan to be HIV-negative.