The victims who came before Versace: How murderer Andrew Cunanan went on a homicidal cross-country spree that culminated in the death of the Italian fashion designer and the killer’s own suicide in 1997

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The manhunt and the crimes that transfixed America in 1997 had elements that could have been lifted right out of a movie plot: high society, high fashion, celebrity, nightlife, sadomasochism - and a pathological liar genius who progressed to serial murder. By the time Gianni Versace was shot dead outside his Miami mansion on July 15, 1997, killer Andrew Cunanan had left behind a web of terror across the country and even more unanswered questions.

And, while the Italian fashion designer was his most famous victim, Cunanan killed at least four men before him – some targeted and others, seemingly, at random.

The killings are the subject of the controversial second season of American Crime Story, starring Ricky Martin, Penelope Cruz, Darren Criss and Edgar Ramirez. Investigative reporter Maureen Orth spent months tracking still-active killer Cunanan’s movements when he was on the run in 1997 – far before he shot Versace. Her subsequent reporting and book, Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in US History, serves as the basis for the new television program; Orth is a co-writer on the show, which begins airing on FX on January 17.

Relatives of Versace have dismissed the series as a work of fiction, but producers stand by the story.

California native Cunanan had always had a flair for attention and the dramatic; at his private Episcopal high school in La Jolla, he was voted ‘Most Likely To Be Remembered’. He dropped out of college and pursued relationship with wealthy older men, targeting individuals who could fund the lifestyle to which he aspired. He was known for his distinctive laugh, his conversational skills, his frequent change of appearance, and – a trait picked up by many – his fantastical stories. Among other things, he claimed to be from Philippine royalty; to have been married to a Jewish woman with a father-in-law in Mossad; to have famous friends and interactions, including with – disastrously, it would turn out – Versace. 

Italian designer Gianni Versace, center, poses with Naomi Campbell (left) and Carla Bruni (right) in London in 1992 - five years before spree killer Andrew Cunanan would shoot Versace dead outside the designer's Miami  Beach mansion

California native Andrew Cunanan was known to be a fantastical liar, exaggerating or fabricating claims while living off the largesse of wealthy older men

‘Despite their misgivings, Cunanan’s friends indulged him in his stories; some still speak fondly of him as an amusing raconteur who insisted on picking up every tab and would leave a $200 tip after a dinner for eight,’ Orth wrote for Vanity Fair in 1997.

‘He told me a story about someone he had dinner with, and I couldn’t tell him the person had been dead two years,’ one friend, Michael Moore, told Orth. ‘Andrew should have had a master’s in conversational utility.’

Cunanan’s first known victim was a friend living in Minnesota, a Navy veteran named Jeffrey Trail. The Annapolis graduate, who served in the Gulf War, was known as kind and brave but, as far as anyone could tell, never shared a romantic relationship with Cunanan. Interestingly, a few years before the killing spree, Trail had spoken off the record to 48 Hours for a segment about gay people serving in the military during the era of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’

‘He was an impressive man,’ correspondent Richard Schlesinger later said. ‘He was smart, good looking and very brave. He chose to speak to us because he thought it was the right thing to do. He did the interview in silhouette but he was still taking a tremendous risk with his career. He had absolutely nothing to gain by doing the interview. Yet he took the risk and spoke out. My colleagues and I left San Diego very impressed with Ensign Trail.’

Trail and Cunanan became friends while they were both living in California. They would go target-shooting together and Cunanan referred to Trail as ‘brother’, Orth wrote. The veteran – who was politically conservative, rarely drank and was opposed to drugs – though he told other friends that Cunanan was selling the illegal substances. Trail trained with the California Highway Patrol but left; he eventually took a job as district manager for a propane retailer in suburban Minneapolis – where he would later meet his unexpected fate at the hands of someone who had been his close friend.   

Before Cunanan killed Versace, he went on a cross-country murder spree, killing his friend Jeffrey Trail (left) in Minneapolis, before shooting his former lover David Madson (right)

Following the first two murders, Cunanan drove to Chicago, where he killed 72-year-old developer Lee Miglin (left) and stole his Lexus before driving to New Jersey, where he killed cemetery caretaker William Reese (right) and fled in his Chevrolet pickup truck 

‘A month before Trail was murdered, he confided to Rick Allen, a friend in Minneapolis, that Cunanan had approached him to help him in his illegal business,’ Orth wrote. ‘Trail said he had refused.’

She wrote: ‘”What Jeff told me,’ says Allen, “was Andrew talked to me about doing security work for his ‘import-export’ business.

‘I don’t even know what you’re talking about,’ Allen says he told Trail. 

‘Drugs, Rick, drugs.’ Jeff was very hesitant to talk about it at all. He told me, ‘It’s not something I tell anybody about.’ I said, ‘What did you tell him?’ Jeff said, “I said, ‘Fuck you.’’

Whatever the nature of their relationship – and Cunanan’s alleged involvement with drugs – the soon-to-be killer traveled to Trail’s new city of Minneapolis in the spring of 1997. Cunanan had broken up with his latest older benefactor, with whom he’d been living in La Jolla, but also had another love interest in Minneapolis, David Madson – an architect he’d met in San Francisco in December 1995. Trail and Madson knew each other, as well, having struck up a friendship when they both ended up in Minneapolis, with Cunanan as their mutual friend.

‘It was pretty sparky,’ a friend of Cunanan’s told Orth, explaining that Cunanan sent Madson a drink at a bar, soon beginning a long-distance relationship in which they experimented with S&M – a topic that greatly interested Cunanan. But the romance began to fizzle out, at least on Madson’s end, Orth writes; Cunanan, for his part, was involved with his sugar daddy for much of the same period.

 Orth wrote that, ‘at the urging of friends, Madson began to distance himself from Cunanan. He had become uneasy, because Andrew would often disappear or become unreachable. Presumably, the reason for this secrecy was that Cunanan was living in La Jolla’ with his older lover.

At the time of Cunanan’s visit to Minneapolis, she wrote, ‘the last thing in the world Jeff Trail or David Madson wanted was a visit from Andrew Cunanan. Nevertheless, neither appeared capable of confronting him directly. “No one would ever tell Andrew to his face – they didn’t want to hurt him,” says Casey Murray, one of Trail’s former boyfriends. And though Madson was at least two boyfriends away from Cunanan by the end of April, he continued to accept gifts from him.

‘Trail had made it clear that he wouldn’t be around much the weekend of Andrew’s visit. His boyfriend, John Hackett, a student at the University of Minnesota, was celebrating his 21st birthday, and Trail was taking him out of town Saturday night. Trail was known to have warned Madson, who had befriended him casually when he moved to Minneapolis late last October, that Cunanan was a liar. 

A manhunt for murderer Cunanan was launched before his suicide on a Miami houseboat, and other celebrities were reportedly warned about him after the killing of Versace

‘”You can’t believe a word he says,” Trail declared. “He’ll say anything to get a reaction.” Meanwhile, Cunanan had told a friend that he was uncomfortable having the two people he cared most about living in the same faraway city without him.’

Cedric Rucker, a college administrator who had dated Madson, told Orth: ‘David was apprehensive about Andrew’s visit … He held suspicions that Andrew was involved in the international drug trade, bringing drugs into the country from across the Mexican border. He probably had ties to organized crime. I said, ‘Why would you want to be affiliated with this?’ He said, ‘Because he’s trying to make a change in his life. Andrew just needs help.’

Orth wrote: ‘Cunanan may have been jealous, or suspicious that Madson and Trail were gossiping about him behind his back. He may also have been angry at Trail for refusing to work with him.’

Cunanan arrived in Minneapolis on Friday, April 25, 1997 and Madson picked him up from the airport. They had dinner with friends and Cunanan presumably spent the night at Madson’s apartment; the next night, he stayed at Trail’s.

On Sunday, Orth wrote, Trail told his boyfriend he needed to talk to Cunanan about something ‘pretty important’ and said he’d meet him at a coffee shop before going dancing with Hackett for his birthday between 10 and 10.30 pm. He never showed up, and Hackett began to panic. The panic deepened when Trail didn’t return to his apartment Monday morning, then failed to show up at work – which is when his boyfriend called the police.

Meanwhile, Madson had also gone missing. He didn’t turn up for work for two days, so two of his colleagues went to his loft to check on him. They eventually asked the building’s super to enter the apartment, and she found Madson’s dog safely inside – along with a body wrapped in carpet and bloody footprints on the floor.

Authorities initially assumed the body was apartment resident Madson, but it turned out it was Trail instead. He’d been badly beaten and was identified by a tattoo, Orth wrote.

‘Trail had been hit from behind, and his face had been bludgeoned multiple times with a hammer. His Swiss Army watch at 9.55 p.m,’ she wrote. ‘Cunanan and Madson had vanished. To the horrified disbelief of all who knew him, Madson immediately went from being the supposed victim to being a suspect for murder.’

It wouldn’t be long, however, before Madson, too, would fall prey to his Mr. Ripley-esque former lover. He was found shot three times with Trail’s gun on May 3, 1997, his body dumped near East Rush Lake in Chisago County, Minnesota. Cunanan had taken his jeep. 

‘The world lost such an amazing person that had so much potential,’ his friend and colleague, Julie Hovland, told 48 Hours for a segment 20 years after the murder. ‘I always think about, like, how ambitious he was and how kind he was. He listened to people and tried to shine a light on people. I think about that on his birthday a lot – what can I do to continue his legacy? And that keeps him alive for me.

‘It’s the type of thing that you’re not going to forget,’ she said sadly. 

But Cunanan’s spree was far from over. He drove Madson’s car more than six hours to Chicago, where the murders took an even stranger turn. His associations with his first two victims had been well documented, but the connection to the next man in his path was far less clear.

Lee Miglin, 72, was a well-known and well-to-do real estate developer in Chicago, ‘epitomized the American dream,’ according to his business partner. His wife, Marilyn, was a successful businesswoman in her own right, starting a line of cosmetics and perfumes. They had two adult children, Marlena and Duke, who was at the time an aspiring actor in California. Miglin, who owned a real estate company with partner J. Paul Beitler, was home alone in the family’s Gold Coast residence when Cunanan arrived in Chicago after his two murders in Minnesota. 

Miglin was found in the garage of the home, wrapped in brown paper with his face covered in duct tape, leaving only openings by his nostrils. His ribs were broken and his throat had been cut. Following the killing, investigators said, Cunanan slept in Miglin’s bed, shaved and left whiskers in the sink, made a ham sandwich that was left half eaten and stole cash and expensive suits.

Madson’s Jeep was found parked near the house on May 6, indicating the California spree killer. In the vehicle were newspaper clips about the murders he had committed of his friends; Cunanan left in Miglin’s vehicle, a dark-green Lexus, and began driving east.

What led him to Miglin’s house, however, remained a mystery. Rumors had circulated that Cunanan, in his typical name-dropping manner, had mentioned in passing that he was going to start a business with Miglin'sson Duke. But the shocked, horrified family insisted that none of them had ever seen the killer and had nothing whatsoever to do with him. The Chicago police ruled that there was no connection. Last year, Duke Miglin reaffirmed that in an interview with ABC 7 Chicago.

‘A lot of false things were brought up, and they were very hurtful, and they were very painful for me personally – and there were attacks on me, as well, that I really did not appreciate and still don’t,’ he said.

‘There was no relationship whatsoever between any of the family – never met him. None whatsoever.’  

Following the bizarre and brutal killing of Mr Miglin, however, Cunanan was on his way to what would be his next seemingly opportunistic murder. Investigators had some luck, this time; the victim’s Lexus had a car phone that was used three times the following week in Pennsylvania. That lead turned into another debacle, however, when Philadelphia police confirmed a news report of the attempted calls, presumably giving Cunanan the heads-up that the phone could be used to track him – and prompting him to never use it again. Soon enough, he would ditch the Lexus altogether – unfortunately for his next victim.

William Reese was a married father of a toddler who worked as a cemetery caretaker in Pennsville, NJ. The 45-year-old cared for the grounds at Finns Point National Cemetery, took pride in his work and was known for his generosity.

‘The only thing I can say is that Bill was a Christian, and we take comfort knowing that he is in heaven,’ his wife said after the murder. ‘He leaves behind a lot of people we loved him.’

His son Troy, now in his 30s, said last year: ‘Everybody loved my dad. My mom loved him, I loved him. My dad loved animals; any time he sees … turtles on the road, he would stop and let them cross the road. If he sees an injured goose on the road, he will always get out and bandage the leg up and help animals out in any way possible.

‘My father would always stop on the road and help perfect strangers with car problems,’ he told Dateline NBC.

The bloody steps of the Miami Beach home of Versace are pictured shortly after his murder on July 15, 1997

Versace was shot twice by Cunanan and could not be revived by paramedics; a nationwide manhunt ended eight days later in the killer's suicide

Versace was returning from a local store, where he bought magazines, when Cunanan approached as he was opening the door 

Cunanan was discovered on July 23, 1997 by a caretaker checking on an unoccupied houseboat less than 3 miles from Versace's home; he shot himself and left no suicide note

It was his car, however, that would get him murdered. He drove a 1995 red Chevrolet pickup truck; Cunanan shot him and stole it. Reese’s wife went to check on him when he failed to come home for dinner on time on May 9; she found the door open to the caretaker’s office and the radio playing, with a Lexus parked outside. She called the police – who found Reese shot in the head in the basement, killed with what would turn out to be the same gun used in Madson’s death and, later, Versace’s.

Reese’s death marked Cunanan’s fourth murder in three states, but he was certainly not finished. He drove Reese’s pickup to Florida, using stolen plates, and lay low for weeks before committing the crime that would make his name infamous around the world.

Cunanan, typically, had been known to brag about his acquaintance with Versace; whether or not that was true is anyone’s guess. Orth wrote that, during her investigation, she was informed that the two had, in fact, met. One source told her they had run into each other in a San Francisco nightclub in 1990; another said that he had seen Cunanan in a limo with the designer. 

What is not in dispute, however, is that, on the morning of July 15, 1997, Cunanan walked up to Versace as the designer was returning to his Miami mansion after buying magazines at a local store. As Versace was putting the key in the door lock, the spree killer shot 50-year-old Verace twice, once in the face at point-blank range and one behind the left ear in the neck.

Cunanan took off as the designer died on the steps of his Miami Beach home, and fled to a parking lot, where he had stashed Reese’s red Chevy pickup. Authorities later found the killer’s discarded clothes, along with his passport, a personal check and a pawnshop ticket for a gold coin he’d taken from Miglin’s house. As per law, the ticket included Cunanan’s thumb print, but police never made the connection.

The cast of American Crime Story poses at the premiere; the network has stood behind the show, despite criticism

Italian designer Versace (left) was internationally known for dressing some of the world's most famous stars and was a fixture in Miami; he is portrayed in the new TV show by actor Edgar Ramirez (right)

Family members such as Donatella Versace (right) have expressed doubts or criticism about the new television show, which is largely based on a book by journalist Maureen Orth; Donatella is portrayed by actress Penelope Cruz in the program

Antonio D'Amico, left, who was Versace's partner at the time of his death, is portrayed by Ricky Martin, right, in the TV show - but D'Amico has derided the program and claimed the director may have taken 'poetic license'

California native Cunanan (left), known as a pathological liar, is portrayed in the upcoming series by actor Darren Criss (right)

A nationwide manhunt was launched after Versace’s murder, and the Associated Press reported at the time that other people – including celebrities – could be on Cunanan’s hit list.

‘We are trying to alert people that their name has come up,’ FBI spokeswoman Coleen Rowley said, without going into specifics. Two New York firms, Unitel and J.T. Mullen Co., reportedly provided guards and security advice to various celebrities.

‘The fashion business is panicked right now,’ Joe Mullen said.

‘We’re warning all our celebrity clients,’ Unitel president William Callahan said. ‘We wouldn’t be surprised if he showed up in New York … New York is a very anonymous place. He could hide here very easily.’

But Cunanan was still in Miami. On July 23, a caretaker was checking on an unoccupied houseboat less than three miles from Versace’s home when he found someone inside, heard a shot and called the police. Cunanan, they said, shot himself in the mouth – and left no note. The answers to so many questions raised by the crimes and investigation died with him.

Everything will be re-examined, however, when American Crime Story starts up again next week. Among the critics, however, has been Antonio D’Amico, the designer’s boyfriend who was inside the home at the time of the murder and rushed outside after the shots.

‘The picture of Ricky Martin holding the body in his arms is ridiculous,’ he said, adding that it was like looking at a mimic of Michelangelo’s Pieta, which depicts the body of Jesus in the arms of his mother after the crucifixion.

‘Maybe it’s the director’s poetic license, but that is not how I reacted.’

Versace's sister, Donatella - who is now the artistic director and vice-president of his fashion empire - has also derided the show. In an interview with Italian daily Repubblica this week, she said: 'I haven't seen (the series) nor will I see it, because after all this time it still hurts to see Gianni represented untruthfully.' 

FX has defended the series, however, stating: ‘Like the original American Crime Story series The People vs OJ Simpson, which was based on Jeffrey Toobin’s nonfiction bestseller “The Run of His Life,” FX’s follow up The Assassination Of Gianni Versace is based on Maureen Orth’s heavily researched and authenticated nonfiction best-seller Vulgar Favors, which examines the true life crime spree of Andre Cunanan. We stand by the meticulous reporting of Ms. Orth.’

And while Versace was the celebrity victim of the killer’s spree, it’s clear that the less famous lives he took are still sorely missed – and the nation reached out to their families at the time.

William Reese’s son told Dateline last year: ‘People all over the country sent letters …. Letters can say anything, say we truly, dearly apologize for this happening. And the letters were emotional. Some letters were saying, “If you ever need anything, please give me a call. These letters mean a lot. My father was a good man, and he’s going to be truly missed.’