Why did Andrew Cunanan kill Versace?

He didn’t want him living anymore?

Ryan Murphy needed more source material

Killing Versace immortalized him. Cunanan did always want to be someone important. If he was going to be a killer, might as well end his streak on a big fish. One of the highest profile gay men around. The most important gay man he had ever met.

Maybe he was also triggered by Versace's OTT, flashy designs?

Because he was a fucking cunt.

I always thought he was a self-hating gay man jealous of success in other gay men (Miglin - bisexual I think? ) and he was "hiding out" (in plain sight) in Miami, seeing how people worshiped Versace. He was jealous and full of rage... hated the fact he was jealous, hated himself, and thought he hated Versace.

I am just a sort of guessing based on what was going on in the 90s and his other killings. I forgot so many of the details all these years later. It was confusing at hell back then - I remember people assumed they had some kind of relationship but then it was proven they didn't know each other.

[quote]but then it was proven they didn't know each other.

Quite the contrary, it was proven they did meet at Colossus in San Francisco. That might have been the extent of their relationship though, no one knows for sure.

Met once = / = "know eachother"

True, but not to a crazy, image-obsessed loon like Cunanan. He liked to tell everyone how he was "friends with Versace".

I always assumed the tard sister put him up to it

He was well paid.

Most people forgot the details about any of this. It wasn't covered nearly as much as OJ. It would take like an hour of reading old articles to even attempt to answer. If I try to answer based on what I remember, I can see there are queens ready to pounce on anything. So, let them answer the question then.

Why was he a serial killer? And why wasn't this fact more publicized? I remember him killing Versace, but had no idea he had killed others and gotten away with it for so long.

And to those who knew or knew of him back then, why was he such a mentally ill, pathological liar? I'm watching the show but I'm interested in first hand interpretations of his behaviour if anyone knows or has theories.

Andrew's father was similar. Got in trouble for fraudulent business deals and trying to steal money.

Andrew was always deeply narcissistic and obsessed with his own sense of importance. Schoolmates talked about how he was a pathological liar then, always making up shit to make himself seem wealthier and more impressive.

His yearbook quote was "Après moi, le déluge" . The Louis XV quote of After me, the flood. Shows you his ridiculous sense of grandiosity.

Ryan Murphy’s show is bullshit, just like Feud. Don’t go by that crap.

[quote]just like Feud.

....just like "Feud" it is a television drama, not a documentary.

fukiin cunt thought he be famous by killing someone famous

why couldnt it have been....martha stewart.

(kidding martha

luv ya)

Because he forgot to send a Christmas card, Rose.

R13, Cunanan's killing rampage was big news. The manhunt for him was all over the news. And then he killed Versace.

He was really more of a spree killer

What is the difference between a serial and spree killer?

R22, time

Seemed like he knew he was about to get caught so he went after a big celeb who was loved.

I think it was simply toxic envy.

Why couldn't that be me??

I never knew Cunanan was half Italian. I always knew he was half-Filipino, and he looked like it. I guess you never ever really heard about the mother.

And if I'm not mistaken, Dateline or one of those shows did interview Cunanan's siblings. Or maybe just a brother - I forget. It's been a long time

[quote]Killing Versace immortalized him

If you recall when his killing spree started it was covered extensively and the quote above is the reason exactly. He knew he was going to be caught and he knew he wasn't going to be taken alive, so he wanted something that would make him stand out. He didn't have enough time to beat Gacy's record and he didn't eat people like Dahmer so what else could make his stand out?

Why does Donatella always look like a crack whore?

I read on Wikipedia today that he was the youngest of 4 children.

Does anyone know if he had any relationship with his brothers or sisters?

He is portrayed in the series (so far) like a spoiled, demented only child...

Was Cunanan really a Gamma My toyboy?

He can't have been hot enough.

R29......just lucky i guess

Yeah, I had that question too, [R31].

I just looked up pictures of him on google today and was surprised by how...average he looked.

It really made me a bit annoyed with all the posters in the American Crime Story thread who were bitching about Darren Criss’s casting and acting.

To me Criss may not be Al Pacino in the acting department, but he’s 10 times better looking and more charismatic than the real Cunanan and this is an asset to the role. (Criss also has this puppy dog quality which serves the part well—especially because his character is so naturally unlikeable).

The real Cunanan was not hot at all—at least in any pictures I saw of him online, so I was surprised that he was allegedly the “kept man” of serval millionaires...

So what was his appeal to wealthy gay men? Surely he had competition for that money/lifestyle, so who would he appeal to?

Cunanan was on METH-and-steroids when he finally killed Versace!

I remember in the 90's they said he had AIDS and supposedly he slept with all those sugar daddies and started killing them because he didn't know which one gave it to him. BUT, there was so much homophobia back then, you can never believe everything you read.

I'm sure a large swath of straight people thought all gay people had AIDS back then. I've read he didn't have AIDS and it was just made up. I don't know what to believe at this point.

He was the favorite child and very much spoiled by his parents r30. They sacrificed to give him stuff they never gave his siblings. Sending him to the fancy private school, getting him a nice car. They even gave him the master bedroom of their condo.

Andrew was not close to his siblings. He hadn't talked to most of his family in years before he died.

[quote]just like "Feud" it is a television drama, not a documentary.

No shit, Sherlock.

He was average looking, but it’s inaccuracy to suggest he lacked charisma

You can't tell a person's attractiveness from just pictures because they are still in a moment. People take bad pictures all the time. You don't get a sense of how they move and talk and what their face is like completely. Color of eyes are always darker in pictures too. And vice versa. Some people look amazing in pictures and then look busted in real life or their personality doesn't match. Who knows what he was like. No one knows. He was doing something right hooking these men.

What do you mean ‘no one knows’?

Lots of people who knew him in SD & SF were all over the news feeds 20 ya

Since Andrew was so obsessed with the finer things in life he could talk about art, architecture, literature, fashion etc. That is what drew some older gay men to him. He was also very fashionable and dressed well.

He was never some stud though, that was a source of insecurity for him. He would go to these nude beaches or gay pool parties and keep on his clothes.

R40 yea but it sounds like his personality changed from person to person. He was a shape shifter. There is no footage of him talking or anything for us to analyze. Only a few pictures and even then. The ones who probably knew him best are dead.

OP is correct that no one knows, we can only guess from what we know about him. He killed himself so we can't exactly ask him why he killed the people he did. The person who probably got insight into his murderous turn, David Madson, was also killed.

That's what I thought r21, spree not serial.

R13

According to wikipedia

[quote]According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the general definition of spree killer is a person (or more than one person) who commits two or more murders without a cooling-off period; the lack of a cooling-off period marks the difference between a spree killer and a serial killer.

There were two months where Cunanan killed no one before he killed Versace, wouldn't that cooling off period make him a serial killer?

Serial killers also need to derive some sort of pleasure in the act of killing. Often the ritual gets them off, sometimes as their only sexual release.

Cunanan didn’t fit that bill. He was killing for revenge, financial gain, and even simply to find a vehicle.

The mentality is important and different...

Also, ‘cooling off’ is a state of mind and has no specific time frame.

Cunanan only took time off out of necessity.

It’s clear he was burning with rage nonstop and that never ended until he killed himself.

The serial killer cools off after the sexual release of the kill as though their belly is full after a meal.

Eventually, the cycle starts up again and they have to get off again.

None of that fits Cunanan

One more point:

For a serial killer, the killing is a lifestyle, akin to a hobby. Someone like Gacy would pick up a 15yo to torture & Murder the way someone else might play poker or softball.

The spree killer is mission oriented like a mass murderer.

Cunanan was on a mission that may have taken a few breaks out of necessity, but he was continually serving the needs of the mission.

It’s the mental state that makes the difference...

Everyone takes a bad pic. And if Andrew was doing meth and not taking care of himself, his looks would have gone.

But he was definitely handsome:

Yeah Andrew started gaining weight and having the drug use visible on his face by the time he started his killing spree, but he was regarded as a cute guy.

[quote] It was confusing at hell back then - I remember people assumed they had some kind of relationship but then it was proven they didn't know each other.

Is it true that they did not know each other? There was a recent ABC news piece about Cunanan that seemed to suggest he'd met Versace.

R51 The book Vulgar Favors says that they did meet at a gay club in SF in 1990.

Versace used his usual pick-up line: "We've met. Lake Como, no?"

And Cunanan lied: "Yes, thank you for remembering."

There are people who claim to have seen Cunanan in a car with Versace and his BF, but the BF denies this.

If they did know each other, it wasn't a significant relationship. Meeting someone at a club while you're on vacation is common. It's also common to hookup this way. It was 7 years after this alleged meeting that Cunanan killed Versace. I doubt it was something Versace said. I'm not sure I trust witness accounts of this meeting. A lot of time had passed, they were likely drinking/high, Cunanan lied a lot. Memories are often incomplete and people tend to fill in the blanks.

I think he killed him because he was a very successful out gay man, at a time when there weren't that many. He was everything Cunanan wished he was, but would never be. Cunanan reached some point in his life where he realized the world was never going to give what he thought he deserved. He was aging out of his kept boy faze. He was angry and desperate and he was going to make the world pay. Versace was also accessible as a victim for Cunanan. He could drive to Miami. You need a pass port to move between states. If he lived in Europe Cunanan couldn't have gotten to him.

The rage of the needledick?

Donatella sounds like her nose was completely damaged, also one would think after decades of international success in fashion and friends like Elton John and Madonna, her English would be a lot better. The whole Versace clan comes across creepy to me, no wonder they hang out with the Kartrashians now. Ugh, shudder.

Is Versace's former BF also HIV+?

Nearly everyone is attractive at 18.

R55) Donatella sounds as if she has an oral motor problem. That means her muscles in and around her mouth are weakened or hard to control. This can affect speaking, and it can make a person sound as if they had a stroke. This is what Donatella sounds like.

This may deserve it's own thread.

He had a long face and wasn't that attractive. I wonder what his Johns saw in him? Darren Criss resembles him but is way hotter.

Donatella's bad English is almost as offensive as her looks. It's as if she deliberately wants to look like the worst nightmare you've ever had. The arrogance and narcissism of rich people. Gianni's Villa Casuarina was a mixture of tacky pomp, too much money and ostentatiously bad taste.

Between the bad fashion and bad plastic surgery he had to witness, do you blame him, OP?

[quote] He was aging out of his kept boy faze.

Oh, [italic]dear.[/italic]

He killed Gianni Versace yet he spared the lives of Scott Baio and Danny Pintauro? Priorities, people!

[quote]Donatella's bad English is almost as offensive as her looks.

It's not bad English. She formulates sentences very well and has a command of the language. It's just something interfering, and I think it's the muscles in her mouth that are affecting her speech -- not English language.

In order to be good at speaking a language, other people need to be able to understand what you are saying, this is clearly not the case with Donatella. It's probably a combination of her deformed nose and she probably has false teeth as well because her real ones fell out from all the coke she did, laziness to actually learn how to properly speak a foreign language and arrogance because she doesn't think she has to. I imagine dealing with somebody who is so absorbed in her own world must be a nightmare. I find the whole family extremely unpleasant and scary, I am sure they are deeply involved with dubious mobster clans and criminals. They are from rotten Calabrian mafia stock.

[quote]It's probably a combination of her deformed nose and she probably has false teeth as well because her real ones fell out from all the coke she did, laziness to actually learn how to properly speak a foreign language

A deformed nose would make her sound stuffed up but not unintelligible, and I doubt with her money she has bad teeth.

What seems to be happening is that she struggles to move her mouth/tongue during speaking. That's an oral-motor problem.

At R55) You can see at 3:38 that her cheeks don't move, especially when she says that "my family will be able to understand me."

When an English speaker says the word "my", their cheeks move and the mouth opens up almost into a smile, but that's not the case with Donatella.

Her face is just frozen. Now, it is possible the plastic surgery messed up her nerves in her face, but that line she says. . .

Hmm... something tells me that Dona had this problem all along, but it just wasn't diagnosed in Italy.

Interesting read on Cunanan.

Asians ruin everything

Cunanan was an usual hapa. Usually hapas are Asian wife being taken advantage of by a white loser.

There is a whole subreddit dedicated to hapas bitching about the problems that come with being a hapa.

[quote]and I doubt with her money she has bad teeth

with her money I would expect better than cheap veneers or whatever she has now compared to her own old teeth (maybe it's choppers) which I am sure fell out from all the coke she did. She doesn't have a stuffed nose, she has holes in it and yes, that certainly affects speech.

It's pure arrogance of the rich and powerful, in Donatella's case it's her unwillingness to communicate in a socially acceptable way and to make herself look presentable. I am sure she is a psychopath.

Cunanan's father was from the Philippines, his mother was American/Italian.

Fame, plain & simple. He’d been hiding out from police for months, collecting news clippings about himself, and he wanted to increase his fame.

Versace was the only murder he planned out in advance which is why he’s considered a spree killer rather than a serial killer. Serial killers methodically plan and obsess about their crimes, and tend to select a particular type of victim who fulfills a particular type of fantasy. Cunanan on the other hand committed two unplanned murders of an ex-lover & his bf, another one on someone who may or may not have been a stranger, another unplanned murder on a random victim just to steal his car, then Versace. The lack of serial-killer-like pattern in his victims is part of what took him a while to get caught.

I always wondered whether Madson contributed to the murder of Jeffrey Trail. Both Madson and Cunanan were into sado-maso sexual activities.

Yeah David was with Andrew walking over Jeff's corpse in his apartment for a day or two, We will never know the truth of what happened there.

What was the truth of Lee Miglin? He was wealthy and married. Did he pick up Andrew for a trick?

A rentboy claims that Cunanan and Lee Miglin once picked him up for a threesome.

If you believe him, that proves the two of them were well acquainted.

I thought Cunanan was hiv -

He was, they tested him.

So Radar online was making up shyt again @R80

Versace was HIV, his family denied it though. They cremated his body the next day, which always made it look like they were trying to hide the fact that he was pos.

Versace was going public with his company and some people think him being pos would have lowered the value of the company.

R77 they have never proved that Miglin knew Cunanan but I find it impossible to believe he didn’t. The brutal method of the murder indicates personal motives; there were no signs of forced entry; and Cunanan went back inside the house and made himself a sandwich & took a nap afterwards. I think Miglin’s family just refused to believe he could possibly have picked up a gay hustler, and the homophobic police chose to accept that.

Cunanan also seemed to pick a time when Mrs Miglin wouldn't be back home for a while, indicating he probably knew their schedules.

I know there was speculation that Cunanan knew their son Duke instead.

Here is Maureen Orth's account and research on the murders.

Radar also discovered Cunanan — who brutally killed four men in three states before shooting Versace — was likely motivated by a sick thirst to seek revenge for being infected with AIDS-causing HIV.

San Diego AIDS counselor Mike Dudley said he spoke to Cunanan about safe sex.

He said Cunanan jumped up, kicked the wall and yelled, “If I found out who did this to me, I’m gonna get them.”

So they would one day make a TV show about him.