The Backstory: Versace: When Envy Leads to Obsession . . And Then to Murder

Gianni Versace was one of the world’s hottest designers. In 1997 he had a net worth of almost a billion dollars and some of the most exquisite mansions in the world. He had it all. And that was the problem. His success and possible connection to sex for hire circles, led spree killer Andrew Cunanan . . right to Versace’s front door one beautiful summer morning.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right. If you don't remember the nineteen nineties, in
the early days of everybody's obsession with Versace fashion, you
may remember the f X drama about John Ivversace's murder.
The show The Assassination of Jeanni VERSACEI American Crime Story,
debuted in twenty eighteen. It explored the nineteen ninety seven

(00:20):
murder of one of the hottest clothing designers in the
entire world. I'm Patty Steele. What motivated Versace's murderer? Was
it envy, sex for hire or something else? That's next
on the backstory. We're back with the backstory. Johnny VERSACEI

(00:42):
had a clear sense of direction from the time he
was a little kid. He was born in nineteen forty six.
He grew up in Reggio, Calabria, Italy. Right off the
bat he loved fashion and architecture. His mother had a
sewing business, so she took him on as an apprentice.
Pretty soon headed to Milan to work in fashion design,

(01:03):
and several years in he started to get noticed. In
nineteen seventy eight, he opened his own boutique in Milan,
and he was an international sensation in no time. His
designs were sexy, and colorful. His rivalry with Giorgio Armani,
who had simple designs in quiet, dark colors, led to
fashion insiders saying Armani dresses the wife, Versace dresses the mistress.

(01:29):
He started to design costumes for music artists as well
as ballet, opera, theater, and film, and that led to
friendships with folks like Eric Clapton, Princess Diana Whitney, Houston,
Naomi Campbell, cap Moss, Madonna Elton, John Tupac, Shakurt, Joan Collins,
and countless other hotshots. Eventually, his company, Versace began to

(01:51):
produce more than just clothing. They got into accessories, fragrances, makeup,
and home furnishings. Johnny VERSACEI was on top top of
the world, and it stayed that way through the eighties
and well into the nineties. Meantime, he had a very
stable personal life. He met his partner Antonio Demico, a model,

(02:11):
in nineteen eighty two, and they were together until Johnny's
death fifteen years later. The pair lived in Versace's mansions
in Italy, in Milan and Lake Como in New York City,
and most notably, his spectacular villa in Miami. Beach Casa Cassuarina,
which brings us to a warm, sunny morning in Miami,

(02:33):
July fifteenth, nineteen ninety seven. Johnny liked to take a
morning walk in his silk pajamas and head to a
small cafe where he sat outside for coffee, reading in
people watching. Sounds like a perfect morning. He finishes his
coffee and he heads home down Ocean Drive. Now it's
eight forty five am and he's just started to enter

(02:56):
his gate. Beautiful fancy gates to walk up the step
to his front door. At that moment, Andrew Cunanan, a young,
really troubled guy with a violent past, steps out from
the shadows. In the blink of an eye. Cunanan raises
a handgun and fires two shots. Johnny VERSACEI instantly collapses.

(03:18):
He's shot in the head. He's mortally wounded, his blood
pouring down the marble steps of his own South Beach palace.
Johnny Versace's murder sent shockwaves all over the world. How
could such a vibrant, beloved, iconic figure become the victim
of such a crazy act? And who is this guy?

(03:39):
This killer? And why did he do this? Andrew Cunanan
was born in California. He had a demanding father, who
then abandoned the family after getting involved in some business fraud.
It up ended Andrew's life. While he was a psychological mess,
he went to some prestigious private schools and managed to
create a false pri sona of wealth and status. There.

(04:02):
As he got a little older, he started mingling easily
with wealthy older men, getting money and social connections from them.
He was charming. He was a good looking guy, but
also horribly insecure with a volatile temper. By his mid twenties,
it all started to fall apart. He was in bad
shape socially and financially, and that's when his life spun

(04:26):
out of control. He launched a gruesome cross country murder spray.
Before he got to Miami, Andrew had committed four brutal
murders in Minnesota, Chicago, and New Jersey, leaving cops baffled
and the public scared. There didn't seem to be an
mo His victims included former lovers, acquaintances, and even strangers.

(04:49):
The FBI called him a spree killer, a person motivated
to kill a number of people in a short period
of time. Andrews stayed on the move and constantly changed
his appearance. FBI wanted posters described him as intelligent, dangerous,
and highly elusive, a killer whose motives were unpredictable. It's

(05:11):
been almost thirty years, and yet it's still not one
hundred percent clear what brought Andrew Cunanan to Johnny Versachi's doorstep.
Some think they might have met years earlier, though what
that would have entailed is unclear, while others think Andrew
was simply an outsider looking in at Versachi's impossibly glamorous,

(05:33):
successful life and he became fixated. Whether he knew him
personally or not. Andrew was definitely obsessed with Johnny and
often bragged about him being a close friend of his.
Andrew definitely had delusions of grandeur. Acquaintances say he regularly
lied about meeting and knowing lots of celebrities. On the

(05:55):
other hand, FBI agents firmly believed that Versace and Cunanan
had met in San Francisco, but they don't know the
nature of that relationship. One story in Vanity Fair claimed
the two met at a San Francisco nightclub in nineteen
ninety and could have gotten together later because both were
apparently involved in sects for hire circles in both Miami

(06:19):
and San Francisco. The Versace family, of course denies that scenario,
but at the end of the day, even the Miami
Beach Chief of Police said, I don't know that we
are ever going to know the answers. Whatever the reason,
Versace became Cunanan's final victim. Following the murder, Miami police
launched one of the biggest manhunts in US history, but

(06:42):
Cunanan had vanished without a trace. The fashion world was distraught.
Versace's funeral at the Milan Cathedral had two thousand in attendance,
names like Elton john Naomi Campbell, JFK. Junior's wife, Caroline
Bessett Kennedy, and Princess Diana, who, of course was killed
in a Paris car accident just a little over a

(07:03):
month later. Still, the city of Miami was in a
panic as the police in FBI searched for Cunanan. Then, finally,
eight days after Versace's murder, a caretaker noticed that someone
had forced their way into an unoccupied houseboat at a
quiet marina near Miami Beach. Cops surrounded the area and

(07:25):
moved in. It was July twenty third, nineteen ninety seven,
they approached the houseboat Suddenly, a single gunshot echoed from inside.
Andrew Cunanan had committed suicide, leaving so many unanswered questions.
On the boat, cops found newspaper articles of Cunanan's killing

(07:46):
spree that he'd cut out, and fast food wrappers, but
there was not much else. Johnny was cremated and his
ashes buried in the Versace family crypt at Lake Como.
In the aftermath, Johnny's sister Donetella took over running the
Versace fashion empire. The Casa Kasuarina, the mansion and murder site,

(08:07):
was sold and turned into a super luxury hotel. While
Versace had left a generous bequest to his lover of
fifteen years, Donnatella, and the Versace family took him to
cord and cut it way back. The murder of John
A Versace made a lot of the glitterati take a
much closer look at their security measures, and it left

(08:29):
everyone else considering how envy can destroy so many lives.
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(08:57):
I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia,
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Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We
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(09:19):
Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele.
The pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.