On this day, July 15, 1997, killer Andrew Cunanan gunned down Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace outside his Miami mansion.
Cunanan, a gay gigolo, was in the midst of a cross-country killing spree. It began three months earlier in Minneapolis, with Cunanan bludgeoning one of his love interests with a hammer. He later shot a friend in the head. Two days later, in Chicago, he fatally beat a wealthy developer and stole his Lexus. Cunanan dumped the car in New Jersey, and killed a cemetery worker for his pickup truck.
With a massive FBI manhunt underway, Cunanan drove to Miami Beach where he planned his next murder. Cunanan waited in the shadows outside Versace’s South Beach home. He walked up behind the legendary designer, shot him twice and fled.
South Florida was on edge. Millions of viewers kept glued to their television sets.
Nine days later, police found Cunanan shortly after he killed himself in a boathouse.
— Scott McCabe
