Serial Murder Suspect Charmed San Diego Enclave

In the hard-rock nightspots and trendy restaurants of this city’s gay enclave, Andrew Phillip Cunanan cut a memorable figure.

He loved to host dinner parties for a coterie of good looking young men. He was a raconteur, possessed of a distinctive laugh and a love for spinning tales of trips to Europe and pending movie deals in Hollywood. And he always picked up the tab.

At the dance parlors where gay-rock videos blare long into the night, he would dance until closing time, often bare-chested, sometimes leaving alone, sometimes with someone he had just met. He was partial to bars frequented by young military officers and other young professionals.

“It wasn’t so much that he was good-looking or buffed out, but he was sexy and exciting in other ways,” said one former acquaintance. “He was fun, he had money, and he was available. In Hillcrest [the city’s gay neighborhood], that can take you a long way.”

Cunanan, 27, who grew up in San Diego and attended a swank prep school and then UC San Diego, also lived a second life: this one more discreet, totally removed from public view.

“Cunanan is known to be a male prostitute who services an affluent clientele,” said Miami Beach Police Chief Richard Barreto in announcing Tuesday that Cunanan is a suspect in the murder of fashion designer Gianni Versace.

Cunanan was a regular at gatherings of affluent gay men--some deeply closeted and afraid of being exposed publicly--in the posh homes of La Jolla and Point Loma. He was the longtime house guest and companion of a wealthy man twice his age, with ties to the movie business.

In 1995, Cunanan was frequently seen in the company of a 61-year-old architect and interior designer. The man was bludgeoned to death with an obelisk. A drifter with mental problems was later convicted of the crime, but police now say they would like to interview Cunanan.

Cunanan was not the only younger man to be a part of the upper reaches of gay society in San Diego, but he was notable for his wit, intelligence and sense of style. He favored tailored suits with designer labels.

“A lot of these young boys are pretty but have nothing to say,” said Nicole Ramirez-Murray, society columnist for the San Diego Gay and Lesbian Times. “Andrew was different. He could talk about politics and foreign affairs and was fluent in languages.”

Cunanan, who often went by the name Andy DeSilva, attended events sponsored by Sigma Mu, an exclusive gay social club based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The club holds parties and gatherings at locations across the country, invitation-only, discretion absolutely required.

The group’s executive director remembers Cunanan as nicely dressed, respectful of his elders, “a real gentleman.”

Still, Cunanan had a predilection for the flamboyant. In high school, where he excelled in cross-country running and French, he liked to scandalize his straight friends by intimating that he was being “kept” by wealthy friends, who provided him with such gifts as a red leather jumpsuit with an oversized zipper.

Cunanan’s father, a retired Navy officer, fled the country in 1988 after being charged with financial flimflammery in his stockbrokerage. His mother lives in public housing in Illinois and asserts that her ex-husband took all the family’s money when he fled.

“Maybe it was his father’s influence or something, but Andy seemed to particularly like military guys,” said one active-duty Navy officer. “He seemed to know when certain ships were in and the guys would want to unwind and have fun.”

It may have been in one of the Hillcrest nightspots favored by military officers that Cunanan met Jeffrey Trail, a Naval Academy graduate who is among the four, now five, people that Cunanan is suspected of killing.

In late April, Cunanan, who was living with a roommate in a modest apartment in Hillcrest, held a going-away party for himself at one of his favorite restaurants. His guests ate filet mignon, ostrich and salmon and drank copious amounts of champagne as Cunanan announced that he was moving to San Francisco but that, first, he needed to go to the Midwest for reasons he did not detail.

Within days, police in Minnesota found the bludgeoned body of the 27-year-old Trail wrapped in a rug in the apartment of David Madson, 33, an architect and former Cunanan lover. A few days later, Madson’s body was found near a lake north of Minneapolis. He had been shot to death at close range.

Police here say Madson, Trail and Cunanan had been seen dining together just the night before Trail was thought to have been killed.

On May 3, Lee Miglin, 72, a Chicago developer with strong social and political connections, was found murdered, tortured and wrapped like a mummy in his Gold Coast home. His family has adamantly denied that he knew Cunanan. Miglin’s 1994 Lexus had been stolen, and Madson’s Jeep Cherokee was found nearby.

Six days later, William Reese, a cemetery worker in Pennsville, N.J., was gunned down during the theft of his 1995 red Chevrolet pickup, the same vehicle found near the Miami Beach home where fashion designer Versace was shot to death Tuesday.

In the weeks since Reese was murdered, the Cunanan mystery had deepened. Gay activists in New York and San Francisco warned that Cunanan might be traveling toward their city. The FBI put the young man with the dark eyes and festive manner on its list of 10 most-wanted criminals.

In San Diego, some wealthy and closeted gay men who know Cunanan are said to be in hiding, some fleeing to Europe. The police served a search warrant on his apartment, looking for dental records that might help them connect him to bite marks on the victims.

Wherever he went, Cunanan was known for telling intriguing, and apparently false, tales about his past: His family owned a sugar plantation in the Philippines, his family is the parking lot baron of San Diego, he was once married and fathered a child, his family owned land in New Jersey, he was besieged by movie offers.

“Looking back on it, we were all taken in by his line of bull,” one friend said. “He was just a young guy on the make, pretending to be things he wasn’t. We never knew him at all.”