Police Believe Versace Suspect Still Near Miami

A homosexual prostitute and reputed serial killer who is suspected of gunning down fashion designer Gianni Versace eluded a massive dragnet Wednesday, but officials said they were operating on the theory that he was still in the area.

A spokesman for the Miami Beach police said the search for Andrew Phillip Cunanan, 27, a former San Diego resident believed to be in the midst of a cross-country murder spree, was at a “very sensitive” point.

“Right now we are looking at things we believe are very important,” said police spokesman Al Boza. He declined to elaborate. Cunanan is also suspected in two murders in Minnesota and one each in Chicago and New Jersey.

“We’re going to assume he’s still close by until we have a verified sighting that he is elsewhere,” said Paul Philip, the FBI lead agent in Miami. “I think he may still be here.”

Jim Chambliss, chief of investigations for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, told a press conference, “There are leads from all over. Some of them appear to be fruitful, some are not. It’s a very large manhunt, it’s an intense manhunt.”

As many as 400 FBI agents scoured a 250-mile stretch of Florida’s Atlantic coast Wednesday, some handing out photos in gay bars and hotels.

With average height, neat brown hair and unremarkable features, Cunanan fits the description of the young man who fired two bullets from a high-powered handgun into the back of Versace’s head at the gate of his oceanfront mansion Tuesday morning.

“He is average-looking,” said Philip. “But that’s all we have,” he said, noting that the murder weapon has not been recovered. “We’re going to concentrate our search right here. He might not be able to [flee]. . . . It’s quite possible he might be holed up someplace.”

Larry Brubaker, an FBI agent trained in behavioral science profiling, described the suspect as a “spree serial killer” who is “killing to survive.” Brubaker said the suspect is “leaving a signature. . . . He just wants to say, ‘Here I am.’ ”

Cunanan, who was named to the FBI’s 10 most-wanted list almost three months ago, is believed to have plenty of money and is considered armed, dangerous and clever.

“He is a very intelligent, well-dressed, well-educated individual,” said Miami Beach police chief Richard Barreto, “and that makes it more difficult because he can move in different circles.”

Tips Pour in on Suspect

Hundreds of tips on Cunanan’s possible whereabouts have been called into a special hotline set up after a red pickup truck and a pile of discarded clothing found two blocks from the murder scene led officials to name Cunanan as their only suspect. The truck, bearing stolen South Carolina license plates, had been taken from a New Jersey cemetery worker Cunanan is suspected of killing in May.

NBC News reported Wednesday that the pickup had been parked in the garage since June 10, plenty of time for the suspect to learn the designer’s daily routine.

Police declined to comment Wednesday on reports that there was a connection between Versace and Cunanan. Maureen Orth, a writer working on a profile of Cunanan for Vanity Fair magazine, said on NBC’s “Today” show that friends of Cunanan said that he had met the multimillionaire Italian couturier backstage at the San Francisco Opera, and that Versace had appeared to recognize him.

Cunanan was known to frequent San Francisco and before leaving San Diego in April told friends that he was moving to San Francisco once he completed a mysterious side trip to the Midwest.

Even as the FBI concentrated its search for Cunanan in Florida, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies visited bars, restaurants and nightclubs in West Hollywood Wednesday night and urged patrons to be on the lookout for the suspect.

The deputies, along with West Hollywood city employees, fanned out across Santa Monica Boulevard and distributed fliers featuring color photos of Cunanan, which were provided by the FBI.

“We want to make people aware of the suspect, let them know what he looks like and inform them that he is a dangerous individual,” said Sheriff’s Sgt. Marty Chulak.

Deputies will target nightspots on Sunset Boulevard today and will also distribute fliers to businesses throughout the city.

Cliff Petit, founder and executive director of the Fort Lauderdale-based Gamma Nu social fraternity, a travel and socializing club for gay men, issued a statement saying that while Cunanan had attended a Gammu Nu event, he had not met Versace there.

“Neither Versace nor any of the other murder victims were, nor never have been, members of our association,” Petit said. Cunanan had been introduced to Gamma Nu by the wealthy businessman with whom he lived in the older man’s beachfront home in San Diego.

Versace will be cremated, and his family planned to fly to Italy today with his remains for a private memorial in Milan, Miami station WTVJ-TV reported.

Tourists Flock to Murder Site

Outside Versace’s 16-bedroom, three-story, Mediterranean-style mansion on Ocean Drive--modeled after the home Christopher Columbus’ son built in the Dominican Republic--the limestone steps that were awash in blood Tuesday were festooned 24 hours later with flowers, candles and hand-written tributes, in English and Italian.

“Sleep E-Z, Mr. Versace,” read one message scrawled on a piece of cardboard.

Propped next to a multicolored candle was the morning edition of the Miami Herald, with the banner headline: “Stylish Life, Brutal Death.”

Tourists posed for pictures outside the mansion, and gawkers caused a traffic tie-up along Ocean Drive. A flock of reporters and photographers were particularly attentive when models like Gloria Lean, 23, came to drop their offerings (she brought a single rose), and few of the models seemed to mind being photographed.

Versace, whose fame was international, was a major force in the revitalization of the South Beach section of Miami Beach when he bought the mansion here five years ago. Located on a barrier island across the causeway from sprawling Miami, Miami Beach (population 98,000) is home to the Jackie Gleason Theatre, the Art Deco Historical District, a Talmudic University and pastel-colored hotels and apartment buildings that bespeak the beach’s heyday of the 1930s: the Casablanca, Beacon, Avalon, Winterhaven, Boulevard and more.

The humidity, the Cuban accents, the cigars being sold by street vendors, and the heavy concentration of male and female models are uniquely Miami Beach, but coastal Californians find much that reminds them of home.

Miami Beach is a bit of La Jolla (although glitzier and more sensual), a bit of Laguna Beach (although more diverse and Latinized) and bit of Venice (although not as over-the-top).

“Miami Beach is the place to be if you’re retired and want to rest in the warm weather or you’re young and want to strut your stuff,” said Lean.

Residents Take Fear, Violence in Stride

If the brutal and public murder struck fear into the hearts of gays and straights who live here, that emotion was not in evidence on Ocean Drive or the eateries, tattoo parlors, boutiques and modestly-sized living quarters of surrounding streets.

“I feel sorry for Mr. Versace, but he wasn’t in my circle, so I don’t internalize it,” said Dennis Trotta, 24, a hairstylist. “If you’re a centered person, you keep your spirits to yourself and don’t let yourself be spooked by things outside your control.”

Others expressed a similar sang-froid about the execution-style murder.

“You live righteous, and you can’t be overly concerned about what happens to other people,” said Derek Silverman, 28, a part-time disc jockey and employee at a laser-printing firm.

“People live with fear all the time. If you’re gay, you live with the fear of AIDS, fear of bashing, fear of going home with the wrong guy, so one more murder, even if it’s in the headlines, doesn’t make much difference,” said John Lanterman, 48, a writer and investor.

Jim Mullin, editor of the Miami New Times, an alternative, muckraking weekly, said coolness amid steamy violence is a Miami version of being hip and avant-garde. The region has experienced an explosion of drug-related violence in recent years, often in public places, sometimes with automatic weapons.

“I’ve never been to a place that is so inured to violence,” Mullin said. “This is an area where people have learned to live with a level of violence in everyday life that most people would find appalling.”

Meanwhile, in National City, a blue-collar suburb of San Diego, Cunanan’s mother begged police to keep reporters from besieging her. MaryAnn Cunanan, long divorced from Modesto Cunanan, had been living with friends in an Illinois trailer park but recently returned home.

Times staff writers Ronald J. Ostrow in Washington, Anna M. Virtue in Miami and Miles Corwin in Los Angeles contributed to this story.