Hundreds Mourn at Mass for Slain Versace

More than 700 people--some citizens of the world of high fashion and others just citizens of the world--turned out for a memorial service for Gianni Versace on Friday, while outside the church police almost outnumbered onlookers, just in case the designer’s suspected slayer showed up.

On the street in front of St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church there was no sign of Andrew Phillip Cunanan, 27, described as a cunning male prostitute suspected of killing four other men before accosting Versace Tuesday on the front steps of his oceanfront palazzo and firing two large-caliber bullets into his head.

There has been no clue as to the motives for the killings. But police were rapidly piling up new details on Cunanan’s life in Miami, where he apparently had lived for two months. A man police believe was Cunanan checked into the Normandy Plaza Hotel, four miles north of Versace’s home, in early May, hotel manager Roger Falin said Friday. The man did not register under Cunanan’s name, and Falin would not say what name he used.

“He was very soft-spoken, neat and clean,” Falin said. “He didn’t look like a nightclubber, though he went out at night. Nobody seems to remember him coming back with anybody or even talking with anybody.”

He checked out on July 12, leaving behind some hair-cutting equipment and fashion magazines.

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On Wednesday, law enforcement agents searched all 65 rooms looking for Cunanan, said clerk Miriam Hernandez. “They had to go through each one because they said he might still be here,” she told the Associated Press. She said he always wore sunglasses, and was carrying a U.S. driver’s license and French passport with names similar to Cunanan’s known aliases.

Police reported Friday that a pair of tinted glasses, a jacket and a wallet linked with to slain Chicago businessman Lee Miglin were found in the red pickup truck Cunanan is believed to have stolen from a murder victim in New Jersey and driven to South Florida. Police previously reported that Cunanan’s U.S. passport and a check with his name on it were also left in the truck.

A pawn shop receipt indicating that Cunanan may have pawned a gold coin owned by Miglin was also discovered in the truck.

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Bill Hagmire, chief of the FBI’s child abduction and serial killers unit in Quantico, Va., said Friday that Cunanan appears to be “an organized offender,” one who “stalks his prey, has a plan, a vision and leaves little evidence.”

But what about leaving behind his passport and victims’ property? That is a sign of Cunanan’s ego, Hagmire said. “He wants us to know who he is.”

Reported sightings of the elusive Cunanan from across the country continued to pour into the hotline number set up by an FBI task force. Police said more than 1,000 tips had been phoned in since Cunanan’s face began to appear on television and computer screens around the world, and on millions of fliers passed out here and in other cities with large gay populations.

But none of the reported sightings has been confirmed.

John Coffey, of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, said Cunanan had “made major mistakes. I’d prefer not to comment on them at this time, because we’d like him to continue making them.”

Although police seemed to edge away from seeing any ties between Cunanan and the murder of a local physician, whose partially nude body was discovered in his Miami Springs home early Thursday, they still did not totally discount the possibility that Silvio Alfonso, 44, fell victim to Cunanan.

Meanwhile, in Manila, the suspect’s father, Modesto Cunanan, a former California stockbroker, disputed his former wife’s assertion that their son was a “high-class male prostitute.” The elder Cunanan, 74, also expressed confidence that his son was not a killer. “He’s had a Catholic upbringing. He was an altar boy,” he said.

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In Italy, Versace’s sister, Donatella, and his brother, Santo, arrived with their brother’s ashes at the family’s villa on the shores of Lake Como. A private funeral was to be held in the town of Moltrasio, a peaceful village where Versace, 50, sought refuge from the hectic world of haute couture.

When he died this week, Versace’s business empire was reportedly worth more than $500 million.

Another memorial service for Versace is scheduled for Tuesday in the fashion capital of Milan.

Many of those who turned out for the requiem Mass in Miami left the hourlong service praising the fashion leader’s contribution to the revitalization of this city’s trendy South Beach area, where his gracious three-story home stood as the only private residence on Ocean Drive. The steps where Versace died continued to serve as a makeshift altar Friday, as a steady stream of visitors left flowers and lit votive candles.

“I’m sure he’s looking down on us today, designing his next outfit in heaven,” said Anthony Furia, who described himself as a friend.

Times staff writers Ronald J. Ostrow in Washington and Anna M. Virtue in Miami, and the Associated Press contributed to this story.