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 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 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, 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.
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 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, 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, 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
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. 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? 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. 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 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. 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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,
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 everyone else considering how envy can destroy so many lives. Hope you're enjoying the backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave a review and follow or subscribe for free to get
new episodes. Delivered automatically and feel free to dm me if you have a story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We
have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.