by Maureen Orth
Nothing moved. Then, nearly three full days after Lee Miglin’s body was first discovered, Policewoman Olive Dickey noticed three tickets on a red Grand Jeep Cherokee parked on Astor Street, just “eighty-five steps” around the corner from the Miglins’ row house. When she decided to run a license check for Minnesota 543 LUG, she hit the lottery: The Jeep belonged to homicide victim David Madson, and the suspect, Andrew Phillip Cunanan, was armed, dangerous, and wanted for murder.
Now the story would become far more sensational, catapulting the two previous murders, which had first been thought of as “a domestic crime,” albeit a gay one, into the alleged secret lifestyles of the rich and famous. That night, however, was quiet. The Jeep was dusted for fingerprints and towed away. The Jeep contained numerous items identifiable as belonging to David Madson, as well as a Chicago city guide with lines marking a map of the Gold Coast and a copy of Out magazine. Perhaps the most interesting piece of evidence recovered from the Jeep, however, was the parking stub indicating that Andrew had first parked at the General Parking Garage on North Water Street, a couple of miles away, on the previous Wednesday, April 30, at 6:08 A.M.—about twelve hours after Jeff Trail’s body was discovered in Minneapolis. That parking stub would eventually throw the whole time of death of David Madson into serious question.
The media immediately leaped on the story, but Chicago police would say little. In Minnesota, which Chicago media poached in the absence of information from Chicago, the motive still alleged in the first two murders was either a “homosexual love triangle”—much to the chagrin of the Madson and Trail families—or a scenario that had an HIV-positive Andrew killing for revenge, an assumption widely scoffed at in the gay press. (In FBI records later released, the HIV-positive revenge motive was attributed to a gay friend of Andrew’s in an early report out of San Francisco.) There is no doubt, however, that with the addition of the older, richer, prominent Miglin to the list of victims, the visibility of the case was given a huge boost, not only with the press but with law enforcement nationally. Tiny Chisago County led the way.
At 6 A.M. Wednesday morning, Chisago County Sergeant Todd Rivard learned that a reporter at the Chicago NBC affiliate had informed the Sheriff’s Communications Center that the Jeep had been found. Rivard had not yet been notified by Chicago police. The call began a pattern: Chisago would hear about major developments in the case from the media first. When Rivard called the NBC reporter back, he learned not only about Andrew’s possible connection to Miglin’s murder, but also that Miglin’s Lexus was missing. Later in the morning, Rivard called the Chicago police, who confirmed both facts to him. Not long after, Karen Lapinski telephoned Rivard from San Francisco to tell him that a phone bill with numerous long-distance calls Andrew had made had arrived in the mail. She also gave Rivard a full accounting of what she understood Andrew and David’s relationship to be.
In the spirit of quick, decisive action, Sheriff Randall Schwegman and Sergeant Todd Rivard went to Chisago County District Attorney James Reuter to ask for a warrant for Andrew Cunanan’s arrest for murder. He acceded. The decision raised prosecutorial eyebrows. Minnesota does not even have the death penalty, and by current big-city prosecutorial standards, which downplay circumstantial evidence, they didn’t have nearly enough to go on. But Schwegman and Rivard convinced the DA that finding the bullets in Andrew’s duffel bag in Madson’s apartment, coupled with the recovery of the Jeep near Miglin’s house, was enough. “We had probable cause. We were concerned [Cunanan] was going to flee to the Philippines,” says District Attorney Reuter. “We were early in our investigation, but we found we would be developing additional confirmatory evidence as it progressed.”
The taciturn Chicago Area 3 Commander, Joe Griffin, was livid. Griffin was known to be so cautious that he once reportedly refused to tell detectives investigating the burglary of the mayor’s brother’s house what had been taken. A fur coat was among the items stolen from Secretary of Commerce Billy Daley and Griffin reportedly thought owning such a luxury item might reflect negatively on the image of the First Family of Chicago.
But Griffin was not alone in his concern. “Chisago issuing the warrant shocked everyone,” said Chicago prosecutor Nancy Donahoe. “I got a call from Griffin screaming, ‘How could they do this?’” The problem was that Chisago’s complaint contained many specifics, including the identity of the unusual .40 caliber murder weapon, names of numerous witnesses and, in some cases, where they resided, making them easy targets for the media to contact. “Our biggest concern was that [the warrant] would chase potential witnesses off,” says Nancy Donahoe. “I could talk till I’m blue in the face promising we won’t put this in the media, your family won’t find out you’re gay,” but what good would it do if they saw or heard about Chisago?
There was a far more important reason, however, for Chisago to issue a warrant for Cunanan’s arrest: The complaint paved the way for the FBI to enter the case. Ordinarily, each murder is the province of the local jurisdiction where it happens—unless the suspect crosses state lines in an attempt to escape and there is a warrant for his arrest. Such a complaint is used to trigger a federal UFAP warrant—unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. Then the FBI is able to jump in.
In the case of Chisago, Roy Tubergen, head of the FBI Violent Crimes section, concedes, “They were going out on a limb to charge.” Even so, the FBI had already been eyeing the murders at the highest levels. Said former FBI Deputy Director William Esposito, “I got a call from our command center saying something was going on—there were a couple of deaths in Minnesota—they look like they could be connected. Then the third one happened and I think people started piecing things together.”
“Murder in Minnesota is not as common as it is in Chicago or the East Coast,” says FBI Deputy Assistant Director Roger Wheeler, “so the fact that a murder occurred in the city, followed by another murder a few miles outside the city, apparently by the same person, tweaked everybody’s interest.” After Miglin, “We have a murderer who has traveled into three states and three different jurisdictions. We thought because of the speed, and Cunanan’s ability to get around the country as quickly as he did, that he deserved as much attention as we could put on it from the very beginning.”
Still, before getting in, the FBI demanded certain assurances in writing from Chisago. According to Todd Rivard, “Jim Reuter had to prosecute for first-degree murder”—although the complaint said second-degree murder. “We just told him, ‘Listen, Jim, trust us—we never let you down before.’” Rivard was confident they could develop evidence for first-degree. But the FBI, knowing there was no death penalty in Minnesota, was not about to pledge its resources lightly. Rivard characterized the Bureau’s attitude as, “We’re not going to all this trouble without a commitment.” Translation: We’re not going to haul ass for a measly manslaughter conviction. The FBI not only needed a warrant with sufficient probable cause, it also “wanted a letter promising prosecution for first-degree murder and a promise to extradite” if they caught Andrew. In other words, Chisago, the first to charge, had to promise it would not insist on trying Andrew first, thereby holding up a more promising Cunanan murder case that could be tried in a capital punishment state.
In Minneapolis, the news that David’s Jeep was found around the corner from Lee Miglin’s house was a bomb-shell. It threw all their theories into disarray. “We’re thinking it’s some sort of gay lovers’ quarrel between Jeff and David and now we got a millionaire in Chicago involved and another missing vehicle,” says Minneapolis police sergeant Steve Wagner. “From that point on, the FBI is very much involved and big-time it escalates.”
Now the whole complexion of the case did change. With the FBI in, the investigation would expand—there would be a national manhunt. The Bureau immediately began dispatching its tools, including a Rapid Start computer team to establish a unified, computerized system for handling all leads pertaining to Andrew Cunanan. The case itself would be given over to a fugitive task force,
part of a joint Safe Streets Task Force, which unites federal, state, and local authorities together under one roof, sharing command with the FBI to find the country’s most violent fugitives. The task forces are supposed to reduce interagency rivalry and foster police cooperation—always a ticklish issue.
“Literally within hours of putting the word out in the task force arena, we had every major metropolitan police department or sheriff’s office involved because most of them have representation in one form or another on task forces,” says FBI Deputy Assistant Director Wheeler. “It’s a tremendous advantage over five years ago. [The task forces] are a nineties vehicle. And it’s an extremely valuable form of communication and networking”—if in fact, everyone is paying attention, which is by no means automatic.
Because Cunanan’s crimes originated in Minnesota, the Minnesota Joint Task Force was in charge: Lee Urness of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension shared duties with Kevin Rickett of the FBI. “Their responsibility is to set leads to other divisions to follow,” says Stephen Wiley, head of the FBI Fugitive Division. “Minnesota set a lead to San Diego giving them a list of things to do, to check the background of friends and associates.” A common assumption is that fugitives will try to contact their families, or try to come home—although that was certainly not the case with Andrew.
The FBI’s primary objective in fugitive investigations is neither to gather evidence nor to establish motive. Rather, the Bureau is trying to figure out where the suspect is headed and how it can catch him. Along the way, the agents assigned often learn a great deal, but if the information does not directly pertain to finding their man, they might not pay much attention. Character doesn’t count. “Our sole purpose here is not to find out who Andrew Cunanan is, or to find out what he’s about,” says Kevin Rickett. “Our sole purpose is to arrest him.” In Cunanan’s case, putting on the “fugitive-investigation-only” blinders did just that—the Bureau conducted hundreds of interviews but missed or ignored some important clues.
Nevertheless, the Chicago police and the other jurisdictions now had the FBI and its myriad technical resources to count on. “UFAP is very good at tracking down in various ways—by phone records, credit card records, cellular phones—where he is, where he’s going, where we believe he’ll go,” says Illinois prosecutor Nancy Donahoe. Still, there had to be some ambivalence for Chicago police about where this case would eventually take them.
In their Thursday, May 8, story, in the aftermath of finding the Jeep, the Chicago Tribune opined, “If the admittedly tenuous threads police are following lead where some think they might, investigators will have to figure out how the killing of the 72-year-old [sic] Miglin fits in with the murders of the two young men.” But Chicago authorities were not overly thrilled with the political minefield: dealing with an openly gay killer who was suspected of being a prostitute and had killed two other gays he was close to, when their victim was a wealthy, prominent family man with a politically connected business partner and a wife with a fancy street named after her.
Says Tichich’s partner, Pete Jackson, “Chicago knew the guy packed some heat when the cardinal’s office called up to ask how the investigation was going.”
22
Fatal Error
ONCE AGAIN, ANDREW had gotten away with a substantial headstart. By late Saturday night he was in Lee Miglin’s Lexus headed out of Chicago. The FBI was able to trace his route with a piece of new, highly sensitive software called a “triggerfish,” a triangulation device that can track cars with a high degree of accuracy once their cell phones are activated. Miglin’s Lexus had a phone, but Andrew did not know the code number required to use it. The phone was apparently activated, however, as soon as the car’s ignition was turned on. Andrew either turned on the ignition or attempted to use the phone twice—once at 11:25 P.M. Saturday night and again at 12:37 A.M. Sunday morning.
Those calls were monitored by a signal transmitted via a tower located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Twice again, on Sunday afternoon, he tried to use the phone. Those calls were picked up at a tower in Union County, Pennsylvania, on a route that goes directly to New York City. “The FBI was spearheading the tracking of the cell-phone transmissions,” says Chisago Sergeant Todd Rivard. “I was contacted by Lee Urness [the member of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension who was heading the Minnesota Fugitive Task Force with the FBI’s Kevin Rickett], and he told me what was going on—that this was very top secret, that they had had one reading from the cell phone.” By some fluke, the phone service was then turned off, and it was not reconnected until the middle of the following week.
It appears that Andrew drove straight to New York, because at 12:45 A.M. on Monday, May 5, he registered at the West Side Club, a gay men’s bathhouse located in Chelsea, an artsy, largely gay neighborhood bordering on Greenwich Village. He was in a familiar environment, hiding in plain sight. Meanwhile, in Minneapolis and Chicago, the lives of the families and friends of his victims were being turned upside down. On Monday morning, David Madson’s and Lee Miglin’s autopsies were being performed, while in De Kalb, Illinois, Jeffrey Trail’s funeral was being held, with no media in attendance. Minneapolis authorities had failed to send Jeff’s ashes in time for the service. David Madson’s Jeep was still parked near Lee Miglin’s house, and the clamorous fallout from Andrew’s three “spree killings” had not yet begun. Thus, while the bodies of two of the men he had killed were being probed for any remnants of his cruel violence, and his third victim was being eulogized, Andrew went shopping for a pair of jeans. He bought them at the Original Levi’s Store, on Fifty-seventh Street near Fifth Avenue.
From the beginning Andrew frustrated law enforcement, because they had almost nothing concrete to go on. Since he had never been arrested, and his only existing fingerprint was the right thumbprint on his California driver’s license, police had tremendous difficulty matching any fingerprints at the crime scenes. And because the authorities had not, for example, taken proper caution while investigating Andrew’s apartment in San Diego or Jeff Trail’s apartment, much of the evidence had been contaminated, so police had to compare hundreds of prints. Andrew also looked very different from one photo to another: Sometimes he appeared nerdy in glasses; sometimes his hair was long; other times he looked butch, with his head shaved close. Few of the pictures showed that Andrew had recently put on weight.
“What irritated me first when their big manhunt was on,” says Jerry Davis, “was the pictures they were showing. Because the Andrew I knew was a fat, ugly guy … I thought he was gross. And that picture they showed on TV—I thought he was nice-looking. That’s what I kept trying to tell those guys.” The other problem was that with his medium height and dark looks, Andrew looked commonplace. “He’s a guy who could blend into a number of different communities—Italian, Greek, Hispanic,” says Todd Rivard.
Then there was the question of whether or not Andrew was deliberately taunting the police, since many serial killers pride themselves on being able to outsmart the law. Or was the case just full of exquisite irony? For example, movie stubs found later in Miami show that on Wednesday, the day the FBI entered his case, Andrew presumably was at the movies in Chelsea, watching Jim Carrey in Liar, Liar. The next night he saw Brad Pitt in The Devil’s Own. “He had an evil purpose for everything he did,” says Minneapolis police sergeant Steve Wagner. “I don’t see him as a genius. Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, John Gotti—they’re a lot smarter than Andrew.”
By the end of the week, half a dozen law-enforcement agencies were pursuing various aspects of Andrew’s murders without knowing what his motives were or where he would land next. “He just kept moving,” says Wagner, “going from one spot to another.” But he was doing so under the beginning of the media’s spotlight.
Finding the Jeep near Miglin’s house was the catalyst the tabloids needed for turning up the heat on the “gay San Diego party boy,” and the possibility that Andrew might have known or been involved with Lee Miglin spurred na
tional attention. Time and Newsweek began preparing stories. Local TV was insatiable. On Thursday, recalls Ann Trail, Jeff’s mother, “we came home and the entire street was filled with cars and people.” TV satellite trucks were parked in front of the Trails’ house, ready to fuel Live at Five. “They descended on us like a horde of locusts. It was like a mob coming after me. I had had serious surgery April seventh. I still was not well. Stan said, ‘You go inside—I’ll handle it.’”
Perhaps there is no truer gauge of the potential interest in a crime story than a nod from America’s Most Wanted, the Fox TV show beloved by the FBI and law enforcement everywhere for its audience of millions and the numbers of criminals it helps bring down—535 to date. At first, AMW thought the Minnesota murders were run-of-the-mill domestic crimes. “Half the crime in this country is domestic,” says executive producer Lance Heflin, “so it goes on a slower track.” But host John Walsh had his own take—that Andrew Cunanan “always was a wanna-be. He wanted to be in those circles. He wanted to hang with the rich and famous. He wanted to be in the Hamptons with David Geffen’s crew.” He wanted to be famous period.
When the third murder occurred, the producers paid attention. “It’s big news in Chicago because Lee Miglin is so respected in Chicago as a real-estate developer, a philanthropist,” explains Walsh. “I know Mayor Daley was a very original supporter of the show and a friend of Miglin’s, et cetera, et cetera, so we get the murder on.” AMW’s first broadcast about Andrew Cunanan was May 10, the day after Lee Miglin’s funeral. It was only two minutes and forty-seven seconds in length, but it was a signal, especially to the large law-enforcement audience, that Cunanan had become big. “Here’s the guy, he’s inside Miglin’s mansion. Now the elite, wealthy part of society says, ‘You know, most crime happens in the ghetto. How could somebody get in Lee Miglin’s house and kill Lee Miglin?’ We start to look at it and say, ‘We may have a serial killer on our hands here. What’s the connection with Lee Miglin?’”
