by Maureen Orth
“The secondary people who kind of knew Andrew Cunanan were the biggest sleazebags I ever dealt with,” says Santina Leuci. “Here’s a guy who’s supposed to be their friend, who killed five people, and here they are negotiating with TV shows. They weren’t even being helpful to the police or the local press.” San Diego FBI Deputy Supervisor Peter Ahearn confirms this: “The lengths people would go to avoid talking to us in order to make money—it’s mind boggling.” Santina Leuci didn’t even have to do her usual pitch: “‘You’re not going to get paid by Dateline or PrimeTime Live. I can pay you this.’ It takes persistence, and you don’t let them have too long.” In the aftermath, however, even the police wanted to cash in. Lee Urness, who as head of the Minnesota Fugitive Task Force was at the forefront of the investigation, signed on as a consultant for an aborted ABC-TV movie of the week on Andrew. He then made himself scarce for interviews.
Even some of Andrew’s affluent friends had their palms outstretched. Two classmates from Bishop’s, one of them an Ivy League graduate, were willing to talk, but only if they would be paid. When I turned them down, they countered by offering to sell me Andrew’s inscriptions to them in their yearbooks as an alternative to a fee for their interviews. The La Jolla mother of one Bishop’s girl acted as her agent. “How much are you willing to pay my daughter?” she demanded. “I don’t pay, I can’t,” I answered. “Then my daughter has nothing to say to you.”
MaryAnn Cunanan, under heavy medication, was guarded by the FBI. “The media was practically living at Cunanan’s mother’s residence,” says San Diego FBI spokesman Carl Chandler, “shining lights in her windows, pounding at her door.” Reporters finally got so intrusive that the Bureau decided to move Andrew’s mother out late at night and put her on a plane to San Francisco, where they hid her under a program to protect witnesses. “They came up with this elaborate plan to block the media with our cars,” explains Peter Ahearn. “I said no.” Instead Ahearn suggested moving in when the media left, about 11 P.M., after the last news shows. “They drove right up—she was scared to death. These agents cared about her. She’s the classic example of ‘you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your relatives.’”
Andrew’s stunned father was informed of the Versace murder by a local politician in the Philippines, who showed up with a TV crew and never tried to talk to him alone. Pete Cunanan quickly disavowed that his son was homosexual or remotely capable of committing such a crime. Once again he contradicted his wife to the Associated Press. “She was lying. My son is not like that. He is not a high-class male prostitute. He had a Catholic upbringing. He was an altar boy.” Pete Cunanan claims that when he would be out driving in his car, “the TV crews didn’t even let me mourn my son. They tried to ambush me.”
Since reporters were not able to interview Cunanan family members, who would not start accepting money until after Andrew’s death, Erik Greenman was the big “get.” Poor, untutored Erik was originally going to settle for a mere $40,000 from the Globe for his story, but then he called that wise old queen, Nicole Ramirez-Murray, who barked, “Get in your car, and come over to my house. Forty thousand? You’re nuts!” Erik was nervous and uncertain, but not Nicole, who called the Globe to say that the new price was $80,000. The Globe insisted on first seeing what kind of pictures the two had to offer. Fine, said Nicole. The fee for the viewing would be $5,000 nonrefundable, up front. The Globe acceded and sent a check, which Nicole kept as a negotiating fee. Then Nicole called the National Enquirer, which offered $85,000. Erik had no stomach for more. He told Nicole to accept the $85,000, saying, “I want to get out of town.” Nicole was deeply disappointed. “I’m a wheeler-dealer. Erik got scared. He could have gotten a lot more than that. But Erik started getting paranoid.” Even Nicole was surprised at the resulting articles. “Some information he gave was b.s. I said, ‘What’s this Tom Cruise stuff?’ He said, ‘They told me to spice it up, to make it more interesting. I thought it was stupid too.’”
Anthony White, the caterer who worked for California Cuisine and knew Andrew only slightly, was contacted by a self-appointed agent who told him he could make him thousands of dollars if White would go on TV and say that he was one of Andrew’s best friends. When White de-murred, the agent told him, “Don’t be ridiculous. I got a guy who left the Heaven’s Gate cult seven years ago, and he’s a senior consultant in Hollywood right now on a made-for-TV movie.” (Before the week was out, White got $4,000 from Hard Copy, but he didn’t say he was a close friend of Andrew’s.)
Even before Versace was killed, Steven Gomer, Andrew’s longtime friend in San Francisco, had told the San Francisco Chronicle that Andrew had spoken to him about bondage and latex masks and his keen interest in sadomasochistic sex. After Versace’s murder Gomer was inundated: “Larry King, Entertainment Tonight, Inside Edition, Good Morning America, the Today Show—and Hard Copy called a million times.” Before appearing anywhere, Gomer tested the market with a Hard Copy producer. “She had said five thousand dollars, and I said fifty thousand and she said, ‘Well, maybe we can do something in the middle—fifteen to twenty-five thousand.’” Gomer was told that if he chose to go on the show with his face darkened in silhouette, he’d get only fifteen thousand dollars, but if he was willing to show his face to the camera, he might get twenty-five. That price was not considered high. “If this was during sweeps,” says one tabloid producer, “checkbooks would have opened a lot more.”
In the middle of negotiating with Hard Copy, Gomer got a message from another tabloid show producer. She told him, “I know you’re friends with Andrew. I just wanted to talk to you. I’m on my cell phone, calling from my car. I’m on the way to my shrink’s appointment. I’m going into couples therapy. I’m meeting my boyfriend, and it’s an hour appointment. We’re doing group therapy. Let me give a call as soon as I get out.”
“That was a mouthful,” Gomer says. “She told me more than I would tell someone I had known for three years.” When the producer called back, Gomer thought he heard the noise of small children in the background. “‘Oh, I’m sorry, that’s my boyfriend’s rats,’” she said. “So I started giving her a little bit of this information, and she starts foaming at the mouth.” Gomer received a total of 175 requests from the press and television. Speaking for any number of Andrew’s friends, he said, “As upset as I am on one side for my friend, and truly feel for what is happening, you can’t help but feel some excitement over the fact that people actually care about what you have to say.” In his own small world, Gomer was all of a sudden a celebrity. His friends were dying to know which offers he’d choose. He ended up turning all of them down because his bosses took a dim view of the proceedings. “The only thing I would do,” Gomer asserts, “would be The Capital Gang [CNN’s inside-the-beltway political show from Washington].” Gomer’s friends were mystified. “They said, ‘Who is Capital Gang?’”
Others had few scruples. Philip Horne, though he had met Andrew only once, with Steven Gomer at the Midnight Sun, when Andrew lied to him about becoming his roommate, thought going on TV and doing interviews would help his law practice. He appeared dozens of times in print and on the air, paid and unpaid, as a Cunanan friend. Eric Gruenwald, to whom Andrew had allegedly told the Coco Chanel line after meeting Versace, was also seen many times. But Karen Lapinski, a pal of Lisa Kudrow’s and college friend of David Madson’s, and her fiancé, Evan Wallit, who works for the Federal Reserve in San Francisco, were in a class by themselves. They may have collected the most money of all—reputedly six figures—for the “World Exclusive Photos” they sold to Star of Andrew and David Madson hugging on a sofa—pictures in which Andrew looked drugged. Lapinski and Wallit, who professed a close friendship with David and were also privy to the intimacy of his relationship with Andrew, later also put on the market from the same roll of film an obscene picture of a smirking Andrew brandishing his penis for the camera.
In the beginning Wallit looked into a book deal for Lapinski, though she had never written
professionally. When the couple offered their pictures for ever escalating sums, David Madson’s family asked them not to. The Madsons said that seeing such pictures of David and his killer would be extremely painful for them. But Lapinski and Wallit were determined, having turned down all interviews. “I can’t control what other people feel,” Wallit says. “I think it’s unfortunate, but that’s all I’m going to say.” Lapinski, who once thought her wedding reception was going to be paid for by Andrew—after David walked her down the aisle—sent Mrs. Madson an orchid plant for Mother’s Day in 1997. After Lapinski and Wallit’s pictures of Andrew and David appeared in Star, Carol Madson sent the orchid plant back, dead.
37
The Rainbow
ANDREW’S FORMER ACQUAINTANCES weren’t the only ones in overdrive in California. The San Diego FBI had snapped to attention as soon as it heard that the brass in Washington wanted twice-a-day conference calls. Richard Sibley, the agent who had organized security for the Republican National Convention in San Diego in 1996, was in charge of setting up the local command post. “I told Sibley, ‘After Versace got whacked, the shit’s hit the fan on this,’” says San Diego FBI Deputy Director Peter Ahearn. “‘Let’s be ready. It’s gonna get out of hand.’ And it did get out of hand.”
San Diego opened up a command center with extra staff and computer support, ready for the first conference call at 7:30 every morning. The pressure was on. Suddenly the Bureau, which had previously had no interest in the fugitive’s personality traits, was all over town, trying to find out every little thing about Andrew. Keith Evans’s counterpart in San Diego was thirty-two-year-old, hip-looking John Hause, who wore jeans and carried his gun in a black backpack slung over his shoulder. “We began a command post automated seven days a week,” says Hause. “We put in long hours every day. Things needed to be done immediately; results needed to be communicated immediately. It involved a lot more people—the activity level was just way up. So was the stress.”
One of the priorities was to step up efforts to get in touch with people who hadn’t been contacted or recontact old friends. But from FBI records there is no indication that tips from friends such as Shane O’Brien, who told the FBI that Andrew had mentioned having dinner with Versace at least once a year from 1991 on, were passed on. If the FBI agents who received this information felt that they had missed anything with regard to Versace, they didn’t reveal it in the files. Kevin Rickett, in charge of the Cunanan investigation, told me that he too had heard that Andrew had met Versace, then asked me, “Have you been able to substantiate it? I heard all kinds of stories.” A few minutes later he told me he wasn’t sure when he’d first heard it—before or after Versace was shot. “I’m going to say afterwards.”
When high-profile gays and VIPs were mentioned as names that had been thrown around by Andrew, they were warned by the FBI, especially on the West Coast. In San Diego, the FBI alerted copturned-novelist Joseph Wambaugh, who disavowed ever having known Andrew despite several acquaintances of Andrew who claimed otherwise. Wambaugh told the press: “Apparently he’s a name dropper and a fan of my books. I only hope he gets to buy a few more before the cops dust him.”
In San Francisco, the FBI visited socialites Gordon Getty and Harry de Wildt, both for the first time. “It seems Gordon Getty and I were two people who they felt should be warned,” Harry de Wildt told the San Francisco Chronicle. “It seems that Gordon and I are two of his biggest idols here in San Francisco. Apparently he admired our lifestyles much like he admired Gianni Versace for his success.” Harry de Wildt appeared quite cool. “So there’s a lunatic somewhere in the world—I’m not nervous.” According to de Wildt, he was not asked if he knew Andrew.
David Geffen also tended to brush off the notion that Andrew posed any threat when the FBI warned him, but not Steven Spielberg, who called his DreamWorks partner and begged him to hire a bodyguard. Geffen says he refused, and continued to live at his Malibu beach house without security. “I’ve lived on a public beach for twenty-four years; I’ve never had security. That’s not to say someone couldn’t kill me or you. If they can get Reagan, they can get me.” Yet his friends kept after him, and they had an effect. “People were frightened for me, so much so it got scary for me,” Geffen continues. “I live my life quietly, comfortably, thinking everything will be OK. A lot of people are terrified of living their lives. That’s not me.”
The FBI maintains that only with the killing of Versace did it understand that celebrities might be victims of Cunanan. “I got into a live interview,” says Ahearn, “and the guy said, ‘The public has a right to know who, in this community, is being targeted by Andrew Cunanan. We hear there’s a hit list.’ Because they’re immediately making the assumption, right away, if Cunanan talked about them, then they’re gay.” Ahearn says that assumption is unfair. “What is our responsibility to these people? To tell them, ‘This guy talked about you, you should be aware.’ That became a hit list. These names emerged after Versace. There was no reason to ask about famous people before. His MO was that he would hang out with the rich. Versace brings in the famous.”
To relieve the growing panic, the FBI in San Francisco, for example, denied to the Chronicle my story in Vanity Fair that Andrew had met Versace at the time the opera Capriccio was presented there, in 1990. When I phoned the FBI office in San Francisco to protest, my call was not returned. Months later, however, George Grotz, the FBI’s spokesman in San Francisco who refused to be interviewed, implied he had denied what I reported “because people thought there was a hit list” and the Bureau needed to calm them down.
THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL part of the Cunanan coverage in San Diego had nothing to do with hit lists, however. The Union-Tribune, which had downplayed the Cunanan story for months, suddenly appeared on Saturday, July 19, with a page-one banner headline: “Cunanan Vowed Revenge Over HIV, Hillcrest Counselor Says Killing Suspect Was Confused, Angry.” The paper quoted Mike Dudley, a volunteer counselor with David’s Place, a nonprofit agency and coffeehouse in Hillcrest, who maintained that in February 1997, two months before the murders, Andrew had gone to him fearing that he had the AIDS virus. The Union-Tribune explained, “Dudley kept quiet for months but then told police of his encounter with Cunanan Thursday night after deciding his obligation to protect society from Cunanan was more important than Cunanan’s confidentiality.” Dudley described a nervous, partied-out Cunanan kicking the wall and saying, “If I find out who did this to me, I’m going to get them.”
All hell broke loose. Nicole Ramirez-Murray branded Dudley a liar and saw the story as a plot. “The more demented they could make Andrew sound, if he was caught and implicated anyone prominent, then he could be dismissed,” raged Nicole. “My crusade was this HIV gay male thing. To educate people that Michael Dudley was false. There was no proof.” David’s Place also disavowed Dudley, charging that he had spoken to a reporter-neighbor who referred him to the paper, and had told his story to the press before going to the police. Dudley says he did call police first, but they didn’t care.
Dudley considered Andrew a classic tweaker worried about not using condoms. “I’ve dealt with hundreds and hundreds of them, and his reactions were typical—including the violent outbursts—except he acted like a scared kid.” He says that he knew Andrew from earlier visits. “He came in frequently enough. I recognized his face.” Dudley claims that he keeps audio diaries of everything he does. Nicole Ramirez-Murray, however, scoffed at the story—as did many in Hillcrest—and was flown to New York to appear on the Today Show. Brandishing the Union-Tribune, Nicole condemned the story.
Kelly Thornton, who reported Dudley’s story, says that she believed him and that she also interviewed the owner of her paper, David Copley, who maintained that he did not know Andrew, even though Nicole charged otherwise. Thornton, who was assigned to cover Cunanan on June 12, the day he made the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List, says nobody told her not to interview Copley, but adds, “I’m not going to pose titillating questions—he
is my employer.”
Nicole created a furor even though many in Hillcrest thought that Nicole was being, at the very least, opportunistic. The media, however, were desperate for any angle on the story. “I’ve never been in more limos in two weeks, and I’ve been in limos,” Nicole relates. “GMA and the Today Show fought over me and tried to make me swear I wouldn’t go to the other one.”
Dudley, meanwhile, was banned from the premises of David’s Place. But while Nicole was on Today, Dudley showed up in New York on Good Morning America. Dudley made the FBI agents in San Diego, who wanted to question him, do so before 4 A.M., “because we had to get on a morning plane for GMA.”
By the time Nicole returned to Hillcrest, “the limos were lined up out there in the street. They would take me to one thing, and then another one would show up. At an independent TV show, they knew if I wanted two lumps of sugar.” Nicole eschewed drag on national television, and appeared in tweeds and pinstripes. “People noticed. They said, ‘We never saw you in the same thing twice.’”
The media hysteria soon created its own form of community hysteria in Hillcrest. The annual Gay Pride celebration was scheduled for the following weekend, and people were petrified that Andrew Cunanan would return. Although the FBI said nothing publicly, the Bureau and police in Seattle were interviewing a man named Aaron who described himself as a friend of Andrew’s from Los Angeles and a fellow queen. He claimed he had communicated with Andrew recently via e-mail, and that Andrew was headed toward California. He told the authorities that Andrew had purchased a Canadian passport for $3,200. According to FBI records, Aaron “did not ask him probing questions but did ask him once why he was doing what he was doing. Cunanan replied that he was tired of being used … It is obvious to interviewers [Aaron] was not completely cooperative. This could be out of a desire for attention by police, loyalty or attraction to Andrew, a concern that his identity will become the focus of media attention, or, more than likely, a concern as to his own status on unspecified things he may have done to help or harbor Cunanan.”
