preview

Gianni Versace Murder

Better Essays
Open Document

The eighteenth anniversary of Gianni Versace’s death has past. Though I was only seven at the time of a murder, several years later I’d be learning and reviewing his collections as my own preternatural interest in fashion was all consuming. In reading everything there was about the extravagant life of Gianni Versace, I also learned of his murderer, Andrew Cunanan who eluded Police and lead them on what is deemed “the largest failed manhunt in U.S History.” I was reintroduced to this case when I happened to catch a documentary entitled “The Versace Killer” which provided me with some insight into Andrew Cunanan and his many personas. After viewing this documentary I questioned the reasoning behind Versace’s murder, which I believe had to do …show more content…

Aside from his mother, only fifteen people attended to mourn the loss of Andrew, most who remembered Andrew has the intellectual schoolboy with a penchant for the finer things like art and classical music, not as the “psychotic gay gigolo.” Just six weeks prior, Cunanan had nonchalantly walked up and shot Gianni Versace on the steps of his Casa Casuarina mansion on South Beach, leading police and law enforcement entities on the “Largest Manhunt in History.” The manhunt ended with the discovery of Andrew Cunanan on a houseboat at approximately 9:30p.m on July 23, 1997. When Sergeant Navarro and Keith Evans entered the bedroom area, they turned to each other and “cried in unison, it’s him!”(Orth,1999) “Andrew, eyes open, with several days’ growth of beard, was lying in a pool of blood on a pillow propped on another pillow. He had shot himself through the mouth.” We immediately high-fived each other says Navarro.” But at the same moment I experienced an overwhelming adrenaline down”.” This guy created so much work, and so much energy spent. He’s sitting in front of us and he looks like a typical Miami Beach yuppie, nothing unique at all. He could look oriental or Hispanic; he could fit in anywhere.”(Orth, …show more content…

Gianni was everything Andrew WANTED to be. More so, both were similar in many ways. “They were both Southern Italians; Versace was Calabrese, Andrew was half Sicilian. They both came from port cities and deeply catholic environments. They both started out at roughly the same economic place, although Versace did not have the privileges of a Bishop’s education. Yet here was Versace with a family he was proud of, from whom he never had to hide his gayness; a loving longtime partner; and the riches of the world at his feet, including palazzos with views, which could be filled at will with beautiful boys. Except for the boys, Versace’s life sounded a lot like the life Andrew had wished for at age thirteen when he wrote down his definition of success in his application to Bishop’s. It was as if Versace had discovered the buried gold bullion that Andrew’s father was dreaming of excavating. (Orth, 1999) For Andrew, the Vanity Fair article profiling life at Casa Casuarina, Versace’s mansion was the final straw, what I believe, drove him to murder

Get Access
Related
Get Access