The road to madness - motives of spree killer Andrew Cunanan

Could a gay playboy from San Diego have left a bloody trail of bodies on a cross-country killing spree?

On April 24 Andrew Cunanan was throwing himself a going-away party. Cunanan, a popular figure in San Diego's gay community, had told friends he was moving to San Francisco. As usual, he wanted to make a splash. A table of his friends dined on ostrich and trout and sipped $68-a-bottle champagne. Near the end of the evening, Cunanan remarked cryptically to a waiter, as recounted to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Everyone has their own version of what they think I am. Nobody really knows the truth."

The FBI now thinks it does know the truth about Cunanan, who, it is believed, went on a cross-country killing spree after the farewell party. Cunanan, 27, has been charged with two murders and is suspected of two more. How is it that this charismatic young man with no criminal record suddenly transmogrified into someone police say is a sadistic multiple killer?

Criminal experts say Cunanan appears to be a so-called spree murderer rather than a serial killer. "Serial killing in general may not be triggered by any loss or catastrophic event," says Jack Levin, director of Northeastern University's Program for the Study of Violence and Conflict and the author of three books on serial murderers. "Most serial killers kill just for the fun of it--they kill for the power. What distinguishes spree killers from serial murderers is that they tend to be more spontaneous, more frenzied. They tend to leave more clues. Spree killers may be set off by some loss--more like a mass murderer than a serial killer.

"What happens in mass killings is that the killer seeks revenge against the people in his life who he thinks are responsible for all his personal problems," Levin continues. "That may be part of Cunanan's motivation. It could be a financial loss, the loss of a relationship, a terminal illness. It could be anything."

Spree killers tend to lack conventional moral grounding, a shortcoming that might, under extraordinary circumstances, lead them to view murder as a reasonable recourse. "Cunanan seemed to be deceptive, manipulative--a pathological liar," says Levin. "Those are the characteristics of a sociopath. A sociopath is a person who lacks conscience, who can't empathize with victims. They won't kill unless it's to their advantage. But if you all of a sudden become an obstacle to their success, watch out."

While Cunanan at least superficially seemed to have an ideal life in San Diego, investigators are finding cracks in his playboy facade and discovering clues about a much darker life that lay beneath the surface. From an early age Cunanan cultivated a reputation for being over the top. His parents--his mother, Mary Ann, who lives in a housing project in Eureka, M., and his father, a stockbroker who reportedly has been wanted by the authorities since 1988 for misappropriating funds--were able to send him to the conservative Bishop's School in La Jolla, Calif. Cunanan was openly gay in high school, whistling at members of the boys' water polo team and taking an older man to the prom. Ironically, he was voted "Least Likely to Be Forgotten" by his classmates.

In San Diego's predominantly gay Hillcrest area, Cunanan was known as a "party boy" who always had a gang of friends in tow. Although the only jobs he was known to have were as a drugstore clerk and a temp, he told friends variously that he was an heirloom importer, an actor, or an interior decorator; that he grew up in the south of France or the Philippines; that he came from a "rich Jewish family"; and that he had a trust fund.

"He always had a good story to tell," says an acquaintance, "so it doesn't surprise me that some of them weren't true." Although he had "maxed out" two credit cards with a combined debt limit of $25,000, Cunanan never seemed short of money and often picked up the tab for large groups of his friends. His mother offers a blunt explanation for this: Her son was "a high-class homosexual prostitute," she told reporters. Whether this was the case is unclear, but something was undoubtedly afoot in late April that caused Cunanan to pack up and leave San Diego.

On April 25 Cunanan purchased a one-way ticket to Minneapolis--not San Francisco--where he stayed with a former lover, David Madson, 33. Cunanan planned to have coffee with another ex, Jeffrey Trail, 28, whom he had dated while Trail was stationed at a Navy base in San Diego. Trail never returned from his coffee date with Cunanan on April 27. Neighbors heard shouts and crashing sounds emanating from Madson's downtown loft apartment that evening.

The following two days, Madson, a handsome architect known for his charm as well as his weight-lifter's physique, missed work, though he was seen having dinner with Cunanan on April 28 and walking his dog on April 29. Trail's body was found by police on April 29 in Madson's apartment, where he had apparently been beaten to death with a claw hammer before being wrapped in a rug. On May 3 two fishermen discovered Madson's body washed up on the shore of a lake north of Minneapolis. He had been shot twice in the back and once in the head.

Investigators found bullets in Madson's home matching the caliber of the shells used to kill Madson in a bag bearing Cunanan's name. Police speculate that Cunanan may have feared he was infected with HIV and killed Trail in a fit of rage. He then, authorities theorize, drove Madson to the lake and shot him because he had witnessed Trail's murder.

In the case of the two subsequent killings linked to Cunanan, the question of motive becomes even more difficult to decipher. On May 4 Chicago real-estate magnate Lee Miglin, 72, was found dead in his garage, his body wrapped in duct tape and punctured all over with shallow stab wounds. Police soon found Madson's Jeep parked nearby, racking up parking tickets. Food and beard stubble had been left on the kitchen counter--the killer had apparently paused for a sandwich and a shave.

On May 9 police discovered the body of William Reese, 45, a New Jersey cemetery caretaker, in the basement of his office with a bullet through his head. In what was becoming a grim pattern, Miglin's Lexus was found near the cemetery, and Reese's Chevy pickup was missing. At press time, however, Cunanan had continued to succeed in eluding capture.

For gays and lesbians, the timing of the Cunanan case is unfortunate. Coming on the heels of the revelation that Marshall Applewhite, leader of the suicide-driven Heaven's Gate cult in California, was gay, Cunanan's story adds another image of the deranged gay person--an image propped up by such notorious individuals as John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer--to the national consciousness.

But experts warn that the perception that gay people are somehow more likely to commit multiple murders is absolutely incorrect. "The overwhelming majority of serial killings are committed by heterosexuals," says Levin. "I suppose you could make the case that being marginalized puts some gay people in a position to suffer indignities to which they might, in rare cases, have an extreme reaction--even to the point of committing serial murders. But the numbers are not disproportionate. You don't have to be Sigmund Freud to get this."

COPYRIGHT 1997 Liberation Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group