The author, Maureen Orth ,
A note from the author
Vulgar Favors - When Andrew Cunanan killed
Gianni Versace in broad daylight on the steps of his Miami
Beach mansion, I had already been reporting on the young
serial killer for two months for Vanity Fair. I knew then
that Andrew Cunanan was a fascinating and cunning
pathological liar who pretended to be a rich kid socialite
and that he had meandered across the spectrum of gay
America-- from the lower depths of the drug crazed underbelly
to the highest, refined closeted circles on both coasts.
After Versace's death catapulted him into being the number
one story in the country for a time, I was determined to
learn what caused the disintegration of a beautiful
Sicilian-Phillipino child with a genius IQ into a cruel
killer. In trying to find out I made an offbeat odyssey
across America haunting Cunanan's haunts and tracing his
murderous trail. Along the way, I discovered the compelling
human stories of the lives of all five of Andrew's victims
and the riddles of his actual encounters and relationships
with them; the details of his crimes and the complex web of
law enforcement’s attempts and failure to apprehend him.
(There were some really heartbreaking screw ups). What
happens when a story becomes the cynosure of the scoop crazed
24 hour news cycle but the police investigating it are
technologically a decade behind? How has the O.J. Simpson
trial affected the criminal justice system? How does justice
change when the victims are rich and famous? The book is
filled with telling details, the result of my interviewing
over 400 people and reviewing thousands of pages of police
reports and FBI Freedom of Information Act records.
Ninety-eight percent of my sources are on the record, so the
facts are in incontrovertible order--though with Andrew
Cunanan's bizarre life and murderous rampage they bear out
the old cliché of often being stranger than fiction. I
remained fascinated to the end and I hope the reader does
too.
