Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters (42 page)

Jeffrey Trail was a twenty-eight-year-old adult, so it was not a simple matter to report him missing to the police. Not only would police require a seventy-two-hour waiting period before they would activate an investigation, but they would want a report from Jeffrey Trail’s parents or relatives, not a boyfriend. Hackett was not sure whether Trail’s parents knew that their son was gay, and did not want to call them. Thus Trail’s disappearance went unreported for several days.

Nor was David Madson to be seen anywhere. He failed to report to work on Monday. When on Tuesday he did not come in to work, two of his fellow workers visited his apartment. They heard Madson’s dog scratching on the other side of the door. At 4:00
P
.
M
. on Tuesday, the superintendent used his passkey to look into Madson’s apartment. Madson was nowhere to be seen, but Jeffrey Trail was found dead, rolled up in a carpet. He had been struck in the head with a claw hammer some twenty-five to thirty times; his watch had stopped at 9:55. The hammer was apparently taken from a toolbox that stood open nearby. Two sets of footprints tramped through the blood and gore. Madson’s dog appeared calm and fed. Witnesses reported that they had seen Madson and Cunanan coming in and out of the apartment for the last two days.

On Monday evening Cunanan was seen back at Trail’s apartment. He presumably went there with Trail’s keys and stole his .40-caliber handgun. Cunanan and Madson spent two days with Trail’s body in Madson’s apartment. When people began calling at the door, Cunanan and Madson drove off in Madson’s Jeep Cherokee.

There has been no end of speculation why Madson stayed with Cunanan. The shock of finding Trail dead in his apartment might have unhinged Madson. Perhaps Cunanan threatened him with the handgun—he may have taken it earlier on Sunday from Trail’s apartment.

On May 3, about forty miles outside Minneapolis, fishermen found the body of David Madson on the shore of East Rush Lake. He had been shot once through the back and once through the eye. A third shot had grazed his cheek. Cunanan had killed the two people whom he said he loved most in his life.

Lee Miglin, seventy-five years old, was a prominent real estate developer in Chicago. He had no known connections to the gay community or known homosexual predilections. On May 4, his wife returned from a trip and was surprised that he did not come to the airport to pick her up. When she arrived home by taxi, she found her husband’s body stuffed under a car in their garage. Miglin had suffered some forty-nine separate injuries—every rib in his body was broken and his head was nearly severed. There were fifteen blows to his head and Miglin had been run over by his car at least five times. His face was wrapped in a plastic bag fastened with duct tape. A small opening was left at the nostrils through which he could breathe. A pair of pruning shears were plunged into his chest and his throat had been carved through with a gardening saw. Cunanan had spent the night sleeping in Miglin’s house, made himself some sandwiches, and shaved in the bathroom. It is believed that Cunanan struck at Miglin’s house at random when he saw Miglin through an open garage door as he drove by. Madson’s jeep was found parked near Miglin’s house, while Miglin’s 1994 Lexus was missing.

There are two troubling factors about Miglin’s death. First, Miglin fit perfectly the social profile of the kind of men that Cunanan used to service as a gigolo. It was a remarkable twist of luck for Cunanan to have been able to zero in on that type of victim at random. Second, witnesses stated that one of the stories Cunanan had told months earlier was that he was going into the movie soundproofing business with Duke Miglin, the victim’s twenty-five-year-old son. Duke Miglin, however, vehemently denied that he had ever met Cunanan or that he was gay. The Miglin family also reiterated that Lee Miglin was exclusively heterosexual.

On May 9, in New Jersey, forty-five-year-old William Reese, a cemetery caretaker, did not come home for dinner. His wife drove to the cemetery and found him on the office floor, dead with a single shot to the head. Miglin’s Lexus was parked in the cemetery but Reese’s red Chevrolet pickup truck was missing. Reese’s murder was described as “functional.” He was killed for his vehicle. The murder of Reese is perhaps the most tragic, for if Cunanan had only known how to hot-wire a car, Resse probably would not have been murdered.

During the night of May 10, a license plate was stolen from a Toyota in Florence, South Carolina. The plates would be found attached to the truck that Cunanan stole from Reese.

On May 12, Cunanan checked in at the Normandy Plaza, a shabby hotel in Miami about four miles north of Versace’s home. Cunanan paid $230 in cash weekly for his room. The management of the hotel says he went out every night but never brought anybody back with him. He frequently changed his appearance, including the color of his hair, the manager said.

The parking records at the municipal lot near Versace’s house show that Cunanan parked the truck there on June 10 and did not move it. It accumulated nearly $130 in daily parking charges. This suggests that Cunanan had already decided to stalk and kill Versace more than a month before the murder.

On June 12, the FBI put Cunanan on its Ten Most Wanted List and distributed his picture. Several sightings of Cunanan were reported from all over the United States, but several came from Miami. Police were slow to respond.

On July 7, Cunanan pawned a gold coin in a Miami pawnshop, using his own name. The coin was rare enough to attract the attention of the police, but remarkably they failed to recognize Cunanan’s name. The coin was later traced to Lee Miglin’s collection.

On July 10, Gianni Versace arrived in Miami after being away on business. Witnesses later testified to seeing Cunanan in various clubs and restaurants that Versace might have conceivably patronized. One of them was the 11th Street Diner, where Miami’s chief of police was known to lunch.

Chicago police captain and serial killer specialist Tom Cronin stated, “Down deep inside, the publicity is more sexual to him than anything else. Right after one or two of these homicides, he probably goes to a gay bar in the afternoon when the news comes on and his face is on TV, and he’s sitting there drinking a beer and loving it. You hide in plain view.”

After invisibly lurking around Miami for more than two months, Cunanan struck on the morning of July 15, killing Gianni Versace. Nothing is known about Cunanan’s state of mind between the first four murders and the day he committed the fifth two months later. Cunanan disappeared within minutes of Versace’s murder, presumably breaking into several boats to hide. Police intercepted phone calls he made to a friend, attempting to secure a false passport to get out of the country. But in the end, Cunanan was cornered on a houseboat in Miami. On July 23, when a caretaker entered the houseboat, Cunanan was upstairs in the bedroom. He shot himself with Trail’s .40-caliber handgun as the caretaker was opening the door downstairs.

In certain aspects, a homosexual can be more prepared to lead the life of a serial killer: He frequently has practice from childhood of concealing the nature of his sexuality and leading a secret life. Who knows what else was going on in Andrew Cunanan’s head, aside from his homosexuality? Cunanan might have felt betrayed by men he held important to him in his life—perhaps violated by his priest, abandoned by his father. In his last year, he was rejected by Grundy, his last millionaire “sugar daddy”; spurned by Madson, the man he loved; and turned away by Trail, his best friend. He killed the last two, and Lee Miglin in Chicago was an excellent stand-in for Grundy. There is no question that Miglin’s murder was an angry one.

The murder of Versace, coming two months after Cunanan had committed his string of murders almost one after another, is the strangest to explain. Cunanan can certainly be considered a “spree killer” in his first four murders, but the killing of Versace two months later is atypical. The gay bondage magazines Cunanan left behind in his room are evidence that his violent fantasies were not satiated by the murders. At that point, he had gestated into a serial killer perhaps with a burning hatred of gay males higher in the pecking order, more popular, more successful. As Ted Bundy once said, “Some people are just psychologically less ready for failure than others.”

 John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo—“The Beltway Snipers”

John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo were arrested for the Washington, D.C., beltway sniper killings, charged with at least ten shooting deaths in October 2002. Needless to say, forty-one-year-old Muhammad, who became a surrogate father to the seventeen-year-old Malvo, appears to have been the dominant half of the team.

John Allen Williams, who changed his surname to Muhammad in 2001, grew up in East Baton Rouge, Louisiana. His mother died when he was three and his father appears to have been absent—Muhammad was raised by his grandfather and elderly aunt. His relatives remember him as a happy kid. He was a star football player in high school.

After graduation in 1978, Muhammad enlisted in the Louisiana National Guard and married his high school sweetheart. They had a son. His fellow guardsmen remember Muhammad as an outgoing and friendly person, frequently bringing his son around to show him off.

In 1982 the first signs of trouble began to appear. He was fined and demoted one rank for failing to appear for duty; in 1983, he was fined again for striking an officer. In 1985 Muhammad converted to Islam, divorced his wife, and left the national guard to join the army. He moved to Fort Lewis, Washington, with his new girlfriend, whom he married in 1988; they had three children. His first wife, meanwhile, recalled that the divorce was bitter and that Muhammad attempted to control her and their son’s life in a heavy-handed way. In 1995, Muhammad was accused of failing to return his son to his first wife after a scheduled visit.

From 1990 to 1992 Muhammad served overseas and participated in Operation Desert Storm clearing mines and bulldozing holes through Iraqi defense lines. During his military service, Muhammad achieved an “expert” marksman’s grade—the highest shooting qualification in the Army.

Shortly after Muhammad’s arrest,
Newsweek
magazine interviewed his former sergeant in the gulf, Kip Berentson, who stated that Muhammad was “trouble from day one.”
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Berentson said that somebody threw a thermite grenade, setting on fire the tent he was sleeping in with another sixteen men. Berentson stated that he immediately reported Muhammad as the most likely suspect and claims that the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division led Muhammad away in handcuffs. Muhammad’s military records, however, make no mention of the incident; in fact, they apparently indicate that he had a distinguished record in the gulf.

In February 1994, Muhammad left the army and attempted to open a karate school, but the effort failed. He attempted several other business enterprises, but all failed. In 1999 his second wife filed for divorce, and in response Muhammad became highly threatening. In March 2000, she was granted a restraining order against Muhammad. Ten days later Muhammad snatched their three children and vanished. During that period he traveled to Antigua, where it is believed he met the teenage John Lee Malvo and his mother, both Jamaican nationals. Malvo’s former teachers and relatives in Jamaica remember the boy as clever, sweet-natured, friendly, and obedient. “Obedient” was the most often recalled characteristic. Never a hint of trouble, always respectful, and friendly. One of his friends recalled, “He was fun to be around. He always tried to create an atmosphere of love. He always wanted to entertain, make you laugh.”
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Malvo was also remembered as being small for his age and occasionally bullied for it. Malvo was often left in the care of his relatives or other guardians by his absent mother. His guardians, teachers, and relatives appeared very fond of Malvo and expressed concern when his mother shunted him back and forth from her custody to that of others. Eventually his mother took Malvo away to Antigua, where Muhammad encountered them.

In the summer of 2001, Muhammad returned to Washington and changed his legal name from Williams to Muhammad. Around the same time, Malvo and his mother illegally slipped into Florida in August 2001. It is still unclear what transpired, but in the summer of 2001 the police, with the help of Isa Nichols, a business consultant who had known both Muhammad and his wife, recovered the children Muhammad had abducted.

By October 2001, Malvo had joined Muhammad in Bellingham, Washington, calling him his father. The two were sleeping on bunks in a shelter for the homeless. Witnesses recall Malvo calling Muhammad “Dad” and “Sir.” Muhammad submitted the boy to some kind of training program consisting of jogging in the early mornings, working out, and adhering to strict Islamic dietary rules. Although an illegal immigrant, Malvo was put into a high school in Bellingham briefly, where students recall that the boy was well versed in the history and military technology of the Vietnam and Gulf wars.