Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History - Hardcover

Orth, Maureen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385332866 ISBN 13: 9780385332866

Publisher: Delacorte Press, 1999

Synopsis

In her eagerly awaited first book, Vanity Fair special correspondent Maureen Orth offers a landmark work of investigative journalism--a riveting account of a charming sociopath, his savage crimes, and the mysteries he left along the way.  Revealing the explosive story of Andrew Cunanan and his cross-country killing spree in its entirety, Vulgar Favors is a tale of lurid sex and family secrets, extravagant wealth and exploitative greed, international celebrity and overnight infamy that exposes underworlds all around us while dramatizing the human tragedies that brought them to sudden, shadowed light.

Maureen Orth had just filed a major Vanity Fair story on Andrew Cunanan and his four murder victims when Gianni Versace was murdered in July 1997.  When Miami detectives implicated the suspected serial killer in Versace's death, Orth made news with the startling revelation that the killer--already on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list--wasn't a stranger to the superstar murder victim.  As the world struggled to understand how the focus of a national manhunt could have gunned down a beloved celebrity in broad daylight, Cunanan continued to elude authorities despite steadily mounting pressure from both law enforcement and media.  Cornered in Miami Beach, he escaped captivity only by taking his own life, never revealing what drove him to commit five murders in four states.

Although the media moved on to the next story, and law enforcement agencies have closed their books, Orth continued investigating the killer and his crimes, crossing the country to explore the sometimes extreme, almost parallel universes through which Cunanan moved.  Drawing on hundreds of interviews, unreleased records, and her own incomparable experience in the center of the media maelstrom, Orth now tells the complete story of a twisted killer, his unwitting victims, the moneyed, hedonistic worlds in which they lived and died, the failure of the nation's law enforcement agencies to apprehend the killer, and the mysteries that remain unsolved--if not suppressed--to this day.

From the shadowy, drug-fueled gay underworlds of California to the fiercely protected opulence of Chicago's Miracle Mile, from the midwestern family homes of beloved sons slaughtered in their prime to the glittering celebration of decadence that is Versace's legendary South Beach, Orth takes readers on an eye-opening journey across America at the end of the century--a place where justice can fall between the cracks of jurisdiction, where what passes for truth can be bought and sold, and where an intelligent, unbalanced young man can suddenly erupt, blazing a trail of bloodshed that couldn't hide the untold secrets left in its wake.

About this title

Review

Vanity Fair was Andrew Cunanan's favorite magazine, so there's a certain synergy to Maureen Orth's engrossing and meticulously researched account of Cunanan's 1997 cross-country killing spree, which left celebrated designer Gianni Versace and four others dead before Cunanan took his own life. Orth, a special correspondent for Vanity Fair and an award-winning investigative journalist, had just filed a story on the homicidal young poseur when Versace's murder grabbed headlines across the nation. As the media scrambled to make the connection between high-profile victim and shadowy assailant, it was Orth who broke the news that Cunanan claimed to have known the fashion superstar--perhaps more intimately than Versace's handlers were comfortable admitting publicly.

Vulgar Favors, Orth's first book, is the story of a monster obsessed with social climbing. From his earliest childhood, Cunanan's severely dysfunctional parents programmed him with a sense of entitlement but gave him no means of entrée into the glittering world of wealth and privilege he so desperately desired. At first, Cunanan's youthful, exotic good looks and magpie intelligence earned him access to the upper echelons of San Diego's fabulously decadent and closeted gay rich, but as drugs and dissolution exacted their toll, the doors closed tight and Cunanan's rage and frustration took a murderous bent. The most interesting parts of Orth's tale, however, are not the lurid details of depravity but the revelations on how Versace's celebrity status influenced the investigation into his murder. Even in death, it would appear, the rich are very different from you and me. --Patrizia DiLucchio

From the Back Cover

Two months before Andrew Cunanan murdered Gianni Versace on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion, Maureen Orth was investigating a major story on the serial killer for Vanity Fair. Now the award-winning journalist and Vanity Fair special correspondent tells the complete story of Cunanan, his unwitting victims, and the moneyed, hedonistic world in which they lived and died, culled from interviews with over 400 people, and details from thousands of pages of police reports.

In chilling detail, Maureen Orth reveals how Andrew Cunanan met his superstar victim...why police and the FBI repeatedly failed to catch Cunanan...why other victims' families stonewalled the investigation...controversial findings of the Versace autopsy report, and more. Here is a late-century odyssey that races across America from California's wealthy gay underworld to modest midwestern homes of families mourning their slaughtered sons to the celebration of decadence that is Versace's South Beach. It is at once a landmark work of investigative journalism and a riveting account of a sociopath, his savage crimes, and the mysteries he left along the way.

About this edition

• Publisher: Delacorte Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0385332866
• ISBN 13: 9780385332866
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 464