The cross-country search for a San Diego man suspected of a two-week killing spree that includes Chicago real estate magnate Lee Miglin continued Sunday, though authorities reported no confirmed sightings or solid leads.
Meanwhile, a controversy erupted around a newspaper report in Sunday’s edition of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which quoted the owner of a gay bookstore in San Diego as saying the suspected killer often talked about Duke Miglin, Lee Miglin’s son.
The newspaper had reported that Lee Miglin’s alleged killer, 27-year-old Andrew Phillip Cunanan, was “very close” with Duke Miglin, a 25-year-old actor who lives in Los Angeles.
But Miglin’s family angrily denied the report, and late Sunday night, the bookstore owner, Bruce Kerschner, called a press conference to say that he was misquoted. Kerschner said he simply told the reporter that “talk on the street” was that Cunanan and Duke Miglin knew each other.
Kerschner said late Sunday that he had no first-hand knowledge of a relationship between the younger Miglin and Cunanan. In fact, Kerschner said the first time he heard Duke Miglin’s name was last week, when rumors swirled in San Diego’s gay community about alleged ties between Duke and Cunanan.
Kerschner, who described Cunanan as a customer and casual friend, said he was contacted Sunday by Chicago detectives about the Star Tribune article.
Duke Miglin could not be located for comment. His family has said repeatedly that they do not know Cunanan and believe that Lee Miglin’s murder was a random act of violence.
“We know that it is perfectly clear (Duke) has never heard of this person or seen this person,” said Miglin family spokesman Mark Jarasek. “This poor young man can’t be allowed to grieve.”
Chicago police, a week into their investigation, have not established a link between Cunanan, the Miglin family or the Miglins’ business interests.
“We couldn’t prove that there was anything between this guy and Miglin’s son,” said a Chicago investigator. “It’s just rumors.”
Ultimately, authorities said, they might not know why Lee Miglin, found stabbed and slashed to death May 4, was targeted until his killer is captured. Experts also said that with the right combination of savvy, resources and luck, even the most hotly pursued of criminal suspects can stay on the lam for a very long time.
But staying lost forever is another matter.
The nationwide hunt for Cunanan–who also is suspected in the killings of two Minnesota men and a cemetery caretaker Friday in New Jersey–vividly highlights the promise and pitfalls of the modern manhunt.
The investigators’ trick bag is filled with a variety of high-tech wonders. Credit card purchases can be traced in a heartbeat. Television crime shows and the Internet flash pictures of fugitives across the land.
Such technology gave investigators their first known clue of Cunanan’s whereabouts Thursday when he attempted to use a cellular phone in Lee Miglin’s stolen Lexus. Though the calls never went through–reportedly because Cunanan didn’t have Miglin’s personal identification number–it allowed investigators to track him to the Philadelphia area.
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One of the most powerful tools for catching criminals is more prosaic: “Reality” TV shows that splash their pictures coast-to-coast.
Catherine Suh, a Chicago woman who fled to Hawaii to avert a trial for plotting the 1993 murder of her boyfriend, took off again a day after seeing herself featured on “America’s Most Wanted,” the same show that profiled Cunanan on Saturday night. Suh remained at large for nearly six weeks and finally, paranoid and suicidal, turned herself in to the FBI in March 1996.
Still, with cunning, brazen deception and good fortune, many hotly pursued criminals can elude the high-tech dragnet for years.
Unabomber suspect Ted Kaczynski frustrated a massive federal task force for 18 years by living a hermit’s existence in the wilds of Montana. He was only picked up after a suspicious brother finally tipped authorities.
Cunanan’s father, Modesto, has been on the run since 1988, when he was charged with misappropriating funds. It is believed that he has been living under an alias in California or hiding out in the Philippines.
Though it’s not impossible, investigators doubt Andrew Cunanan would be able to flee overseas like his dad may have done. Criminally speaking, the elder Cunanan was small potatoes and would hardly have raised much interest among the border agents and airline authorities who are keeping an eagle eye out for his son.
What’s more, Andrew Cunanan is not believed to be carrying a passport and likely has a diminishing supply of cash, which includes $2,000 he allegedly stole from Miglin. Buying a ticket with a credit card would risk instant exposure, although investigators suspect he has exhausted most if not all of his credit.
In the long run, investigators said, about the only way for someone like Cunanan to avert capture is to completely cut himself off from his past, assuming not just a new identity but a new lifestyle.
Even so, it is often not enough.
“Human beings are creatures of habit whose preferences of food, clothing even sections of the country often give them away,” said Grant Ashley, former head of the FBI’s fugitive task force in Chicago and now assistant special agent in charge of the agency’s San Diego office.
Changing old ways could be especially difficult for someone such as Cunanan, whom acquaintances have described as someone with expensive tastes who portrays himself as a high roller and has kept a high profile in gay communities.
“Big spender, flashes a lot of money, dresses great. . . . He would be a lot more difficult to apprehend if he were a recluse,” said Ed Nowicki, a former Chicago police officer who now trains police at the Milwaukee Area Technical College. “If he has a need to be among people, then that could be a downfall.”
Robert Fuesel, a law-enforcement consultant and retired Treasury agent, agreed. “It’s not like the Unabomber, where he’s not known,” Fuesel said. “We have a picture. We have a suspect. We know who he is.”
But Cunanan also has factors in his favor. He has no criminal record, and investigators have been hampered because his fingerprints are not on file.
Investigators speculate that Cunanan is growing more paranoid by the hour, believing police are everywhere. They describe him as a desperate and anxious man whose logic quickly gives way to impulse and panic.
Fuesel is convinced Cunanan’s apparent run will be stopped by an acquaintance or someone who spots his face in the media.
“I think he’ll be caught by one of his own friends turning him in or being observed by a citizen who recognizes him from a picture in the newspaper or on TV,” Fuesel said.