"He Ended This for All of Us": AP on the Houseboat Caretaker's Reward Claim After Andrew Cunanan's Death, 1997

Name: "He Ended This for All of Us": AP on the Houseboat Caretaker's Reward Claim After Andrew Cunanan's Death, 1997
Uploaded: 2015-07-21T00:00:00Z
Duration: 2 min 29 s
Description: Three days after Andrew Cunanan's death, an Associated Press story heard from the houseboat caretaker who sought the reward, his lawyer, and a San Diego County hospital that confirmed Cunanan had been an outpatient in 1995.

Three days after Andrew Cunanan's death, an Associated Press story heard from the houseboat caretaker who sought the reward, his lawyer, and a San Diego County hospital that confirmed Cunanan had been an outpatient in 1995.

Subject: Andrew Phillip Cunanan
Recorded: July 25, 1997
Runtime: 2:29

Content warning: Concerns a suicide and a series of murders. No graphic detail.

The Interview

This is a 2-minute-29-second Associated Press Television story dated July 26, 1997, three days after Andrew Cunanan shot himself on a houseboat in Miami Beach, and posted by AP Archive in 2015. It has no narration. It consists of three soundbites, identified in AP's own script: Fernando Carreira, the caretaker of the houseboat; his lawyer, David Aelion; and David Owen, a spokesperson for Palomar Medical Center in San Diego County. Cunanan is not heard.

Historical Context

Between late April and mid-July 1997 Andrew Cunanan was suspected of killing five men: Jeffrey Trail and David Madson in Minnesota, Lee Miglin in Chicago, William Reese in New Jersey and the designer Gianni Versace, shot outside his Miami Beach home on July 15. The FBI placed Cunanan on its Ten Most Wanted list on June 12, 1997. On July 23, after the houseboat's caretaker heard a gunshot inside and called police, Cunanan was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He died before any charge against him could be tried.

Circumstances

According to AP's script, Carreira had gone to check on the houseboat, found the door open, heard a gunshot and called the police. Miami Beach police described his call as "a fortunate coincidence" rather than a tip, while the head of the FBI's Miami office said he thought Carreira should at least receive the FBI's $10,000 reward. On Friday, July 25, Carreira appeared with his lawyer at a press conference to announce a lawsuit for the reward, which AP put at $65,000. Separately, AP reported that Cunanan had been seen at Palomar Medical Center in 1995, a detail that fed speculation at the time about his health and motive.

What the Interview Covers

Carreira thanks his lawyer, the media and the community for their support, and offers his condolences to "Versace's family and the other victims." His lawyer argues that Carreira "ended this for all of us," that he saved law enforcement days or weeks of searching and the resources needed "to capture Andrew Cunanan," and that "yet the reward money offered is not being given to him." The hospital spokesperson confirms only that Cunanan was an outpatient at Palomar Medical Center in May 1995, arriving on the 17th, with laboratory work done on the 18th at his doctor's request.

What Makes the Recording Significant

It records two loose ends of the 1997 case in the participants' own words: the dispute over who deserved credit, and reward money, for ending the manhunt, and the hospital record behind contemporary speculation about Cunanan's motive.

Important Caveats

Cunanan is not heard. The arguments for the reward are the lawyer's; police did not regard the call as a tip, and whether Carreira received any reward has not been established. AP's script (the YouTube description) says the results of Cunanan's tests and "whether he was in fact HIV positive will never be known"; the autopsy later found him HIV negative, and the script's line should not be repeated as fact. The spokesperson says nothing about the nature or results of the tests. AP's 1997 wording calls Cunanan "suspected"; he died before any charge was tried.

Unidentified Voice: [unclear: "Can I have a seat?" (Whisper) / "Yes" (second machine pass)] [00:02 to 00:38: natural sound at the press conference; no intelligible speech. The captions mark "[foreign]" at 00:28.]

Fernando Carreira: First, I want to thank my attorney, [unclear: "Dave" / "David"] Aelion, and [unclear: "the" (Whisper) / "this" (captions) / "his" (AP script)] staff for the great work they have done for me. Second, I also want to thank the [unclear: "media" (AP script) / "medium" (both machine sources)] and the community for their tremendous support I never expected, from everyone in the community and around the world, to be behind, behind the way they have. I would like to express my sincere condolences to Versace's family and the other victims [unclear: "they have" (both machine sources) / "that have been" (AP script)] involved in this tragedy. Thank you.

David Aelion: Then, in a time of need, in a time where a superstar such as Gianni Versace gets murdered in our tourist capital, in our tourist street, he ended this. He ended this for all of us. We all feel that he deserves it. And imagine the amounts of money that he saved the law enforcement community from the extra days or weeks that it could have taken, and the resources that would have been applied in order to capture Andrew Cunanan. But yet the reward money offered is not being given to him. [01:54 to 01:59: pause; no speech.]

David Owen: Mr. Cunanan was an outpatient at Palomar Medical Center in May of 1995. He arrived here on the 17th for some brief check-in, and on the 18th some laboratory work was done for him at the request of his doctor. [02:13 to 02:29: natural sound and music; no speech (second machine pass).]