Facing Death

THE MAN IN MINNESOTA WAS presumably an architect named David Madson. But Madson had distanced himself from Cunanan, partly because he suspected his lover of ""shady dealings.'' Before leaving for San Francisco, Cunanan attended a farewell dinner (ostrich and Veuve Clicquot champagne). He told friends that he was flying out to Minnesota for the weekend to ""settle some business.'' Maxed out on his credit cards, Cunanan begged forbearance from his creditors to buy a one-way ticket to Minneapolis - first class, of course.

Madson took Cunanan to dinner the first night with some friends, whom Cunanan put off by bragging loudly about driving a Rolls-Royce convertible. Two nights later, Cunanan invited a mutual friend - Jeff Trail - over to Madson's apartment. Just before 10 p.m., neighbors heard someone in the apartment scream, ""Get the f--- out!'' followed by loud thuds. Two days later, police discovered Trail's body rolled up in a carpet. He had been beaten so savagely around the face and arms with a claw hammer that his watch had stopped.

What had happened? And why? Police are still not sure. But the best guess is that Trail, an upright graduate of the Naval Academy, strongly disapproved of Cunanan's drug use. Though Cunanan was obsessed with Trail - a former navy lieutenant and lecturer on safe sex at a local AIDS foundation - they were not lovers. Trail was a ""big brother'' to Cunanan, Trail's last boyfriend, Jon Hackett, told NEWSWEEK. ""He tried to straighten him out.'' But a week before he died, Trail told his old roommate, Michael Williams, that he had had a ""huge falling out'' with Cunanan and that ""I made a lot of enemies this weekend . . . I've got to get out of here. They're going to kill me.''

Madson's role remains hard to figure out. He apparently made no effort to leave; neighbors saw the two men walking Madson's dog the day after Trail's murder. Four days later, Cunanan and Madson drove to a lake north of Minneapolis. Using Trail's .40-caliber pistol, Cunanan shot Madson in the head and back. His body was later discovered by fishermen.

Cunanan fled southeast in Madson's red Jeep. Police later found a map with the route underlined from downtown Chicago to a neighborhood of gay bars on the North Side. The journey, authorities believe, took Cunanan near the Gold Coast, home of Chicago's well-to-do, including real-estate mogul Lee Miglin. There is no evidence that Cunanan had ever met Miglin, though he may have heard of him. But when police discovered Miglin's body in his garage, his head had been wrapped in masking tape, with holes for his nostrils - not unlike Cunanan's bondage fantasies. The millionaire was riddled with shallow wounds from a gardening tool - perhaps tortured to reveal the whereabouts of his cash and car keys.

After eating half a sandwich and shaving in Miglin's empty row house, sources say, Cunanan bundled up some of Miglin's fine clothes - useful for wear or barter - collected a briefcase with $2,000 in cash and drove away in Miglin's Lexus. He headed east. Listening to the radio for news of his exploits, Cunanan heard that his attempts to place calls on Miglin's car phone were being tracked. He ripped out the cellular unit and abandoned the car at a lonely Civil War cemetery in southern New Jersey.