Versace Killed in Miami

MIAMI BEACH: The FBI already has a suspect in the murder of fashion designerGianni Versace: suspected serial killer Andrew Cunanan, sought for the killings of four men in Minnesota, Illinois and New Jersey. No reason was given, though Miami Beach police said earlier today that they were certain that Versace had been targeted for the shooting. But TIME Miami Bureau Chief Tammerlin Drummond has been hearing a different story. "This idea of a hit-style killing is in direct conflict with what I've been told by witnesses," sahe said. "Several witnesses actually saw him struggling with the man before he was shot." Most accounts have Versace unlocking the front gate to his Spanish-style mansion on Ocean Drive early this morning when a white male in his mid-20s shot him twice in the back of the head at pointblank range with a handgun. After the shooting, the man, dressed in a white shirt, gray shorts and carrying a backpack, simply walked away. It seemed an unceremonious if splashy end for the 50-year-old designer, whose brassy and bold Versace styles found their way to the shoulders of Madonna, Elton John, Boy George, Prince and Claudia Schiffer, and turned Italian fashion into a multimillion dollar industry. Around the neighborhood, the designer of all those flamboyant drapings "basically blended into the woodwork," says Drummond. "There were never any bodyguards with him or anything. He supposedly was perfectly pleasant and not at all snobbish when he asked for a copy of TIME Magazine this morning, but they were out."