If you’re watching The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, you’d know that the show is playing fast and loose with the timeline of Andrew Cunanan’s murder spree. The latest episode of ACS delved into Cunanan’s connection to Lincoln Aston.
The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story is tracing Andrew Cunanan’s cross-country murder spree backwards. To little surprise, the show broached Lincoln Aston’s death, two years before the murders began. Did Cunanan kill Aston?
We’re separating the fact from fiction as shown on ACS right here.
Who Killed Lincoln Aston?
Andrew Cunanan had a known but unexplained relation with Lincoln Aston. According to old police reports, Cunanan’s luxurious lifestyle was financially supported by wealthy benefactors like Aston.
Aston was killed in May 1995, two years before Cunanan’s first murder. But he was murdered similarly to Cunanan’s first victim. Was Aston also Cunanan’s victim?
Last night (March 7) on ACS, we saw the relationship between Cunanan and Aston. Cunanan was a notorious presence in the wealthy gay scene. And that’s how he met Aston.
Aston paid for Cunanan’s lavish hotel stay. But that ended when Aston broke up with him.
An enraged Cunanan went to Aston’s home to confront him. But he saw that Aston already brought another boy home from the gay bar. This boy claimed to be straight.
When Aston gets a drink, the boy bludgeons him to death with a stone obelisk. The killer sees Cunanan and says, “He tried to kiss me!”
Cunanan nonchalantly responds, “I know,” and lets the boy leave.
Aston’s killer is Kevin Bond, who is later caught.
A few days after Gianni Versace’s 1997 murder, when Cunanan was on the run, New York Daily News published a piece on Cunanan’s connections to the wealthy gay society. The report described Cunanan and Aston’s relationship and the latter’s murder.
Bond was a “36-year-old loner Aston had met in a gay bar, confessed to and was convicted of the murder,” said the report.
Also Read: Norman Blachford’s Wiki: Was Andrew Cunanan’s “Sugar Daddy” Behind His Killing Spree?
The Birth of a Killer
ACS is known to take a few creative liberties. There’s no evidence to prove that Cunanan was present when Bond killed Aston.
By the time Bond killed Aston, Cunanan moved to another wealthy benefactor, Norman Blachford. The two later moved into Aston’s old home in La Jolla.
But that episode of ACS served to prove two things: How Cunanan moved among the circle of wealthy gay men, and what influenced his murder spree.
Aston was reportedly Cunanan’s first conquest and fit his type —wealthy and older men who were associated with the real estate industry. Aston was a 61-year-old architect with investments in Texas Oil.
Cunanan’s second victim, David Madson, was also an architect. Meanwhile, his third victim, Lee Miglin, was a real estate mogul.
On the show, we saw another one of Cunanan’s exes, Norman Blachford. He was a wealthy face among La Jolla’s art scene.
After the scene where Cunanan witnesses his ex’s murder and tells Bond to run, he and Blachford have a conversation. They lived in a homophobic era, and thought that if a gay man was killed, no one would care and the killer would get away.
That seems a little-farfetched considering Bond got 15 years for killing Aston.
Authorities back then were content with Bond’s confession and didn’t see the need to look into Cunanan’s connection with Aston’s death. But Michael Williams, a friend of Jeff Trails, felt the murders were related.
“Aston was a friend of Andrew’s and Jeff’s,” said Williams. “I think that Jeff must have known something in order for Andrew to [attack] him like that. I think it’s very odd that the man was killed in that fashion, and Jeff was killed in that fashion. And Jeff told me Andrew told him he – Andrew – was the one who found [Aston’s] body.”
A pathological liar, it’s difficult to separate Cunanan’s claims from the truth.
Two years after Aston’s murder, Trails, Cunanan’s first official victim, was found beaten to death with a hammer.
But Andrew Cunanan’s involvement in Lincoln Aston’s murder is pure speculation at this point.
Watch The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, Wednesdays at 10:00 p.m. EST on FX.
