MIAMI BEACH (Florida), July 19: About 1,000 mourners, many in clothes designed by Gianni Versace, paid tribute to the slain designer hours before police swarmed a hotel where prime suspect Andrew Cunanan reportedly stayed for weeks before the killing.

Yesterday's mass just a few miles from where Versace was gunned down on Tuesday was somber and traditional, qualities out of character for the flamboyant fashion mogul, who blended heart-thumping rock with flashy ingenuity.

``What Salvador Dali did for art, Versace did for clothes. He brought colours and dreams to clothes,'' said David Barcenes, 34, an admirer who came to the service wearing a blue Versace suit, gold bracelet and a cellular phone holster adorned with Versace's trademark ``medusa head'' logo.

``Versace made me fabulous,'' Barcenes said.

``I have money, but it means nothing if i can't dress in something fabulous.'' The memorial was held as Versace's family took his ashes home by private jet to his villa at Lake Como, Italy. About 700 people crowded into the flower-adorned St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church. Another 250 gathered outside to listen on loudspeakers.

The mourning was tainted by fear as the FBI warned residents to be on the lookout for Cunanan, described as a Gay Gigolo and the suspect in four other killings across the United States since April.

An interview with an AIDS counsellor in today's San Diego Union-Tribune shed light on Cunanan's possible motive.

Two months before the first killing, Cunanan feared that he might be infected with AIDS and vowed revenge on whosoever may have transmitted it to him, Mike Dudley, a counsellor at a non-profit agency for people with AIDS and HIV, was quoted as saying.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.