As Versace made his last bow in the world's stage

Wednesday, July 30 1997

As Versace made his last bow in the world's stage

ASSOCIATED PRESS

MIAMI BEACH, July 29: As a woman screamed in the background, Gianni Versace's chef breathlessly told an emergency dispatcher the fashion designer had been shot and was lying motionless.``Who would have done something like that?'' Charles Podesta asks agonisingly on a tape released today by Miami Beach police.

Podesta, calling from inside Versace's ocean front mansion told the dispatcher that witnesses heard ``three or four loud pops'' and begged for police to quickly send help.At one point in the three-minute, 10-second tape, the dispatcher asks Podesta whether Versace was breathing.``We don't know, he's not moving,'' he said as a woman screamed in the background.

Two-and-a-half minutes into the call, Podesta asked the dispatcher: ``Why aren't they here yet? My God, we're only a minute or two away.''The dispatcher tried to calm him down and less than 30 seconds later sirens wailed in the background as police converged on the villa.

At one point, the dispatcher asked Podesta whether he saw anything. He replied: ``We all heard it. Well, we didn't know what it was. It was three or four loud pops. We didn't know what it was.''Versace was shot twice in the head at close range, as he opened the gates to his home on fashionable Ocean Drive.

He died shortly after at Jackson Memorial Hospital.Within hours, suspected serial killer Andrew Cunanan, already wanted in four killings in Minnesota, Chicago and New Jersey, was identified as the chief suspect.A nationwide manhunt ended when Cunanan killed himself Wednesday on a houseboat 3 kms from Versace's mansion, using the same .40-caliber pistol he allegedly used to kill Versace and two other victims.Cunanan's body was released Saturday to one funeral home, but was later transferred to another because of media scrutiny.

Therman Wilkes, a funeral home employee responsible for the shipment of Cunanan's remains to California to his family said, ``We wanted to do this as quietly as possible.''Wilkes could not confirm whether there will be a cremation or burial.