Cunanan Had Wound In Stomach Police Say Injury Likely Occurred At One Of The Murder Scenes

Andrew Cunanan was nursing a stomach wound before his suicide and investigators believe he may have been wounded in one of the five murders he’s suspected of committing.

Police found bloody bandages, cotton swabs, gauze pads and penicillin pills in the Miami Beach houseboat where Cunanan ended his life with a gunshot to the head July 23.

“I believe he did have a wound on his stomach, and he was treating himself with the medical supplies found on board,” FBI spokeswoman Anne Figueiras said Wednesday.

Cunanan, 27, was the prime suspect in the point-blank slaying of fashion designer Gianni Versace July 15 in Miami Beach, and the killings of four men in Minnesota, Illinois and New Jersey in late April and early May.

Figueiras said she didn’t not know when, where or how Cunanan suffered the wound. But the Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale reported Tuesday that investigators think it may have been while he committed one of the slayings.

“We think he suffered it at one of the murder scenes,” an unnamed source told the newspaper.

Miami Beach police, who are investigating the Versace slaying and Cunanan suicide, declined to comment on the wound but said that media reports about it had tainted the investigation.

“This medical situation was known only by police and those who knew him,” Detective Al Boza said Wednesday. “This was a way for investigators to know whether those contacting us were providing good information. But we’ve lost that edge.”

Coleen Rowley of the FBI’s Minneapolis office said that if Cunanan were wounded in one of the slayings, it was more likely to have occurred during the deaths of the two victims who were beaten - Cunanan’s former friend Jeffrey Trail in Minnesota and wealthy developer Lee Miglin in Chicago. Minneapolis architect David Madson, New Jersey caretaker William Reese and Versace were shot.