MIAMI – Two men were found dead inside a room on South Beach Wednesday on the eve of the anniversary of the city’s most famous murder — and in the very hotel where that homicide took place.
Housekeepers at Villa Casa Casuarina, or the Versace mansion, discovered the bodies in a suite just before 1:30 p.m., then notified police.
The men have not been identified and police were offering very little information.
“At this time, the scene is contained to the hotel room and detectives have launched a death investigation,” said Ernesto Rodriguez, a spokesman for Miami Beach police.
Police didn’t say how the men were killed, what room they were in, or when they checked in to the hotel at 1116 Ocean Dr. It wasn’t clear if the infamous Versace murder had any connection to the case. But it was a haunting reminder of a murder spree and hunt for a killer that riveted South Florida for more than a week.
On July 15, 1997, after returning from breakfast at the News Cafe just down the street, one of Miami Beach’s most well-known residents and world-renowned Italian designer Gianni Versace was shot and killed on the steps of the mansion he owned at the time.
It was the fifth and final murder on a three-month spree by Andrew Cunanan, who killed himself on a Miami Beach houseboat as police closed in eight days later.
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(Miami Herald Staff Writer Charles Rabin contributed to this story.)
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