Versace Shot Dead

Nine years ago today, on July 15, 1997, a madman pumped two bullets into Gianni Versace's face and neck, and the great designer fell dead on the doorstep of his Miami Beach mansion, his blood and brains congealing on the pink steps to his palazzo.

A few minures later, the Washington bureau of a German television network telephoned me asking for quotes and information about Versace -- I spoke with them, then threw a camera bag across my shoulder and sped on my bicycle to Versace's mansion, just a half mile from my studio. The TV choppers and paparazzi were already there in force, buzzing noisily around the scene.

I made some pictures from the street before the police cordonned it off and put all the media beyond a yellow tape across the street. Versace's body was gone.

Versace loved South Beach and it loved him. His presence here had been good for business, too; and his murder, while not the cause of South Beach's decline, hastened it.

People talk about the bloody steps at the scene of the crime, but it wasn't just blood -- it was Versace's brain, his beautiful brain, splattered across the steps that sunny morning, the sticky gray matter dripping and congealing on the coral rock stairs. It was ghastly.