The Miami Herald said Saturday it received a purported suicide note by Andrew Cunanan, the alleged killer of Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace and four other men.
The newspaper said it handed the note, which was unsigned and written on a typewriter or computer, over to police for fingerprinting.The newspaper said the note contained "somewhat unfocused" references to AIDS and to Cunanan's killing spree, which ended with his reported suicide in Miami Beach on Wednesday.
The letter bore the date July 27 but was postmarked July 24, the day after Cunanan shot himself when police cornered him on a houseboat about two miles north of the Versace murder site.
Local radio station WINZ quoted Miami Beach Police Chief Richard Barreto as saying he was not very impressed by the letter, suggesting it was perhaps a hoax.
A source at the Dade County Medical Examiner's Office told Reuters Saturday that widespread media reports that Cunanan had destroyed his face with the gunshot that killed him were not accurate.
"I can tell you that is not true," the source said.
Investigators have established, however, that Cunanan, described by police as a chameleon able to change his appearance at will, had shaved his head and was growing a beard at the time of his death, WINZ said.
The Medical Examiner's Office source declined to comment.
Cunanan was found dead in the master bedroom of the houseboat in the affluent Indian Creek neighborhood of Miami Beach after police fired tear gas into the dwelling and stormed inside July 23.
Police were expected to ask a judge next week to release results of an HIV test on Cunanan's body. Although Florida law prohibits the public release of such information, police say it may help them establish a motive for Cunanan's cross-country killing spree, which began in late April.
Investigators also hoped a safe found on the houseboat might contain clues to Cunanan's motives.
Federal authorities said Friday they would search for any link between Cunanan and the owner of the houseboat, identified by local media as Torsten Reineck, a German citizen who owns a gay health club in Las Vegas. German authorities said they believed Reineck was a fugitive they had sought since 1992.
The FBI located the owner in Las Vegas and said he was being cooperative. Harboring a fugitive is a federal crime.
Cunanan, a gay prostitute, was the only suspect in the murder of Versace, who dressed the world's top models, rock musicians and movie stars. Versace was shot twice in the head on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion.
Cunanan was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list of fugitives even before the Versace slaying. He was suspected in the murders of his friend Jeffrey Trail, 28; his former lover David Madson, 33; Lee Miglin, 72; and William Reese, 45.