The Chilling Story Of An 11-Year-Old Girl Who Met The Serial Killer Who Murdered Gianni Versace
Jamilah King claims she met Andrew Cunanan in the spring of 1997.
Biography In light of the premiere of the first episode of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, one Twitter user has a different story to tell about infamous serial killer Andrew Cunanan.
Jamilah King — @jamilahking — starts off her story with "Hi. I have a story to tell about meeting a serial killer. It's nuts. But it's true. So here it goes."
In the spring of 1997, while King was in sixth grade, she went to a park called Panhandle in her hometown of San Franciso. She was practicing her basketball skills when she noticed a guy was watching her.
"He's older than me, an adult, but still pretty young. He's wearing a long dark green coat. He's standing on the sideline between the park's grass and the court."
King said she ignored him at first and didn't consider him to be dangerous. It wasn't until the man walked from the sideline to standing underneath the basket when King decided it was time to leave.
"Now I'm annoyed," King wrote. "But when I look at him, he looks...sad. But I'm not an idiot. So I start to gather my things to leave."
Then, the man stopped King, who was 11 at the time, and said: "Hey, you're really good."
King thanks him and walks toward his bike. The man says: "You should keep practicing."
King said she turned around and the man said: "Here's a dollar."
"Now 11-year-old me knows better than to take anything from a stranger," he said. And after a deep internal debate about dying versus having enough money to buy two Baby Ruths, she decided to take the dollar.
"I run up and take the dollar from the dude, barely looking at him. And then I hop on my bike and speed away."
King said she didn't think about the interaction until months later when she saw the man's mugshot on the news. His name was Andrew Cunanan and he had killed five people, including fashion designer Gianni Versace and Chicago tycoon Lee Miglin.
His spree occurred during a three-month period in mid-1997, which King believes was around the time she interacted with him at Panhandle.
"I haven't looked super closely at the timeline in years," she wrote. "but I do know that he was in San Francisco for a while and went off from there."
Cunanan's murderous spree ended on July 23, 1997 when he committed suicide. He was 27.
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Emily Blackwood is an editor at YourTango who covers pop culture, true crime, dating, relationships and everything in between. Every Wednesday at 10:20 p.m. you can ask her any and all questions about self-love, dating, and relationships LIVE on YourTango’s Facebook page. You can follow her on Instagram (@blackw00d) and Twitter (@emztweetz).