Rest easy, American Crime Story fans, Cunanan didn’t kill that sweet dog

American Crime Story continues to follow the horrific path of a remorseless serial killer, but some of us are only concerned about one thing: Did Andrew Cunanan kill David Madson’s dog?

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In the late spring of 1997, Andrew Cunanan kicked off a murder spree that would make international headlines. This week, American Crime Story stepped backwards in time yet again in order to show us the very start of that killing spree. It’s a terrifyingly tense episode that, at times, feels more like an installment of sister series American Horror Story than itself. Caution: Spoilers follow for episode “House By The Lake”. 

The hour imagines the week of utter – yet mostly unknown – horror that young architect David Madson experienced after Andrew Cunanan mutilated and murdered their friend Jeffrey Trail. The first half hour of the episode plays like a bottle episode as Madson and Cunanan co-exist in an apartment as they navigate the grisly aftermath of the killing.

But the two men aren’t alone. Madson’s beloved pup Prints is with them too. As portrayed by American Crime Story, there’s a constant veil of dread that follows the poor pup whenever he’s on screen. The terror is executed so fully that, throughout the first half of the episode, I was more worried about the welfare of little Prints than either of the men on screen.

I’m clearly a dog person, y’all. And, to all my fellow animal lovers out there, I’m pleased to report that, in reality – as in the show – Cunanan didn’t harm Prints.

While the episode is a brutally tense high wire act between Cunanan (Darren Criss) and Madson (Cody Fern), most of their encounter is fictionalized. The story is based on Maureen Orth’s reporting in Vanity Fair, which quotes Todd Rivard of the Chicago County Sheriff’s Department as saying, “From Tuesday early a.m. till Saturday, it’s a big gray area.”

However, the presence and fate of the dog is actually one of the only things that’s based on solid fact. Just as portrayed in the episode, Madson and Cunanan were witnessed walking the dog several hours after Jeffrey Trail was murdered.  And when two of Madson’s co-workers came to check on him two days later, the dog was alive and well in the apartment, scratching at the door. Oddly enough, Orth notes that once the door was opened by the superintendent, there were “no feces or urine anywhere”, indicating not only that Cunanan and Madson had recently fled the scene, but that they were actively caring for the dog even while they remained in the apartment.

But the dog tale doesn’t end there. After Cunanan executed Madson in a grassy field outside of Rush Lake in the Minnesota area, he set out to Chicago and toward the murder of another man, Lee Miglin. American Crime Story showed us the horrors of that scene last week, but what they didn’t show was that Miglin had a dog, too. Orth says, “the dog, a Labrador named Honey, which had been there the whole time, was calm and unharmed.”

Next: American Crime Story: Marilyn Miglin Is Still At It

It’s not clear why Cunanan would have left these dogs alive while he heartlessly and violently concluded the lives of their humans. Perhaps his twisted love for Madson convinced him to care for Honey as the two of them had cared for Prints only a few disturbed days prior. Or maybe he had a deep bond with a dog in his childhood.  We’ll probably never know why, but we do know that no dogs were harmed in the making of Andrew Cunanan’s murder spree.

‘Versace: American Crime Story’ airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on FX.