July 14th, 1997. Giani Versace is the most famous fashion designer in the world. He made very knowing sexy clothes and all the movie stars wanted to be in them. When I tried on this dress designed by Johnny Versace, it was the pinnacle of my career. But his success also attracts jealousy and envy.

Envy so deep that in 24 hours, Versace will be dead. Hunted down by a ruthless killer and shot in cold blood. I just kept yelling him, “Stop! Stop!” And that’s when he was pointing the gun at me. It’s impossible to forget the images of his blood. This is the last 24 hours in the life of Giani Versace.

South Beach, Miami. July 14th, 1997. It’s 7:45 a.m. and Giani Versace is enjoying the start of a beautiful day in paradise. It will be his last. In 24 hours, he’ll be dead. Versace has come here to Kaser Kaserina, his multi-million dollar mansion getaway, to kick back and relax in the Florida sun.

He’s just arrived from New York where he’s negotiated the biggest deal of his life. He’s also just launched his latest fall collection at a glitzy event in Paris. With him is Antonio Damiko, Versace’s close companion for the last 14 years. Usually after the fashion show in Paris, we always take a week, 10 days of a holiday just to relax.

Usually we get up early in the morning because you know Johnny was a workaholic so couldn’t stay without work even if it was in vacation. Versace is recovering from a recent illness. He’s placed himself on a diet of mostly fruit and juice, but a healthy diet will not prolong his life. At 8:00 a.m.

, the couple takes their usual stroll down Ocean Drive. Although he’s normally trailed by bodyguards at runway shows, Versace moves freely here in South Beach. He sees no reason for protection. It was about bodyguards. I think it was just being free and enjoying life, you know, enjoying everything that was South Beach.

For Versace and Damiko, South Beach is the perfect place to get away and unwind. Here in this relaxed, hip, gay friendly area, the couple can simply be themselves. In 23 hours, that feeling of safety will prove to be a dangerous delusion. But for now, as the morning rolls on, the carefree couple continues to enjoy the perks of an opulent and envied lifestyle.

All fueled by Versace’s meteoric rise to fame in the 1980s. Johnny Versace reached the apex of the fashion world by turning hot couture on its ear. He brought flashy entertainment to the runways of the world. He sold rounchy sex wrapped in $30,000 creations and he created the supermodel. When I tried on this dress designed by Johnny Versace, I felt that at that moment, it was the pinnacle of my career.

Johnny Versace gave me the dress and said, “You will be my favorite model.” I worked for Johnny Versace for the next 10 years straight. His couture shows in Paris were always held at the reds and everyone would be sitting there in their sunglasses and there would be the runway and the supermodels would come down the staircase wearing nothing but evening dresses.

It was always gorgeous form fitting things made often of metal. He liked chain metal. Versace made his mark by cleverly fusing design principles of high art with those of trashy street culture. Instinctively, he understood exactly what women wanted. And he also understood the power of publicity. with wonderful choreography, with the most beautiful clothes, with an audience filled with the most important editors, rock stars, actors.

And he would very cleverly place the magazine editors between movie stars so that the movie stars felt like they had day jobs and the magazine editors felt like stars. Versace was a walking contradiction. He was a poor boy from southern Italy, yet he created the new Italian aristocracy. He came from a macho Italian culture, yet he was gay.

He was drawn to men, yet he celebrated the female body. He threw wild parties, but rarely drank alcohol and never took drugs. Johnny Versace built his empire, the house of Versace, and he basked in the attention. [applause] But in 23 hours, he will receive his most sensational headline yet, and this one will be his last.

July 14th, 1997. It’s 9:00 a.m. and Giani Versace has just 23 hours left to live. Fresh from unveiling his latest fall collection in Paris and overseeing a multi-million dollar stock deal in New York, Versace and his partner Antonio Diko have come to relax in their palatial Miami mansion. After a healthy breakfast, Versace and Diko continue their stroll down South Beach.

As usual, they drop in at the News Cafe, a popular spot for morning coffee and for reading the latest international magazines. Even on holiday, Johnny Versace can’t help but catch up on the latest news from the fashion world. Oh, he loved Miami. He really loved Miami very much. He would walk, you know, go and buy his magazines and feel very relaxed because he this was his daily walk.

He loved he loved magazine. He was a celebrity and he didn’t bring any attention to himself. He was very low-key and uh came in and sometimes had breakfast, sometimes had a cup of coffee, met some people. But as he continues to browse the magazine racks, Versace is completely unaware that ever since arriving from New York, he’s been watched by an envious admirer.

A desperate man who’s left a trail of bodies across the country. Versace’s much envied success had its beginnings a world away in a small dress maker shop in southern Italy. Johnny Versace came into the world on December 2nd, 1946 in Reio Decalabria on the toe of Italy’s boot. Only three years earlier, World War II soldiers had marched through the streets of his hometown, leaving behind the scars of battle.

In this hard scrabble world, Versace’s enterprising mother made dresses for the local gentry. Young Giani lived and played on the design floor. Johnny Versace had great admiration for the female form. His mother was a seamstress, so he grew up sitting watching his mother always sewing and making outfits.

Johnny’s mother gave Johnny her legacy as being a a pattern maker. So the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Johnny created his first dress at the ripe old age of nine, a blue one-shouldered evening gown. A design that even the young daydreaming Versace could never imagine would be worn 40 years later by a princess.

Briefly forsaking a career in fashion, however, he entered university to study architecture. But he was considered an oddball and he didn’t stay long. One of his few friends at that time was Angelo Bonabo. Versace at that time was not openly gay, but he had a sort of slightly high pitched voice, but he didn’t display feminine or gay behavior, femini found it impossible to ignore his sexual orientation.

This growing tension nurtured his driving need to prove himself and to escape his humble beginnings. And Johnny, a young boy from Calabria, was only following his destiny just until he reached Milan or Rome to sell his clothes because there was no unsophisticated quality about this man whatsoever.

He was born to be great. But Giani Versace’s greatness would also lead to jealousy from those who would coveret his success. On the carefree streets of South Beach, he’s being followed by a desperate man. He is Andrew Cananan, a gay man from San Diego who met Versace 7 years before and never forgot. I first met Andrew while I was working at a restaurant in San Diego, California, and he was a regular patron.

He wanted to be liked. He wanted to be popular. He was a good time Charlie for sure. Andrew Kunanan was a very bright young man. And the one thing that Versace had was all the fame and glory that Andrew didn’t have, the riches, the recognition. and he got very angry and very bitter. Because of Cananan’s obsession, Versace has only 22 hours left to live.

25 years earlier, in 1972, Johnny Versace was determined to show the world what he’d learned in his mother’s dress shop. He packed his bags and headed north to Italy’s fashion mecca, Milan. Young Versace put in long hours. He designed for a variety of houses. He quickly became the precocious young designer to watch.

He was young, eager to please, incredibly excited about what he was doing and what was happening with his life. He had a sunny disposition and he was generous. And the older designers, the more established middle-aged northern Italian, Milanise types weren’t crazy about him. He came from Calabria. His mother was a dress maker.

An outsider in Milan, Versace took risks. He had nothing to lose and everything to prove. He had the ability to thread and weave leather and lace and to make brilliant clothes. He just had the ability to make a woman feel luscious. and he knew that that was what women wanted. Johnny Versace didn’t just know what women wanted.

He arrived in Milan at precisely the right time. The postwar dreiness was over and people had money to spend. Milan is a business. So women in Milano were wearing a blazer, pants. So they were struggling to get out and to look sexy, to go out at night and have fun and become feminine again. Somehow the young Versace had all the right instincts.

Italian women loved his style. One employer gave him a bonus of a new Volkswagen convertible. He and the car were seen everywhere. An image that typifies Lulchevita, the liberating sweet life of postwar northern Italy. On the surface, Versace came across like a young socialite, a well-ultivated image. In reality, he was a full-fledged workaholic, working often all night, constantly sketching new ideas.

He was a man driven all his life by a need to succeed. Well, Johnny had what what we say in Italian, una mara in pu, which means one extra gear. [laughter] He was really something. He was very ambitious. but in the right way. He wanted to succeed. When Versace needed to let off steam, he would do so in the many gay bars in Milan.

For the first time in his life, Versace had found a place where he could truly be himself. In his new home, he knew exactly how to get noticed. But 25 years later in South Beach, Florida, Versace’s ability to draw attention to himself would bring him face to face with a killer. South Beach, Florida, July 14th, 1997.

After spending the morning strolling by the beach, superstar designer Jeani Versace and his partner Antonio Diko returned to their mansion. Versace has no idea that a man named Andrew Cananan has traveled more than 2,000 miles to South Beach to meet him one more time. In 18 hours, Versace will be dead.

Almost 20 years before in the cutthroat business of fashion, Versace was busy surrounding himself with those he could most trust, his own family. After 10 years as a gun for hire, Versace launched his own label with the help of his baby sister Donatella and his older brother Santo. Santo held a commerce degree and was wellversed in the tangled world of Italian finance.

Johnny was really like, you know, the the head of everything. It was Johnny decision. He decide what to do always. The Versace label was the new kid on the block. With bold designs, it captured the imagination of the public and cashed in on rave reviews. Versace knew how to make a big splash.

He pursued the high clergy of international fashion, the likes of L magazine and Vogue. He most definitely knew the value of star power. He also was one of the first designers to realize that it’s better to show your clothes to movie stars who were never going to buy them than to show them to rich ladies who might.

His stellar client list included Madonna, Princess Diana, and Elton John. I remember a party after one of Versace’s shows in Milan where I found myself sitting next to Elton John. You know, you look up and you’d see all these headliners and it worked. Johnny was the star. Celebrities equate power, money, style, and just being on the it scene.

And that was what Johnny Versace was all about. [applause] And it was that need to be part of the scene that led Versace to South Beach, Miami, where the rich and famous were snapping up waterfront real estate. While visiting in 1991, he fell in love with its celebrated strip of art deco hotels. His attraction to South Beach might also have been about sex.

South Beach was really one of the great sexual destinations for gays and it was a it was an anything goes wonderful hot club scene. I think that’s what attracted Versace. The scene was raw and driven by an endless stream of drugs. There’s a lot of partying. There’s a lot of afterhour things going on.

The drugs were there. Sex. Yeah. Sure. When you when you when you include all of that, sex is always there. Easy. Well, why would a homosexual man want to be in a gay capital center? Probably he’s just a horny dog at heart. Adding to his growing list of international properties, Versace bought the run-down mansion Casa Casarina and transformed it into an ornate Renaissance Italian palace.

There were people who had gone into the Versace mansion who said it was a gay wet dream or something like if the Sultan of Brunai had met Louis the 14th these guys they design dresses make a lot of money they want to make an amazing house and it’s all about design you know it seemed that everything Giani touched turned to old.

But it was this very glitter that would attract his killer. In 1982, however, Versace was too busy to worry about anything else but work. More successful than ever, he was asked to design the costumes for Milan’s famed opera house, Lascala. For Versace, who loved opera, it was a dream come true.

That was something unusual too as a fashion designer. I don’t think it had been done at the Scala before that. He loved opera. Versace’s leap from the catwalk to the stage took him to San Francisco where he met the man who would eventually shoot him dead. Very much at home in the gay capital of America, Versace took full advantage of the party scene.

Also on hand was Andrew Cananan, a small-time conman drawn by the glamour and the glitz. In the fall of 1990, Versace was uh asked to design the costumes for an opera Capricio in San Francisco and the gay community was all a Twitter that Versace would be in their midst. And they had several parties for him before the opera opening.

At one of these parties at a gay disco, Andrew was invited and there are at least three eyewitnesses I spoke to who saw Andrew and Versace interact at that party. Evidently, there was a brief conversation, an exchange of pleasantries, little more. Andrew came back to San Diego high as a kite on his weekend with Johnny Versace, talking about all of the things they did together, all of the all of the lavish treatment he received bestowed upon him by none other than fashion designer great Jeani Versace.

To Versace, the meeting was largely insignificant. But to Andrew Cananan, the brief encounter took on mythic proportions. There’s also the hideous fascination that fashion has on people. With the creation of this idea of an elite came, of course the exclusion of people who weren’t in it and therefore people who might have touched it marginally are always going to be at once more involved and more jealous.

And jealousy was the drive that would end Versace’s life. What Kunanan didn’t tell his friends was that later that night at another bar, he tried to meet up with Versace again. But this time, because of Versace’s large entourage, Cananan was stonewalled. This move was interpreted as an outright snub.

7 years later, still carrying a grudge, Andrew Cananan would meet Versace again. This time in South Beach, and this time he would be carrying a gun. July 14th, 1997, 4 in the afternoon. Johnny Versace has only 16 hours left to live. And as the lazy day slowly winds down on South Beach, the famous designer is busy talking with his office in Milan.

Even here at his holiday getaway, Versace finds it impossible to stop working. Lazaro Quintana, his neighbor and good friend, drops by for a visit. Gone over to the house to to go to the movies. We had made plans to go to the movies that night and um we chose to see the movie Contact.

Jodyie Foster was very good movie. As they head to the theater, Andrew Kunanan, the man who felt he was snubbed by Versace 7 years earlier, lurks in the shadows, obsessed with revenge. But to his former friends in California, Cananan was a much different man. He was a buoyant, overzealous, party individual who really enjoyed the spotlight.

Always had a kind word and a laugh, a joke or two. Really a a good a good naturatured guy. Andrew Kunanan was half Filipino, half Sicilian and he knew he was gay from a very young age and he was constantly uh showing off and he became a hustler I also think at a very young age and he never really wanted to work for a living.

Andrew Kunanan’s exotic Eurasian good looks played well to his lifestyle. Shamed by his modest background, he lied about just about everything. He posed as Andy Dilva, a rich boy with a private income. Kunanan was a hustler who conned even his closest friends. In fact, we only knew him as Andrew Dilva.

But not until after the killings did we hear the name Kunhan attached with our friend from the neighborhood. And to the best of his ability, he wanted to portray somebody that that participated in the luxury life. Kanan was bright, personable, and a consumate liar. And oddly, he was obsessed with anything to do with Giani Versace. I really do think that in a way, being the narcissist that he was, Andrew probably thought he was just as capable as Versace to get that rich or that famous.

And I think he was a total snob and completely looked down on the vulgarity of Versace. He loved Vanity Fair, Vogue, Bizaar, uh GQ. He also would would talk about the runway shows, the fashion week in New York or over in Paris. Although to all the world, he looked like a preppy college boy, Andrew Cananan was more at home in a world of cheap sex and hard drugs.

Truth be told, uh, Andrew was involved in several underground money-making operations, running drugs, uh, shipping things out to the Midwest, uh, stolen goods. He also arranged parties for older, uh, closeted businessmen. He was also paid as a male prostitute and escort. It’s 8:00 p.m.

and no one can imagine that in only 12 hours, the world’s most famous fashion designer will be gunned down by a cheap hustler on the streets of South Beach. Outside a cinema, Versace and his friends head back home. Then we went back to the house. We wanted to have a snack, so we went into the kitchen.

We sat down and I had a sandwich and cheese and whatnot. And um right after that, Antonio and I made plans to play tennis the next morning and I went home. It’s a game they would never play. 3 months earlier, Andrew Cananan began his lethal downhill slide. He’d come to see himself as a torri hustler whose looks were quickly fading.

He was also convinced that he was HIV positive. He thought he had nothing to lose. He was involved with prescription pills, marijuana. He was into SNM pornography. And his life became rougher and more coarse and his values took a dive. Fueled by a steady diet of hard drugs, in the spring of 1997, Andrew Cananan finally snapped.

He set out on a murderous rampage that would end with Giani Versace. July 14th, 1997, 11 p.m. With only 9 hours left to live, Johnny Versace spends his last night dozing on the couch of his villa, Kasa Kasarina. He spent the evening out at the movies. The TV news reports all focus on Andrew Cananan’s murder spree.

Is known to be a male prostitute. 3 months earlier on April 25th, Andrew Cananan flew from San Diego to Minneapolis in a fit of jealousy. He believed that two of his old boyfriends, David Madson and Jeff Trail, were having a live-in relationship. When they strongly denied it, Cananan finally lost his grip on reality.

In a rage, he grabbed a claw hammer from the kitchen drawer and beat Jeff Trail, a former US Navy lieutenant, to death. Afraid for his life and a virtual prisoner, Madson fled with Cananan. There were two days that passed before the two of them left together and left Trail’s body rolled up in a rug.

And then they were on the road not that long before Matson was shot. While Kunanan was kneedeep in murder, Johnny Versace was in Paris unveiling his latest fall collection. The fashion press reported that he was experimenting with mandarin collars and the single shoulder pad. Soon after he flew to New York to float the House of Versace on the New York Stock Exchange.

This was a very important time in Versace’s life because he was trying to take his company public. He was absolutely obsessed with the idea of being the very first Italian designer to be listed not only in the Milan stock exchange but also the US stock exchange. So he had just signed those papers and it was really a high point for him, a very high point.

Meanwhile, Cananan continued his murderous rampage in Chicago. He robbed and killed Lee Miglin, a wealthy real estate developer, and took off in Miglin’s car. In New Jersey, he shot a cemetery caretaker and stole his red pickup truck. Next, Cananan set his sights on Florida and Giani Versace.

With four murders in 12 days, Cananan was a full-fledged serial killer. He left behind a trail of clues, but while the police knew who he was, they could only guess where he’d strike next. There was a belief that the subject was possibly coming uh to Florida. Uh there was some information that he might be making it down to West Palm Beach.

Halfway to South Beach, Cananan attached a stolen license plate to the pickup. Andrew Kunanan, the two bit hustler, had finally made a name for himself. But he wasn’t done quite yet. He raced down Interstate 95 into South Beach, where Versace and Cananan were destined to meet for the last time.

Even after Andrew was named one of the 10 most wanted in the United States, the 3,000 flyers uh were never distributed around the gay bars or any of the places where Andrew was frequenting while he was on the lamb before he shot Versace. Nobody knew what he looked like because nobody had put up the flyers.

And then two of the police detectives from Miami Beach found boxes of them in the back seat of of the rookie FBI agent’s car. Across town from the Versace mansion, Cananan checked into a low rent hotel called the Normandy Plaza. The Normandy Plaza Hotel is sort of like on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. And uh the first night Andrew stayed there, I think he had to pay $32 a night.

If you paid by the week, it was $29. Almost tempting fate, Cananan pawned a gold coin stolen from one of his victims and brazenly filled out the papers with his own name, giving his correct address at the Normandy Plaza Hotel and leaving a thumbrint. As required by Florida law, a copy was delivered to the police, but they didn’t see anybody uh reporting gold coins stolen, so it just went to another pile.

The guy who was supposed to be in charge of it, the policeman, took several days off. So, the the thing just sat there. We had an antiquated uh system, one that we did try to upgrade and that would have provided the technology to let us know that we actually had uh an Andrew Cananan here in town. The big chance to stop Cananan has probably been missed.

Cananan sees no reason to lie low. He believes that the police would never venture far into the local gay scene. Tomorrow he plans to kill Versace, but tonight he’s simply out on the town. The reason I think that he did so well hiding out in Miami Beach is because South Beach, especially during that period, was very transient.

He certainly had a lot of hotels like Normandy Plaza. He wasn’t trying to hide anything. He was in a gay uh bar. And according to a young man I interviewed who was on the dance floor with him, he said, “What do you do?” And he said, “Well, I’m a serial killer.” Haha. Andrew Cananan’s main weapon was an uncanny ability to change his appearance.

Master of disguise is the way we would describe him. He seemed like he was able to easily change his appearance. We actually compiled a u a flyer that had all of these looks and it wasn’t easy to tell it was the same person. Versace and his friends have no idea that right in their neighborhood, a full-scale manhunt is underway.

We didn’t know anything about it. The residents didn’t know. They they surely could have posted. And I do blame the police department for not coming out and saying, you know, we have this or posted, you know, bring it to the gay bars, gay clubs, or any club. On the eve of murdering Versace, the serial killer is still very much on the loose.

Cananan hits the South Beach clubs boyed by a sense of purpose and destiny. An exhausted Johnny Versace dozes on his last night. He’s not only at the end of a grueling schedule, but he’s also recovering from a serious illness. In the mid 1990s, Versace was diagnosed with cancer of the inner ear.

It’s such a rare tumor that the inevitable whisper of AIDS raced through the fashion world. Versace had these strange cancers and he appeared very very weak and he had come a couple of times to South Beach kind of to recuperate. But when he came back this time, he seemed to be uh much better. people thought that he had AIDS.

Uh I I know Johnny quite well and I I think we’ve had, you know, close friendship there to know whether he was infected with with the ACE virus and he wasn’t and I knew him. He didn’t. Versace responded favorably to treatment, but by 1997, the Empire was in greater danger from another threat. The following morning, July 15th, 1997, Johnny Versace, after a quiet night at home, rises early.

He has just 90 minutes left to live. Antonio Diko, his partner, is still asleep, and Versace sets out on his morning stroll alone. Back at the mansion, neighbor Lazaro Quintana arrives to play tennis with Antonio, who isn’t up yet. So, I was over at the house around 7:30 the next morning, and I went into the yard.

On the morning of July 15th, Andrew Cananan also rises early, but his morning routine begins with a fistful of bullets. As usual, Versace walks to the news cafe to pick up newspapers and magazines. That morning, I believe u 8:00, maybe 8:15. Uh I saw him uh walk into the store.

He was in here for a few minutes, perused the magazines. Versace buys a copy of Business Week, The New Yorker. Vogue, Entertainment Weekly, and People magazine. A week’s worth of reading, magazines he will never open. As he was leaving, he said, you know, good morning. I said, good morning and he left to go um home. In 10 minutes, Johnny Versace will meet Kunanan for the second and final time in his life.

Usually surrounded by an entourage, Versace is on his own as he walks slowly back towards Kaser Kasarina. Only a few yards from home, Kanan closes in. He got to the steps uh of the mansion. Andrew Kunanan was across the street and Andrew casually strolled and went right up to Versace and shot him at 8:00 a.m.

on July 15th, 1997 in South Beach, Miami. The piece of the morning is shattered by the sound of two gunshots fired at Giani Versace once right on the left hand side sort of right in the neck and then Versace evidently turned slightly after the first shot and Kunanan came from the right side and shot him again and Versace died instantly.

He was brain dead. I heard these two shots and it was strange. I said, “But what is it?” Yeah. I didn’t realize right away that it was a shot. I ran out the door and that’s where Johnny was laying there at the entrance. That was really like, you know, the shocking moment of my life. I mean, I start to see black, completely black and Johnny was there in the blood and and Antonio was, “Who did this? Who did this?” There was a a lady standing outside the gate with her arm up pointing.

And and then I saw the guy walking about 20 m from us. And Antonio said, “Go get him, Lazar. Go get him. Go, Johnny. Johnny, get my dad away.” I went after him. Um, and I yelled at him, “You bastard. Stop.” Just kept yelling at him, “Stop. Stop.” And that’s when he was pointing the gun at me, Johnny.

And for me, it was like, you know, killing myself. Versace is rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. He’s pronounced dead at 9:21 a.m. The police quickly linked the murder to Andrew Cananan and the hunt is on. The perimeter uh that we had set up included a parking lot which is located a couple blocks away.

In a nearby parking lot, they find an abandoned red pickup truck. Next to the vehicle, they discover a discarded pile of clothes. The Miami police check the red truck’s VIN number and trace it back to the New Jersey murder and Cananan’s matching 50 caliber bullets. Our investigation revealed that the red truck belonged to a victim of a homicide involving Andrew Cananan.

Uh the victim uh was from New Jersey. And uh that’s how the whole thing started to uh snowball at that point. But despite scouring every inch of South Beach, they can find no trace of the killer. But Cananan doesn’t stay hidden for long. A Miami caretaker reports that a private housebo nearby has been broken into and a shot has been fired.

The police surround the housebo. SWAT team eventually uh made entry into the housebo. During their search, they found Andrew Cananan’s body uh with a gun next to his body and a gunshot to his head. An autopsy reveals that Andrew Cananan was not HIV positive after all. Jeani Versace, meanwhile, is cremated and his ashes flown back to Italy.

After a star-studded funeral, they’re scattered at his villa in Lake Ko, half an hour north of Milan. the city that had crowned him a king. What the world lost when Johnny was killed. The most creative, the kindest man I’ve ever met. One of the most intelligent men I’ve ever talked to. lost a really happy guy and a guy who was eager to share his happiness, eager to share his toys, happy to bring people into this dance that he’d invented.

It lost someone charming who still had a great deal of innocence. I think it’s impossible to forget. It is impossible to get out the images of his blood, body on the blood. I mean that is an image that will be always with me. I still suffer for him. Of course, John is a part of my life and will always be

Versace’s Killer: The Most Obsessive Stalker in Criminal History HT

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