Peter Braunstein

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File:Peter braunstein.jpg
Photograph of Peter Braunstein released by the police.

Peter Braunstein (born 1964) is a New York City-based journalist, writer and playwright who became infamous as the prime suspect in an October 31, 2005 rape, leading police on a multi-state manhunt until his capture and self-injury in Memphis, Tennessee on December 16, 2005.

Dubbed the "Halloween rapist", the "fake firefighter," "fire fiend" and other names by the media [1], Braunstein became an unlikely criminal mastermind and the most wanted man in New York City, a dubious honor often reserved for killers, mobsters or terrorists. Braunstein formerly worked as a writer for Women’s Wear Daily and The Village Voice, and his former colleagues avidly followed the case on weblogs.

Biography

Peter Braunstein was born to Alberto and Angele Braunstein in Kew Gardens, Queens. His father was a Manhattan gallery owner. Braunstein studied abroad at Sorbonne in Paris and is fluent in French. He came back to New York to pursue a PhD degree in History from NYU. He then began dating the W magazine beauty editor and Braustein's coworker, Jane Larkworthy. However, this relationship also ended in disaster. After breaking up with Larkworthy, Braustein started using the play's website as a blog to harass his ex-girlfriend whom he referred to as "BioHazard". He pleaded guilty when charged with 37 counts of harassment and was sentenced to 3 years probation. According to the victim, Braunstein harassed her for 18 months, taped her hands to a chair, sent frightening emails and phone messages to her coworkers and family, and posted her naked photos and personal information on an adult web site. On November 22, 2004, Braunstein cut his own chest with a knife and then claimed his ex-girlfriend attacked him. He was taken by the police to Bellevue Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation and released after two hours.

At this point things started to go even further downhill in Braunstein's life. His coworkers reportedly noticed that he was suffering from what could be described as delusions of grandeur and paranoia, although they did not assume it would result in violence. He went back to live with his mother in Queens, which earned him the nickname "George Costanza" among his associates. In 2004 he wrote and directed the off-off-broadway play Andy & Edie about the relationship between Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick. [2]. The play turned out to be a flop and played only for four days. Some have speculated that this could have finally pushed Braunstein over the edge. His has been said to have a megalomaniacal nature, which possibly led him to stop talking with his father after he made a negative comment about the play. Braunstein also came up with a hit list of "fashionable gals-about-town" whom he wanted to "punish". According to police sources, his future victim was on the list.

The Halloween rape

On October 31, 2005 a man wearing a New York City Firefighter uniform set two small fires in the lobby of a Chelsea building where his victim lived. He then knocked on the door of the 34-year old woman's apartment and told her he was there to check for smoke damage. As soon as the victim let him in, the man shoved a chloroform-laced rag into her face. For the next 13 hours she went in and out of consciousness while the attacker raped her. The victim told the police that the attacker apparently knew her, although she was not able to identify him. According to her he videotaped the attack and left with a pair of her shoes.

The police released a sketch of the suspect made with the help of a witness which was identified as Braunstein by his father the next day. Several of his former coworkers also called the police after he allegedly made threatening phone calls to them following the attack. Several days later detectives uncovered more evidence on Braunstein's personal computer, including a detailed plan that described the attack that occurred [3].

Police have also discovered that Braunstein purchased a voice-altering device on Ebay five days before the attack, along with the season one DVD set of the FX television series Nip/Tuck. The series features a serial rapist known as The Carver, who also uses a voice altering device, and who may have been the model for the real-life attack [4]. It should be noted however that the Carver did not appear in Nip/Tuck until its second season.

Media reaction

The crime received a great amount of media attention for a number of reasons. It involved elaborate planning and execution that is not usually common for rapes. Peter Braunstein, allegedly a highly intelligent writer and a journalist from an upper-middle class family also did not fit the typical profile for a rapist. In fact, at one point he belonged to the same clique of freelance writers who are now following his every step in their blogs. In addition to that, Braunstein was able to avoid arrest for several weeks while apparently still residing in New York where his photo graced the front pages of most newspapers and footage of the suspect was played on the evening news almost daily. Finally, the timing also coincided with a historic low for NYC crime rates, further focusing the public's attention to it.

The crime quickly became a sensation in the New York area due to its bizzare nature. New developments about the crime have been often featured on the front pages of tabloids like the New York Post and New York Daily News and on the TV show America's Most Wanted. It was revealed that the suspect had an interest in pornography and was "extremely intelligent and talented, with an IQ of 185" [5]. This "evil genius" aspect of the crime only fueled the public fascination with it.

Other details uncovered by the media included that fact that Braunstein was on probation for harassing his ex-girlfriend and was contemplating stalking supermodel Kate Moss.

He has also been followed in great detail by gossip blogs such as Gawker, with the editor Jessica Coen going as far as creating a special Peter Braunstein section to document her findings. Even Craigslist had a hand in the story, as lengthy, elaborate posts from an anonymous source speculated about his whereabouts. These lead to bloggers to wonder who was behind the message (some guessing Braunstein himself), and even a satirical Craigslist post speculating about the identity and whereabouts of this mysterious poster. It read as follows:

Peter Braunstein Poster - t4t Reply to: [xxx] Date: 2005-11-30, 1:04PM EST

Will not kill himself. Yet.

He is still out there, posting. In my opinion, the Braunstein poster is, right now, three things:

1. Playing Urban Dead or a similar MMORPG in the background while he types his latest Braunstein-related posting. Highly plausible. As always, there’s more after the jump.


2. Working on his novel about a heroic, 30-something Craigslist poster who brings down an evil pervert con artist using nothing but his sociology degree and three seasons of CSI DVDs. There’ll be a “will he or won’t he?” part where the lead finds himself getting into the mind of the villain a bit too deeply, but he manages to bring himself back at the last minute. He hasn’t figured out the ending yet, but it will no doubt involve the hero climbing a fire escape and saving a willowy Fairchild staffer.


3. Living in his parents’ basement, possibly in Jersey

He feels he wants to/needs to “do” “something” “with” “his” “pathetic” “life”

If I were a bored New Yorker and LOOKING for this guy, I’d check out the following places: - NY Public Libraries - NY peep booth places and low-rent strip joints and adult video stores - especially those like the “Sports Memorabilia” place on West 38th that sells all those pantyhose fetish videos in the back room - Starbucks (out of the way locations in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx or S.I.) - Movie theaters - Barnes & Noble bookstores - SRO Hotels

I’d also check Learning Annex “How to be a true crime writer” sessions and open forum discussions over whether Craigslist posts are the new blogs.

Goodluck.

Manhunt and capture

On November 17, 2005, Braunstein was spotted at a local Cobble Hill coffee shop in Brooklyn. The shop's owner recognized the suspect and alerted two policemen nearby. The blocks surrounding the area were quickly filled with dozens of police officers, some wearing riot gear, as well as the news media. Around 1:30 PM, a police bloodhound who had been given a pillow recovered at the scene of the alleged sex attack picked up a scent and tracked it two blocks to an abandoned building. Police forces stormed the building but found no evidence of the suspect. Throughout the day, posters were hung up in the area offering a reward of $12,000 for information leading to the capture of Braunstein.

He was reported captured on December 16, 2005 in Memphis, Tennessee around 3:30 pm [6]. He was spotted by a University of Memphis student who notified the police. As the police moved in, he reportedly shouted, "I am the man the world is looking for" (although other sources have reported slightly different accounts of his words [7]). Braunstein then stabbed himself three times in the neck. After recovery from surgery, he was transferred to New York custody and on December 23, 2005, a grand jury indicted him for the Halloween attack; he was arraigned on January 5, 2006 and pleaded "Not Guilty" to charges of sexual abuse, arson, kidnapping, burglary and robbery. [8]

External links

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