Peter Braunstein (born January 26, 1964) is an American former journalist, writer and playwright who became infamous for committing an October 31, 2005 rape and 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, Braunstein became the most wanted man in New York City, a dubious honor often reserved for murderers, 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 blogs.
Defense lawyers tried to argue diminished capacity, claiming Braunstein suffered an organic brain disorder with effects similar to paranoid schizophrenia that made him delusional and incapable of intent.
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 October 31, 2005, a man wearing a New York City Fire Department uniform set off two smoke bombs in the lobby of a West 24th street building in Chelsea, Manhattan where his victim lived.
The crime received a great amount of media attention for a number of reasons - one is that Braunstein was a well-educated writer and journalist from an upper-middle-class family.
Braunstein also 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.
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 section to document her findings.
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 p.m., a police bloodhound who had been given a pillow recovered at the scene of the sexual assault picked up a scent and tracked it two blocks to an abandoned building.
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.
[9] The day before the article was run, Xavier parents received letters from the school telling them of Braunstein's employment and explained that there was no need for any concern.
Prosecutors disclosed Braunstein's personal manifesto, written in the months before the crime, in which he said that God had intended him for the purpose of working justice upon those who sinned.
His lawyers put a psychologist on the stand as an expert witness, and tried to show when cross-examining Larkworthy that he was displaying similar symptoms even then.