Halloween Attack Suspect a Former Voice/WWD Writer

The gruesome Halloween night rape, where an attacker dressed up as a fireman, set a small fire to create smoke, forced his way into his victims apartment and then had his way with the victim for hours upon hours, is just getting stranger. On Thursday the police were reporting that they had a suspect but only today are we starting to hear about the guy.

The Daily News is reporting that the NYPD's "prime suspect" is a 41-year old named Peter Braunstein who used to write from the Village Voice and Women's Wear Daily. It seems the victim worked in the same office as an ex of Braunstein's whom he previously stalked and now has a restraining order from ("'I will destroy you professionally and otherwise,' he vowed one night as he toyed with a kitchen knife after taping her hands to a chair, according to court papers"). The cops have been desperately trying to find Braunstein, who hasn't been at either of his parents homes nor any of the addresses he gave his probation officers.

In the meantime, the more we read about this case the more odd particulars pop up. For instance, not only did the attacker remove the victims "clothes, touch her body and put shoes on her feet during the encounter," but then he took the pair of shoes. Also, in some of the reports we've seen the cops are distancing themselves from using the word "rape" in the case due to lack of physical evidence. We imagine this will only get more and more made for tabloids.