Craigslist Predictions for Peter Braunstein
Our attention has been directed to a creepy post made on Craigslist yesterday regarding sexual assault suspect Peter Braunstein. While we normally wouldn't be especially intrigued by a Casual Encounters user's insights on Braunstein, we found the following to be so incredibly detailed, lengthy and thoughtful that, for a moment, we wondered if the author was very, very close to the suspect.
Because we're slightly insane, we immediately emailed the poster and asked, "Why would you write all this?" We got a quick response from an individual claiming, simply, "For the same reason you write all you do on Gawker. People like to read it."
******** PETER BRAUNSTEIN ***************
Reply to: [xxx]
Date: 2005-11-20, 1:38PM EST
Will not kill himself. Yet.
He is still out there, and here's what I think he's up to.
He's at work, writing something. It will be found/discovered/made known at the time of his arrest, or after his death or at some point during his incarceration while awaiting trial. It will have to do with why he did what he did on Halloween and why the woman he did it to, and others, deserve what he did to them.
In my opinion, Braunstein is, right now, three things:
1. Wary, but in control
2. Angry at the way he has been portrayed in the NY and national (America's Most Wanted) media
3. Vindictive - he will want to 'show everyone' or 'explain' "why"; this may take the form of passive (written) or aggressive (physical attack or acting out) behavior.
Read on for the chillingly thorough explanation.
He's wary because he's wanted, but with each day that passes without being caught, he's gaining time and ground advantage on his pursuers. Whether or not he's taking advantage of this time to move himself physically from NYC to geographic areas where he's less visible and where he might generate income for himself to find shelter and food and so he might be able to keep himself groomed and presentable (SRO Hotel, etc.) is unknown, but my belief is that yes, he is making this effort. My belief is that out of a 100% chance he's in NYC, there's a 60% chance he's here.
He's angry. No matter where he is, he's angry. He's angry at himself, number one, for bungling this attack in the way he has: Choosing to buy his fireman equipment off E-bay and his other props used in his attack, he allowed a trail to be made clear, and now, his purchases indict him.
He's also angry at his parents. He's angry at his weak mother with whom he lived ("He's going to kill himself!") and he's angry at his father from whom he is estranged and from whom, this weekend, the ultimate edict was passed: "Turn yourself in now or I will forever turn my back on you."
His parents - anyone's parents - are the anchors to a child's (adult or adolescent) life. His are the classic parents of a psychotic: Strong, unforgiving father, weak and doting and forgiving mother. He resents his mother for being so weak and his father for being one who doesn't "get" him or his life choices or behaviors.
He's also angry at his ex, who has played a key role is supplying cops with info on him, and he's incensed most of all at all the women he worked with at Fairchild - known to him personally or not, for now he sees them all as not individual women but as a collective genetic mass of female energy that think of him as "less than." They no longer marvel at his writing skill or wit, or even that he was a straight, single man/colleague (with a creative, vital brain) is a sea of gay men at the workplace and thus, potential date/mate material for them - or even representative of same in the workplace (a sort of harmless mental distraction we've all allowed ourselves to have in work environs). Now, they simply, in his mind, see him as a pervert. A rapist. A deviant. He knows they thought he was sort of "weird" to begin with, but now he knows he's nothing to them but an authentic nightmare - the classic Bogeyman rapist/pervert/misogynist pig who will jump from behind a bush and rape them and feel them up and touch their bodies and foul them with his Demon Seed. He's become evil incarnate to a mass of women he KNEW and who KNEW him - he can see their faces, knows when they arrive for work and how they dress and when they gather at lunch, or outside for a cigarette break, to gossip, and in his mind, he is seeing this daily; this playing out of women talking about him in ways he cannot stand. This makes him angry. And vindictive.
He's vindictive because while he knows he did something wrong, he also thinks OTHER PEOPLE wronged him - perhaps in ways worse than he wronged his victim on Halloween. The Rolling Stone Editor who shot down his ideas, the Editor he assaulted, his parents, his former colleagues, cops, witnesses, his mother, his ex-girlfriend, the Super 8 hotel clerk, NY Post and NY Daily News reporters, his E-Bay sellers who have talked to the police, John Walsh of America's Most Wanted, etc......
He feels he wants to/needs to "do" "one more thing" or have "one more try" or to take "one more chance" to show/prove to his pursuers, doubters and naysayers and accusers that he's "right" and they're "wrong." That he's "better" than them.
He's out there. He'd not kill himself and let it all end without any type of registration in the media that would act to his addled brain like a pretty bow that would "tie it all up" for everyone.
He's going to do something again, to someone (not a stranger) to try to "get it out" of his system. He'll fail in the "getting it out" part. He will probably succeed in the assault, although he will most likely, again, leave a trail of evidence behind. His mind is deviant, but it's not as coldly criminal as he would like it to be or as he needs it to be. If he had been a better assailant, he would never have allowed such an easily traced evidence trail to dog him:
Duct tape
Computer notes
E-bay purchases
Said purchases sent to his house
similarities in his assault of 10/31 and notes in his computer
etc
etc
etc
What has he BEEN doing since 10/31?
He's been
-Worrying about the weather changing and thinkng about shelter and food.
-Thinking about changing his appearance
-Thinking how to generate cash flow/income from his writing or from other streams
-Writing about this episode from 10/31 on....in a journal of some sort
-Fantasizing about the sexual nature of his assault (her shoes, feet, body and legs and her degradation and incapacitation at his hand)
-Admiring his handiwork on gaining access to her building and apartment and has been congratulating himself on a job, while not done to it's best degree, was still done as intended.
-Wondering where he can find sexual release for his obvious sexual paraphilias and stresses.
If I were the cops, and I were LOOKING for this guy....I'd have cops looking in 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 every uniform, costume and prop house - including sites like www rasource dot com (used heavily by the fashion industry) for costumes, props and make-up and what not...
I'd check Craigslist NYC and trace every posting made from 10/31 on that had to do with pantyhose, binding, rape, duct tape, shoes, feet, force play, rape role play and every other sexual interest exhibited by Brauntein. Trace the ISP's for every post. Eliminate those which are obviously false leads and follow those posted from coffee shops, internet cafes, etc....Then, track those places down, check video cameras, etc.....
Point of all this?
The guy blew a major fuse. From the moment he walked thru her door on 10/31 he crossed the Rubicon and he knew it - his life as he knew it was over and yet, he made the decision to continue.
Now, he's got to play out his hand and he knows he's got not too much to lose now except his life - physically. Spiritually, emotionally, professionally and socially, at least for now and the foreseeable future, he's lost these elements of his life. He may lose the physical.
Now, perhaps, for him, is the time for him to make a womam (or women)lose her's/their's too - physically.
Goodluck.
