Jane and I Worked With a Sex Criminal Who Terrorized 2 of Our Colleagues in the Creepiest Ways

Now that Peter Braunstein is up for parole, we want to know: Does he still hate fashion editors?

It’s midnight on Halloween! And what does that make you think of? If you’re a true crime freak, like me, it’s probably only one thing: Peter Braunstein, the guy who dressed up like a firefighter on Halloween 2005, forced his way into a fashion editor’s apartment and terrorized her for almost 13 hours before running from the cops for 6 weeks.

Did you know Jane and I worked on the same floor as Braunstein back in the day? Jane magazine was under the umbrella of Fairchild Publications before it was folded into Conde Nast, and our offices were at 7 West 34th Street (directly across the street from the Empire State Building). Jane shared a floor with fashiony W magazine and Women’s Wear Daily, where Peter was a writer. He stood out in the elevator: He had shiny dark curls and carried a fancy leather briefcase. That’s how I remember him — kind of put-together yet kind of eccentric-looking, in a vaguely academic kind of way. Like a beat-poet professor with a perm.

Peter’s Fairchild ID. Some of Peter’s bylined WWD stories are still online, including one about Selma Blair called “A Brunette’s Blues.”