Full-Tilt Boogie: The Crimes of Peter Braunstein

T.S. Eliot ends his poem “The Hollow Men” with the line “This is the way the world ends…not with a bang, but a whimper.” Spree criminals are always after the bang. Many see themselves going out in a blaze of glory, taking as many people with them as they can. Going down in history as some kind of dark antihero, shaking up the way we think, making us question our most basic values—leaving a big, smoking crater in the earth on their way out of it. These guys are legends in their own minds. Funnily enough, though, as hard as they try for the big bang, they often end up with the whimper. And there’s no better example of that than Peter Braunstein, a former playwright and fashion writer who--after being fired from his job at Women's Wear Daily--embarked on an outrageous crime spree. His ultimate goal? Kill Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour. Join us for the bizarre story of a grudge that spun out of control.

Sources: "Friend of the Devil" by Aaron Gell: https://humanparts.medium.com/friend-of-the-devil-3726bd1ddc1c Investigation Discovery, "I Almost Got Away With It," Episode "I Got to Pose as a Firefighter" Gothamist: https://gothamist.com/news/peter-braunstein-endures-fellow-prisoners-teasing-you-didnt-even-rape-her https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Braunstein

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