After weeks on the run, a writer accused of posing as a firefighter so he could sexually attack a woman in her Chelsea apartment was cornered yesterday by campus police at the University of Memphis, where he stabbed himself in the throat before his arrest, the authorities said.
The man, Peter Braunstein, 41, was taken to the Regional Medical Center in Memphis, where he was in fair condition last night, a hospital spokeswoman said. Detectives from the New York Police Department - whom Mr. Braunstein, a freelance writer, had eluded for weeks - had traveled last night to Tennessee to question him.
A woman who works at the university recognized his picture from the television news and called the campus police. As an officer approached Mr. Braunstein, "He said 'I'm the person you're looking for,' and stabbed himself three times in the neck," said Paul J. Browne, the New York Police Department's chief spokesman.
Details of this very, very bizarre story are here from the New York Times.