Arthur Esterman (alias The Central Park Stalker) was an attorney and prime suspect in two murders, including that of his wife.
Background[]
Arthur attended Harvard Law School and started dating a student at Radcliffe named Greta. Greta's parents disapproved of their relationship because of their wealthy background, compared to Arthur, so Arthur and Greta eloped in 1961 after they both graduated. Arthur became a lawyer while Greta became health clinic doctor. According to a friend of Greta, he practiced tennis more than law and lived off Greta's inheritance, but they were seemingly happy.
In 2001, Greta lost interest in having sex following menopause and Arthur decided to find it somewhere else. To this end, Arthur stole the identity of an old classmate, Vartan Dadian, and used it to set up a bank account at West Side Bank. He started stealing $20,000 a month from Greta to hire an escort from Gold Coast Models, Miss Kitty, to sleep with him. Arthur used the stolen money to take her out to fancy hotels and restaurants, and their relationship eventually turned into a full-blown affair. Kitty gave Arthur Vitara and ecstasy to enhance his performance, and Arthur became addicted because it made feel like a young man again so kept taking them by finding a drug dealer who would give him a steady supply. A year after the affair began, Greta eventually realized what Arthur was doing and confronted him. Arthur confessed everything to her and then asked her to try using drugs too. In response, a disgusted Greta told him that she wanted a divorce. However, Arthur was aware that he would be penniless if she divorced him and made plans to kill her to have all the money.
Lust[]
Arthur follows Greta to the park and blitz-attacks her while she is walking their dog, Rocky. During the attack, he rapes her with a tree branch and stabs her to death in a fit of rage. After he is done, he bashes Greta's head in so much that she is unrecognizable. He also wore a rain poncho to prevent the blood from splattering on him, before ditching it near the body.
Detectives Benson and Stabler later arrive at his house to return his dog and notify him of his wife's death. Arthur pretends to grieve and tells them about her work treating people with STDs and tracing exposure patterns. He leads detectives to a nasty phone call she got a few weeks prior. Arthur then goes into his wife's office, finds an AIDS epidemic case she was working on, and uses it to steer the investigation away from him. When he arrives at the precinct to give it to the detectives, he picks a fight with Roger Pomerantz, the caller, who was arrested for resisting arrest, and punches him in the face.
The police eventually discover that the AIDS case was about a man intentionally spreading HIV and not warning his partners about it. They arrest the culprit, Mario Molinari. In another effort to steer the investigation away from him, Arthur finds another elderly woman named Mona Sidley, raped her with a broken bottle in the park, stabbed her to death, and bashed her face in to make it look like the work of a serial killer. When Benson and Stabler ask him about "Vartan Dadian", Arthur pretends not to know the name. After the police realize he is Vartan from his mistress, they execute a search warrant on his house, looking for bank transactions and evidence that he was at both murder scenes. As Arthur watches on, he proclaims that he loved Greta and didn't cheat on her. When dirt on his boots are connected to the scenes, Arthur claimed that he went to both scenes to pay respect to the victims, and that Greta knew about his infidelity all along and let him do it.
When the SVU detectives ask Arthur for a DNA sample, Arthur represents himself and refuses and knows they can't force him to provide a sample. When the police try to use the blood he gave for charity to get his DNA, he and ADA Cabot argue before Judge Lena Petrovsky on the issue of possible ethics violations. While Petrovsky allows them to test the blood, she only lets them test for everything a hospital would, not for DNA. Feeling the police closing in on him, Arthur buys a one-way plane ticket to Brazil in preparation to flee the country the next day, but halts his plans temporarily to have sex with Kitty again. Just as they are finished, the police execute another search warrant on him after they arrest his drug dealer. When the police tell Kitty about the murders and find his plane ticket, she is upset that he was going to leave her, despite his pleas. She reveals they had unprotected sex and allows the detectives to take his DNA from her body. Arthur is taken to the precinct, where he is told the DNA matches before he confesses to the murders and claimed that his wife drove him to this point. He was subsequently imprisoned for his crimes.
Known Victims[]
- 2002:
- October 7: Greta Esterman (his wife; raped with a tree branch, stabbed 37 times, and bashed her face in post-mortem)
- October 8: Roger Pomerantz (assaulted; punched in the face)
- October 10: Mona Sidley (raped with a broken bottle, stabbed six times, and bashed her face in post-mortem)