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When I write plays, sometimes I base my characterizations on composites of various people. Other times, I simply cut out a portrait from a magazine or newspaper. As I develop the character, I usually place that image directly in front of me.

Today, that technique came to bite me or at least nibble on my noggin.

While walking down Seventh Avenue in the Big Apple, the sight of a familiar face flabbergasted me. A man in the maddening crowd bore more than an uncanny resemblance to a serial rapist from the days when I lived in Omaha. There's no mistake. Today's guy in the crowd absolutely had to be the Omaha rapist. But that's impossible. The Omaha man is considerably dead.

The guy's mugshot had appeared in the Omaha World Herald in 1989 on the same day that his crime spree came to a screeching halt. The story detailed how he had attempted to rape a young woman who had unwittingly jogged into the wooded area where he had been waiting.

When I had seen his image staring at me from the front page back in '89, I immediately cut it out and stuck it on my desktop. I knew this face would be a perfect inspiration for the barbaric but bumbling serial killer for my play titled Macho Man Murders. Indeed, the fiendish face inspired me to write every line for that character, even the lines for what other characters said about him.

Today's mystery man, Manhattan's dead ringer for the Omaha rapist, vanished into the crowd, leaving me strangely frustrated. I had studied that face much too intensely not to recognize it. There's no mistake. It was the same face. Such unsolved mysteries make me crazy.

The Omaha lookalike killed himself for reasons we men can well understand. While this aspiring rapist was readying himself in position, his victim had the gall to land a significant kick directly to his cashews. Ouch! To add insult to injury, while he lay withering in pain, screaming unprintable epithets, the young woman grabbed her stun-gun and aimed it at his eyes. That enabled her to escape and call the cops.

Within minutes, the lecherous, (and now) visually impaired rogue was surrounded by police. There he crouched, half blind, in a losing battle with authorities, plus suffering excruciating pain from head to crotch. Such agony proved to be too much for him. The wannabe rapist ate his gun. Who wouldn't kill himself?

There's a dark comic tale in there somewhere that I need to start taking notes on. I hadn't thought about the guy in years until today. Could the guy I saw today in Manhattan be that long-dead scoundrel's son? Nah. Well, maybe.

All those years ago while writing my play, each time I glanced up at the rapist's mugshot, a cramping sensation would land in the pit of my stomach. Images of our daughters leaped to mind. They were then roughly the same age as the rape victim cited above. We had taught them to avoid desolate areas, but I worried that they would become careless and venture into deserted paths.

We had also taught them to strike back at attackers just like the would-be victim in Omaha did. Still, after I saw that dead ringer on the street today, the first thing I did was contact my daughters. They're fine. Me, too.

- Steve Eskew

Retired businessman Steve Eskew received master's degrees in dramatic arts and communication studies from the University of Nebraska at Omaha after he turned 50. After one of his professors asked him to write a theater column, he began a career as a journalist at The Daily Nonpareil in Council Bluffs, Iowa. This led to hundreds of publications in a number of newspapers, most of which appear on his website, eskewtotherescue.com.