This episode appears to be based on several separate cases/incidents:
- The 1984 Andrew Crispo (a.k.a. "The Death Mask Murder") case. In New York in 1985, 26-year-old Norwegian fashion student Eigil Vesti was lured away from a bar, drugged, sodomized, and shot twice in the back of the head. His burned body was found in a Rockland County smokehouse, clad only in a leather hood and mask that preserved his face and allowed for his identification using DNA. The investigation led police to the S&M clubs that thrived in the old Meatpacking District, where the murder weapon was discovered in Crispo's 57th Street gallery. Bernard LeGeros, Crispo's assistant, claimed Crispo forced the victim to kneel and be shot, and that he was drugged and under Crispo's control. While Crispo had picked the victim up in a bar and provided the cocaine, Crispo was not charged in the murder, while LeGeros was convicted and sent to prison instead.
- The 1968 death of Albert Dekker. On May 5, 1968, Dekker was found dead in his Hollywood home by his fiancée, fashion model and future The Love Boat (1977) creator Jeraldine Saunders. He was naked, kneeling in the bathtub, with a noose tightly wrapped around his neck and looped around the shower curtain rod. He was blindfolded, his wrists were handcuffed, there was a ball gag in his mouth, and two hypodermic needles were inserted in one arm. His body was covered in explicit words and drawings in red lipstick. Money and camera equipment were missing, but there was no sign of forced entry. Police, calling it "quite an unusual case", originally said it was suicide but the deputy coroner found no evidence of foul play nor any indication that he planned to take his life and ruled his death accidental, the result of autoerotic asphyxiation. Dekker was cremated, and his remains interred at the Garden State Crematory in North Bergen, New Jersey. Dekker has a star, in the motion picture category, on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6620 Hollywood Boulevard.
- The 1978 death of Bob Crane. Crane was an American actor, drummer, radio personality, and disc jockey known for starring in the CBS sitcom Hogan's Heroes (1965). Crane was brutally murdered in his rented apartment room. He was beaten to death, while he slept, and strangled with an electrical cord. He was 49 years old. His murder remains unsolved.
- The life of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.