This episode's storyline is derived from fictionally linking and conflating two real-life (but entirely separate) crimes committed in Central Park during the late 1980s--crimes that were relentlessly hawked by the New York mass media. The first was the August 1986 death of teenager Jennifer Levin at the hands of Robert E. Chambers, whom tabloids subsequently nicknamed "The Preppie Killer" (here cosmetically changed to "The Yuppie Killer"). The second was the April 1989 beating and rape of a young Manhattan investment banker, a woman whom newspapers dubbed the "Central Park Jogger" (here changed to the "Reservoir Runner").
The newspaper photo of the character Mark Dietrich is a still photo of actor Adam Storke from the 1988 film "Mystic Pizza." He and Vincent D'Onofrio both appeared in the film as love interests to Julia Roberts and Lili Taylor, respectively.