Philip Haynes Markoff (February 12, 1986 â€" August 15, 2010) was an American medical student who was charged with the armed robbery and murder of Julissa Brisman in a Boston, Massachusetts, hotel on April 14, 2009, and two other armed robberies. Markoff maintained his innocence of all charges and pleaded not guilty at his arraignment. A grand jury indicted Markoff for first-degree murder, armed robbery, and other charges.
On August 15, 2010, Markoff committed suicide in Boston's Nashua Street Jail, where he was awaiting trial. The media have referred to this murder and other murders as "Craigslist killings" because the killer was alleged to have met his victims through ads placed on Craigslist, two of which were offering erotic services.
Background
craigslist killer - An artistic response to the potentiality of the internet as a tool of murder.
Markoff was the son of Susan (née Haynes) and Richard Markoff, a dentist in Syracuse, New York. He had an older brother, Jon Markoff. He graduated in 2004 from Vernon-Verona-Sherrill High School, where he was a member of the National Honor Society, the History Club, the Youth Court, and the school bowling and golf teams.
After high school, Markoff attended SUNY Albany where he was a pre-med student. He graduated from SUNY Albany in 2007. He was a second-year medical student at Boston University School of Medicine at the time of the crimes. He was suspended from the school following the charges against him.
Markoff met Megan McAllister, a native of New Jersey, in 2005 while they were both volunteers at the Albany Medical Center Hospital emergency room. They were engaged to be married, with their wedding planned for August 14, 2009. McAllister was to have begun medical school in the fall of 2009.
Robberies and murder
Markoff was suspected in three robberies, one of which included a murder.
- Trisha Leffler (an escort) was bound, gagged, and robbed at gunpoint on April 10, 2009, at the Westin Copley Place Hotel in Boston.
- Julissa Brisman (who had posted an advertisement online offering massage services) was found dead on April 14, 2009, at the Copley Marriott, also in Boston.
- Corinne Stout (an exotic dancer offering lap dance services) was the victim of an attempted robbery on April 16, 2009, at a Holiday Inn Express in Warwick, Rhode Island.
Police suspected that the three crimes â€" close in time and similar in many ways â€" were committed by the same person.
Security camera footage, cell phone activity, and email evidence led police to suspect Markoff in the April 10 and April 14 incidents, and he was arrested April 20 in Walpole, Massachusetts while he and his fiancee were en route to Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut.
On April 21 he was arraigned in Brisman's death, the prosecutor stating that a semi-automatic handgun, wrist restraints, and duct tape had been found in Markoff's apartment. He pleaded not guilty. On May 4, Rhode Island officials issued a warrant for Markoff's arrest in the April 16 incident, though the state's Attorney General said that their prosecution would not go forward until the Boston charges were resolved. His trial was originally expected to begin in July 2010, but was later delayed to March 2011.
Markoff's fiancée initially affirmed her belief in his innocence, calling him "beautiful inside and out", but on April 29 she visited Markoff in jail to call off their wedding. On June 11 she visited Markoff a second time and told him she did not plan to see him again for "a long period of time, if ever".
Suicide
Markoff made several suicide attempts while at the Nashua Street Jail: one three days after his arrest, one after his fiancee broke up with him, and one on the day his wedding was to have taken place. At various times he was on suicide watch or in the jail's psychiatric unit.
On August 15, 2010, one year and one day after his wedding was to have taken place, Markoff was found dead in his cell. He had used a knife, made from a pen and a piece of metal, to cut arteries in his ankles, legs, and neck. He had also swallowed toilet paper and tightened a plastic bag over his head with gauze. He had also written his former fiancee's name, and their pet name for each other, in blood on the cell wall, and photographs of the two of them were scattered about.
Adaptations
A television movie, The Craigslist Killer, premiered on Lifetime Network on January 3, 2011.
References
External links
- Police Facebook Subpoena for Philip Markoff's Information, scribd.com; accessed August 12, 2014.[Dead link]
- Boston Police Department Arrest Booking Form; accessed August 12, 2014.
- Criminal Complaint Commonwealth v. Markoff, findlaw.com; accessed August 12, 2014.