Details About Craigslist Murder Suspect Emerge
The fruits of the police search of Craigslist murder suspect Phillip Markoff allegedly included underwear and a hand gun found in a hollowed out Grey’s Anatomy book in Markoff’s Quincy apartment. Friends have been commenting that they are surprised at the allegations, although some knew that he liked to make bets. According to the New York Daily News:
A high-achieving dentist’s son from upstate New York, Philip Markoff is described in various ways, but everyone, even those who didn’t like him, is shocked at the charges against him.
“He was smart. He carried himself well,” said neighbor Michael Bernard.
“He seemed like the type that would have it all. It doesn’t make sense.”
Markoff grew up the son of a Syracuse dentist, with an older brother, Jon.
He graduated in 2004 from Vernon-Verona-Sherrill High School, where he was on the bowling and golf teams, and earned a biology degree from SUNY Albany four years later.
In high school, he was an honors student who hung out with the brains and also played a lot of poker, even mentioning his gaming skills on his yearbook page.
“He had a decent amount of friends, although I would say a great deal would have characterized him as weird,” said former high school classmate Nate Heysler.
English teacher Sonja Hluska remembered him as a smart kid with a good sense of humor.
“He was one of my most polite students. He was kind.
“Just a nice, clean-cut boy wanting to succeed. That type that you’d like to mother,” she said. “I just still can’t believe it.”
At college, he was a member of the College Republicans and was fairly unremarkable except for the occasional offensive comment, said ex-classmate Joe Coe.
A college friend, Morgan Houston, recalls that Markoff was hardly the life of the party and somewhat socially awkward. ”"He was never the life of the party,” Houston said, a catch in her throat as she reviewed scenes from her college years. “He was a little awkward, but he was nice … smart.’” Houston did, however, claim that Markoff kissed her once against her will, but they remained friends thereafter. She still obviously has some affection for him.
These stories that the media is printing hardly paint picture of a “predator” as the Boston police have referred to him. By all accounts he was nice and smart and a little awkward. We’ll have to see where the evidence in the case takes the prosecution.
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This is the definition of a psychopath. I used to think that what you see is what you get with people. Not so. Read some of Ann Rule’s true crime books…like the one about serial killer Ted Bundy. He was in law school, seemed like a really nice guy, and Ann, a former police woman, served on a help hotline with him and knew him personally. And yet Ted confessed to killing 30 women and may have killed 100. No one suspected him for the longest time because he was such a “nice” guy.
Reply: I read The Stranger Beside me” (wasn’t that the title?) a long time ago. There was a history that fit with Ted Bundy though, but I just heard that they have a ballistics match so I guess he is the one.
Diane Beeler
April 23, 2009 at 11:10 pm
This just goes to show that we can’t really know what people are really like in their private lives/behind closed doors. I am a therapist and see examples (albeit not generally so heartbreaking, thank goodness) all the time in my work. ALL of us need to be careful these days–sad but true, as it’s much better safe than sorry. Markoff’s fiance really dodged a bullet, what with finding out about his “problems” (to put it mildly) before they actually got married.
Ann-Louise
April 28, 2009 at 12:06 am