Surveillance video from the Copley hotel showed a young man walking calmly and looking at his cell phone. Trisha quickly recognized him as the same man who had robbed her. But now he had murdered a woman. The connection was enough for the media to dub him the “Craigslist Killer.”
Two days later, a stripper working under the name of “Amber” placed an ad on craigslist offering private lap dances for $200 in her hotel room at the Holiday Inn in Warwick, Rhode Island. One of the men who responded to the ad knocked on her door. When she checked him out through the peephole, he was young and handsome. She didn’t think twice about opening the door and inviting him in.
But when he closed the door, he turned and pointed a gun at her. He looked nervous, and his hand was shaking along with the gun.
“I’m broke,” he said. “I don’t want to kill you. I just need cards or money.”
When she told him that she would give him whatever he wanted, he took zip ties out of his pocket, tied her wrists, and then made her sit on the ground while he ransacked the room.
Her cell phone began to ring again and again. He wanted to know who it was. She didn’t reply. Suddenly, the ringing stopped. Amber knew it was her husband, who was also her business manager. He always called when she was with a client to make sure everything was okay. When she didn’t answer her cell phone, he knew something was wrong.
Amber’s husband ran to his wife’s room from the hotel lobby, and as he approached, the door opened. A young man came out with a gun pointed at him. Neither man said a word. Amber’s husband ran in one direction, the robber in the other, and Amber slammed the door shut with her elbow. She called hotel security; she knew she had been attacked by the Craigslist Killer.
Amber identified the man in the hotel surveillance video as the same young man in the lobby and stairwell of the Boston hotels.
The police from Boston and Warwick wanted to find the Craigslist Killer before he struck again. Although the photos clearly showed the killer’s face, the police couldn’t identify him yet.
The big break came when one of Julissa’s friends found an email exchange she had with her 10 PM appointment, the man who turned out to be her killer. When Boston police examined the email files and opened the headers of the email to identify the IP address, they were able to trace the computer to an apartment in Quincy, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. The apartment belonged to Markoff.
Police weren’t sure whether Markoff was actually the Craigslist Killer. After all, he was a second-year medical student. To be certain, they set up a stakeout in front of Markoff’s apartment building.
On April 19, Markoff left the apartment building with Megan, and headed for a car parked on the street. He perfectly matched the description of the man in the surveillance videos.
An officer noticed during the surveillance that Megan appeared to be flirting with Markoff, but he brushed her off. While one officer was busy calling Trisha, who had moved from Boston to New York City, to see if she could identify Markoff in a lineup at the station, the other officers watched Markoff and Megan, toting a small suitcase and knapsack, get into their car.
The police scrambled to keep an eye on Markoff as the car headed south on I-95. The couple was on their way to Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut. Meanwhile, police arranged for Trisha to meet a New York City detective to see if she could identify Markoff in a collection of photos. She did.
Police surrounded Markoff’s car just south of Boston on I-95 and told him, “We have a warrant for this automobile and we need to take it back to Boston and you need to come with us.”
During the ride to the police station, Megan asked Markoff several times what was going on, but he wouldn’t respond. By the time they finally arrived at the Boston police station, she was frantic. The police put the couple into separate rooms, at which point Markoff asked for a lawyer. He was read his Miranda rights and told he was under arrest for kidnapping, armed robbery, and murder. Within minutes, he was booked and put into a holding cell. In a nearby room, Megan burst into tears when she learned her fiancé was under arrest.
For Trisha, it was good news. “As soon as they told me they had him in custody, I just started crying. I was very, very happy,” she said. “It was like a weight had been lifted off my chest to know that he had finally been caught … and he can’t hurt anybody else.”
Everyone who knew Markoff and his family were shocked as details of his arrest hit the news media. Some of his friends set up a Facebook group in his defense: Philip Markoff Is Innocent Until Proven Guilty.
Megan, who went to stay at her parents’ house in New Jersey, couldn’t believe Markoff had killed anyone, and defended him. “This is not the Philip Markoff that I know. … Philip is a beautiful man inside and out and would not hurt a fly.”
But the evidence against Markoff kept mounting. Police found the gun used to kill Julissa in Markoff’s apartment in a copy of Gray’s Anatomy, a medical reference book that Markoff had hollowed out. During the investigation, police discovered that Markoff had used a fake ID to purchase the gun in New Hampshire in February 2009, which showed planning and premeditation on his behalf. Ballistic tests confirmed that his gun was the weapon used to kill Julissa.
Police found plastic zip ties similar to the ones used in the crimes, as well as several pairs of women’s panties hidden in the apartment.
Then more stories about Markoff materialized. A former female friend of Markoff’s recalled how Markoff once pushed her against the wall as he tried to kiss her in her apartment building.
“And I was saying, ‘No, Phil,” she said. “You know, we’re just friends. What are you trying to do?’” She recalled that she tried to push him away. “And he was being forceful, and I physically couldn’t get him off of me.”
One of her friends arrived at the scene just in time to pull Markoff away from her. When he left the building, she shrugged off the incident, blaming the amount of alcohol they had both consumed earlier that evening. After Markoff was arrested, she wondered what might have happened if her friend hadn’t come along that night.
A transvestite who had advertised on craigslist also contacted the police, claiming that he had exchanged emails with Markoff, who was using the screen name “sexaddict5385.” Variations in that screen name led to other discoveries. “Sexaddict5385” was linked to a website called ALT.com for individuals interested in sexual encounters of an “adventurous” nature, including sadomasochism, bondage, and fetishes. The profile of “sexaddict5385” listed the use of chains, collars, leashes, and experimentation with transvestites among the user’s interests. A photo of a man’s naked torso was later confirmed by Boston police as Markoff’s.
More than a few people were surprised to learn that Markoff was interested in acting as the submissive partner in a sadomasochistic homosexual tryst, given his track record as a heterosexual aggressor, but there was little doubt it was true. Related profiles were found on other websites, including gayclublist.com, passion.com, and extremerestraints.com. Although they couldn’t be attributed directly to Markoff, the dates the accounts had been opened along with the supplied birthdates, screen names, and interests presented a consistent pattern.
In June 2009, a Boston grand jury indicted Markoff on first degree murder for Julissa’s death and on the kidnapping and robbery of Trisha. He pled not guilty.
Markoff’s fiancée visited him only two times while he was in jail; during her final visit, she said goodbye, telling him she had no idea that he had led a double life and couldn’t believe she came so close to marrying a murderer.
On August 14, on what would have been their wedding day, Markoff carried out his carefully planned suicide. He had made a knife from a pen and piece of metal, according to Boston district attorney Dan Conley, then made a series of small wounds and deep cuts on his neck, arms, wrists, and ankles, using his medical knowledge to ensure his suicide was a success. His cuts included severing the femoral artery in one leg and the carotid artery in his neck. He wrapped a g
arbage bag over his leg to conceal the blood, and then put another bag over his head after stuffing paper towels down his throat to make it difficult to resuscitate him.
Over the jail cell door, Markoff had taken the time to write two words in his own blood: “Megan” and, just below that, “pocket”—a pet name they had for each other.
Markoff didn’t leave a suicide note, which left some to speculate that he killed himself so Megan wouldn’t have to testify at his trial. It seemed to many that he loved her, judging from the photos spread out all over his cell. Just as many believed he was being selfish, looking for the quickest way out.
The day after the suicide, Markoff’s brother posted these words on his Facebook page: “Rest in peace, Phil. I will always love you.”
Megan went on to medical school in the Caribbean, far from the media’s eye but never far enough away from the haunting memories of a man she once loved who turned out to be the Craigslist Killer.
***
The Craigslist Killer didn’t stop others from poring over the ads in the popular go-to site where people hope to connect with others or make a quick sale. For one family in Washington State, trying to sell a diamond ring cost them the life of one of their family members.
“Where’s the safe? Where’s the safe?” the young man screamed, waving a gun.
Confused, Jim Sanders stood and stared at the intruder in his Edgewater, Washington, home.
“I don’t have one,” Jim said, and the intruder began hitting and kicking him.
Just minutes before, at 9:00 PM on April 28, 2010, Jim had opened his front door and found a young couple on his front porch. The woman explained that she had called earlier about the heirloom diamond ring that Jim had advertised on craigslist. Jim hesitated for a moment, but the young man made sure that Jim could see that he had enough cash to pay for the ring on the spot. So Jim invited them into the house. The couple explained that they wanted to buy the ring as a Mother’s Day gift and wanted to know more about it. Jim couldn’t answer some of the questions, so he called his wife, Charlene Sanders, to join them in the kitchen.
As soon as Charlene was standing beside her husband, the young man pulled out a gun and told the couple to lie face down on the floor. His female accomplice tied their hands behind their backs with plastic ties.
Charlene and Jim told the intruders that their two sons, James Jr., 14, and Chandler, 10, were upstairs. But by this time two other men had made their way into the house, found the boys upstairs, and forced them at gunpoint into the kitchen. Both boys were ordered to lie face down on the floor next to their parents.
The men began kicking Charlene and told her to stop looking at them. One of them pointed a gun to her head, taunting her, “Three, two …”
Charlene remembers saying to herself, “Please, God, don’t let them kill me in front of my kids.” She began crying and said, “Just take what you want. Just don’t kill us.” But her pleas fell on deaf ears.
Days later, when a policeman stopped a car for a routine traffic violation in Daly City, California, a tale of murder began to unfold. The traffic stop turned out to be anything but routine: The police officer saw a bag of marijuana and a handgun on the car seat. The drugs and the gun were enough to arrest the driver and his two passengers—Kiyoshi Higashi, 22; Amanda Knight, 21; and Joshua Reese, 20—and hold them at the San Mateo (CA) County Jail for further questioning.
While the trio was being booked, a staff member at the San Mateo jail remembered hearing the news about a shooting in Washington State. Something about the threesome in the holding cells seemed to resonate with her. She talked to her boss, and her hunch turned out to be spot-on. But she didn’t move fast enough. One of the suspects, Knight, had already posted bail and was headed back to Washington.
While the police were busy trying to trace Knight’s whereabouts, she turned herself in to the Sumner Police Department in Washington just days later, on May 4. She didn’t have much choice. Photos of her were plastered all over the television news and in the local papers; she had literally become the news of the day.
“You know who I am. You have the pictures of me,” she said to the Sumner police, adding that she was “involved in the murder—the one in Edgewood.” With that, police escorted her to an interrogation room and began questioning her. It wasn’t long before Knight confessed on videotape to her involvement in the crime. When she had finished telling her side of the events, she put her head in her hands and sobbed.
She said it all started with an ad for an heirloom diamond ring that was posted on craigslist in the Puyallup/Edgewood, Washington, area on April 23, 2010. The stunning ring showcased a six-prong gold solitaire setting with brilliant-cut and baguette-cut diamonds totaling just over a caret and appraised at $2,760. The owner’s home and cell phone numbers were listed underneath the ad. Little did Jim know that he had given these intruders a road map to his place. Jim had sold other items on craigslist before and never had any trouble. But this time, it was different.
The robbers had only one mission: to gather all the treasure they could find. But Jim wasn’t helping. The first intruder was obviously agitated and hit Jim repeatedly in the head with a gun. James Jr. tried to protect his father, but the robber pistol-whipped him too, and he fell to the floor. While James Jr. was being attacked, the diversion gave Jim a chance to break the plastic ties around his wrists and jump on one of the robbers. During the scuffle, one of the other robbers shot Jim and dragged him out of the room.
The report from the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department later noted that, “The suspects then drug … James from the kitchen to the living room where he was shot several more times.”
During the shooting, Knight was busy going from room to room, stealing credit and debit cards, cell phones, iPods, ID cards, and, of course, the heirloom ring. She took Charlene’s wedding band off her finger and kicked her in the head before the gang left the house.
Once the home invaders were gone, Charlene ran to her husband’s side. “I just kept saying, ‘Honey, please stay with me, stay with me, stay with us, don’t go, don’t go’ and he was just barely gasping for air.” At 9:28 PM, Chandler dialed 911 and told the operator, “My dad’s been shot.” But by then, Jim had died in his wife’s arms.
The next day, the local police launched a search for the suspects, who they believed were tied to another craigslist ad robbery 60 miles away in Lake Stevens. The facts in the case were remarkably similar: The robbers tied the couple up, while two men stole a flat-screen TV that had been advertised on craigslist, as well as other electronic gear, money, and jewelry. The two men matched the descriptions that Charlene had provided of the men who terrorized her family along with the descriptions of the couple who had first entered the house.
The police conducted their initial search of the area and found several of the items that had been taken from the Sanderses’ home near an off-ramp by a local highway.
Within the hour, Pierce County detectives arrived at the Sumner police station to question and pick up Knight. After the police talked to Knight, they apprehended Higashi and Reese, who were extradited to Washington State. The fourth suspect, Clabon Berniard, 23, turned himself in to the King County Jail in Seattle on May 6.
Derek Sanders, Jim’s brother, was relieved that the suspects were apprehended so quickly. “We were worried that this might be something that went on for months and possibly years,” he said. All four suspects were charged with first degree murder, two counts of robbery, and two counts of assault. Knight was sentenced to 71 years, Reese 100 years, Higashi 123 years, and Berniard 123 years.
While Higashi would eventually be charged with firing the shot that took Jim’s life, at the time, Pierce County prosecuting attorney Mark Lindquist said it didn’t matter who pulled the trigger; the four men would all face what he calls a “functional life sentence.”
“It’s really sad that there’s so much evil,” Charlene later told reporters. “I mean there’s a lot of good in this world—and
I’ve seen the good—but when I saw [Knight] I started to shake because I thought, ‘Oh, they took my husband from me.’”
“You love your family,” said Jim’s father. “You can lose them in an instant. Just take them and hold them while you can and appreciate every moment you have with them. He always said he’d protect his family, he always told the boys he would protect his family, and he died protecting his family.”
Jim and his family were so well-liked in the community that a local group generated $25,000 through a fundraiser to help the family.
An irony in this case is that one of the perpetrators, Berniard, had received the Citizen Lifesaving Award from the Skyway Fire Department for saving the lives of two elderly women 3 years earlier, having alerted the women to a house fire in 2007.
One of the women remembered Berniard and described him as a “very respectable, honorable young man” for his actions that day. When she found out he was a suspect in the craigslist murder, she said she just couldn’t believe it was the same man.
On May 10, Pierce County sheriff’s detectives recovered the heirloom diamond ring that Jim had advertised on craigslist at a pawn shop in San Francisco.
“They took the love of my life, my future,” said Charlene. “They ripped my home apart,” all for a diamond ring.
Surveillance footage of Philip Markoff at the Westin Copley Place in Boston [Courtesy of Paul de la Rosa, Seven Days of Rage: The Deadly Crime Spree of the Craigslist Killer]
John Salsberg, Markoff’s defense attorney [Courtesy of Paul de la Rosa, Seven Days of Rage: The Deadly Crime Spree of the Craigslist Killer]
Holiday Inn in Warwick, Rhode Island, where Markoff attacked his second victim [Courtesy of Paul de la Rosa, Seven Days of Rage: The Deadly Crime Spree of the Craigslist Killer]
True Crime Online Page 15