Les MacDonald

Here are some of the reviews for Those Want Ads Can Be Murder.

 

 

 Edit in reviews later

 

 

The chapter list for the book

 

 

Part One: The Legend of Bluebeard

 

Part Two: Murder in the Want Ads

 

1.) Belle Gunness: The Black Widow of Laporte, Indiana

2.) Henri Landru: The French Bluebeard

3.) Albert Fish: The Bogeyman

4.) Dr. Colin Henry Campbell: The Torch Murderer

5.) Harry Powers: The Bluebeard of Quiet Dell

6.) Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez: The Lonely Hearts Killers

7.) Inez Brennan: It’s a Family Affair

8.) Nannie Doss: The Lonely Hearts Husband Killer

 

Part Three: The Two Harvey’s

 

1.) Harvey Carignan: Harv the Hammer

2.) Harvey Glatman: The Glamour Girl Killer

 

Part Four: The Craigslist Killings

 

1.) Philip Markoff

2.) Rashon Abernathy, Shaquille Jordan and Seandell Jones

3.) Dr. Ali Salim

4.) Richard Beasley and Brogan Rafferty

5.) Alexander Lyons and Lamar Clemons

6.) Dao Xiong

7.) Michael John Anderson

8.) Reece, Higashi and Knight

9.) Miranda Barbour

 

 

 

                                                 Introduction

 

 

 

  Long before there was internet dating and meetings set up via email, there were lonely hearts clubs and matrimonial bureaus. They served pretty much the same

purpose as the online dating sites that we see today. Just like today’s internet, the lonely hearts clubs were also a hunting ground for predators. For every person out

there looking for love, there is one that is looking to take advantage of the

vulnerable.

  

   Belle Gunness was one of the very first to use the want ads for her own nefarious purposes. Belle pretended to be looking for love when all she really coveted was the men’s money. If a man with means traveled to Laporte, Indiana to meet Belle,

chances are he would remain in Laporte, Indiana. There have been many changes

since Belle ran her first ad in a Chicago newspaper more than a century ago. There

are still lonely hearts clubs that cater to those looking for love or a reasonable

facsimile but the internet is by far and away the quickest and most popular way to meet someone new these days. It is the same with the want ads. There are still classified ads in the newspapers but new online entities such as Craigslist are

now the easiest way to buy, sell and swap items and services.

  In Those Want Ads Can Be Murder, we go all the way back to the early part of the

20th century to take a look a some of the early predators who used the want ads

in a way that they were most certainly not intended to be used. We start with Belle Gunness way back in 1908 and end up with Miranda Barbour in 2014.

 

 

 Here is the chapter on Phillip Markoff

 

 

                                                   Philip Markoff

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

   Philip Markoff is probably the first murderer to receive the moniker of the

Craigslist Killer. He just doesn’t fit the profile of your typical killer. There were no

early indicators or red flags to suggest what was to come. People remember him

as a child being well behaved and good in school. In his teens, he participated in activities and was fairly popular. He didn’t date a lot but was a good looking young man who enjoyed bowling and golf. He was goal oriented and had a more serious

side. He was studying to be a doctor and put in many hours volunteering in the emergency room at the local hospital. The future looked bright. At the hospital, he

met Megan McAllister who asked him out. Philip accepted and the two quickly

became an item. After they both graduated from college, Philip and Megan moved

to Boston where Philip had been accepted at Boston University Medical School. In

2008 Philip proposed and Megan accepted. Megan put her plans for medical school

on hold and shifted het attention to planning the wedding which was to take place

on August 14, 2009.  Megan didn’t know it but Philip was in a world of trouble. He

had student loans and gambling debts in the $150,000 range. He had been living his

life on credit. Even the rent was being paid by credit cards which were close to be maxed out. No one could have possibly known the lengths that Philip was prepared

to go to get money. They would find out in the spring of 2009.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                Philip Markoff with his fiancee Megan

 

 

 

   Trisha Leffler had placed an ad on Craigslist offering massages. It was possible

that she was offering more but for the purposes of this story we need not go

there. A man answered the ad and they agreed to meet at the Westin Hotel on

April 10. When they met, the man had a gun and robbed Trisha. She didn’t know it

then but she got off lucky. Four days later Julissa Brisman was not so lucky. She was found dead in her room at the Marriott Hotel. The police learned that she was

meeting a man known as Andy who was replying to an ad on Craigslist.

 

  Two days later another woman was attacked at a Rhode Island Holiday Inn. Cynthia Melton told police that the man had responded to her ad on Craigslist. Meanwhile investigators in Boston were checking out the murder victim’s phone records and email accounts. She had exchanged emails with a man known as Andy. The emails were traced to a computer owned by Philip Markoff. The investigators also had security camera footage of a man in the Marriott and also of a man in the Holiday Inn on Rhode Island. When they compared videos, they realized that it was one man responsible for both attacks. The man in the videos was none other than Philip Markoff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                            Julissa Brisman

 

 

 

   Cynthia Melton and Trisha Leffler both identified Markoff as their attacker. On April 20, 2009 Philip and Megan were driving when they were pulled over by the police. Philip was informed that he was being arrested for the murder of Julissa Brisman. Megan was convinced that the police had got it all wrong. There was no way that Philip, the man that she was about to marry, could commit cold blooded murder. She wrote to the media telling them how the police had arrested and charged an innocent man. “Unfortunately, you were given wrong information as was the public," McAllister told ABC News in an e-mail. "All I have to say to you is Philip is a beautiful person inside and out and could not hurt a fly! A police officer in Boston (or many) is trying to make big bucks by selling this false story to the TV stations. What else is new?? Philip is an intelligent man who is just trying to live his life so if you could leave us alone we would greatly appreciate it. We expect to marry in August and share a wonderful, meaningful life together." But then came the evidence.

 

   In Markoff’s apartment that he had been sharing with Megan, they found a treasure trove of evidence. They found a gun in a hollowed out book. The gun had been purchased using the name Andrew Miller, “Andy”. They found duct tape which matched that which had been used in the attack on Trisha Leffler. They confiscated a laptop which still contained emails to and from Julissa Brisman. Last, but certainly not least, they found 16 pairs of panties under the mattress. Cynthia and Trisha identified four pairs as belonging to them. The other 12?

 

  On April 29 Megan visited Philip in prison and broke off the relationship telling him that he probably would never see her again. She did however visit him one more time, in June. Megan told him that she was going to go to medical school in the Caribbean. This was what she had planned to do before she had met Philip. The trial was to begin in July 2010 but was postponed until July 2011. It would never take place. On August 15, 2010, a year and a day after he was supposed to marry Megan, Philip committed suicide in his cell. He had managed to put together a primitive scalpel from a pen and a sharp piece of metal. He hacked at himself while, at the same time, suffocating himself with a plastic bag over his head. The suicide drew attention to the fact that the suicide rate in Massachusetts prison is four times higher than the national average.

 

   The last word goes to DA Daniel F. Conley: “With Philip Markoff’s final actions,

the Brisman family have been deprived of an opportunity to hear a verdict

rendered, to see justice pronounced and even to tell the court and Mr. Markoff -

face to face-what Julissa meant to them and the immeasurable pain and loss that he inflicted upon them.”

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                           Copyright by Les MacDonald 2014