Philip Markoff, the suspected "Craigslist Killer" whom police believe killed one woman and robbed at least two others, may have trolled the Internet looking for men to target as well.
Markoff used a Yahoo email address that identified himself as a sex addict to send "explicit emails and photos" to men he found with Craigslist ads labeled "M4T," meaning "men looking for transsexual," the "Today" show reported this morning.
Markoff is accused in the slaying of Julissa Brisman , an Upper West Sider who was found dead April 14 in a Boston hotel after being bashed in the head and shot three times. Additionally, there's evidence connecting him to two other robberies that mercifully didn't end as tragically.
Las Vegas hooker Trisha Leffler admits she's lucky to be alive after her run-in with Markoff only a few days before Brisman's murder. Leffler said she's still breathing because she gave in to Markoff's demands.
"I just complied with everything he wanted me to do," Leffler told Boston TV station WCVB. "And I didn't resist him in any way and I think that's why."
Markoff's fingerprints were found on a wall of the Holiday Inn Express in Warwick, R.I., where a stripper has said she was assaulted and robbed at gunpoint by a man she met through Craigslist, an anonymous police source said on Friday.
The Rhode Island Attorney General is expected to announce more charges this week stemming from the alleged gunpoint robbery, CBS News reported.
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Luckily, surveillance cameras caught a glimpse of markoff arriving at and leaving all three hotels.
A search of the clean-cut medical student's Quincy, Mass., apartment turned up a stash several items belonging to his alleged victims -- including panties, a law enforcement source said Wednesday.
Markoff, who was charged with murder and held without bail Tuesday, has reportedly told his family to "forget about" him, warning them "there is more coming out."
The Boston University medical student said in court papers that owes more that $130,000 in student loans and cannot afford a lawyer.
The document obtained Monday from Boston Municipal Court says Philip Markoff also does not get money from his parents.
Despite all the negative publicity, Craig Newmark, the eponymous founder of Craigslist, says he does not plan to close the "erotic services" section of the Web site.
"Sometimes a bad guy of some sort tries to pull a fast one on our site," he said in an interview that aired Friday night on ABC News. "We don't want it there, it's wrong, and that's why we have the help of the general community and the law enforcement community getting rid of things like that."
