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The so-called Craigslist Killer, Philip Markoff, used a “primitive scalpel” to kill himself in a Massachusetts prison over the weekend.
Markoff was awaiting trial in the murder of a 25-year-old New York masseuse Julissa Brisman. Markoff responded to an ad on the popular online bulletin board Craigslist. He allegedly met his victim and shot her dead, then robbed Ms. Brisman. A med student, Markoff was said to owe substantial gambling debts at the time of the murder.
The scalpel was fashioned from a pen and a sharp piece of metal to inflict numerous wounds on himself and, at the same time, smothered himself with a large plastic bag around his neck, the Suffolk County District Attorney, Daniel F. Conley, said on Wednesday.
Conley said surveillance camera footage showed that Markoff was alone in his cell and turned out the light at 1:59 a.m. Sunday and no one had entered his cell until he was discovered some eight hours later.
A corrections officer found Markoff unresponsive at 10:06 a.m. Staff administered CPR and emergency personnel responded quickly, but Markoff was pronounced dead at 10:17 a.m., Conley said.
"I think we can definitively say he was responsible for taking his own life," Conley said.
This is the second high profile suicide involving individuals reported to have had massive gambling debts covered by the Gambling911.com website over the past three months, though Markoff has been serving more than a year behind bars.
This past spring the proprietor of an online gambling sports betting portal, Kenneth Weitzner, committed suicide along with his wife in their posh Chesapeake, Virginia home through use of a charcoal grill and sleeping pills. Weitzner was said to have had gambling debts well over a million dollars.
In the case of both Markoff and Weitzner, it is widely believed that the said gambling debts remain unpaid after both men’s deaths.
Alejandro Botticelli, Gambling911.com
