Man Arrested on Murder Charge in Craigslist Masseuse Killing

Medical student is also charged in another attack on a woman who put ad online.

ByABC News
April 20, 2009, 5:10 PM

April 20, 2009 — -- Police arrested a man and charged him with killing a woman who had advertised masseuse services on Craigslist, law enforcement officials announced today.

Philip Markoff, 22, of Quincy, Mass., who was arrested at approximately 4 p.m. today, was also charged in an attack on another woman who had advertised sexual-related services on Craiglist, police said.

He was charged with murder in the shooting death of Julissa Brisman at the Copley Marriott Hotel April 14. He was also charged with armed robbery and kidnapping in an alleged attack on another woman April 10 at the Westin Hotel, according to a statement released by the Boston Police Department.

Markoff is a Boston University medical student who was originally from upstate New York and was engaged to be married, police sources told ABC News.

Police were executing a search warrant at Markoff's Quincy home this evening, sources told ABC News.

The arrest came just hours after Warwick, R.I., police released new pictures of the man they believe is responsible for the attempted robbery of a woman at a Holiday Inn there last week.

Police in both Boston and Rhode Island have said they believe the attacks may have been carried out by the same person.

Earlier today, investigators released a clear photograph of the suspect taken during the most recent attack in Warwick. A series of images show the suspect inside the Holiday Inn Express Hotel last Thursday evening, the scene of an attempted robbery of a woman.

The man seen in the pictures taken in the hotel closely resembles the man seen in a surveillance camera photo that was released after Brisman was found dead in a Boston hotel just days earlier.

Detectives also have a match among plastic zip-tie cuffs used to bind all three women.

Two law enforcement sources told ABC News that the plastic restraints were being investigated after they were used to bind the hands of the victims.

"Detectives are aggressively pursuing a number of promising leads," Boston Police Department spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll told ABC News earlier today, refusing to comment on the plastic cuffs.

The man captured on a series of surveillance cameras in Boston's upscale Back Bay was a 20-something, clean-cut blond man who was seen leaving a luxury hotel where police said Brisman, a masseuse, was shot and killed just moments before in her room.