Phillip Markoff - Showing the Internet and Craigslist Are Not All Fun and Games

Phillip Markoff, otherwise known as "The Craigslist Killer" was born February 12, 1986 and died Sunday, August 15th of 2010. He was a former medical student who had been charged with armed robbery and murder. The nickname was coined after he was suspected of meeting his victims off of craigslist, as Wikipedia states.

Markoff was alone in his cell Sunday when he was found, which makes it very likely that this was a suicide rather then foul play, and it also appeared to be from suffocation. His death is still under investigation.

As I see it, Markoff had no reasoning for these assumed crimes other than simple robbery, maybe a dysfunctional way for him to make his way through medical school; however, what enticed him to (presumably, he died in custody before his trial) murder Julissa Brisman is something that only he and Julissa could know, and that is something that they will take to their deaths, if he had been found guilty of the crimes.

Markoff was known as a harmless man, which his ex-fiance stated, but there was obviously some underlying issues that he had. What could turn an otherwise docile medical student into a savage armed killer? It's very hard to think about the fact that Phillip Markoff was going to be in a field where he actually saved lives instead of taking them. Unless, of course, this was an elaborate set up that framed Markoff as the guilty man by some other means. Perhaps blackmail, or threatening proposals, no one will ever truly know.

He was going to get married on Saturday, August 14, 2010. Obviously, he was in custody at the time and his death was on the 15th. It's a mystery whether the pain and regret for what he had been accused and what he had lost was just simply too much to bare, but a man in his situation did not seem to have much reason to live.

His fiance broke the marriage off and told him that it would be a long time before she saw him again, if ever. A crushing blow from one person in Markoff's life that he desperately depended on at the time. He was obviously wrong for the crimes that were committed and despite pleading innocent, there is video surveillance that shows him at the scene of at least one of the crimes.

Markoff was most likely an emotional train wreck after the loss of nearly everything he had in his life, but what could one expect after the accusation of three armed robberies plus a murder?

No matter how bad he felt for what had taken place (whether innocent or not), a person can not just go around robbing and killing innocent individuals. It's this type of animalistic brutal behavior that keeps society from truly advancing the human race as a whole.

Does this prove that sometimes a person just can't keep their animal instincts at bay? Does it prove that we are not that different from any other creature on Earth? That war and dominating is part of our nature as a whole, just as a lion or an alligator? Does it prove this? No, no it doesn't. In fact, this doesn't prove anything about human beings as a whole.

We cannot attach each individual into one group and expect everyone do to the same things and act the same way. There will always be crazy people around. There will always be crime, rapes, murders, and evil aspects of life. What keeps humans advancing as a whole is the fact that we know that everyone is different and that we cannot be afraid of every person we encounter; yet in the same aspect, we do have to be cautious about who we meet, and cannot expect everyone we encounter to be an angel.

Everyone has skeletons in their closet, some just have simply more dangerous and unstable ones then others. In any case, the trial of Phillip Markoff for his assumed crimes will be laid to rest, along with this young man.