News stories like this don’t come along every day. Journalists worldwide are bound to cover all the gory details. Philip Markoff will sell hundreds of thousands of newspapers.
What’s so remarkable about Mr Markoff? Here’s a list:
- Handsome and young 23 year old white male;
- Wealthy and privileged - resides in Connecticut;
- Well educated university graduate attending medical school in Boston;
- Romantically involved with a beach-side wedding planned for this summer; and
- Murderer, rapist and robber to pay gambling debts - who met his victims using Craigslist!
Today Markoff is in jail without bail (read details at Associated Press).
In 1986 Robert Chambers killed a woman in New York’s Central Park. He became known as the “Preppy Killer” given his good looks, privileged upbringing and education. Yet back in 1986 we were just getting faxes (honestly) and no one had heard of email. Al Gore hadn’t invented the Internet yet.
So here’s my bold prediction. Markoff will be the stuff of water-cooler conversations and conjecture for months to come. He’ll have hate sites and fan sites and be a top ranked topic on Twitter. His fiancee will recover to sell her story to a tabloid - or if she has a good agent, to People Magazine. We’ll see his apartment, favourite casino, car and dorm room.
And while the victims will be mourned and laid to rest, Markoff will achieve infamy for years to come.
