Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

By Talia Buford
Journal staff writer

WARWICK, R.I. -- The court file on the so-called "craigslist killer," Phillip Markoff, is thin.

No police reports or witness statements. Really, only a few sheets of paper. But it does contain a piece of information officials have been reluctant to release before: the names of the Rhode Island victims.

According to the secret indictment handed down on Tuesday, Markoff is accused of assaulting Keith Melton with a dangerous weapon, a pistol, and with assaulting Cynthia Melton with the intent to rob her. Both incidents are alleged to have happened on April 16.

Based on the accounts of the crimes previously provided by police and the charges in the indictment, Cynthia Melton, a Las Vegas exotic dancer, called the Warwick police and reported that a man had attempted to rob her. Melton told detectives that she'd arranged to give a lap dance to a man in her hotel room. However, the man bound her and was trying to rob her at gunpoint when her husband, Keith Melton, barged into the room and stopped the attack.The description of her attacker that Cynthia Melton provided to the police matched that of Markoff, who was wanted in the shooting death of 25-year-old Julissa Brisman in Boston two days earlier.

The police also suspected him in the April 10 robbery of a 29-year-old Las Vegas prostitute, Trisha Leffler, also in Boston. When Markoff was named as a suspect, he earned the moniker "craigslist Killer" because the alleged victims had advertised exotic services on the craigslist Web site.

Markoff pleaded not guilty to one count of first-degree murder and six other charges in connection to the Boston cases in Suffolk County Superior Court on June 22. He is awaiting trial at the Nashua Street jail in Boston.

After Markoff's trial for the murder of Brisman and the armed robbery of Leffler in Massachusetts, he will be returned to Rhode Island to stand trial, the Attorney General's Office said.

Video: More charges for accused craigslist killer

With previous staff reports and Associated Press reports.

 Tags  attorney general craigslist killer Phillip Markoff Warwick RI

Comments

mangeek said:

Great job of having an entire post to highlight the names of victims, ProJo. Seriously, outing legal sex workers who are victims of crimes is the most heinous thing the paper could legally do. I think this just totally blows holes in the ProJo's stance against prostitution under the guise of 'helping the victims'.

Link | October 8, 2009 1:04 PM
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Hindsight said:

ditto to mangeek comment. No one was sitting on the edge of their seats waiting to learn of the victim's names in this case.

Link | October 8, 2009 3:57 PM
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