Close Calls With the Alleged "Craigslist Killer"
Trisha Leffler identified Philip Markoff as her attacker after police showed her surveillance video.
A prostitute robbed by the alleged "Craigslist killer" and a woman who knew the clean-cut med student accused of being the serial sicko are both grateful they did not suffer the same gruesome fate as aspiring model Julissa Brisman.
Las Vegas hooker Trisha Leffler admits she's lucky to be alive after her run-in with accused Craigslist killer Phillip Markoff only a few days before Brisman's murder, according to a report in The New York Daily News. Leffler said she's still breathing because she gave in to Markoff's demands.
"I just complied with everything he wanted me to do," Leffler told Boston TV station WCVB. "And I didn't resist him in any way and I think that's why."
Leffler said she made a date with the suspect on Craigslist on April 10, just four days before Brisman was killed in a Boston hotel.
Markoff allegedly pulled a gun on Leffler at the Westin Copley in Boston and tied her to the doorknob with zip ties, authorities said. He took $800 in cash, a $250 American Express gift card and a debit card from Leffler, but he did not physically harm her in any way, she said.
The 29-year-old Leffler is in disbelief about the Brisman's murder and was shaken up enough to consider dropping the escort business altogether.
"I just hope that they can put him behind bars for the rest of his life," said Leffler, who has a laundry list of prostitution and trespassing arrests in Las Vegas.
But hookers and online escorts aren't the only ones who say Markoff exhibited aggressive behavior toward women.
Markoff was a study partner of Morgan Houston during their time at SUNY Albany. They went out drinking together with mutual friends and had a friendly relationship until he crossed the line coming home from an Albany watering hole one night, Houston told to the Daily News.
"He pushed me up against the wall and tried kissing me," the 5-foot-5 brunette said. "I couldn't physically get him off of me. Thankfully, he wasn't on top of me, but I couldn't push him away."
Fortunately, another male friend walked by and pulled Markoff off Houston that night, she said.
At the time Houston thought Markoff's behavior was brought on by heavy drinking, but in light of details about his recent arrest, she's grateful her other male friend intervened when he did.
"I don't know what would have happened," Houston said
Markoff was arraigned on Tuesday and is being held without bail by Massachusetts’s police. Police are reaching out to the public with the hopes of finding other possible victims.
