Last Thursday Philip Markoff was arrested for killing a woman he met through the popular classifieds site Craigslist. Boston police suspect Markoff was meeting women through the site in order to rob them and collect money to pay off a large gambling debt. In the wake of the arrest, the founders of Craigslist, Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster, were interviewed by ABC’s Nightline on their thoughts on the entire situation and how it will affect Craigslist.

For those of you who haven’t heard this story, apparently a woman by the name of Julissa Brisman was found at the Marriott Copely Place hotel in Boston beaten and shot. Brisman was a masseuse who advertised her services on Craigslist, and surveillance video at the hotel as well as fingerprints in the room place Markoff at the scene of the crime. Ballistics on a gun found in Markoff’s home also matches a gun that police found in Markoff’s home- to some extent sealing his fate as the prime suspect in her murder.

This isn’t the first murder to ever be tied to Craigslist, but it certainly puts Craigslist into a spotlight; and not a very good one. Craigslist gets close to 22 BILLION page views a month. People use the site to find their apartment, job, pets, and everything in-between. With all that traffic, and all those posts there’s bound to be a few people who are on the site making posts (or responding to them in this case) with less than reputable intentions.

The ABC interview pictured Craigslist as a breeding ground of sorts for illegal activity, drug sales, and prostitution. You can watch the ABC interview in its entirety here. What do you think about the murder? Do you think it is in any way the fault of Craigslist? What security measures do you think the site could put in place to prevent future tragedies like this one?

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Entry was posted on Saturday, April 25th, 2009 at 8:42 pm under Adult content, Crime, Ecommerce.

Read more entries by Emily Price.
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