By Adam Nichols
DNAinfo News Editor
MANHATTAN — The "Craigslist Killer" accused of murdering an Upper West Side masseuse after picking her up on the Internet has died in jail.
Philip Markoff, 24, was pronounced dead at 10:17 a.m. Sunday in Boston's Nashua Street Jail, the lock-up's deputy director Ed Geary told the Boston Herald.
He didn't say where the body was found or give details of how Markoff died. "The matter is under investigation," he said.
But it appears Markoff killed himself. Sources told the Herald he'd apparently suffocated alone in his cell.
The former Boston University medical student from Sherill, in upstate New York, allegedly shot erotic masseuse Julissa Brisman, 26, at the Boston Marriott Copley Place in April last year.
He was also accused of robbing another woman at a different Boston hotel.
Both women met Markoff through ads they ran on Craigslist.
Prosecutors claimed Markoff robbed prostitutes because he thought they wouldn't complain to police.
He killed Brisman, who was also an aspiring actress who lived on West 107th Street, because she fought back, they said.
He had been put on suicide watch last spring when he tried to hang himself with his shoe laces and cut his wrists with a sharpened spoon, the New York Daily News reported.
His trial was set to begin in March next year. He had claimed he was innocent.
His lawyer, John Salsberg, confirmed the death to the Herald.
"Sad to say, it's very true," he said.
"It's shocking and very saddening."