Fiancee Tells Accused Craigslist Killer that Wedding Is Off

Fiancee moves her belongings out of apartment she shared with Markoff.

ByABC News
April 29, 2009, 6:20 PM

April 30, 2009— -- The fiancee of the accused Craigslist killer visited him in jail and told him that their wedding is off, law enforcement sources told ABC News.

Megan McAllister, dressed in black and wearing sunglasses, hurried into the Nashua Street jail to see the suspect Philip Markoff Wednesday for the first time since his arrest. She was accompanied by her mother.

The couple, both med students, were scheduled to get married in a lavish August wedding. But McAllister told him that the nuptials are canceled, sources said.

Markoff, who had earlier been put on a suicide watch and was required to wear paper clothing for his safety, received his former fiancee in a new outfit. He is now dressed in a Ferguson Safety Smock, a cloth gown, sources told ABC News.

McAllister's attorney Bob Honecker confirmed that she visited Markoff in the jail.

"It was an emotional conversation, and she came away from that conversation, I believe, a stronger person, because she made that step," Honecker told "Good Morning America" today. "As this point, obviously, she continues to support her fiance."

Honecker said the fairy tale wedding, its details meticulously listed on a Web site that has since been taken down, is unlikely to ever take place.

"I believe that the wedding that's been planned for August is being dismantled. That wedding will not occur. I can't say whether or not she holds out any hope," Honecker said, adding that Markoff's current situation "makes that unlikely."

While McAllister was visiting Markoff in prison -- reportedly without her engagement ring -- police were discussing the ever-burgeoning pile of evidence they said might seal the deal against the man accused of killing 26-year-old Julissa Brisman after she fought back during a robbery in an upscale Boston hotel, and the robbery of another woman days earlier.

Both women, as well as a third that was robbed in a Rhode Island attack in which Markoff is also a suspect, had advertised erotic masseuse services on Craigslist. Markoff has pleaded not guilty.

A law enforcement source told ABC News Wednesday that police found 16 pairs of women's panties in the home of Philip Markoff, the Boston University medical student charged with the murder of a sex worker who was shot dead in an upscale hotel room.

The panties were hidden under Markoff's bed in the Quincy home he shared with his fiancee. Along with the panties was a large bag with roughly 60 pairs of plastic flex-cuff restraints, the law enforcement source said.

McAllister appeared to be distancing herself from her fiance. Not only has her lawyer said the wedding is now unlikely, but McAllister's public remarks are less adamant than her original fierce declaration of support in which she accused Boston police of "setting up" the man she planned to marry.

If there was any doubt of her effort to break ties with Markoff, McAllister and her parents moved her belongings today out of the apartment she had shared with Markoff. It was underneath the bed in that apartment that police found some of the most incriminating evidence against Markoff.

"Obviously what's been put forth in the media and by authorities is subject to further investigation and it's going to be tested at some point in a court of law," Honecker said. "The family and friends of Megan are supporting her tremendously. I think they realize if some of these allegations were in fact true this may have been a situation where she was fortunate."

As for now, he added, McAllister "will take this day by day and try to move forward with her life."

Clinical psychologist Kelly Sykes told "Good Morning America" that to be told that someone one loved is a murderer is not something anyone could easily accept.

"I would imagine the first thing you're feeling is denial, an unwillingness to accept the reality of what's being given to you," she said. "It turns your life upside down."

McAllister has stuck by Markoff from the beginning, starting with her e-mail to ABC News shortly after his arrest saying her fiance "could not hurt a fly."