Here is an odd article I saw on the Boston Globe site:
Behind 'perfect life,' a darker side
Ex-lab partner details Markoff mood swings
By most accounts, Philip Markoff's life had all the hallmarks of a solid middle-class existence. He grew up in upstate New York, where his father was a dentist, his mother worked in a casino, and he played basketball with his brother in the driveway. High school acquaintances said he was a smart, if slightly nerdy, student who excelled in science, made the honor roll, and liked to bowl.
But a lab partner who worked closely with Markoff at Boston University School of Medicine in recent years said Markoff was troubled by profound mood swings. He came to class sometimes in seemingly intractable depressions, which worried Tiffany B. Montgomery to the point that she considered alerting school counselors that he might be suicidal.
Montgomery said she is "not even remotely surprised" that authorities have charged Markoff with the murder of Julissa Brisman, who advertised on the "erotic services" section on Craigslist. "He just wasn't right in the head, and I knew it, and probably other people did, too," said Montgomery, 26, who spent hours with him each day in the lab.
"My friends from the lab group have confirmed that 'you weren't the only one feeling that way,' " she said. "I got the impression he was really disturbed."
Montgomery, who dropped out of medical school last February because of financial problems, said Markoff's mood swings alarmed her.
"One day, he'd be warm and friendly and smiling," said Montgomery, who now works as a biotech consultant in Boston. "And the next day you'd see him and the clouds had rolled in. And you'd say to yourself, 'This is the 50 percent of the week when it's the upset, brooding Phil, and not the smiling happy Phil.' "
Still, in the outlines of Markoff's life, there was little to suggest the man described by police as a violent predator who looked for women on Craigslist, bound them with plastic ties, and robbed them at gunpoint. Markoff seemed to have the "perfect life," in the words of one friend: he was the small-town boy gone to the city for medical school, engaged to the girlfriend he had been dating since college, and planning a wedding on the Jersey shore in August. He had no criminal record and just one driving violation in Massachusetts, where he was cited for failing to stop in Roxbury in April 2008, authorities said.
Investigators have raised the possibility that Markoff had a gambling problem that may have motivated his alleged crimes. They based the theory, in part, on the fact, they say, that Markoff and his fiancee, Megan McAllister, were driving to Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut when they were stopped on the highway in Walpole Monday.
Markoff's high school friends in Sherrill, N.Y., a hamlet east of Syracuse, said he liked to play "penny poker" and may have gambled occasionally at Turning Stone Resort and Casino in nearby Verona, where his mother worked in the gift shop. In his high school yearbook, Markoff boasted of his gambling prowess, saying: "I bequeath my poker playing skills to Andy Finley, so he won't lose his dad's house." In his senior year at the State University of New York at Albany, friends said, he played poker three or four times a week but not for money.
"There was nothing that really stood out about him; he was just, like, there," said Joe Coe, 23, who spent time with Markoff in Coe's dorm room at SUNY Albany. He described Markoff as an "average guy" with conservative politics. "Occasionally he was funny, occasionally he was loud, but there was no defining characteristic."
Markoff's grandfather, Jerome, a lawyer in Maryland, said his grandson is innocent.
"This is not my grandson," Jerome Markoff said. "I know my grandson. I hate to see a rush to judgment. I hate to see it.
"He's a wonderful boy, just absolutely wonderful, and couldn't be better," he added. "I'm proud of him and proud of his abilities as a medical student. He always wanted to be a doctor."
Matthew Paulini, who knew Markoff at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill High School, recalled "a pretty sociable and pretty smart guy" who liked to crack jokes and "shoot the breeze."
"The closest thing he would ever get to getting angry was everyday stuff, like we'd be on the bowling team and he'd go to pick up a spare and he'd be kind of angry if he missed, but it was never anything violent," Paulini said.
After graduating from high school in 2004, Markoff roomed with Ryan Meikle during freshman orientation week, and the two later took chemistry and biology classes together. Markoff "might have been a little bit of a perfectionist," in his studies, Meikle said.
"I thought he was a little geeky, but he did have a social life and he went out to bars," Meikle said. In 2005, Markoff's sophomore year, Markoff met McAllister, a senior, in an emergency room near campus where they volunteered.
Markoff graduated with a biology degree in 2007, and enrolled in medical school. He lived for a time on the first floor of an apartment building in Dorchester before moving to Quincy with McAllister in July, neighbors in Dorchester said.
In November 2007, before an important exam, Markoff told Montgomery, his lab partner at the time, that he had spent the weekend visiting his girlfriend in New Jersey and had been arguing with her. Montgomery was surprised to hear he had a girlfriend.
"Up until that point, he'd never even mentioned her," she said. "I met him in August, and we're here in November, and this is the first time he's mentioned this woman."
She said that despite the hours they spent together, she and Markoff never became close. Markoff would come to lab and put his head on the desk for 10 minutes. He "would talk when spoken to but wouldn't open up conversations," she said.
"Everybody's right when they say he was nice," she said. "He was nice. But he was definitely strange, and he was strange in a dark way."
Maria Cramer of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Michael Levenson can be reached at [email protected]
Very sad that someone seems to have a seen a problem.
Nice.
