The XX Factor: What women really think.

If Looks Could Kill

In Dave Cullen’s recent Slate piece about what we learned from Columbine, he writes that “the first lesson is really one that we have unlearned, which is that there actually isn't a distinct psychological profile of the school killer.” Nor, I imagine, is there one for a Craigslist killer, but that hasn’t stopped the CNN morning news anchors from expressing repeated shock that the man who was charged on Monday with the murder of a woman he met on Craigslist is a 22-year-old medical student. An article in the Boston Globe today has the headline “Charges conflict with portrait of clean-cut student,” and the attached photo gallery highlights the issue. It’s not just that he’s a med student. It’s that he’s an attractive, broad-shouldered med student with a big white smile and a well-pressed polo shirt. Just as last week’s Susan Boyle clip drew attention to just how strongly we (especially those girls in the audience!) expect our pop stars to be hyper-groomed, thin and beautiful, the circulating photos of Philip Markoff remind us that, as Cullen mentioned, we still expect killers to be greasy-haired, scrawny, and perhaps trench coat-clad. Well, ugly chicks can sing. And preppy hunks can kill.