A clean-cut medical student engaged to be married was accused yesterday of being the “Craigslist Killer” who sought out female victims on a popular internet site.

Philip Markoff, 22, a second-year student at Boston University Medical School, was charged with murdering a woman at a Boston hotel after answering her Craigslist advert for “masseuse services”. Mr Markoff, a dentist’s son, was also charged with the kidnapping and armed robbery at a second hotel of a prostitute who advertised on the website.

Police are investigating a suspected link to a third attack on an exotic dancer who had also posted a “private lap dance” advert on Craigslist, and other robberies with a similar modus operandi. “There may be other victims out there with a similar MO, a Craigslist MO, and if there are, we want to help you,” Daniel Conley, the Suffolk County district attorney, said. “Our top priority is holding Philip Markoff accountable. He’s a preda-tor.” Mr Markoff was reportedly desperate to pay off gambling debts.

The attacks have cast the spotlight on Craigslist, which has faced criticism for facilitating prostitution with its personal ads. The site recently worked out a deal with 40 US states to reduce anonymity by requiring a credit card to post erotic advertisements. Mr Markoff has no criminal record and is engaged to marry a former university classmate. The couple’s wedding website says that he met Megan McAllister while working in a hospital in Albany, New York State.

“We volunteered at the emergency room together and spent about two months pushing stretchers down hall-ways and bringing blood and urine samples to pathology together before our first date on November 11, 2005!!” the website says. It has a countdown to the couple’s planned “beach ceremony” on August 14 in New Jersey, to be followed by a honeymoon in Tahiti.

Ms McAllister insisted yesterday that her fiancé was innocent. “Philip is a beautiful person inside and out and could not hurt a fly,” she said in an e-mail to ABC News. “We expect to marry in August and share a wonderful, meaningful life together.”

According to the charges, Mr Markoff robbed an exotic dancer at the Westin Hotel in Boston in the small hours of April 10, after answering an ad on Craigslist. Four days later he allegedly shot dead Julissa Brisman, 26, an aspiring model from New York who offered massages in the Marriott Copley Place hotel.

Prosecutors say that Mr Markoff shot her repeatedly in the torso as she tried to flee from the room, where she had a massage table set up.

The first CCTV pictures of the murder suspect were released the next day showing a blond young man texting on his phone as he strolled through the hotel lobbies.

As a torrent of tips flowed in, a third similar attack took place in the neighbouring state of Rhode Island. A stripper from Las Vegas who advertises private “lap dances” on Craigslist was tied up at gunpoint in her room at a Holiday Inn Express hotel. The attacker fled when the stripper’s husband returned.

Kym Direnzo, 23, a neighbour, told reporters that Mr Markoff was “just a normal guy”. He added: “I cannot image he could do something like that.”

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