According to witnesses, a Craigslist deal went wrong when two men were held by a young man at gunpoint. The victims’ hands and feet were bound and their mouths were duct taped. Click the following link for more information:

http://www.wsbt.com/news/wsbt-craigslistusertiedupandr-90787384,0,7452991.story

The mother of a New York City woman killed in a Boston hotel by a man police say contacted her through Craigslist says she still hasn’t seen the evidence in the case even though the suspect killed himself in jail six months ago.

Guzman, a 53-year-old immigrant from the Dominican Republic, said she fears her daughter’s killing is no longer a priority to the authorities who closed the case against Markoff in September, about one month after he was found dead at Nashua Street Jail, where he was awaiting trial.

Guzman and her lawyer said the file could provide information that would help them pursue civil complaints against the Copley Marriott Hotel, where Brisman was killed, and the New Hampshire gun shop that prosecutors said sold Markoff the weapon he used to kill the 25-year-old New York woman.

“It’s like it never happened, like there was never a case,’’ Guzman said in Spanish during a telephone interview. “Once he killed himself, they closed the case, but my daughter’s case must keep going because I want justice for my daughter . . . . He may be dead, but I’m still alive. I’m still suffering. She was my life, the light of my life.’’

Click the following link for more information:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/02/28/mother_of_slaying_victim_in_craigslist_case_still_awaits_casework/?rss_id=Boston.com+–+Local+news

As this unfortunate story demonstrates, OkVerify can  be used by both the buyer and the seller during a transaction as both parties can benefit from knowing that assistance will arrive if the encounter becomes unsafe.

A Wisconsin woman looking for New York City housing on Craigslist made an agreement with a 45-year-old man living in Brooklyn: She’d cook and clean in exchange for free rent. But when she arrived this month, she told police, she was handcuffed to a radiator and made to be the man’s sex slave for eight days.

8 days is far too long to wait and often too late. With OkVerify, users in distress can be certain that a loved one or the police will be made aware of their whereabouts so that help will arrive quickly.

To read more about this story, click the link below:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/15/woman-answering-craigslis_n_823678.html

We at OkVerify agree that background checks, while potentially helpful, may provide a false sense of security because every criminal has a first offense and background checks are an account of the past. Use OkVerify to prevent yourself from becoming someone’s first victim.

Use OkVerify not only as a safety tool, but also as an exit strategy from a date that just isn’t working out.

Online daters might expect a certain amount of innocent fudging in others’ profiles. And there is always the risk of encountering the gross liar, whose online self-description has as little to do with the real person as scrubs have to do with the ability to operate.

But many of the women who dated Jeffrey Marsalis say he was much worse than a liar. Cops and criminal prosecutors would come to agree. And after years of frustrating delays and multiple trials, a jury in Idaho have convicted Jeffrey Marsalis on charges that he stalked, threatened, and/or drugged several women.

Click the link below for more details:

http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=8043012&page=3