The Illicit List: Crime and Craigslist

John Katehis in police custody

Police say Katehis ditched his bloodied garments at Weber's apartment, and wore some of Weber's clothes to board a Queens-bound G train at a nearby subway station. Around 9:15 p.m., a conductor noticed that the young man's hand was bleeding heavily. He arranged for EMS at the next station, and paramedics took Katehis to Elmhurst Medical Center for treatment. He told emergency room cops that he cut his hand on a bottle.

When Weber didn't show up for work Sunday, a coworker tried to call him, but didn't get an answer and called the police. Officers went to Weber's apartment but left when no one answered the door and they didn't spot anything suspicious. The co-worker called the police a second time that morning. When officers returned, a neighbor told them he'd heard water running all night in Weber's apartment and that there was no more hot water in the building.

When the police finally entered the apartment, there was indeed water running in the sink and bathtub. Weber was half-naked in his bed, dead.

Neighbors mourned Weber in the days to follow at Angry Wade's, a Smith Street bar. They left his usual tipple, bourbon on the rocks, on the bar for him. Friday, April 9, more friends and colleagues gathered at another bar, the Blarney Stone on East 33rd Street in Manhattan, to remember him as a dedicated newsmanand a man seemingly without enemies.

By Tuesday morning, Katehis was at a friend's in Middleton. Police searched his computer and talked to family members. His father arranged to meet him at the town's bus depot; police showed up instead. Katehis attempted to flee, but detectives tackled him. He was still wearing Weber's clothes, but the dagger he was carrying wasn't the murder weapon. An unnamed police source at Brooklyn's 76th Precinct station house told the Daily News that Katehis said he'd realized he could "smother someone for $60" but that things "got out of hand."

John Katehis

Katehis was sent to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. He has no prior record. On his Myspace page he described himself as a sadomasochist, an anarchist and a Satanist. He listed violence as an interest, and posted photos of himself posed with an assortment of knives.

Weber's death is controversial; there are those who would blame him for looking for sex onlinepaid, gay sex with a younger man at that. But on Craigslist, sometimes danger comes to those who aren't looking, as Katherine Olson found.