Within weeks, Rifkin faced murder charges not only in Nassau but in the numerous other counties where he had dumped other victims. WebJoel David Rifkin (born January 20, 1959) is an American serial killer who was sentenced to 203 years in prison for the murders of nine women between 1989 and 1993, though he is believed to have killed up to 17 victims in all. After wrestling her body into a plastic trash bag, Rifkin cleaned up the blood and signs of combat in his living room, then lay down and slept for several hours as if nothing had happened. Elaines boyfriend had resisted her earlier suggestion to change his name, but now hes ready to make a switch. "Oh! With no money, Rifkin attempted to hold down a job, but that also became another unsuccessful moment in his life. As per our current Database, Joel Rifkin is still alive (as per Wikipedia, Last update: May 10, 2020). Tune in on Oxygen April 10 to April 18. The confession and the evidence collected from Rifkins bedroom left him boxed in as his first trial approached in Nassau. He raged at Joel, Why cant you do anything to please me? Jeanne Rifkin shared her love of gardening and photography with Joel oblivious to his torment by peers. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! Joel couldnt wait to play the deadly game again. His other victims included Tiffany Bresciani, Julie Blackbird, Lauren Marquez, Mary Catherine Williams, Barbara Jacobs, Yun Lee, Maryann Hollomon, Leah Evens, Violet ONeill, Mary Ellen DeLuca, Lorraine Orvieto, Iris Sanchez, Jenny Soto, and Anna Lopez, Newsday reported. And I didnt want to infringe on the investigation. Evens had been the daughter of a civil court judge and had once attended Sarah Lawrence College. Lees ex-husband identified the body, sparing her from an unmarked grave. Jane Doe #1: Rifkin killed an unidentified woman in December 1991 by strangling her to death during sex. According to the special, he killed 16 more sex workers. After exchanging letters, the former cop, who served the NYPD from 1983 until 2003 when he retired with the rank of Detective Second Grade, decided to visit Rifkin at Attica Correctional Facility. For the key players in the case, contact with Rifkin was life altering. From 1989 to 1993, a serial killer stalked New York City. Rifkin arrived at Attica state prison in February 1996, sporting a black eye from his first assault by fellow inmates while confined on Rikers Island. Rifkin painstakingly covered up his crimes. Stephanie Nolasco covers entertainment at Foxnews.com. Williams, a former cheerleader at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, had struggled with an addiction to crack cocaine after her marriage broke up and often turned to prostitution to help support the habit, according to Newsday. I want to get all these families together and I want everybody to be there in court with me, she said at the time. A 9 a.m. media report cleared up the mystery, and Jeanne phoned her lawyer, who referred her to criminal attorney Robert Sale. The son of unknown parents, he was adopted by Bernard and Jeanne Rifkin when he was three weeks old. I wouldn't sleep with my back to him if I were you, cracks a colleague. Judge Robert Hanophy, passing sentence in the Sanchez case, told spectators: It is not in my power to give Mr. Rifkin the sentence he deserves. An addiction to drugs would derail that dreamand influence herto enter the world of sex workand begin topless dancing, according to Newsday. Orvieto, 28, disappeared in Dec. 1991. Some were on land. Get an all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! After the Giant game, he says, I realized that this this problem isn't going away.. Family: He was living with his mother and sister at the time of his arrest. According to Rifkins complaint, the reports prompted a series of inmate assaults that he suffered in January and February 1996, leading to his confinement in a solitary cell for personal safety. The victims who have been identified, from past Newsday coverage: Privacy Policy |Terms of service |Subscription terms |Your ad choices |Cookie Settings |California Privacy Rights |About Us |Contact Newsday |Reprints & permissions |Advertise with Newsday |Help. Abandoned by the father of her two children, Evens found solace in drugs and worked the streets to keep herself well. Rifkin found her tricking on February 27, 1993, stopping for sex in an abandoned parking lot. Fending off pleas from her sister and husband to move on with her life, not to mention a marriage proposal from a determined suitor, Rory holds fast to what she knows in her heartDawson is still alive. I dont think I could now. His landscaping business had folded by then, his landlord clamoring for $700 in overdue rent. Klein became chief of Nassaus Major Offense Bureau soon afterward. The next to die, Lauren Marquez, was a 28-year-old addict and prostitute, hooked on drugs before she left her native Tennessee for New York City. (Photo by Jerry Engel/New York Post Archives /(c) NYP Holdings, Inc. via Getty Images). Rifkin transferred to the state university at Brockport, a Rochester suburb, in fall 1978. From the Mouth of the Monster. In fact, quite the opposite. Black-painted Bowie clip-point with 14 or 12 saw teeth, 1 Stick Around (Rambo: Last Blood / 2019), 2 Take A Bow (Rambo: First Blood, Part II / 1985), 7 The Grenade With A Real Kick (Rambo III / 1988), 8 Hammer Smashed Face(s) (Rambo: Last Blood / 2019). He researched past crimes for details. He was still so tense when he got out of his car that he said he sprained his back. A failure in athletics, Rifkin joined the yearbook staff, and promptly had his camera stolen. The experience soon explodedinto a full-on addiction, as he blew through all his money picking up hundreds of sex workers. He told investigators he dismembered her body, put it into various buckets filled with concrete, and dropped the buckets into the East River and Brooklyn canal. Rifkin later claimed that he asked for a lawyer at least 20 times and was always refused, investigators telling him he couldnt speak with counsel until you give us one more homicide. The written transcript of his interview, presumably reconstructed from memory, suggests that Rifkin was offered a lawyer and declined. She was missing one earring, later found in Rifkins bedroom stash. Jenny Soto is one of Joel Rifkin's victims. He specifically killed women who were less visible insociety. Is there more than one? He shared his mothers enthusiasm for photography and handicrafts, a brainy child who never quite fit in with other kids his age. That first murder gave way to many more; he killed 16 more sex workers, often dismembering their bodies and disposing of themin the New York area. On the early morning hours ofJune 28, 1993, three days after he had killed Bresciani, Rifkin stashed her body in his car's trunk and headed down the Southern State Parkway to dispose of her, the New York Daily News reported at the time. There was no regret or wanting to bring the victims back. We are now looking for artists, writers and interviewers to take part in the world famous Serial Killer Magazine. Police finally caught up to Rifkin in June 1993, when state troopers spotted his pickup truck without license plates on the Southern State Parkway. Orval was killed by John Rambo after he went into the mountains with his bloodhounds, which he went to use to hunt Rambo down. What actor has been killed the most in movies? He picked Sanchez up in broad daylight, driving her to a Manhattan housing project down by where Macys has the fireworks. After strangling Sanchez during sex, he drove her corpse across the Brooklyn Bridge, seeking a drop-off point. This addictioncrippled him, as he had to to leavecollege before finishing and was unable to ever really hold down a job. Rambo hasnt died and he hasnt found some sort of peace in his life that means hes going to stop fighting. His fantasies about strangling women became more frequent. Later, he recalled the act as very automatic. NASHVILLE TV PRODUCER VERONICA BOZZAS MURDER EXPLORED IN TRUE CRIME DOC: THE WHOLE THING WAS SENSELESS, O.J. Tiffany Bresciani: Rifkins final victim, Tiffany Bresciani, 22, hadmoved to New York from her home in Louisiana to pursue her dream of becoming an actress or singer. Lawrence said preparing for hearings and the trial with Rifkin was bizarre. Joel would not strike again for 15 weeks, and when he did, he would take better care to hide his tracks. "They would suspect a serial killer was on the loose and his car would have easily been spotted by cameras.". Rifkin! she says, inspired by the name O.J. Mary Catherine Williams: Mary Catherine Williams, 31, was linked to Rifkin after some of her credit cards were found among Rifkins belongings, according to a Newsday article from 1993. After graduating from high school, Rifkin, who was particularly interested in horticulture and photojournalism, made several attempts at community college and attended the State University of New York at Brockport, where he worked for a time as a photographer on the school's newspaper The Stylus. Rifkin's prison life In early 1994, it was reported that Rifkin had engaged in a jailhouse scuffle with mass murderer Colin Ferguson. By the time he got home, she was swaddled in tarp and concealed in the trunk. After strangling Lopez in his car, Rifkin drove through the night to Brewster, in Putnam County, and dumped her corpse along I-84. In the trunk was the decaying body of his last victim. And she had fake nails and those were ripped off when she fought him.. Rifkin didn't display the typical signs of a budding murderer. (Glass Entertainment Group). They let him go with a warning. They called him The Turtle, mimicking his slouched posture and slow footsteps, seldom missing a chance to make him the butt of cruel jokes. They are continuously looking for dynamic, speed and competition, always being the first in everything - from work to social gatherings. She woke up fighting for her life, kicking the gear-shift hard enough to snap it off before Joel smothered her. Joel Rifkin was one of the worst serial killers in New York's history, suspected of killing as many as 17 women between 1989 and 1993. Rifkin, a former landscaper, was stopped by police on a routine traffic stop when a Long Island officer noticed his front license plate was missing, CBS New York reports. After listless sex, Susie again asked Joel to take her out in search of drugs. Before the trial, Lawrence said, Rifkin established a better rapport with the prosecution psychiatrist, serial killer expert Eliot Park Dietz, than he did with his own mental health expert, forensic psychologist Barbara Kirwin of Huntington. She appeared to have been dead for several days. When asked about the body, Rifkin said, She was a prostitute. They opened the truck and found Bresciani. This includes ebooks of every book and magazine on the site. Featuring specials about fearsome and fascinating serial killers, its a cant-miss event for true crime fans. (In fact, the latter name is spelled Aholah.) Rifkin called his plan a way of paying back a debt, I guess, and while the idea drew praise from some quarters --including prosecutor Fred Klein-- most objected to Rifkins inclusion of a Motivation Room where residents would be scared straight with photos of hookers murdered on the job. Fred Klein described Rifkin as a sexual sadist who relished his victims suffering: He got caught red-handed, and now hes using and abusing the concept of mental illness. Lawrence called his client a paranoid schizophrenic who lived in the twilight zone, overwhelmed by violent, irresistible compulsions that took control of his life. Rifkin, for his part, snored through much of the prosecutions case, a performance Lawrence blamed on allergies to the bologna sandwiches he ate in jail. He was on his way to dump the corpse near Melvilles Republic Airport, some 15 miles north of his house, when Troopers Ruane and Spaargaren noted his lack of a rear license plate. On the September night he picked up 31-year-old Yun Lee, a Korean native he had been with before, she was his second prostitute in an hour. (Photo by Andrew Savulich/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images). Create your free profile and get access to exclusive content. Throughout the 1980s, Rifkin worked a series of odd jobs around Long Island, seldom staying long at any. Appearing for the state, Dr. Park Dietz--earlier a prosecution witness against Arthur Shawcross, Jeffrey Dahmer and John Hinckley--found Rifkin sick but not insane. In many ways, it was almost like a tsunami.. The victim was prostitute Julie Blackbird, selected for her pseudo-Madonna look. Rifkin drove her home to East Meadow when his mother was again out of town, and they spent the night together. If you are interested in joining our team, contact us at However, a drug problem resulted in sex work to feed her addiction, Newsday reported. Before Rifkin left for college, he drove to New York City where he picked up a sex worker for the first time. Market data provided by Factset. Heidi Balch was identified in 2013. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! Confronting them, she was first told that Joel had been detained after a traffic accident, then that he was jailed for a crime which the officers refused to describe. Many of the victims were never even reported missing, and so police were unaware of the scope of the killing spree. Evens started to undress, then balked, demanding greater privacy. Stephen Urbanski says Balch worked as a prostitute in New York City and used numerous aliases. ", VIRGINIAS HORRIFYING COLONIAL PARKWAY MURDERS CAN STILL BE SOLVED DECADES LATER WITH NEW LEADS, DOC REVEALS, According to Joel Rifkin, it was a '25-cent mistake' that finally led to his capture. He admitted dumping two womens bodies in Suffolk County, but troopers continued to question him, Corcoran said. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. Thirty minutes later, Sale and Rifkin appeared before Judge John Kingston, entering a preliminary plea of not guilty on the Bresciani murder. Joel picked her up on July 13, 1991, and took her home to East Meadow for sex. O.J.! He enjoyed the photography club but turned in his usual lackluster academic performance over the next two years, before dropping out in 1980. Joel David Rifkin (born January 20, 1959) is an American serial killer who was sentenced to 203 years in prison for the murders of nine women between 1989 and 1993, though he is believed to have killed up to 17 victims in all. Hes not the murderer, she reassures. Three months later, he killed Leah Evens and left her in rural Northampton, where her skeleton was found on Mothers Day. It did change me personally, he said. Eftimiades, Maria. Instead, he was a rather meek, unassuming child. Rifkin told authorities he had taken the lives of another 16 women, revealingexactly where he placed the bodies and how he actually had killed them, Ruane said. Failing that, he sought to have the various murder charges consolidated in one Nassau County trial, hoping a hometown jury would be more inclined to find Rifkin not guilty by reason of insanity. Rifkin's lawsuit seeks $50,000 for each of his 1,540 days in solitary confinement (totaling $77 million). The discovery of a serial killer on Long Island came in the midst of a year dominated by bizarre and disturbing stories here it began with 10-year-old Katie Beers still captive in an underground dungeon and ended with Colin Ferguson shooting dozens of commuters going home on an evening train, killing six of them. (Photo by Rick Maiman/Sygma via Getty Images), "If these crimes were happening today, I think the police would have made the connection quickly," he shared. It was finally too much. Rifkin found Orvieto on December 26, 1991, in Bayshore, Long Island. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. His mother chose that month to travel out of state, leaving Joel alone in the East Meadow house. Ten minutes later, with a call for reinforcements on the air, their quarry missed a turn and crashed into a lamp post at a Mineola intersection. What is the current air quality in Salem Oregon? Rifkin consigned her remains to the waters surrounding Manhattan. Some were left abandoned in fields. Despite his confessions and the overwhelming evidence against him, Rifkin pled not guilty at his murder trial. Joel Rifkin, meanwhile, killed 17 people a staggering amount of victims that makes him New Yorks most prolific serial killer. Sale waived application for bond, knowing it was hopeless, but won a two-week postponement of formal arraignment. Following a traffic stop that led to a car chase by police, authorities noticed a rank odor coming from Rifkins car. In February 1987, Rifkin's adoptive father committed suicide to end the pain of cancer, thereby increasing Rifkins depression. Her mother told the newspaper in 1993 that her daughter had been a happy and outspoken child, who later struggled with drug abuse and began to work as a prostitute. The special revealed that while his mother was out of town, he brought her back home. Get the best of Fox News' entertainment coverage, right in your inbox. Her slaying capped his own frenzied acceleration period and left him with embarrassing wounds to explain. There, Rifkin testified himself in a pretrial hearing to contest that his confession was voluntary. "She did not come home this Christmas, so we knew something was wrong.". Rifkin picked her up on Allen Street and drove her to the New York Posts parking lot, where he strangled her at 5:30 a.m. From there, he drove back to East Meadow, stopping at stores along the way for rope and tarp, while Bresciani lay sprawled in the backseat of his mothers car. We used him, to be blunt about it, one of them recalled, years later. After a struggle to get the car started and moving, Rifkin drove Williams to Yorktown, a Westchester suburb, where she was found on December 21, 1992. both were veterans, but Teasle was ruler of his own little fiefdom and wanted to keep it. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. Somewhere along the way, he moved from abstract study of the killers into emulation of their brutal crimes. He parked near a schoolyard fence and strangled her while she performed oral sex, discovering her HIV-positive status when he found a bottle of AZT in her purse. Authorities say 25-year-old Heidi Balch likely was the first victim of Joel Rifkin, who is in prison in New York after admitting he killed 17 women in the early 1990s. In the documentary, readers will learn how Rifkin was a meek, mild-mannered child. Crossing the Line. Theyre intelligent, always seeking more knowledge, and exclusive. Rifkin said. Some were dismembered, others were not. Not much with that one. He followed the same disposal procedure as with Orvieto: back to Long Island, the oil drum and Coney Island Creek. Years of pent-up anger and humiliation craved release. Drawn to the pickups bed by a foul odor, troopers peeled back a blue tarp and found a womans naked, decomposing corpse. Rambos escape made him look bad and so he had to eliminate that insult to his own overblown ego. She was found on October 1, nude except for a brassiere, without ID. In the trunk was the decaying body of his last victim. The habit was expensive and she tricked to keep herself supplied. Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please? Rifkin had apparently forgotten the date of his fathers death and told police he murdered Barbara Jacobs in August 1991, although her body had been found in July. Anna Lopez: Lopezs nude body was found May 25, 1992 in a wooded area off Interstate 84 in Putnam County, according to The New York Times. ", JOHN WAYNE GACY LIKED THE POWER OF DEATH, RETIRED DETECTIVE REVEALS IN DOC: IT MADE HIM FEEL LIKE A GOD, Oxygen's new documentary on Joel Rifkin is part of their 'Serial Killer Week" line-up. He managed to completely slip by unnoticed while committing the most vicious rampage New York had ever seen,capitalizing on his own non-threatening anonymity and pursuingvictims who tended to fall through the cracks of society. Sheriff Teasle hated Rambo because he represented a threat to his own power base. Briefly distracted by a man who passed the car walking a dog, he almost let Marquez escape. A high-speed chase ended in Mineola, where he crashed into a utility pole which was located directly in front of the courthouse in which he would eventually stand trial. Lorraine Orvieto, age twenty-eight, was strangled by Rifkin a few days before Christmas, jammed in a 55-gallon oil drum and dropped into Coney Island Creek, where her body would remain undiscovered for over six months. The break came in 2013 when investigators discovered that Balch, who had been reported missing by her aunt in 2001, had also used the name Susan Spencer. They were able to successfully match her to the remains, according to the AP. He dismembered their bodies and disposed theirremains in the New York area. The whole focus of my life, he later said, was on the streets. Even there he proved inept, robbed by hookers or their pimps at least a dozen times. Joel Rifkin will celebrate 65rd birthday on a Saturday 20th of January 2024. This is a savings of over $100! His reign of terror came to an end on June 28, 1993 after he was pulled overfor a routine traffic stop by New York State Police, who discovered the decomposingbody of 22-year-old Tiffany Bresciani in the back of his pickup truck. It seemed like the only people who noticed him were his childhood tormenters,he thought. Welcome to November, the month when, according to some studies, serial killers and mass murderers are most likely to be born. Long Island psychiatrist Barbara Kirwin deemed Rifkins psychological test results the most pathological she had seen in 20 years of practice. (Robert Mladinich). The 23-year-oldwas wearing only a T-shirt. WebJoel Rifkin is now serving 203 years to life in the Clinton, N.Y. correctional facility. A telephone call from police told 71-year-old Jeanne Rifkin that her son had been detained after a traffic accident. Why not? In case there is such a thing as reincarnation, I want you to spend your second life in prison.. So if a body was found in The Bronx, detectives in Brooklyn might not hear about that for weeks, days, even months sometimes never. He is an actor, known for Alias (2001), L.A. Called The Masseuse, the episode first aired on November 18, 1993. Here is a list of Rifkins victims: Heidi Balch: Authorities believe Heidi Balch was Rifkins first victim but it would take decades before she would ever be properly identified. Whats in a name? It didnt fully come home to me what was happening until later., Things went from bad to worse at East Meadow High School. She vowed at the time to be present in the courtroom to let Rifkin and others know that the victims had been more than sex workers. "We were trying to catch up from the previous 20 years. At the time, there was no more thought than stomping on a bug or a cockroach. WebPrison officials decided in 1996 that Rifkin was so notorious that his presence in the general prison population could be disruptive. A forensic anthropologist was hired to reconstruct the victims face, but Rifkin confessed before the model was finished. It was a half-hearted effort at best. The Orvieto family sued him first, on a civil count for Lorraines wrongful death, and Rifkin responded with a snide handwritten brief, branding his victim an AIDS carrier who may be responsible for the eventual deaths of numerous individuals, crediting her relatives for shared responsibility in what might have been. Next, in November 1997, it was Rifkins turn to sue prison officials and the New York Daily News for branding him HIV-positive. He kind of leaned back and said, One or 100, whats the difference? Corcoran said. They talked about trial strategy and how to present his case.
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