Joel Rifkin, A Long Island Serial Killer

Joel Rifkin, A Long Island Serial Killer

Joel David Rifkin was born January 20, 1959. He was born to college student parents that put him up for adoption. Rifkin was adopted by an upper-middle class couple from Long Island. Throughout his childhood, Rifkin always performed poorly in school. His youth was plagued with poor social skills and he was considered an outcast and was constantly tormented by his classmates. During this time and his disconnect from peers, he began fixating and fantasizing about doing harm to women, especially due to his obsession with the Alfred Hitchcock film, Frenzy. He eventually graduated from East Meadow High School in 1977 and moved on to college, where he again had poor grades and moved from college to college, including Farmingdale State College. During his high school career, he began skipping classes and spending time around prostitutes. He eventually left college before earning a degree and moved on to self-employment as a landscaper.

In 1989, Rifkin committed his first murder. His first victim was a 25 year old prostitute named Heidi “Susie” Balch. He picked her up and waited for his mother to leave their family home in East Meadow where he brought Susie. He bludgeoned her with a Howitzer shell, but she continued to struggle, so he strangled her to death. He dismembered her body by removing any identifying aspects, such as teeth and fingertips, and scattered her body parts throughout New York and New Jersey. Although he did his best to hide the remains, her head was found in a paint can in the woods near a golf course in Hopewell, New Jersey just a few days later. Although the remains were found almost immediately, they were not able to identify them until 2013. Over the course of the next four years, Rifkin went on to murder 16 more women.

Rifkin was caught on June 28, 1993 by New York State Police. He was driving on the Southern State Parkway without a rear license plate, which prompted the police to attempt to pull him over. The police’s attempt to pull him over resulted in a high speed chase which ended in Mineola, New York when he crashed into a pole in front of the courthouse. When police got closer to his car, they detected a foul odor from the back of his truck, which ended up being the corpse of Rifkin’s final victim. His final victim was a 22 year old sex worker and dancer, Tiffany Bresciani. Bresciani was also the girlfriend of Dave Rubinstein, member of the 1980’s New York based punk rock band, Reagan Youth.

After his arrest, he was interrogated by homicide detectives. The homicide detectives were able to get Rifkin to describe all 17 of his murders, giving all the names he remembered, and sketching out maps to locations of any remains that were not found yet. He was convicted of nine counts of second-degree murder in 1994. With these convictions, he was sentenced to a total of 203 years to life in prison.

After his interrogation, he was then connected to Heidi “Susie” Balch’s disappearance. Due to his interrogation, police were able to compile this list of victims (in order): Heidi “Susie” Balch, Julie Blackbird (remains never found), Barbara Jacobs, Mary Ellen DeLuca, Yun Lee, “Number 6” (never identified and remains never found), Lorraine Orvieto, Mary Ann Holloman, “Number 9” (identity remains anonymous), Iris Sanchez, Anna Lopez, Violet O’Neill, Mary Catherine Williams, Jenny Soto, Leah Evans, Lauren Marquez, and Tiffany Bresciani(remains found in car during arrest). Also, he supposedly had one victim who survived, Nicole White, but there is no other information available besides her name.

Sources:

“Joel Rifkin.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 12 Apr. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Rifkin.

“Joel Rifkin.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 16 Apr. 2019, www.biography.com/crime-figure/joel-rifkin.