is joel rifkin still alive

Before Rifkin left for college, he drove to New York City where he picked up a sex worker for the first time. assessed at 128, but struggled academically in school due to severe dyslexia. This is someone whos trying to show you to be a sadistic killer., Joel Rifkin listens to the guilty verdict against him in Nassau County Court in Mineola on May 9, 1994,in the killingof Tiffany Bresciani. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. Rifkin found her on Jamaica Avenue in Queens and drove her around New York until sunrise, shelling out $150 for drugs at various stops. Please enter valid email address to continue. The 31-year-olds body was later found inside a plastic bag, stuffed into a cardboard box and thrown into the Hudson River. Married to a pro football player in 1986 and divorced the following year, she had come to New York in search of an acting career, but wound up doing drugs and living on the streets. Her severed head was found in March 1989 on a New Jersey golf course, but for almost 25 years investigators were unable to positively identify the remains because Balch hadused various names and Social Security numbers. Another colleague chimes in, adding Hey, Elaine, listen. "He said he wanted to feel some remorse or feel some humanity towards them. Rifkin initially told investigators that he'd driven to New York City in 1989 to pick up a prostitute named Susie, according to a 2013The Associated Pressarticle. They cite physical evidence and Rifkin's statements in linking Balch's killing to him. There was ample room for Jane Doe in the barrel, safely hidden for their ride to the South Bronx, where Rifkin found a district rife with junkyards and rolled her into the East River. It did change me personally, he said. When authorities searched Rifkin's East Meadow home, they found all the evidence they needed:clothing, jewelry, drivers licenses, library cards, and credit cards belonging to approximately 10 women. What it gave me was that he liked to be in control. Rifkins selection process was erratic, sparing most of the hookers he patronized on a near nightly basis, prompting him to kill others on a whim. Family members of his victims either could not be reached or declined to comment. Rifkin could not recall the name of number six, murdered a few days shy of Christmas 1991. At this time he became increasingly obsessed with violence, murder, and prostitution. They had destroyed themselves through their lifestyle. Oxygen Insider is your all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! Another time, Rifkin made it as far as a local pizza parlor with his date, but the same bullies chased them out, pursuing the couple on foot until Joel and the girl found refuge in a public library. During questioning, Rifkin described her death in clinical detail, but his emotional detachment was not the worst part of the confession. In 1965, the family settled in East Meadow, where Joel would spend most of his remaining years. Weary of the pain by February 1987, he took a massive dose of barbiturates and died after four days in a coma. Aside from books and magazines (no more than 10 per isolation cell), Rifkin had lawsuits to amuse himself. Some were in water. "Joel was very calm about it," Mladinich continued. (Robert Mladinich), "I wanted to reach out to him right away after the arrest," Mladinich told Fox News. 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. By that time, Ruane and Spaargaren had smelled his reeking cargo, moving toward the rear bed of the truck, where something long and thick was wrapped in plastic, bound with rope. Doubling back from there, he returned to Manhattan, pitching the arms and torso into the East River. He expressed a similar view in an interview with the New York Daily News in 2010: "No family "They can be gone six or eight months, and no one is looking," he said. Rifkin was transferred at once to the Nassau County Correctional Facility in East Meadow. The oil drum worked so well for Rifkin that he purchased several more for use as makeshift coffins. Rifkin refused, strangling her when she started to cry. He has been married to Iva Rifkin since August 28, 1966. "You think of people as things.". In the trunk was the decaying body of his last victim. The pickup truck Joel Rifkin was driving when he was caught sits at New York State Police Headquarters in Farmingdale on June 28, 1993. Credit: Newsday/Jim Peppler. He didn't wet the bed or torture animals or start fires. "I don't know. Oh please, please, please change your name to O.J.! Joel Rifkin was born in the Year of the Pig. Thanks to its ruling planet Mars and the fact it belongs to the element of Fire (just like Leo and Sagittarius), Aries is one of the most active zodiac signs. The son of unknown parents, he was adopted by Bernard and Jeanne Rifkin when he was three weeks old. Credit: Newsday/K. It was a half-hearted effort at best. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Is The New York Review the same as the New York Review of Books? The Associated Press contributed to this report. (Photo by Andrew Savulich/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images). trends.embed.renderExploreWidget("TIMESERIES", {"comparisonItem":[{"keyword":" Joel Rifkin ","geo":"","time":"today 12-m"}],"category":0,"property":""}, {"exploreQuery":"q=Joel Rifkin&date=today 12-m","guestPath":"https://trends.google.com:443/trends/embed/"}); Joel Rifkin net worth and salary: Joel Rifkin is a Criminal who has a net worth of $100 Million. Rifkins ninth victim, ironically, surfaced before numbers seven and eight. Rifkin was also able to hide in plain sight by switching up his modus operandi: Hedisposed of the bodies all over New York state, from a Brooklyn creek to an Orange County town, the New York Times reported in 1993. The couple was so happy with their son that they repeated the procedure, with a daughter, three years later. March 27, 2013 / 3:17 PM Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. In February 1987, Rifkin's adoptive father committed suicide to end the pain of cancer, thereby increasing Rifkins depression. New York: Berkley Books, 1994. He paid a fine and managed to conceal the incident from his mother, ranging farther afield to seek hookers in Manhattan when he felt the urge. He said he told Rifkin, This is someone who is not trying to work with you and help you. Despite finding that Wexner should have excluded Rifkins confession to the Bresciani murder--an argument pursued in vain for five years--the appellate court found overwhelming evidence establishing his guilt and refused to overturn any part of his sentence. Seven years after he was sentenced to life in prison, an old college friend of Rifkin, unable to understand how a decent-seeming person hid such a twisted side,went to visit him at Attica Correctional Facility. The special also features interviews with Rifkins childhood friends, investigators on the case, as well as those closest to his victims. Rifkin then asked for paper, a pen, a map and a calendar, and wrote out a list of 17 victims, how he killed them and where he left them. At first he was telling us like he didnt know anything about the body in the back of the car and then he was basically saying that he knew she was there but he doesnt know what happened, former New York State Police Trooper Sean Ruane told CNN in 2018. Her mother, Victoria ONeill, told the newspaper she had last seen her daughter on July 16, 1992. Currently, Joel Rifkin is 64 years, 1 months and 12 days old. 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. Please, it would be so great!. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Rifkin dumped her body in the Suffolk County pine barrens, where she lay undiscovered until his arrest. 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. Mary Catherine Williams, 10 years older than ONeill, had been a high school homecoming queen and college cheerleader in her native North Carolina. EXCLUSIVE: In late 1998, Robert Mladinich wrote to his "old college pal" Joel Rifkin New Yorks most prolific serial killer. But his eventual capture was a total accident as the serial killer wasn't even on police's radar. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. Discovered the following day, Soto was identified from fingerprint records of her last arrest, police initially suspecting her ex-con ex-boyfriend of the murder. As he strangled her, Rifkin recalled, She did nothing, just accepted it. He remembered her murder as one of the weird ones.. "We were trying to catch up from the previous 20 years. Rifkin graduated from high school in 1977, but he could never quite cut in college, despite sporadic attempts over the next twelve years. Evens had been the daughter of a civil court judge and had once attended Sarah Lawrence College. We are now looking for artists, writers and interviewers to take part in the world famous Serial Killer Magazine. He had forgotten names of several victims and knew others only by their street names. He directed police to the remains of Lauren Marquez and Iris Sanchez, found five hours apart on June 29, but Julie Blackbird was gone forever. He was very interested in horticulture and interned at the Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park. Rambo earned his Airborne Ranger Wings in May of 1966. Somewhere along the way, he moved from abstract study of the killers into emulation of their brutal crimes. Get an all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! What I found the most interesting was when he said they could also learn how to protect themselves from people like me. He described himself as a wolf in sheeps clothing. In 1994, Rifkin was sentenced to life in prison. At the police station, Rifkin was asked if he had killed anybody else. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Strangled in Joels pickup after sex, she proved the toughest one to kill, he said, breaking all 10 fingernails as she clawed Rifkins face and neck. After sex, he strangled her to death. These are more like giant, professionally produced graphic novels. Their recorded conversations are the focus of a new true-crime documentary titled "Rifkin on Rifkin: Private Confessions of a Serial Killer," which is part of Oxygen channels "Serial Killer Week.". Prosecutor Fred Klein described Rifkin as a killing machine who acted in deliberate, premediated and methodical ways to carry out his gruesome murders, The New York Times reported in 1994. WebJoel Rifkin was born on January 20, 1959 and is 64 years old now. In interviews this month, investigators and lawyers shared their memories of the case that stunned Long Island 25 years ago, and the effects it had on their lives. WebSusie was still alive, however, and she fought back when he tried to move her, biting one of Rifkins fingers deeply before he strangled her to death. Create your free profile and get access to exclusive content. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. All rights reserved. They were so decomposed that no signs of violence were visible, and medical examiners had mistakenly concluded that some had died of drug overdoses, he said. In the trunk was the decaying body of his last victim. State Police Sgt. Joel would not strike again for 15 weeks, and when he did, he would take better care to hide his tracks. Long Island psychiatrist Barbara Kirwin deemed Rifkins psychological test results the most pathological she had seen in 20 years of practice. He had no explanation for the wild flight to avoid a minor traffic ticket, but the cause of Rifkins panic was revealed a moment later. This massive 8.5 x 11 perfect bound book contains over 150 pages of rare interviews, letters, documents, transcripts, art and articles about serial killer, Richard Ramirez (aka the Nightstalker). She had been the mother of two children. He was vague on the details in later confessions, unable to recall the womans name, if he had ever known it. By the time Rifkin was done taking guilty pleas throughout the area, he had been sentenced to 203 1/3 years to life in prison. Joel Rifkin, 34, is transferred to District Court 29 June, 1993 in Farmingdale, NY after police said he confessed to killing as many as 17 women. Rifkin didnt stop after his first murder. I stopped when I got tired.. New York: Pocket Books, 2001. Even the parents of his victims didnt seem to miss Rifkins prey. Police just noticed him because his vehicle was missing a license plate. In case there is such a thing as reincarnation, I want you to spend your second life in prison.. 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. (Photo by Vinnie Zuffante/Archive Photos/Getty Images). Orval was killed by John Rambo after he went into the mountains with his bloodhounds, which he went to use to hunt Rambo down. On the side, he began collecting books and press clippings on serial killers of whores, including the unidentified Green River Killer and New Yorks own Arthur Shawcross. He struggled with confidence and lacked natural athletic ability, a trait that frustrated his father endlessly, according to "Rifkin on Rifkin.". The driver wasnt speeding, but the absence of a tag was in itself a minor violation, and they turned the flashers on, prepared to write a quick citation. Rifkin initially told investigators that he'd driven to New York City in 1989 to pick up a prostitute named Susie, according to a 2013, While his mother was out of town, Rifkin and Balch returned to his childhood home, where they stayed for the night but Rifkin soon took out his rage on Balch, bashing her in the head with a Howtizer artillery shell and strangling her to death, as recounted on "Rifkin on Rifkin.". 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. Instead, he concocted an elaborate fantasy affair, frustrated beyond endurance when she failed to reciprocate his secret passion. He struck her on impulse, strangling her while she mouthed something about making a big mistake. It was Rifkins first murder of someone he knew beforehand, and he experienced fleeting remorse. He was subtly obnoxious, like his presence annoyed you. Rifkin joined the track team, in an effort to fit in, and was rewarded with the nickname lard ass. Teammates hid his clothes and shoved his head into a toilet bowl. NASHVILLE TV PRODUCER VERONICA BOZZAS MURDER EXPLORED IN TRUE CRIME DOC: THE WHOLE THING WAS SENSELESS, O.J. Right?, Oh, he was kind of quiet. I love these neighbors, he continues. 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. "As much as I say I wanted to stop, there probably would've been others. An addiction to drugs would derail that dreamand influence herto enter the world of sex workand begin topless dancing, according to Newsday. Sometimes he would take his victims back to East Meadow, to the house where he lived with his sister and elderly mother. Elaines discomfort level escalates when she and her boyfriend attend a Giants game and they leave an extra ticket at Will Call for Kramer. In an exclusive 2011 interview with CBS-2's Mary Calvi, Rifkin talked about his killing spree. She followed Mary Holloman, sometime that winter, dismembered remains consigned to the last of Rifkins oil drums. He gave names when he knew them, dates, where he picked them up and, crucially, where he had dumped the bodies. He didnt speed up, either, but he kept on driving. You dont even use a name, its just initials. Midway through the hearing, Assistant District Attorney Fred Klein offered Rifkin a sweetheart deal--46 years to life on all 17 murders, in return for a blanket guilty plea--but Rifkin refused the bargain, apparently convinced that he would be acquitted on grounds of insanity. Hopewell Police Chief George Meyer tells The Times of Trenton that New York authorities have no interest in prosecuting the case because Rifkin is already behind bars. He will be eligible for parole in 2197. The cocaine in her system prompted detectives to brand her a drug mule, killed accidentally by the rupture of drug-filled condoms in her stomach. New York state troopers Sean Ruane and Deborah Spaargaren were patroling Long Islands Southern State Parkway at 3:15 a.m. on June 28, 1993, when they spotted a Mazda pickup truck with no rear license plate. Mary Ellen DeLuca: DeLuca, 22, lost her life on Sept. 1, 1991 after she allegedly complained about having sex with Rifkin after he had bought her cocaine, according to ThoughtCo. They were probably alone on the streets, but not in the world.. . He recalls killing one hooker in 1989 and another in 1990, dismembering their bodies and dropping the pieces into Manhattan canals, but the butcher work repulsed him, and he didnt really hit his stride until 1991. Throughout his trial and incarceration, Rifkin still could not explain one thing: why. On February 20, 1989, Joel Rifkin perpetrated his first homicide by killing Heidi Balch in her home in East Meadow. 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. 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. He then dismembered Susies body and her remains were scattered throughout New Jersey. Joel Rifkin is now serving 203 years to life in the Clinton, N.Y. correctional facility. Jane Doe #1: Rifkin killed an unidentified woman in December 1991 by strangling her to death during sex. He had an I.Q. 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. Check out our sister site VHS WASTELAND. She wasnt what they said she was, Gonzales said. Jane Doe #2: A second unidentified woman was killed some time during 1991. Joel waited more than a year to claim his second victim. (Photo by Andrew Savulich/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images). In its year in review, Newsday described 1993 as Long Islands own annus horribilis the year that violence, abuse, bloody mayhem and sexual perversion tore at the fabric of Nassau and Suffolk Counties suburban life.. 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. Rifkin transferred to the state university at Brockport, a Rochester suburb, in fall 1978. He enjoyed the photography club but turned in his usual lackluster academic performance over the next two years, before dropping out in 1980. 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. Lorraine Orvieto: Orvieto, 28, disappeared in Dec. 1991. 2 men found drugged after leaving NYC gay bars were killed, medical examiner says. ", "If I didnt kill them, they would have died anyhow. Compatible with Rabbit or Goat. Pittsburgh woman missing for 31 years found alive in Puerto Rico, School shooting survivor has emotional audition on "American Idol", exclusive 2011 interview with CBS-2's Mary Calvi. The experience soon explodedinto a full-on addiction, as he blew through all his money picking up hundreds of sex workers. They called him The Turtle, mimicking his slouched posture and slow footsteps, seldom missing a chance to make him the butt of cruel jokes. 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. In 2010, Rifkin was interviewed by ABC's Martin Bashir as part of the Nightline Prime mini-series, Secrets of Your Mind. Rifkin drove her to the same parking lot where he had taken Yun Lee and strangled her during fellatio. The prison van carried him past the high school where he had graduated 16 years before.

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