The habit was expensive and she tricked to keep herself supplied. In the trunk was the decaying body of his last victim. Rifkin was AWOL from his part-time job at an East Meadow liquor store, looking for trouble. ", "Even when we first spoke at the correctional facility, it was like we had been friends the previous 20 years," he shared. I just lost control, he said later. "The only difference is that within 20 minutes, we started talking about murder and mayhem. Back at the landscaping lot, Rifkin stuffed her into an oil drum, drove her body to Brooklyn and dropped it into Coney Island Creek. The Seinfeld team wasted no time trying to churn laughs out of one of New Yorks most horrible mass murderers Rifkin is believed to have killed up to 17 women and is the subject of Oxygens upcoming special Rifkin on Rifkin: Private Confessions of a Serial Killer, airingSaturday, April 10 at 7/6c on Oxygen. Police learned their mistake a year later, when Rifkin confessed to her slaying, but number nine remains anonymous, the last Jane Doe. Determined not to bungle the disposal this time, Rifkin went out to purchase cement and a large mortar pan. I want to show these girls, these prostitutes, have families who care. 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. Serial killer Joel Rifkin arrested in Conviction was a foregone conclusion, However, and in the absence of a death penalty statute, he received the maximum sentence of twenty-five years to life. Evens had been the daughter of a civil court judge and had once attended Sarah Lawrence College. She was found by a fisherman on July 11, 1992, two months before her family filed a missing persons report. Her mother, Victoria ONeill, told the newspaper she had last seen her daughter on July 16, 1992. Rifkins last victim, Tiffany Bresciani, was another southern girl. Jenny Soto was the last victim of 1992, a 23-year-old addict whose many trips to detox never turned her life around. With this information, they were able to identify even more of his victims, the New York Times reported. 202.3.109.12 Joel would not strike again for 15 weeks, and when he did, he would take better care to hide his tracks. 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. Simpson. "Certain things are very hard to stop," Rifkin said. 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. The prison van carried him past the high school where he had graduated 16 years before. He was charged with killing his ex-wife and her friend. He will be eligible for parole in 2197. When police later searched his mothers home, they found a treasure trove of mementos that Rifkin had saved from his victims,including drivers licenses, their underwear, jewelry, and other trophies, according to a 2018Newsdayarticle. 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. Rifkins first victim of 1993 was Leah Evens, a 28-year-old who lived with her mother in Brooklyn. Joel Rifkin, New York's most prolific serial killer, is the subject of a new true-crime documentary on Oxygen. On March 5, 1989, a member of the Hopewell Valley Golf Club sliced his ball into the woods along the seventh green and found the can containing Susies head. Five more patrol cars joined the convoy, sirens wailing, before the Mazdas driver missed a turn in Mineola and crashed his truck into a telephone pole at 3:36 a.m. 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. Oxygens Serial Killer Week brings viewers inside the minds of the most notorious criminals of all time. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! (It was still there, waiting for detectives, at the time of Joels arrest.) At this time he became increasingly obsessed with violence, murder, and prostitution. Do you think I need a lawyer?. It was really unnerving., Marie Alonso, left,mother of Joel Rifkin victim Anna Lopez, shares an emotional moment with Margarita Gonzales,mother of victim Jenny Soto, outside of Nassau County Court in Mineolaon July 7, 1993. He then dismembered her body, leaving her head at a New Jersey golf course, where it was quickly found, according to the AP. Out of the 17 women Rifkin said he murdered, two have yet to be identified. It was nearly 8 p.m. when authorities presented Jeanne Rifkin with a search warrant, scouring her two-story house for evidence against the man who appeared to be New Yorks most prolific serial killer. Mary Catherine Williams, 10 years older than ONeill, had been a high school homecoming queen and college cheerleader in her native North Carolina. Fred Klein, shown in his office at Hofstra Universityon June 13, was the lead Nassau County prosecutor in the Joel Rifkincase. I had sex with her, then things went bad and I strangled her. They talked about trial strategy and how to present his case. I just struggled to come to grips that this same person was a serial killer capable of such barbarism. And police weren't aware that one man was specifically targeting sex workers in the area. WebJoel Rifkin is now serving 203 years to life in the Clinton, N.Y. correctional facility. In 1994, Rifkin was sentenced to life in prison. Known as Joel the Ripper, he murdered and dismembered at least nine women in New York. Officers staked out the house in East Meadow, where Rifkin lived with his sister and elderly mother. clothing, jewelry, drivers licenses, library cards, and credit cards belonging to approximately 10 women. Some of the bodies already found had not been classified as homicides, Klein said. There, Rifkin testified himself in a pretrial hearing to contest that his confession was voluntary. 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. He said he disposed of the bodies in threes. To learn more about Rifkin's killing spree tune in to Oxygen's "RifkinonRifkin: Private Confessions of a Serial Killer" airing Saturday, April 10 at 7/6conOxygenas part ofSerial Killer Week. June 29, 1993. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Simpson wouldnt be associated with murder that truly makes it one of the worst aged jokes in sitcom history. (Photo by Jerry Engel/New York Post Archives /(c) NYP Holdings, Inc. via Getty Images). His fantasies about strangling women became more frequent. Hes not the murderer, she reassures. Then, as if in a fugue state, he spent the next three days working on his pickup, ignoring the summer heat and pervasive reek of decomposing flesh. Get an all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! The Disturbing Truth Of Serial Killer Joel Rifkin YouTube By Tyler MacDonald / April 1, 2021 10:52 am EST For a span of four years in the early 1990s, serial killer Joel Rifkin left a string of terror across New York City as he satisfied his fixation on strangling sex workers to death. He remembered her tattoos, a pickup in Manhattan, and the way she fought for life when he began to strangle her. Rifkins bedroom reading material included a book on the unidentified Green River Killer and news clippings about the case of New York serial slayer Arthur Shawcross. He kept her credit cards and a wicker handbag filled with costume jewelry--so much, in fact, that the amount would briefly cause detectives to inflate his body count. Neighbors had noted a foul odor emanating from the Rifkin garage, where corpses were occasionally stored before disposal, but the stench was attributed to fertilizer and insecticide Joel used on his landscaping job. Family (1) Spouse Iva Rifkin ( 28 August 1966 - present) Trivia (10) Rifkin just didn't excel in academia or sports, and so he struggled with feeling like a disappointment to his dad. Although Rifkin often hired prostitutes in Brooklyn and Manhattan, he lived in East Meadow, a suburban town on Long Island. And she had fake nails and those were ripped off when she fought him.. Revenge, jealousy usually theres some human connection [in a murder]. With this information, they were able to identify even more of his victims, the New York Times reported. An addiction to drugs would derail that dreamand influence herto enter the world of sex workand begin topless dancing, according to Newsday. At some point in the litany, Rifkin asked DeLuca if she wanted to die, and she allegedly said yes. ", 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. From breaking news to special features and documentaries, the NewsdayTV team is covering the issues that matter to you. Stephanie Nolasco covers entertainment at Foxnews.com. disposed of the bodies all over New York state, from a Brooklyn creek to an Orange County town. 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. 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. She fought him, resisting strangulation until he snapped her neck. If you smell anything decaying in the trunk of his car . Oxygens Serial Killer Week brings viewers inside the minds of the most notorious criminals of all time. "There were no cameras on every block. 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. In addition to Rifkin, the episode discusses the phenomenon of serial killers in one of Jerry Seinfelds stand-up routines. And I didnt want to infringe on the investigation. I had sex with her, and then I killed her. We are now looking for artists, writers and interviewers to take part in the world famous Serial Killer Magazine. Rifkin initially claimed he had blacked out, but soon admitted that Bresciani had not been his only victim. Lees ex-husband identified the body, sparing her from an unmarked grave. Rifkin had dated Williams twice and enjoyed a great time before the final pickup on October 2, 1992. Joel Rifkin was someone who was used to being invisible. Undeterred, he slaved to put the senior yearbook out, but he was excluded from the year-end wrap party. Through newly revealed interviews from Attica Correctional Facility, New York's most prolific serial killer, Joel Rifkin, reveals exclusive insights into the mind of a monster. Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a2a73bfae92a8aa His upstairs bedroom yielded 75 pieces of womens jewelry, photographs Rifkin had taken of several unidentified women, various items of feminine clothing, makeup cases, a womans curling iron, wallets and pocketbooks, plus a mixed bag of ID cards. Afraid to drag the corpse out in broad daylight, he drew inspiration from Hitchcocks Frenzy and went out to purchase a cheap steamer trunk, squeezing DeLuca inside it. Garden of Graves. Her body was never recovered. New York State Police escort Joel Rifkin, 34, a landscaper from East Meadow, to a holding cell after charging him with second-degree murder in East Farmingdale, L.I. Instead, she wound up hooked on heroin, performing for strangers in strip clubs and cars. Her mother, Doris Williams, described her daughter to the news outlet as a struggling actress and former high school homecoming queen who had moved to New York City from her home in Charlotte, North Carolina. From 1989 to 1993, a serial killer stalked New York City. Joel Rifkin had killed 17 women, and now he was driving around with one in the back of his truck. They didn't realizeone man was targeting sex workers in New York City. The 21-year-old who was also the mother of a young son had been staying at the time with her grandmother in New York City when she disappeared. It's like my own little nightmare scenarios.". They called him The Turtle, mimicking his slouched posture and slow footsteps, seldom missing a chance to make him the butt of cruel jokes. With Joels confession in hand, police descended on Jeanne Rifkins home, scouring the premises for evidence. "Joel never expressed any remorse whatsoever to me," said Mladinich. After the Giant game, he says, I realized that this this problem isn't going away.. The New York Times Next Up Episode 5: Oak Beach Oxygen's new documentary on Joel Rifkin is part of their 'Serial Killer Week" line-up. Seven months later, Simpsons name became connected to murder. Three were in oil drums. There were times he would come up with things about the afterlife, or an energy flow he detected leaving his victims, Lawrence said. Eftimiades, Maria. The murderous rampage of notorious Long Island serial killer Rifkin came to an end. They could learn life skills, like write a check, parenting skills just how to livetheir lives in a safe way. 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.. In 2013, DNA evidence confirmed that "Susie," his first known victim, was Heidi Balch, a 25-year-old New York City woman who was working as aprostitute. 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. And she had fake nails and those were ripped off when she fought him.. It was hell from day one. Is there less than 10? they asked Rifkin, Corcoran said. They were probably alone on the streets, but not in the world.. Rifkin picked her up at about 11 p.m. on November 16, near the Williamsburg Bridge in lower Manhattan. Elaines boyfriend had resisted her earlier suggestion to change his name, but now hes ready to make a switch. Legal Statement. He described all 17 murders in the absence of counsel, writing out the names he remembered, sketching maps to help police find those victims still missing. He spent more than four years in solitary confinement I dont care what someone did. ", First published on March 27, 2013 / 3:17 PM. Joel Rifkin murdered17 women, making him New York's deadliest serial killer. This huge, perfect bound copy of SERIAL KILLER MAGAZINE is chock full of artwork, rare documents, trivia and in depth articles regarding serial murder. Police just noticed him because his vehicle was missing a license plate. He took really terrific photos and had an attractive artistic side. Mary Catherine Williams, 31, was linked to Rifkin after some of her credit cards were found among Rifkins belongings, according to a, She had pieces of skin under her fingernails, her sister Margarita Gonzales told, in 1993. (Photo by Jerry Engel/New York Post Archives /(c) NYP Holdings, Inc. via Getty Images). By the time he got home, she was swaddled in tarp and concealed in the trunk. Joel Rifkin (Photo by Neil Schneider/New York Post Archives /(c) NYP Holdings, Inc. via Getty Images). To have the normal picket fence and three kids and a dog and a cat and get on with life. 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. Rifkin dumped her body in the Suffolk County pine barrens, where she lay undiscovered until his arrest. Known as Joel the Ripper, he murdered and dismembered at least nine women in New York. Besides a broken neck, Marquez had fractured ribs, though Rifkin claimed he could not remember hitting her. Rifkin told Dietz in detail how he planned his killings, how he avoided detection, how he got sexual gratification from both the killings and the victims personal effects much to Lawrences dismay. Rifkin admitted to the 17 slayings after his May 1994 murder conviction in Nassau County. Rifkin had just arrived home when his mother demanded her car keys and embarked on a 30-minute shopping trip, with the corpse still in the trunk. Her family described Soto as a quiet Brooklyn girl who loved to play with her nieces and nephews but said she had a wilder side when she went into the city. The oil drum was a new kink with Rifkin, used at least four times by his count. Arraigned for the Bresciani homicide on July 15, 1993, Rifkin repeated his plea of not guilty. Theyre intelligent, always seeking more knowledge, and exclusive. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Rifkin, who is the focus of Oxygen's upcoming special,"RifkinonRifkin: Private Confessions of a Serial Killer" airing Saturday, April 10 at 7/6conOxygenas part ofSerial Killer Week,often targeted sex workers,who he was able to kill without calling much too much attention to their disappearances. They could see part of a hand and the head of Rifkins finalvictim. 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. Currently, Joel Rifkin is 64 years, 1 months and 12 days old. Williams would fill another nameless paupers grave until Rifkin confessed to her murder, six months after she was found. It didnt fully come home to me what was happening until later., Things went from bad to worse at East Meadow High School. Rambo would go on to receive extensive survival and combat training, later becoming a Green Beret in September of 1969. The case was open-and-shut but it was far from simple. ", Joel Rifkin is currently serving a life sentence. New York. Jurors agreed with Dietz, deliberating briefly on May 9 before they convicted Rifkin of murder and reckless endangerment (for leading police on the wild car chase). In retrospect, a shockingly prophetic moment happens when Elaine comes up with a suggestion after reading a sports magazine. 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. Orvieto, 28, disappeared in Dec. 1991. Credit: Newsday/K. O.J.! Tragedy plus time equals comedy, so its been said. Joels parents gave him a car that year, and he used it to troll for prostitutes, first in nearby Hempstead, later in Manhattan. By Becca van Sambeck & Oxygen Staff From 1989 to 1993, a Rifkin found her on May 25, 1992, Memorial Day, working Atlantic Avenue in Queens, and retired to a nearby residential street for sex. Faced with pistols now, the solemn driver gave his license up and stepped out of the car. Mladinich said he and Rifkin, now 62, wrote to each other regularly until they saw each other again in the fall of 1999. His landscaping business had folded by then, his landlord clamoring for $700 in overdue rent. "They would suspect a serial killer was on the loose and his car would have easily been spotted by cameras.". 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. He picked her up on West 46th Street in Manhattan and strangled her in his car during oral sex, describing the event as very quick. Afterward, he drove back to Long Island with the body slumped beside him, concealing her under a tarp at his rented workplace. He wasn'tcapable of that. Some were left abandoned in fields. After Rifkin was convicted in Nassau, he was sent to Suffolk where he faced two murder charges. 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. That left him absolutely devastated, in his mothers words, but there were other compensations. He wasn't driving erratically or doing anything odd. Rifkins ninth victim, ironically, surfaced before numbers seven and eight. While he was portrayed as a more heroic character in the film, the novel portrays him as a ruthless, psychotic murderer and unlike the movie counterpart, this version of Rambo slaughters innocent people. 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. When told his truck had no rear license plate, Rifkin assured the officers it had been present when he left his home, some 40 minutes earlier. How did Rifkin become such a vicious murderer? This massive 8.5 x 11 perfect bound book contains over 300 pages of rare interviews, letters, documents, transcripts and artwork from historys most notorious killers. Police found Evens drivers license at his home. The argument over whose killings were better reportedly ended when Ferguson punched Rifkin in the mouth. A cemetery posted a personal ad for a goose whose mate died. Out in the garage, they found a wheelbarrow and a chainsaw stained with human gore. Every issue of Serial of Serial Killer Magazine we sell. Eugene Corcoran, shown onJune 18, was one of the lead investigators in the Joel Rifkin case. One week after he killed Lorraine Orvieto, on January 2, 1992, Rifkin went hunting again. Type of Villain John James Rambo is the main protagonist of the 1972 novel First Blood and its 1982 film adaptation. It was a trick for handling corpses, to avoid their stench, portrayed by Hollywood two years earlier in the Oscar-winning Silence of the Lambs. Back in East Meadow, Jeanne Rifkin found officers circling her house by mid-morning. She followed Mary Holloman, sometime that winter, dismembered remains consigned to the last of Rifkins oil drums. In early 1994, it was reported that Rifkin had engaged in a jailhouse scuffle with mass murderer Colin Ferguson. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. Sotos grim fight for life gave Rifkin pause. Why not? Rifkin did not respond to a request sent to him at Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate Dannemora for comment for this story. Unlike Orvieto, Holloman was identified from dental records and returned to her family for burial. ", "If I didnt kill them, they would have died anyhow. Soto also had a past record for prostitution, but her family insisted she had been getting her life together before she was killed. He killed mostly prostitutes and drug addicts; he was convicted of nine murders, although he is believed to have killed many more. This massive perfect bound Ted Bundy collection includes art, articles, rare interviews, documents, letters, transcripts and the serial killers entire FBI file. Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more! Tune in on Oxygen April 10 to April 18. This addictioncrippled him, as he had to to leavecollege before finishing and was unable to ever really hold down a job. Fox News Flash top entertainment and celebrity headlines are here. In an exclusive 2011 interview with CBS-2's Mary Calvi, Rifkin talked about his killing spree. She hailed from Metairie, Louisiana, and had been drawn to New York by dreams of acting or dancing. That may explain his failure to perform as Lee went to work. Before Rifkin left for college, he drove to New York City where he picked up a sex worker for the first time. "Three were dismembered. On February 20, 1989, Joel Rifkin perpetrated his first homicide by killing Heidi Balch in her home in East Meadow. State Troopers who chased down his pickup truck for a routine traffic violation said they found a woman's decomposing body in the back and a driver who confessed to killing 17 women. In March 1989, Rifkin, who admitted he had often fantasized about strangling women during sex, turned his disturbing ideas into reality. Rifkin planned to offer a defense in Suffolk that being adopted made him what he was, but ultimately he ended the case with the first of numerous guilty pleas to his crimes. Is Joel Rifkin still alive He had picked up a sex workernamed Susie, according to a 2013The Associated Pressarticle. By March 1994 Wexner had heard enough to reject the various defense motions outright and hold Rifkin for trial, scheduled for mid-April. "You know, I first learned he was accused of being a serial killer while I was on the Long Island Expressway," he recalled. Years of pent-up anger and humiliation craved release. Some were dismembered, others were not. A 9 a.m. media report cleared up the mystery, and Jeanne phoned her lawyer, who referred her to criminal attorney Robert Sale. Elaines boyfriend had resisted her earlier suggestion to change his name, but now hes ready to make a switch. (Robert Mladinich), "I wanted to reach out to him right away after the arrest," Mladinich told Fox News. June 27, 1993. Joel Rifkin is a serial killer who went on a string of murders in New York in the 1990s. The next time Rifkin made headlines, in April 1998, the news involved sale of his artwork at the New York State legislatures office building in Albany as part of a program to compensate crime victims. EXCLUSIVE: In late 1998, Robert Mladinich wrote to his "old college pal" Joel Rifkin New Yorks most prolific serial killer. Troopers detected an odor from the back of the truck. Joel Rifkin is now serving 203 years to life in the Clinton, N.Y. correctional facility. As per our current Database, Joel Rifkin is still alive (as per Wikipedia, Last update: May 10, 2020). Just keep the music down., For more on Rifkin, watch Oxygens upcoming special Rifkin on Rifkin: Private Confessions of a Serial Killer, airing on Saturday, April 10 at 7/6c on Oxygen.