The only thing that makes me feel a little better is to think that perhaps she didnt die in pain.. One girl duped him twice, using the same ruse both times to flee with his cash before sex. Hikers found her on May 9 after they spied a withered hand protruding from the ground. "He said he wanted to feel some remorse or feel some humanity towards them. ", RetiredSuffolk prosecutor Michael Ahearn, shown at home on June 13, was chief of the Homicide Bureau for the Suffolk District Attorney's Office. Despite his history of morbid fantasy, Rifkin would later claim he had to plan the murder of his first victim, in March 1989. 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. Rifkin found her on May 25, 1992, Memorial Day, working Atlantic Avenue in Queens, and retired to a nearby residential street for sex. Of course, many of the victims had concerned loved ones who were desperately looking for them after they vanished however, many of the bodies weren't recovered until after his capture, so police weren't making a connection in the cases. Seventeen women in total were murdered by this shadowy figure but police at the time weren't even aware he existed. Your IP: Other times he killed them in his car. I had sex with her, and then I killed her. 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. As much as I say I wanted to stop, there probably wouldve been others,Joel Rifkin said of the likelihood he would have continued to kill if he hadnt been caught in 1993. Many of the victims were never even reported missing, and so police were unaware of the scope of the killing spree. Featuring specials about fearsome and fascinating serial killers, its a cant-miss event for true crime fans. Rifkin on Rifkin: Private Confessions When its Joel Rifkin, the name of a notorious New York serial killer whose brutal four-year murder spree ended when he was caught in June 1993, it was grim grist for an episode of the hit NBC sitcom Seinfeld that premiered just five months after his arrest. Rifkin! she says, inspired by the name O.J. For the key players in the case, contact with Rifkin was life altering. A chainsaw found in the garage was stained with blood and bits of human flesh. "In an effort to show there was some grain of decency in him, he wrote this manifesto, a proposal really, to establish a facility where wayward women that had been living on the streets could go be safe. 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. 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. In many ways, it was almost like a tsunami.. He drifted in and out of jobs, mostly living at home, enjoying one brief relationship with a girl who recalls him as sweet, but always depressed. She hailed from Metairie, Louisiana, and had been drawn to New York by dreams of acting or dancing. Rifkin found Orvieto on December 26, 1991, in Bayshore, Long Island. Every issue of Serial of Serial Killer Magazine we sell. Determined not to bungle the disposal this time, Rifkin went out to purchase cement and a large mortar pan. In the trunk was the decaying body of his last victim. This guy seems like the real deal.". 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. As his mother was out of town, he brought her back home. New York. 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. Real-life romance eluded Rifkin, for the most part. Something about Joel Rifkin set him apart, an undefined quality that made him an immediate outsider, natural prey to all manner of bullies. Rifkin didn't display the typical signs of a budding murderer. She wasnt what they said she was, Gonzales said. When the troopers used their siren, he appeared oblivious; likewise when Ruane got on the loudspeaker and ordered him to stop. They questioned him for eight hours, but for some reason never recorded the sessions. Success breeds repetition. 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. Garden of Graves. Her case remained unsolved until Rifkin confessed in 1993. 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. "There were mini clusters, little sets of three," Rifkin said. An addiction to drugs would derail that dreamand influence herto enter the world of sex workand begin topless dancing, according to Newsday. Wexner gave Rifkin 25 years to life for murder, plus two and one-third to seven years on the lesser charge. Oxygen Insider is your all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more. At this time he became increasingly obsessed with violence, murder, and prostitution. Three months later, he killed Leah Evens and left her in rural Northampton, where her skeleton was found on Mothers Day. Rifkin admitted to the 17 slayings after his May 1994 murder conviction in Nassau County. 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. I think its a wake-up call that there could be lots of Joel Rifkin'swalking around.". 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. Credit: Jessica Rotkiewicz. (Robert Mladinich), "I wanted to reach out to him right away after the arrest," Mladinich told Fox News. Crack addict Mary Ellen DeLuca, a 22-year-old Long Island native, was last seen alive at 11:00 p.m. on September 1, 1991, when she left a group of friends to earn the price of her next fix. Nonetheless, after Ben Rifkin died by suicide in 1987, one year after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, Joel chose to remember his father as a loving parent when he was delivering his eulogy. (Photo by Andrew Savulich/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images). The drivers license identified him as 34-year-old Joel David Rifkin, residing on Garden Street in East Meadow, Long Island. Please ignore rumors and hoaxes. Good works notwithstanding, Rifkin had no luck in his bids to escape solitary confinement. Joel Rifkin Her body was discovered in Cornwall in October 1991, a month after she had been reported missing by her family, The New York Timessaidin 1993. 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. Please, it would be so great!. Faced with pistols now, the solemn driver gave his license up and stepped out of the car. Joel delivered a eulogy at his fathers funeral, moving the mourners to tears, and his depression deepened. 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. assessed at 128, but struggled academically in school due to severe dyslexia. In custody, Rifkin soon began confessing to other homicides, a total of seventeen, including Bresciani. Would. "None of them were throwaways.". The Terminator could easily take out John Wick and he wouldnt even see it coming. Rifkins father was chronically ill. A heavy smoker, already afflicted with emphysema, Bernard was diagnosed with prostate cancer in fall 1986. He wanted to know why he lacked that empathy and humanity. Serial killer Joel Rifkin arrested in The night he was arrested, Rifkin told troopers where he had picked up the woman found in his truck, Tiffany Bresciani, 22, of Louisiana, and how he had killed her, but troopers wondered if hed done this before, Corcoran said. Serial killer Joel Rifkin There was none of that. 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 was the smell of death, and it would linger long after the source had been removed. 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. Lauren Marquez: Marquez, 28, was found dead in Westhampton. Oxygen's new documentary on Joel Rifkin is part of their 'Serial Killer Week" line-up. 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). ", JONBENET RAMSEYS HALF BROTHER STILL WANTS TO FIND HER KILLER: THIS CASE CAN BE SOLVED, 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. That was an experience, because Joel aside from the pathological issues had some smarts about him, Lawrence said. Rifkin picked her up at about 11 p.m. on November 16, near the Williamsburg Bridge in lower Manhattan. I was just in complete shock that someone like him could be arrested for these crimes. 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. 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. Five months after Rifkin was caught, "Seinfeld" released an episode titled "The Masseuse" in which Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is dating a man named Joel Rifkin (Anthony Cistaro) at the same time the murderer was drawing headlines. He was on his way to dump the body near Republic Airport, he explained, when he was spotted by Ruane and Spaargaren. The argument over whose killings were better reportedly ended when Ferguson punched Rifkin in the mouth. Dave Insurgent, a member of the 1980s punk band Reagan Youth), and his final victim. Tune in on Oxygen April 10 to April 18. A low-speed car case ensued for about 20 minutes, until Rifkin lost control of the car and crashed into a utility pole in Mineola, according to the paper. (Photo by Jerry Engel/New York Post Archives /(c) NYP Holdings, Inc. via Getty Images). In every high school, theres a kid that doesnt get girls,but they dont go ahead and murder 17 women.". The site he chose was an illegal dump, 200 feet off Rockaway Boulevard, within sight of JFK International Airport. Joel Rifkin is a member of Criminal Does Joel Rifkin Dead or Alive? 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 it is believed he had up to 17 victims. 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. Pulitzer, Lisa, and Joan Swirsky. 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. The remains were never found. He is now the district executive for the federal courts in the Eastern District of New York. Jury selection for Rifkins first trial, before Wexner, began on April 11, 1994. You dont even use a name, its just initials. I stopped when I got tired.. And police weren't aware that one man was specifically targeting sex workers in the area. Upon waking, he dragged Susie down to the basement, draped her body across the washer and dryer, then used that makeshift operating table to dismember her corpse with an X-acto knife. Within weeks, Rifkin faced murder charges not only in Nassau but in the numerous other counties where he had dumped other victims. He was confined to his cell at the Attica Correctional Facility for 23 hours a day. ", JOHN WALSHS SON CALLAHAN EXPLAINS HOW HIS BROTHER ADAM'S MURDER MADE HIM DETERMINED TO CATCH BAD GUYS, Jenny Soto, a victim of serial killer Joel Rifkin. WebLearn about Joel Rifkin Net Worth, Biography, Age, Birthday, Height, Early Life, Family, Dating, Partner, Wiki and Facts. He picked her up in the city, strangled her after sex at his mothers house and dismembered her corpse in the bathtub. Several months later, the football star was charged with murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Rifkin said. Joel Rifkin He killed mostly prostitutes and drug addicts; he was convicted of nine murders, although he is believed to have killed many more. Credit: Newsday/K. He had picked up a sex workernamed Susie, according to a 2013The Associated Pressarticle. 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. His lawyer Bob Sale sought to have Rifkins confession thrown out on grounds that police could not prove he was ever advised of his rights. He then dismembered her body, leaving her head at a New Jersey golf course, where it was quickly found, according to the AP. Rifkin just didn't excel in academia or sports, and so he struggled with feeling like a disappointment to his dad. They also sought to suppress his initial admission of Brescianis murder, made at the time of his arrest, while claiming that police had lacked sufficient probable cause for a legal search of Rifkins truck. 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. These are not the kind of flimsy magazines or tiny paperback novels that you are accustomed to. 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. All rights reserved. But other times, Lawrence said his client made him uncomfortable. By the time he got home, she was swaddled in tarp and concealed in the trunk. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Market data provided by Factset. At the police station, Rifkin was asked if he had killed anybody else. Rifkin Joel Rifkin As per our current Database, Joel Rifkin is still alive (as per Wikipedia, Last update: May 10, 2020). Table ranking Historys Most Deadly Events: Influenza pandemic (1918-19) 20-40 million deaths; black death/plague (1348-50), 20-25 million deaths, AIDS pandemic (through 2000) 21.8 million deaths, World War II (1937-45), 15.9 million deaths, and World War I (1914-18) 9.2 million deaths. Actually, he later said, I thought I liked her.. Instead, he was a rather meek, unassuming child. 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. She was found by a fisherman on July 11, 1992, two months before her family filed a missing persons report. All rights reserved. Rifkin's downfall came about simply because of a "25 cent mistake," as he told the New York Daily News. He offered no resistance as police removed him from the pickup, frisked him for weapons and removed an X-acto knife from his pocket. Things seemed to go downhill from there. If theres a serial killer loose in your neighborhood, it seems like the safest thing is to be the neighbor, he says. Police finally caught up to Rifkin in June 1993, when state troopers spotted his pickup truck without license plates on the Southern State Parkway. During the course of the episode, Rifkin underwent a brain scan to see if abnormal brain chemistry could have possibly made him more likely to commit murder. Unlike Orvieto, Holloman was identified from dental records and returned to her family for burial. What it gave me was that he liked to be in control. During his trial, Rifkin was represented by Mineola-based attorney John Lawrence. He kept the pills, along with Orvietos jewelry and ID, as souvenirs of the kill. He remembered her tattoos, a pickup in Manhattan, and the way she fought for life when he began to strangle her. Very few people start out life thinking, 'Oh gee, my goal in life is to wind up in Attica. Rifkin graduated from high school in 1977, but he could never quite cut in college, despite sporadic attempts over the next twelve years. He specifically killed women who were less visible insociety. NASHVILLE TV PRODUCER VERONICA BOZZAS MURDER EXPLORED IN TRUE CRIME DOC: THE WHOLE THING WAS SENSELESS, O.J. With this information, they were able to identify even more of his victims, the New York Times reported. Elaines discomfort level escalates when she and her boyfriend attend a Giants game and they leave an extra ticket at Will Call for Kramer. Known as Joel the Ripper, he murdered and dismembered at least nine women in New York. Her mother, Florence Orvieto,told The New York Times that she had been saving her Christmas presents for two years until she learned in 1993 that her daughters body had been discovered in a 55-gallon oil drum in Coney Island Creek in Brooklyn. Get an all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! With 25-year-old Iris Sanchez, strangled in April 1992, he simply drove to JFK Airport and left her body in a vacant lot, beneath a mattress. He is referenced in a "Seinfeld" episode in which Elaine, played by Julia Louis Dreyfus, is embarrassed to be dating a man who shares a serial killer's name. It is in their nature to take action, sometimes before they think about it well. So I put it on the backburner But for years, I wanted to know how somebody, who seemed like a very nice fellow, could commit such heinous crimes.". The 23-year-oldwas wearing only a T-shirt. Hewent to painstaking efforts to try to conceal the bodies, often dismembering the victims, placing their bodies in oil drums, or throwing them into bodies of water, he would later tell WCBS-TVin 2011. the New York Daily News reported at the time. Doubling back from there, he returned to Manhattan, pitching the arms and torso into the East River. 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. Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson. When she fell asleep, he clubbed her with the same table leg he had used on Julie Blackbird, then finished the job by manual strangulation. There, Rifkin testified himself in a pretrial hearing to contest that his confession was voluntary. Its part of Serial Killer Week, a nine-day event on Oxygen diving into the most fearsome and fascinating criminals of all time. Joel found himself strongly attracted to one of the other interns, a pretty blond, but while he shadowed her at every opportunity, he never found the nerve to ask her out. He was confined to his cell at the Attica Correctional Facility for 23 hours per day. Rifkin!" 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. The obsession with murder had consumed his life and he began using the rented job site as a way station for corpses in transit. WebJoel Rifkin was born on January 20, 1959 and is 64 years old now. Oholah, Rifkin explained, was both the Hebrew word for sanctuary and the name of a prostitute whose violent death is described in Ezekiel 23:3-10. Rifkin went back to school in spring of 1992, taking uncredited classes at SUNY Farmingdale. Later, he recalled the act as very automatic. 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 dismembered the corpse as before, placing the head, arms and legs in buckets weighted with concrete; the torso filled a milk crate by itself. Back at the landscaping lot, Rifkin stuffed her into an oil drum, drove her body to Brooklyn and dropped it into Coney Island Creek. He admitted dumping two womens bodies in Suffolk County, but troopers continued to question him, Corcoran said. His landscaping business had folded by then, his landlord clamoring for $700 in overdue rent. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa. Rifkin initially claimed he had blacked out, but soon admitted that Bresciani had not been his only victim. Revenge, jealousy usually theres some human connection [in a murder]. Orval was killed by John Rambo after he went into the mountains with his bloodhounds, which he went to use to hunt Rambo down. Today, Joel Rifkin is 60 years old and serving his life sentence at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York. They called him The Turtle, mimicking his slouched posture and slow footsteps, seldom missing a chance to make him the butt of cruel jokes. Another belonged to Jenny Soto, fished out of the Harlem River in November 1992. In March 1989, Rifkin, who admitted he had often fantasized about strangling women during sex, turned his disturbing ideas into reality. "Joel was a bit of an eccentric," said Mladinich. While psychologists have theorized the emotional distance from his father and the bullying may have contributed to his transformation into bloodthirsty killer, Reiter emphasizes in the special, "In every high school, there's the kid that'sthe last to get picked. "There were no cameras on every block. He said he had demanded an attorney 20 times. "Three were dismembered.

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