Joel Rifkin
New Yorks worst serial murder case of this century began--or ended--with a
routine traffic stop in the predawn hours of June 28, 1993. State troopers
Deborah Spaargaren and Sean Ruane were working the graveyard shift in East
Meadow, Long Island, when they spotted a pickup truck with no license plate
ahead of them, at 3:15 A.M. 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.
Curiously, though, the driver of the pickup did not stop. He didnt speed up,
either, but he kept on driving. When the troopers used their siren, he appeared
oblivious; likewise when Ruane got on the loudspeaker and ordered him to stop.
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. Faced with
pistols now, the solemn driver gave his license up and stepped out of the car.
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. A peek inside the tarp revealed a womans decomposing
body. Motorist Joel Rifkin, now in handcuffs, helped identify the corpse as
22-year-old Tiffany Bresciani. She was a prostitute, he told the officers. I had
sex with her, and then I killed her. He was on his way to dump the body near
Republic Airport, he explained, when he was spotted by Ruane and Spaargaren. The
case was open-and-shut ... but it was far from simple. In custody, Rifkin soon
began confessing to other homicides, a total of seventeen, including Bresciani.
The murders spanned four years, and all the victims were described as
prostitutes by Rifkin, though surviving relatives of several vocally dispute his
claim. Whatever their employment status, there was no doubt of the body
count--unless, some officers suggested, Rifkins estimate was low. The son of
unwed teenage parents, born in 1959, Joel was adopted by Ben and Jeanne Rifkin
at three weeks of age. The couple was so happy with their son that they repeated
the procedure, with a daughter, three years later. In 1965, the family settled
in East Meadow, where Joel would spend most of his remaining years. He shared
his mothers enthusiasm for photography and handicrafts, a brainy child who never
quite fit in with other kids his age. Despite a tested IQ of 128, Joel did
poorly in school, at least part of his problem traceable to the merciless
teasing of class-mates. They called him The Turtle, mimicking his slouched
posture and slow footsteps, seldom missing a chance to make him the butt of
cruel jokes. Rifkin graduated from high school in 1977, but he could never quite
cut in college, despite sporadic attempts over the next twelve years. 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. In February 1987, Rifkins
father killed himself to end the pain of cancer, and Joel delivered the eulogy
at his funeral. Things seemed to go downhill from there. On August 22, 1987,
Rifkin was arrested in Hempstead, Long Island, for soliciting a prostitute. 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. 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. Somewhere
along the way, he moved from abstract study of the killers into emulation of
their brutal crimes.
Rifkins first two victims have never been found or identified. 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. On July 14 of that year,
31-year-old Barbara Jacobs was found, strangled and rotting, in the Hudson
River; her body had been wedged inside a plastic bag, then forced into a
cardboard box. Another 31-year-old victim, Korean hooker Yun Lee, was fished out
of the East River on September 23, her body folded inside a steamer trunk. Mary
Ellen DeLuca, age twenty- two, had been missing for a month when her nude,
strangled body was found in a field upstate, at Cornwall, New York. 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 oil drum was a new kink with Rifkin, used at least four times by his count.
A Jane Doe victim, thus entombed, was dredged from Newtown Creek, in Greenpoint,
Brooklyn, on May 13, 1992. Maryann Holloman, age 39, was retrieved from Coney
Island Creek in her oil drum on July 9, two days before passers-by found the
skeletal remains of Lorraine Orvieto nearby. There was another oil drum victim,
Joel insists, although he doesnt know her name and cant recall exactly when he
dropped her body in the Harlem River.
Still, Rifkin liked to vary his technique from time to time. 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. (It was still there, waiting for
detectives, at the time of Joels arrest.) On May 25, 1992, he strangled crack
addict Anna Lopez, dumping her corpse in some woods off Interstate 84, in
Brewster. New York. Jenny Soto was the fighter, breaking off her fingernails on
Rifkins face before he snapped her neck on November 16, 1992. Three months
later, he killed Leah Evens and left her in rural Northampton, where her
skeleton was found on Mothers Day. With Joels confession in hand, police
descended on Jeanne Rifkins home, scouring the premises for evidence. In Joels
room, they struck pay dirt, recovering dozens of ID cards, drivers licenses and
credit cards, photographs, articles of jewelry, and piles of womens clothing
taken from his victims. Out in the garage, they found a wheelbarrow and a
chainsaw stained with human gore. 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.
Despite his confessions and the overwhelming evidence against him, Rifkin pled
not guilty at his murder trial. 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. In early 1994, it was reported that Rifkin had
engaged in a jailhouse scuffle with mass murderer Colin Ferguson over the use of
a public telephone. The argument over whose killings were better reportedly
ended when Ferguson punched Rifkin in the mouth.
Trivia - there was a hilarious episode of Seinfeld
where Elaine dates a great guy who has the unfortunate coincidence of
having the exact same name as the infamous killer.