Cold Case Files - The Rifkin Murders Part 3

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

After 30 years, serial killer Joel Rifkin is providing clues to New York State Police in order to identify two of his 17 victims--the only victims that remain nameless. The information he’s given has brought investigators closer than ever before to naming Victims Six and Nine. But when they visit him in prison, Rifkin throws them a curveball. In an effort to bring about justice, TV producer Peter Reiss follows up with his own on camera sit down with Rifkin to get answers once and for all. 1-800 Contacts: Order online at 1800contacts.com or download the free 1-800 Contacts app today!Homes.com: We’ve done your homework.Marley Spoon: Head to MarleySpoon.com/offer/COLDCASE for up to 25 free meals!Mint: To get the new customer offer and your new 3-month premium wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to Mintmobile.com/coldcaseSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This program contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. There are over 100,000 cold cases in America. Only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. It's May 22 in Danamora, New York. Cold case investigators Tiffany Attai and Sean Lammons have been working for 11 months to identify the sixth and ninth victims of serial girls.

killer, Joel Rifkin. This case in these new leads, it's been a little bit of a roller coaster ride. It's brought us in different directions, but we are one step closer from where we were in 1993. During the course of their investigation, a tie and lamins have performed DNA analysis on jewelry found on the victims. We had obtained a partial DNA profile on the pair of earrings that could belong to victim number six.

Investigators have also searched by health. helicopter, areas described by Rifkin as dump sites for the bodies. Where it was like a freight railroad line. Starlight Park matched the description he was giving of where he dumped victim number six. We were going to interview Rifkin. But then Peter had mentioned that Rifkin kind of went radio silent and wasn't talking to him. So I was a little nervous that maybe he was getting cold feet. A tie in Lamens have arranged to sit down with Rifkin with the help of

of TV producer Peter Rice. Good to see you. Nice to see you. How was your drive? Oh, it was good. How about you guys? This long drive. Long drive. Yeah.

This interview with Rifkin and the police was such a big moment in the case. I just want to thank you guys for inviting me up for this special moment. I know we've all been building towards it for a while. Definitely. But Rifkin's kind of gone dark on me, so I don't know what his deal is.

When I started talking to Rifkin again, we had been communicating pretty regular for at least every week on phone and email. But leading up to the police meeting with Rifkin at prison, I had lost contact with him for at least a month, if not longer, and I really didn't know what Rifkin's state of mind was going to be when the police went and visited him. Rifkin doesn't really have a choice about what he can and can't do in prison.

So he had to show up for the meeting with him, but he was under no legal obligation to speak to the police. He could just sit there and choose not to talk. So I hope his mindset is what it's been all along, which is that he wants to help. Exactly. Well, we'll find out shortly, you know, maybe why he's gone dark.

Right. Good luck, guys. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, Peter. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, see in a bit. Yeah, see in a bit. Yep.

Sounds good. Talk to later. Have you ever been to the jail before? No, no, no. No, not this one. The prison's right there. Wow, it's an old building, right? Yeah, right.

Yeah, it looks real old. It's a really high wall. Yeah, pretty crazy. Danamora, it's a huge old prison. It was pretty intimidating walking in there. This is the first time I've ever been face-to-face with a serial killer. So we both were a little unsure how it was going to unravel. I wasn't allowed to go in with them,

but as I watched Investigator of Ty and Lammons walk into the Clinton Correctional Facility, and I was concerned about how cooperative Rifkin was going to be with police. The following is an audio recording of the interview between Rifkin and investigators at Ty and Lamens. You know why we're here? I picked them six and nine. When you were taking jewelry, was there anything that went through your mind

where you're like, you know, I want that piece of jewelry or what was the thought process? Is it really whatever was a kind of viable? Okay. There were some didn't take anything. There was some kept everything. There was no one who reason made. It was an odd period of hospitality.

Those two earrings were the only ones that I could see in matching because the hanging ones have their little plastic crystals. Yeah, the problem is it wasn't a pair, I think I only had one. So the first two pictures of earrings don't look familiar to you? No. Do you think you can draw it? Sort of, don't remember. The hanging earring was right off of one of the hooks.

But if you're looking at it, If you're looking at it, it's almost like a flower. I was sitting out there waiting for them. And one hour went by, two hours went by, three hours went by. That's the creek that we went over. So we have the aerial video. This is the Bronx River. I basically pulled over and then back into a triangle.

There was no overhead bridge, though. So the road was next to where the tracks would be? The tracks running outside. So nothing's jumping at you? No. Prior to interviewing Rifkin, I had gathered photos of women from 30 years ago who were in the sex industry back then, who kind of fell off the grid. I had brought the photos up to Danamora to show him and see if he could pick out any of the girls resembling six and nine. Is this helping you looking at all this stuff?

Yeah. This is when you stopped at. I don't want to force anything down your throat. I just noticed where you paused. This is similar. Which one? 11th. Similar for which one, six or nine?

Six. We also showed him photos of jewelry belonging to victims that Rifkin kept for trophies. And as far as number nine, what else do you remember about it? I remember the snake. I don't think she was wearing it. Number nine?

Yeah, but that snake piece is definitely hers. Victim number nine. Yeah. After the interview, a tie in Lammons meet Peter Rice. They're in there a long time. What did you guys learn? A couple good things, couple of not-so good things. Exactly.

The thing with police work, and in any case, is not always cut and dry, and you get the answers you want. They seem a little slow to recall certain things. He kept saying it's a long time ago. My memory isn't what it used to be. What about the single earring and the pair of earrings? He didn't recognize them at all.

In the black and white, in the color. They were dead on as far as the description, and he was able to draw a picture of what he remembered, number six's earring looking like. Similar description to the original, but different characteristics to it that he had mentioned earlier. Huh. So? As far as the river, he was able to rule out certain areas

that we had photos and videos of. As far as the photos of the females, he was able to definitively say that he didn't recognize Marilyn Mara. He paused at some pictures that I'm going to look into a little bit further, but we do have some new information about an item of jewelry belonging to number nine. So, yeah, which is weird because he never mentioned that previously. No, I asked him specifically if he remember keeping anything from number nine, clothing or jewelry, and he said no.

It's like any case, you know, things change. You plan for one thing and you have. end up doing another. So you just got to roll with it and see what you get. When they told me how the meeting went, I was disappointed. He just didn't seem to have the recall and he didn't seem to be as forthcoming with information as he did with me on the phone. So when I came out of the meeting with Rifkin, I was definitely tired. They'll drive up the day before was a lot, sleeping in a hotel, and then just being in the room with him for four and a half hours. It's kind of exhausting.

Takes a lot of energy out of you. And then, you know, when you get some sleep and you wake up, you're like, all right, you didn't hit a dead end. I mean, we did get additional info out of Rifkin for jewelry belonging to number nine. And it turns out after he looked at those photos of the girls, we got something we didn't have. I wasn't sure if Rifkin was going to stop on any photos,

but he stopped on two of them. One known victim and one that, resembled or had similar hair that he recalled victim number six having. This is similar. Which one? 11th. Similar for which one, six or nine? Six.

He showed an interest in her, and it was a different interest than any of the other photos that he was shown, which caught my attention. So as much as I was disappointed that I didn't get all the answers that I wanted, I took away information that could help identify six and nine. And we found answers for the daughter of Marilyn Mara. Hello? Hey, Tanya, it's Tiffany. How are you?

Good. How are you? Good. I just wanted to touch base after meeting with Rifkin and kind of fill you in and what he said after looking at the photos. As an investigator, as a detective, the families of the victims look to you for answers. Tanya thought that it was possible that her mother, Marilyn Mara, might be a Rifkin victim. How did it go? It went well.

I guess the good news for you is that he did not recognize your mom at all. Okay, well, good. That's definitely good to know. Yes. In the beginning, when I started this search, every dead end did feel like a blow. But with so many years searching, you kind of realize a dead end isn't a dead end,

Because you don't have to focus any more energy in that direction, which, you know, gives you more time and space to start to focus in a different area. And I'm incredibly grateful and thankful for Tiffany. She's relentless. She doesn't stop until she gets an answer. And that's something I can really appreciate. Thank you guys so much.

You're welcome. I'll talk to you soon. Okay, bye-bye. All right, bye. Oh, hey. Oh, hey, what's going on? How are you feeling? Tired. Yeah, we do.

Getting some rest. So I kind of want to go over everything and see where we're at. When Rifkin was talking about victim number nine, he had picked out a photo and it was a snake bracelet. He remembered that he kept that from that victim. This was the bracelet he indicated was victim number nine. And I remember that being in the processing with the earrings. Yes.

That's in that blue safe. Yeah, I definitely know where that is. The first step is to obtain that bracelet from our evidence and send it up to the lab for testing. Then hopefully we get DNA. What's your take on this description of the earring being different? I don't know. I don't know if his memory's getting a little foggy or not. When I showed him the photo of the pair, he said, that's not them.

So I asked him to draw them. When he drew the picture, I looked at them and they looked almost exact to what we had and what we obtained DNA from. So the question became in my mind, well, what's changing now? After the police meeting with Rifkin at Danamora, thoughts crossed my mind. Like, is he changing his story? Why is he being difficult? I was really starting to question the whole thing. I had lost contact with him.

And I was kind of in the dark about, you know, what was happening. Hey, can you hear me? Yeah. So I was just hoping to catch up with you after Danamara and just one. and just wondering what your thoughts are on the visit and anything that he said that's helping you move things forward. One of the main things Investigator Tye did

was to show Rifkin pictures of missing persons and mugshots of women arrested for prostitution around the same time and location as when victim six and nine went missing from New York City. The investigators told me that he had stopped on two women. I put a photo of Julie Blackbird in there, just to see what his reaction would be. He said, oh, she looks familiar.

Mott Thomas is Julie Blackbird's friend. I first met Julie in the lobby of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts School of Art. Julie was an accomplished actress and performer, and I was just struck by her beauty and presence. She was just like a movie star to me. One evening, I started to take photographs of her. When she was putting her makeup on, it was almost like watching a painter,

the way she would create her look. I thought she was gonna be a famous actress. I really did. Julie went on up to New York, and I stayed behind in Houston, and we eventually lost touch. Years later, I had gone up to New York City, city and I was walking down Mott Street and lo and behold there was Julie. I was just speechless. I was shocked. Julie still looked like Julie, but there was something off. The happiness and the confidence

that she had had left her. I really wanted to go over there and hug her, but there was a guy, 15 yards away from her, just had this evil presence about him. I had a wave of fear go through me like I really have never felt. And so I just turned and kept going. And I regretted it for the rest of my life. When I read what had happened to Julie in New York, it was devastating. And the more I read the more awful it got. His body language changed when he looked at a photo of Julie Blackbird, and his reaction was with stopping on Julie Blackbird's photo was somewhat similar to the missing person. This is similar.

Which one? 11th. Similar for which one, six or nine? Six. So I found it interesting that he stopped on that photo. It was almost similar to the way he looked at. picture of his known victim. So that meant something to me. Then he made comments about it that she resembled victim number six hair color and hairstyle.

The second woman that he stopped on who is missing is Denise Griffin. Denise Griffin was actually on the list of women that the task force looked at 30 years ago. And she went missing several months before he said he killed victim number six. So this is the Namis page for Denise Griffin. has her date of last contact as May 17, 1991, possibly last seen in the Brooklyn and Manhattan area. The time frame fits for the most part and the area where she worked fit as well.

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I purposely put Denise Griffin's photo in the 100 photos. I had showed Rifkin because I knew she was missing and I knew she was looked at by the initial investigators in 1993. And Rifkin stopped on her. She is in Namis, the National Missing and Unidentified Person's System. And she went missing several months before he said he killed victim number six. When you look at the profile for Denise Griffin and Namis says that there's DNA on file. However, just because there's DNA on file, it doesn't mean that you can just go get that DNA and compare it to the partial profile we obtained on the pair of earrings.

We would need to have it uploaded to KOTIS and then see if you would get a match with the DNA that Denise Griffin's family provided back then. But KOTUS, which is a DNA database maintained by the FBI, We need a full profile to run that sample. Unfortunately, we don't have a full profile to put into CODIS. We're working with a partial. So we would need a new buckle swab from a family member to compare to the partial profile to get those answers. But before I start reaching out to all of Denise's family, we just need a little bit more to connect the dots.

We know who this woman is. She could be number six. So after the police interview with Rifkin, I wanted to meet Rifkin personally to follow up with him about Denise Griffin and where he disposed a victim number six. And just see if I could get any more information sitting down with him directly face to face

that maybe he wasn't willing to share with law enforcement. If Peter was going to get more information or get Rifkin in a state where he was more forthcoming and felt better, I was open to that. Maybe he would give him something that he didn't feel comfortable giving us that we could use. But it had been about three months since he had last contacted me. And I didn't know what to make of Rifkin's silence.

I didn't know if it was going to continue or what. After Rifkin had picked out the snake bracelet as belonging to victim number nine, we sent it up to the lab for testing. I don't know if the lab reached out to you. Not lately, no. Okay. There was no DNA on the snake bracelet. Okay.

belonging to nine, so we have no DNA. So ultimately, the lab wasn't able to obtain any DNA off the snake bracelet. Unfortunately, we can't explore the DNA route in identifying victim number nine through that. The only thing left to do is wait. And hopefully, the office of the chief medical examiner can locate victim number nine in Hart Island, exhum her and get DNA from her remains. Bill Simon is a retired detective with the New York City Police Department. Number nine is on plot 226.

But the people that are buried on Heart Island are buried in mass graves. When they went to go look for the body, she's mixed with 150 other bodies. So it's making it almost impossible to identify who is who, even though we have the plot. But there's always hope. You can't say that anything's finished. So once again, I went back to the autopsy, and I looked at what we had. We don't have much, but I finally realized the one thing we do have is the victim's dental records. You can make a positive identification of a dental record.

Ideal circumstances would be that you have an idea of who the victim is and her dental records, and you bring them down to the OCME and they compare them. Another way they can do it is if you have a picture of the person who you think, Maybe that body, if you're smiling in the picture, you can compare that picture with the dental records. So there are ways to do it. There's always that one little measure of hope. There's always that one person that may have a key piece

of information that we could link those dental records and make an identification. It's just up to someone to bring that hope into reality. I thought victim number nine was going to be the easy one to identify. They exhum her body. They get a DNA sample from the bones. And boom, we'll somehow identify her that way.

It's turned into this long saga of mass graves and commingled remains. And it's really something that I wasn't anticipating and still have trouble wrapping my head around. It just made me feel like I had to take my job even more seriously, that I really needed to step up and get the police the information they needed. They were supportive of me

trying to get more information from Rifkin face to face. But before the police went up to visit Rifkin in prison, Rifkin just went completely dark on me. I would email him over and over again, but he never responded to me. I didn't know what to think. Maybe he's had a change of heart.

Maybe felt like it was too much and wanted to back out. And then he finally sent me an email Sorry, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. I've been majorly depressed these past months. Reliving it all for Tiffany took a lot out of me. Seeing the photos made it vastly more real than relying on simple memory. He said that going back into his memory banks and reliving his crimes

brought up a lot of emotions and whether he was showing remorse or not, I don't really know. But one of the reasons why he told me he was depressed is because thinking about those crimes back in the day is when he wasn't in prison. It's when he lived at home, he had a life, he had freedom. So now he's remembering, I'm in prison and I can't do any of that stuff. And it took a while for him to kind of snap out of it. We started communicating again, and I told Rifkin I wanted to meet with him and ask follow-up questions, and he agreed to meet with me in prison.

So I'm coming on August 9th. All right. Be interesting. Like I said, I just want to talk to you about most mostly what we've been talking about these last two years, which is about six and nine. Okay. I think he wants to help find who these women are. His reasons, I don't know.

But the way for this to pay off for him, in my mind, is for us to identify these women, because then he's back in the news, then he's Kern again, then he's relevant. If he's throwing roadblocks at us, if he's trying to confuse us, that moment's never going to come. Greg McCray is a retired FBI special agent. I think Rifkin is playing the I've got. a secret game. Most serial killers think they're smarter than everybody else. And everything is about control. They want to have control over everything. That's who I think we're dealing with. So he may tease this information, give it to you drop by drop.

And it wouldn't surprise me if he provides some truth and some falsehoods. Let's see if you can figure out the difference. He's still manipulative. He'll go to the grave being manipulative. And this is just another way to manipulate the system. On August 9, 22, 14 months into the investigation, Peter Rice heads to the Clinton correctional facility in Danimora to speak to Rifkin. We are officially on the way to the prison. It had been about three months since the police interview with Rifkin at prison. And I really wanted to get him to look at the picture of Denise Griffin again and see what he remembered about her, ask him again about the earrings and why there was a discrepancy between a pair and a single.

Tiffany and I have been speaking on and off over the last week. She is really focused right now on trying to find number six. So she wants me to hone in on where he dumped number six in the barrel. So we'll see what he has to offer. I guess I'm a little nervous about Rifkin. There is definitely some anxiety. What's he thinking? and is he going to be helpful?

You never know what might pry loose from his memory. You never know what break in the case might come. Thanks for your time. No problem. I knew this interview with Rifkin was going to be an important moment, so I really had to take advantage of the time I had with him to try to get the information that they were looking for. We kind of go back a long way, don't we?

Yeah. He had had the longest ponytail I had ever seen, a big long beard. He looked like he had aged significantly, and he was a much different person than I remembered him from the 2004 interview. How are you doing today? Good.

Mood's improved. She's just feeling good. What was it like meeting with investigators when they came to see you and kind of show you all the different pictures and everything? What was that experience like for you? Those interviews, they're more difficult

because all the memories come back. It took a while to get readjust afterwards. I mean, at this point in time now, we're all getting older. At some point, I feel like the information won't be available anymore to try to figure out who these women were, where six is and who six and nine are. So if not now, when, right? Yeah, so much has changed. It's, is there anything still left to look for? Did they show you a bunch of pictures of potential victims? Well, over 100, I believe.

Yeah. You stopped on a woman, Denise Griffin, that kind of had what I'm calling strawberry blonde hair. Yeah. Do you remember what you said about her, or do you remember anything about her? Hair style, color, general roundness of the face, or blood somewhat to six. Anything else about her that you remember? Any clothing, any scar? any scars, any markings?

No. Sadly, no. Had you seen her before? No. It was a rough start. He seemed a little nervous. He seemed cold. There wasn't a lot of back and forth.

It was just ask a question and get a one-word answer. So I started talking to him about his childhood and things I knew that he liked talking about and reminiscing about. What are the good memories of your childhood and your mom and your family? Oh. some happier times. We did family vacations, went to a bungalow, large hotel thing

that were very popular in the Catskills and the mountains. The film Dirty Dancing takes place at one of these places. So are those, you know, home movies? Is that a good representation of your childhood? And do you have happy memories when you think about those memories? Early, yeah. Now, what about the relationship with your mom? Did you love her and do you feel like she loved you?

Oh, yeah. Mom was always there. Mom was there through the trial through this whole arresting and imprisonment. Her passing was a big loss. Dad passed before my arrest. It took a while for him to warm up, and I think a lot of it has to do with his memory isn't perfect. And I think that he is somewhat conflicted. I think that he wants to help identify these words.

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pair, clear or bluish. I've always described it as rock candy. The color, you know, the It's years. There's different memories over the years. Rifkin's original story was that it was a pair of earrings that looked like rock candy. Then he went to a single. Today, he went back to being a pair of earrings in that he was just confused, basically.

So there's still hope that those earrings could provide the identity of victim number six with that partial DNA sample. But there's also a chance that the police will find her remains and that she can be identified that way. So I started to ask Rifkin more details about where he dumped number six. Can you walk me through how you disposed of her? Well, with number six, I still had the service yard for landscaping.

So I brought her there, steel drum, drove through the city up into the Bronx area. Spotted a turn off by, I thought it was a little creek. small triangle of land and put the barrel in the creek. There were a lot of auto-solvage places around there. There were a lot of doors, hoods, motors, laying everywhere. You recently mentioned that where the turn in the river was, you thought there was a freight railroad line? Yeah, I didn't think it was,

it didn't have that commuter rail feel to it. Why do you think now it was the Bronx River and not the Harlem River? Through the investigators, The closest to the road and the railroad tracks, it drunks, River Fits. I kept asking him about different descriptions of the river and the area, but the information I was getting from Rifkin on where he disposed of victim number six was basically what the police already knew. So I tried to get more details from him about victim number nine.

Number nine, her body was found May of 92 in Brooklyn. Can you tell me what you remember about her? Taller, bigger bone than number six. Five-seven, five-ten-ish, maybe. Do you remember any kind of tattoo on her? No. Hair color? Dark with racy blonde highlights, long, sort of in an updo.

Where did you go and what did you do with her? I'm not sure if it was a parking lot or a building lot. We didn't even really do anything because the trigger with her way she just kept sleeping. So it was like... Did you strangle her? Yeah, like the others. I could be with two, three girls in one night. They'd be fine.

The next night I could be with another two, three. The first two, be fine. The third one wouldn't be. Why her and not the other five? I still don't understand. Something comes over you. It's been called that. There's a lot of victims.

There's a lot of jewelry. There's a lot of facts. And he has a great memory, but it's not perfect. And so I started asking him about his crimes from the beginning. Can you tell me about the first victim? Yeah. Susie with a Z. Started out Manhattan, the Forsyth Allen Street area.

We eventually go back to the house in the island. In her case, I picked up an artillery shell. I had bought at a garage. I'd sell for like a quarter about you big and smacked it with it and then kept hitting her with it until I physically got tired. I don't know, 20, 30 times maybe. I'm freaking out. I think I killed her.

I'm running around pulling down curtains, closing doors, turning lights off, just freaking out. And she sits up. And now just total freaking. We ended up wrestling and either strangled or a smother or a combination of the both because I had no idea what to now do with a bloody mess that, you know, what do you do? What do you go? Ah, panic. And what about that first one do you think made you cross the line? We read books that guys fantasize about murder and mayhem all the time. I don't know. I guess at that moment. the fantasy life and the real life just intertwined. And there's also, you lie to yourself,

are you doing this? That's the other thing. You do one, and well, they can only kill you the first time for the one, so the second one becomes like a free one. Well, so then you can rationalize the third one, back and forth, back and forth. Did you ever vow to stop? Oh, like a hundred times. It's the same as quitting smoking.

is quitting smoking. Yeah, I'll do that tomorrow. Oh, tomorrow I'm smoking. I'll quit again. Yep. We have a weird definition of what's crazy and what's legally crazy. Trust me, I was not normal at the time. After that, it just really twisted me. Do you really feel sorry for what you did? Yeah, they're gone. I mean, I get weird male. I get weird male. I get interesting male. I get psycho male. I get a lot of male. But I get this letter, female handwriting, it's obviously from a woman. Hi, I knew you on the streets. You knew me. Thank you for not killing me. I know I have five daughters. Really? Oh, so this, just five, you know, kids that had things gone differently those two nights, wouldn't be here, you know.

So I start thinking about all the stuff that never happened. And then it's just, yeah, there's a lot going on up there. It's a double-edged tragedy. They're gone. I'm sitting in here. I had a lot of other plans and fantasies about, oh, you know, different life. That's gone. I'm sure they had goals and fantasies and ideas for life, and it's gone for them.

Everyone wants to know does Rifkin actually feel remorse? He knows what he did is wrong. I think he knows that intellectually, but I don't think he actually feels it in his soul. I just think that he doesn't possess the emotions. Like he can't feel that emotion for whatever reason. Just doesn't exist in him. A lot of people, they think you have ulterior motives

or you're giving some information, but not all the information. How do you respond to that? It's been 30 years. There's no ulterior motive. There's no appeal. There's no time off. I don't get anything from this exchange monetarily. They can think what they want to think.

So I showed him the picture of Denise Griffin, and I said, could this be victim number six? Is this the woman that you stopped on? Yeah. I think when I knew where the hair was shorter, It was more off the shoulder. Yeah, I don't think there was that much makeup. So what are your thoughts when you look at that?

More probable, yes, than no. That's the closest image to what I remember. The street life is a very hard life, and appearance has changed very quickly. And what you see one month is not what you see the next month. It sounds like, though, that you do have an idea of what she looked like. in your memory somewhere? Yeah.

Do you think if they found a picture of Denise later in life that maybe it could be her? Probably. He said, more probable than not that Denise Griffin is victim number six. So that is significant, but he's reluctant to go all the way. Is it because he wants to keep it open and keeps some mystery alive? I don't know. But part of me now, believe.

that he's not going to go all the way and say, this is her, that this is his way of saying that, and that's as close as he's going to get. For the record, the information you've been giving me and investigator a tie, you're telling us the truth. Oh yeah. We have to close down. I hope we can stay in touch.

Thank you. After the interview with Rifkin, I had mixed emotions. He never shut down or backed off when I asked some detailed questions. He seemed to try to rack his memory as best he could. I'm always hoping that he's going to go in there and give us all the information that we want, like tied up in a bow. And that's just not happening. It's definitely been frustrating from my perspective because I was hoping to have all the answers by now.

I was shown the video of the interview between Peter and Rifkin and Rifkin's reaction to Denise Griffin, seemed significant. It was almost like he was saying, this might be her without saying it. And that helped confirm his pause during our interview looking at that photo. This one, you stopped at. I noticed where you paused.

This is similar. Similar for which one, six or nine? Six. It means Denise Griffin may be victim number six. But before I start reaching out to all of Denise's family, I want to make sure that our lab doesn't match a known victim's DNA profile to the partial on the earrings. Because without doing that, we could be working to identify a victim that we already know.

Once the lab is able to tell me that those earrings don't belong to any of the known victims that Rivkin confessed to, at that point, it's important to reach out to the family and see if they would be willing to provide a DNA sample to be compared to the partial profile. DNA, it's not something that you see on TV. where it happens overnight. Testing takes a while, and we have to be patient. As an investigator, you have to be determined. And you just have to keep trying to find those answers,

looking into this case in a new way. Cold cases are difficult to solve, but with any unidentified victim in any case, there's always a chance. And we saw that with victim number one. It's a really inspiring story, and it has parallels to what investigator Atai is doing, because these cases take a lot of time,

They have a lot of dead ends, and then new things open up. And hearing about victim number one have made me hopeful that these two victims, six and nine, can someday be identified. We will return with the conclusion of the Rifkin murders next week on Cold Case Files. Pluto TV has thousands of free movies and TV shows. This is the mindset. Free. This is the mantra. Free.

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