True Crime All The Time - Joel Rifkin

Episode Date: July 17, 2017

Joel Rifkin is a serial killer believed to be responsible for the deaths of 17 women in New York in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Rifkin became obsessed with sex workers and would engage their services sometimes as often as twice a day. These are the individuals that he would ultimately target to fulfill his murderous fantasies.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss pure evil in the form of Joel Rifkin. What would lead a man with a fairly high IQ of 128 to accomplish very little in life and then down the path to murder? Was their something in his childhood that we can point to or did he just develop sick and twisted fantasies that he eventually needed to become a reality?Visit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact and merchandise information. You can support the show by going to patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

on and welcome to episode 36 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson, aka Ghibi. Gibby, what is happening? Hey, man. Hey. Fonsie, man. Givie's wearing his leather jacket like Fonzie.

I mean chaps the other weeks and now I've moved up to the leather jacket, you know. I'm into that whole leather scene. All right, dude. Don't give away all your secrets right out of the gate. That's true. Hold back. I got to hold some of that stuff back. Hey, I'm doing good today.

End of the week. We're taping on a Friday night. All right, Gibbs. We've got to give out some love to our new Patreon supporters. We've got 13 Fox Trot, Rhonda Fritz, VA Lash. She jumped out at our highest level. And I have to think that there's some connection there to Lash Vixen. thinking let us know i'm throwing that out as a maybe they work together if not maybe they ought to

get together yeah because the names are very similar so we have deborra trader hey why the face Gibbs thinks that one's directed at me i do we have ryan crumb be kind callie i like that which is just a good message in general yeah daniel longamore emmael mmael m now everybody's It's not making it that easy on me today to read some of these. Vicki Hensler, Samantha McDonough. And those are our Patreon supporters. And then on PayPal, we had a donation from Health Wise. That's cool.

Yeah. I don't know if it's a company. It's kind of hard to tell on PayPal. Makes me want to get healthier. We should all do that. Yeah. And wiser. Healthier and wiser.

So as always, we appreciate. our new Patreon supporters and gives. We appreciate all the people that have supported us from the beginning. Absolutely. And because of that,

we're going back into the archives. And this is back when we weren't even saying people's last name. So when you got a squeaky door opening up or something, that was my best sound effect. For the archive?

Yeah. That's the archive, the door opening to the archive. We'll go with it. That's our budget for sound effect. Yeah. So, way back, and we're talking

December Gibbs of 16 when we started this show. Right. And Fertner and Anne, I hope I'm not butchering your name because I have a tendency to butcher, was our very, very first Patreon supporter

and is still supporting us to this day. Doing something right. So, and we appreciate it so much. And then Rebecca Sheffler was our second Patreon supporter. So I just thought it'd be fun, Gibbs, to give a couple shoutouts every episode.

Yeah. For some of the folks that have been with us for, you know, six, seven months now. Still, still kicking with it with us. Yep. So appreciate it so much. All right, Gibbs, we've got so many voicemails because you just keep making a pitch for voicemails. I'm just saying send your voicemail. So I'm going to play a couple in the beginning and then a couple at the end.

So it doesn't take us so long to get to the story. Hey, guys. My name is Trevor Roberts from Gads in Alabama. I've been listening to your podcast for seven days and I've went through every single episode. I think you guys are awesome. I enjoy hearing your podcast every week and just keep up the good work. Talk to you soon. All right.

Awesome voicemail from Trevor. Yeah, binging us. Seven days he's gone through. That's some ring type stuff right there. First one ever been binged. Seven days. Yeah. That's the first time you've ever been, Ben, Ben,

Because I binge a lot. Yeah, that's first I remember, Ben, binge. Ben binge. Hey, guys. Martha here from Dayton, Ohio. Just wanted to say that I love the podcast. I listen to you guys almost every day at work. It helped get me through the day and just want to say, keep on going.

Thanks. All right. Melissa's from our hometown. Yeah, she's around the corner. Somewhere. Somewhere. We don't know where. She might be a future meetup and greet.

Meetup and Greet. which is very similar to the standard meet and greet. Yeah, you got your way saying it. I got my way. But what Gibby likes to do is this thing called a meet up and greet. Yeah, it's much better. Yeah, it's got some extra perks to it. Yeah.

Now, after you finish listening to this episode, make sure you jump over. Check out true crime all the time unsolved. We're doing a case on the disappearance and murder of Jacqueline de Wallaby. A lot of twists and turns. in this one, Gibbs. That's a good one. Yeah, sad, but an interesting case.

Definitely. Check it out. It needs to be heard. And Gibbs, before we start talking about Joel Rifkin, because that's our topic for this episode, we have to give a big shout out to Maggie, our writer, researcher, extraordinaire. Because Maggie put this one together for us, and we can't, we're so thankful for Maggie for doing that. Absolutely.

Helps us out big time. This is her debut. So Joel Rifkin was born January 20th, 1959, and his parents were unwed college students. And so Rifkin ends up getting placed for adoption. But when he is only three weeks old, Gibbs, he gets adopted by a couple named Bernard and Gene Rifkin. So pretty early, three weeks old. Bernard and Jean would later go on to adopt a daughter three years later. Now, in 1965, the family moves to Long Island.

And Rifkin is attending Prospect Avenue Elementary School. And we've got to talk about his childhood a little bit, Gibbs, because as far as home life, it was pretty normal. You know, Joel Rifkin would say later on that, you know, what he remembered was, family photos, family movies. I think there was love in the house. The one thing he did say is that he had a hard time, we'll probably talk about it a little bit more later,

but he had a hard time impressing his dad. So I think a lot of people could say the same thing about their relationship with their father. No, I would agree. It can be a tough relationship for a lot of boys. Because in the case of Bernard Rifkin, And he was kind of accomplished. You know, he was an athlete.

He had a lot of things going for him. And what we're going to find out is that Joel has a very hard time living up to this standard. But we go back to Joel in elementary school. And very early on, he gets bullied as a child. And he gets bullied a lot. He never fits in with the other kids. And a lot of this comes from the.

fact that he has very poor posture and he walks very slowly almost I think of like a sloth kind of just mose in along so you add this posture and the slow walking together and what the kids end up calling him is turtle turtle turtle turtle but as you can imagine gibbs it's probably not a nickname that Rifkin was real fond of. There's probably worse. There is worse. But it's not a great one either. Any kind of bullying.

And that's not the only kind. I mean, that's just one example. You know, he got, he got bullied quite a bit. But Joel Rifkin has an IQ of about 128 Gibbs. So this is not like some of the serial killers we talk about. No, his number's getting close to mine. Yeah, it's up there.

It's up there. I mean, he's got a ways to go to get to, to, to give status. Well, of course, but, you know. But he was an intelligent guy. But even with the intelligence, he struggled in school because one thing that he had to deal with was dyslexia. As did I. And that's tough to deal with. It was. So you know firsthand, Gibbs. I mean, as a child growing up, as smart as you are in the 150s, that's a tough, you know, dyslexia is tough to overcome. It was. And it makes learning tougher.

Between that and speech therapy, man. You had it rough. I did have it rough. So Rifkin did too. Yeah. Did it take him three years to get out of the second grade as well? No. No.

Is that not normal? No, I think most people get it on their first try. Really? Yeah. Second grade's not one of the tougher grades, in my opinion, Billy Madison. Maybe it didn't take me three years. So even as Rifkin gets into his teenage years, he still has. has a very hard time fitting in. But he wants to so bad, right? I mean, this is all he wants to do

is to be able to fit in with the other kids. He ends up joining the track team. You just said he walked really slow. Yeah, I don't know what he did on the track team. Maybe he did discus. Maybe he did shot put or something like that. Doing this to fit in and maybe you're you're touching on something there, Gibbs, in a funny way. He's still being bullied and mocked. by his fellow students. So chances are he probably wasn't very good at track. So that didn't help him fit in. Yeah,

I run in track too. I know you did it all. I'm just saying. Genius level IQ, chap wearing track star that somehow got held back three times in the second grade. No wonder you're a track star, dude. You're running against kids that were four years younger than you. Yeah.

You should see me when I play basketball. So then Rifkin decides that he's going to draw. join the yearbook staff. And what happens is his camera ends up being stolen. So he's not able to participate in a lot of the things that are going on in this yearbook club staff, whatever you want to call it. And in particular, he's not able to participate in this end of the year party for the yearbook staff. So what is this doing to Rifkin? Right. He's excluded again as he's trying to fit in with everyone. He keeps trying.

He keeps trying. He just can't accomplish his goal. So eventually Gibbs, all this bullying and not fitting in, it does take its toll on Rifkin. And what he ends up doing is retreating into his own kind of like little world to shut everybody out. And Rifkin ends up becoming obsessed with. a movie. And this is a Alfred Hitchcock movie called Frenzy

and it's a 1972 movie about a serial killer based in London. And it's actually inspired by the real life John Christie murders of the 1950s kind of intermingled with the

Jack the Ripper murders. But both of those people chose sex workers as their victims. So Rifkin is watching this film frenzy and this serial killer is doing the same thing, right? He's targeting sex workers. And this is when Joel Rifkin starts to become enamored with the idea of strangling and murdering sex workers. A lot of it had to do with this movie. He talks about it a lot in interviews later in life. So Jack the Ripper and John Christie, did they,

pick sex workers because those would be the people least missed at that time, you think? I would say that that's, that is probably held true. Yeah. Throughout time or, you know, I don't want to say throughout time, but going back all the way to Jack the Ripper to modern day time, we talk a lot about serial killers who target sex workers. Yeah, seems like they are a constant in this type of conversation. And I think your idea of the reason why is, very valid because a lot of the victims that we talk about are either estranged from their family. They don't have a lot of family. Yeah, runaways or they don't have an address. You know, you end up in a situation like that.

And to your point, they are not going to be missed maybe as much as a soccer mom would be. Yeah, snatched out of the parking lot. Right. With all kinds of family. And, I mean, and I hate to say that, but that's the truth. And I think it has to be because we talk about it so much because sex workers are targeted. There's no doubt. Every now and then they do those shows, most dangerous jobs. They ought to put the sex workers on that. In lists that I've seen.

It's there already? That is one of the most dangerous jobs. Oh, yeah. Okay. I mean, I don't know that they would put that on TV. Yeah, they should. When talking about it. but in lists I've seen like on the internet, I've seen it in there because it, it's a very

dangerous job. At some point, you're alone with a stranger. You're very vulnerable. Yeah. I mean, you really are when you're in that position. So Rifkin graduates from high school in 97 and it's the same year that he has sex for the first time. Now, we talked about it, Gibbs. he's having already at the age of 18, he's having very violent fantasies about raping and stabbing women. And his parents give him a car as a gift. And what this allows Rifkin to do is to travel around scoping out sex workers. This is what he uses the car for. He's stalking now, huh?

Yeah, he's stalking sex workers. He's got it in his head that he wants one of these violent, fantasies to come to life. Now, he starts out in an area known as Hempstead. And then later on, he's going to move into Manhattan as well. So Gibbs, he develops this penchant for sex workers. We're still in 1977, right? He's 18 years old. He's having sex with these sex workers. The first time he ever had sex was with one. So it's not that strange that he has a for them. No, it's not.

Part of the reason why I think it's not strange is because I don't believe growing up he was ever able to really develop meaningful relationships, especially with women, right? He was bullied. He didn't fit in. You know, in that situation gives, as you know, very hard to develop a relationship with someone of the opposite sex, in this case, for him to find a girlfriend. Did you say as I would know?

Yeah. Did you just now caught that? Yeah. Okay. No, I heard you say it. I was just... Okay. You're waiting, as a professional,

you were waiting for me to finish. That's exactly right. I was giving you that pause a moment. So because of that, right, not that strange that he would resort to sex workers. Would you agree with that? I would agree with most of that. Except for the part about you.

Except the part of it. Yeah. So at this time, he also ends up enrolling in Nassau College. But much like myself, Gibbs, he did not take his classes very seriously. Yeah, me neither. Now, he skipped his classes for a much different reason than I did. Mine was mostly drinking and playing Sega back in the day, not to date myself. I think he just did.

A little bit. Rifkin skips his classes, spending almost everything he has, which is not a lot, right? It's not a rich guy. But he's spending every bit of money that he can scrape together on having sex with these sex workers. That's a lot. To the point where he's having to move kind of in and out of his parents' house because he just doesn't have any money. Right? I mean, you can't go out and get an apartment if you're spending all your money paying for sex.

So he had an addiction. It sounds like it to me. Yeah. Or a pension. Just rubbing that pension in, aren't you? I don't rub my pension, but maybe you do. So Gibbs, he ends up dropping out of college in 1984. His grades are very poor.

Like we said, he's not attending class. He's not able to hold down a job. He just doesn't have a lot going for him at this point in time at all. Sounds like he's all over the place. The only thing that he, I shouldn't say has it's going for him. The only thing that he enjoys, as far as I can tell, is having sex.

That he has to pay for? That he has to pay for. And life's not going to get better for Rifkin because his adopted father commits suicide in 1987. Now, he had cancer, and he ends up taking a cocktail overdose of barbiturates. And Joel R. Rifkin even gives a eulogy at the funeral.

Now, Gibbs, that same year, Rifkin is arrested for the first time. And he's arrested for solicitation in Hempstead, Long Island. He ends up paying a fine for this. But I go back to what you said about addiction. I think he's got an, I don't know if you call it an addiction, but it's definitely an obsession, a need. So he has that pension. I just like it when you get a new word. Yeah.

And you just can't stop using it. But what this arrest does, Gibbs, is it causes Rifkin to kind of leave his home base of hempstead and start venturing out into Manhattan as he's paying for sex. In 1988, he ends up enrolling in a horticulture study program in Farmingdale, New York. And what is interesting about this stint, it's a two-year program. And this is going to be the first time in Joel Rifkin's life that he's actually going to succeed at something because he ends up making straight A's. I mean, he does so well that he ends up being selected for an internship at a very prestigious arboretum in Oyster Bay, New York.

Now, an interesting side note about his time. Now, an interesting side note Gibbs about Rifkin's time at this arboretum in Oyster Bay is that he becomes attracted to another intern, but he never talks to her. He never tells her how he feels, but the feelings build up. And, you know, he just pushes them down. And at some point, the feelings become too much for him. And he has to find some type of release that's going to allow him. to deal with not only these feelings he's having right now, but also the years of fantasies and bad thoughts that, you know, he's been having for at this point, what give, over 10 years,

right? Because we talked about a lot of this started back in the late 70s when he was just, you know, either in high school or graduating from high school. So he's kept it at bay for 10 or 11 years. But that's all about to change because in March of 1989, Joel Rifkin's going to commit his first murder. And we talked about it Gibbs. He's been having these violent fantasies for years and years. Somehow he's not acted upon them. But what he's going to come out and say later is that he plans this first murder because the thoughts that he's having in his head, they're getting worse and worse every single. single day. So I take that to mean that he just gets to a point where the fantasies in his mind have to become a reality. So his mom goes out of town for about a month. And what this does, it gives Joel Rifkin the house all to himself. So it's almost like it's the perfect opportunity to do something that he's been thinking about doing for a long time. So he drives to Manhattan's

East Village and he picks up a woman that later on he's going to say he only remembered as Susie. Now she was a very heavy drug user so much so that she actually asked Joel to stop several times so that she could get drugs before they even make it back to his house or his mom's house. Now, she was a sex worker, so they end up having a transaction, we'll call it. A transaction. I don't know what else to call it. Sex? Well, yeah, that's the transaction. Yeah. And as soon as that's over, she wants him to take her out to get more drugs. And this really ticks him off. And what Rifkin ends up doing is he picks up this howitzer shell and he ends up being. And he ends up beating her with it. Now we're talking about a howitzer shell, Gibbs. So what are we talking about here?

Size-wise. Two feet, couple feet long? Yeah, I'd say 18 inches to 24. I don't know you're going to be so damn precise about it, but, you know, a good size around. Got some girth to it. Yeah, I'd say it probably has eight to ten inch diameter. It got some weight to it too. So this woman's fighting him hard. and she's biting him, ends up biting one of his fingers. But Rifkin's much bigger than this woman. He gains control and he strangles her to death. What he does next is he puts her body inside a trash bag. He cleans up the mess in the house.

And then he just ends up going to take him a little nappy nap. I mean, can you imagine that Gibbs? You've just killed a person for the first time. and you're going to stuff their body in a trash bag and then I guess you're worn out or you're so calm that you're just able to go in and lay down and go to sleep. Yeah, take a little nap.

Why not stop and get yourself a little sandwich out of the fridge first? A little turkey sandwich. I think that says something about a person. Yeah. That you're able to do that. So he wakes up. He ends up taking her body down, to the basement and using an exacto knife, he dismembers her.

Did you say exacto knife? Yes. The little exacto knife is what he used. I just got fed up and I started hitting her. Basically, beat her until my arms got tired. And then we wrestled on the floor and I ended up strangling her. Cut her up with a hobby knife. Basically, I cut everything to the joint and then would pop the joints out.

did the legs the same way and proceeded to take her head off so now I had six pieces that I wrapped up and casually loaded into the trunk of the car throughout the day

wow wow is right because I mean you were touching on it which is why I wanted to play the clip he says hobby knife but Xactor knife you can kind of picture this is not a big hacksaw no this is a a very small, detailed blade.

It's all personal, but talking about really getting personal. I mean, you're taking some time with that exacto knife to get through. Skin and muscle and... And it would take a lot of time just based on the length of the blade. Yeah. How many cuts you would have to make. And then you're going to turn around and have to snap the joints. Now, he didn't talk about it in the clip, but what would come out as well is that he

ends up removing her fingertips, pulls her teeth out with pliers, and he talked about cutting the head off. And Rifkin takes the head and somehow stuffs it inside of a paint can. Okay. Exactly. He puts the rest of the body parts into trash bags and then he puts them in the car because he's going to have to figure out how to dispose of all these body parts. And what he decides to do is scatter the pieces. And he places her head and her arms in the woods near Hopewell, New Jersey. He throws her torso and legs off of a bridge in Manhattan. So I mean, he's all over the place. But let's talk about it, Gibbs, because is this intelligent? I mean, I'm not talking about killing the person that's horrible. You don't want the disposal. Right. Why do you pull

somebody's teeth out. Well, we know why. Dental records. Right. That that's, to me, the actions of somebody that has some forethought, some intelligence, taking the fingertips off. Again, why do you do that? Yeah, sure. Fingerprints. Fingerprints. Yeah. So he thought about this

a lot. Now, did he think about it for 12 years? Doubtful. Who knows, though? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if he did or not. We know he had these fantasies for a long time, how long was he planning this out? You know, maybe not so much how the murder was going to occur, but what he was going to do after and how he thought he was going to get away with it. Now, a couple things come out after this murder. So someone does find the head. And it's found by a

golfer of all things in Hopewell, where he had disposed of the head. The other thing that comes out is that police release some of the artist photos and they also released the fact that this woman was HIV positive and this really upsets Joel Rifkin when he learns of this but even though they've got some artist photos and they release them they were not able to figure out who this woman was so back to us talking about some of the things he had done it kind of worked right the police even finding some of her body parts and especially the head, they had no teeth. They weren't able to figure out who this person was. And it really wouldn't be until, you know, much later after the fact that Rifkin would confess

or they would have never known what happened to this woman. Now, Rifkin's going to wait a year before claiming his second victim. And we're talking about sometime in late 1990. He picks up a woman named Julie Blackbird. And again, his mother is out of town, right? So he has the house to himself. And he brings this woman named Julie Blackbird back to the house. They have sex for money.

And at some point after that, he takes a table leg and hits her on the head. And then he ends up strangling her. Now, the very strange thing about this one, Gibbs, is that Rifkin's going to later say he thought about having sex with the corpse. And his reasoning behind this was that he wanted to copy Ted Bundy. So into a little necrophilia, huh? Yeah. But he wasn't. And he ultimately didn't do it saying he was very turned off by the idea.

So he had the idea in his head. but I think once it came to actually doing it, he couldn't. The thought occurred to me because I had heard of it and then I shook off the thought and said, no. Now I'm making this dividing line in my head. All right, I just killed somebody, but no, I won't go any, I won't do this next thing. I won't, you know, which is, I don't know, it's odd,

but the whole thing is odd. Yeah, odd seems like a strange choice of words. Yeah. I think it's a little more than odd that you would kill a woman, think about having sex with her dead body, and then decide, nope, not going to. Yeah, I think he makes that a good point, right? How bizarre is it?

I'm willing to kill. But I'm not willing to take the next step or cross a line. So he has a line. Right. His lines just weigh off from where the rest of our lines are. Exactly. Exactly. So Rifkin was trying to learn from his first murder because he didn't want this person to be found at all. So he ends up dismembering the body of Julie Blackburn.

bird and he goes out and he buys some cement and he places the body parts in buckets of cement. And then again, he travels around New York and he dumps her head and torso in the East River in Manhattan and then disposes of the rest of her body in Brooklyn. And this proves to be very efficient, Gibbs, because her remains have never been. been found. But that's not very surprising. To me, if you think about it, how many people were weighted down by concrete in the East River? To me, it's a little scary to think about the number and how many are really down there. Yeah, I'm sure the mob topped a few. We know the mob was big into that. And again, it's really only by later confessions that they would figure out who this was. Now, they also found her

diary. And we're going to talk about this a little bit later. But one of the things that Rifkin does is he collects trophies, right? Like a lot of serial killers that we talk about, he's very end of selecting and taking trophies. One of the earlier homicides or nights or events might have been euphoric and then I was chasing it after that. The thing is you never get that original rush. That's the whole point of why you keep chasing it. So Gibbs, that's, something that you and I talk about a lot, right? Whether it's drugs or in the case of these serial killers, they're getting this euphoric rush out of the act. But just like, let's say, a heroin addict, right? That goes away. And how do you get that rush again? You got to get

your next fix, right? Sometimes you got to amp it up. Here we have Rifkin in his own words basically telling us this is what he was dealing with. He got a rush from the first few victims. That rush goes away. He's got to figure out how to get that rush again. Now in 91, Joel Rifkin starts a landscaping business. And he ends up renting a storage space to keep all of his landscaping equipment. And besides keeping his equipment in there, Gibbs, he's going to use this rental space as a way to hide bodies, right? hide them for a while until he can transport them. Kind of like a...

So Gibbs, his third victim was a woman named Barbara Jacobs. She was a sex worker. She had been arrested for both prostitution and auto theft. And Rifkin ends up taking her home one night. They complete the transaction, as I call it. The deal. The deal. They kind of seal the deal.

They seal the deal. And he ends up beating her with the exact same table leg that he had used on Julie Blackburn. And just like Julie, he strangles Barbara Jacobs to death. But for some reason, he decides that he doesn't want to dismember Barbara Jacobs. So what he does, he ends up wrapping her in plastic. and he puts her in a box. Must have been a pretty good size box. He puts her in her car.

He drives to the Hudson River and dumps the body. I think there's a lot of bodies there. There might be a lot of bodies there too. Yeah. But she's in a box. So we're not talking the same situation. She's not going to sink like she would, you know, like throwing concrete off a bridge.

So they find this body fairly quickly. But what they don't do is connect this at all to Rifkin, right? At any point in time, it's not till later on after everything is said and done that he confesses to killing some of these women. So in September of 91, Rifkin targets a woman named Mary Ellen DeLucah. She was 22 years old. She was a drug addict. and she had told some friends that she was going out to get some drugs. And what happened was that Rifkin ended up picking her up,

taking her around the city to buy drugs, which he actually paid for. They end up going to a hotel. And Rifkin would later say that she didn't really want to engage in sexual activity with him at all. She rushed through it. Really all she wanted was more drugs. And then Rifkin would go on to claim. that he actually asked her if she wanted to die and she said yes and he ended up strangling her.

Now, the problem here Gibbs, as you can imagine, is the story's a little one-sided. All we have is Rifkin's version. Right. It kind of goes back to Herbert Mullins, right? I mean, how many times are you at now, Herbert did some stuff telepathically. Sure. But how many times are you actually going to ask your intended victim if they want to die and they're going to say yes, basically giving you permission. Can I kill you? It just seems so strange to me. I mean,

there's really just no way to ever know if that part of the story is true or not. No, it's based on his own account. Right. Now, what we know is true is that he ends up disposing of her body in Orange County at a rest stop. And she's not going to be found for about a month. It's October. when her body is found. And by this point, the body had gone through a lot of decomposition. Police were not even able to determine

how she died. And again, Gibbs, this is another victim that they will not know what happened or what became of this person until Rifkin makes all of these confessions later on. So in that same month, Rifkin murders another woman named Yun Li.

And Lee is Korean. She's also a sex worker. But this incident is a little different Gibbs in that this was a person that Rifkin was somewhat familiar with and she with him because they had been together before. So Rifkin picks Lee up one night as he had done. I don't know how many times before Gibbs, but we know they were familiar with each other. he murders her by strangulation. And this is one that he would say later,

he felt bad about this one because he knew this woman. Now, whether you believe that or not, that's up to you. I think one of the things that makes that somewhat hard to believe is that he ends up disposing of Lee's body, much like the others, you know, drops her in the East River and her body, and her body, is going to be found floating on September 23rd, 1991. So Gibbs, Yun Li is actually found eight days before his previous victim has found Mary L. and DeLucah. Now, Gibbs, one of the things we've talked about is how they had such a hard time identifying

Rifkin's first victims. I mean, to the point where they had to be buried in unmarked gray. I mean, they could not identify these people. But Lee was a little different. She had a husband and she was identified. So Gibbs, the next person we have to talk about, we can't name because Joel Rifkin couldn't remember this woman's name, but he does know that he strangled her during the act of her performing oral sex on him.

he ends up putting her body in a tarp and driving her back to Long Island. It's kind of dangerous to strangle somebody while they're doing that to you. Well, you're in a vulnerable position. Yeah. A little bit at that point. That force. That would scare me a little bit. Yeah.

So he ends up placing this person in a 55-gallon drum and dumps her body inside the drum in the East River. That's a little mafia style there. Yeah, he had some mafia elements to him. Yeah. But somebody sees him dumping the drum. And he manages to convince this person that he wasn't dumping anything. He was out collecting junk.

What this does do is it begins kind of a fascination with these 55-gallon drums because he's going to use these a lot moving forward. So we get to Lorraine Orvieto. She was 28 years old. And it was said Gibbs that Orvieto had a cocaine addiction and that she also had a mental illness. And she ended up becoming a sex worker to pay for this cocaine habit. Which a lot of them do. It's not a cheap habit.

Yeah. Back then, yeah, it wasn't cheap. Now, one thing about Lorraine is she was somewhat different from the other victims because she came from an affluent family from the Long Island area. I mean, she had been a cheerleader in high school. So you have to think Gibbs drugs, right? She becomes addicted to drugs. That leads her down the path of becoming a sex worker, most likely to pay for this drug

habit. Yeah, I mean, same old story back then, today. Drugs. Then you do things that you normally wouldn't do to get your next fix, which is normally sell your body. Or something other illegal activity. Yep. So Rifkin picks up Orvieto in December of 91.

He strangles her. He says, again, during oral sex. I go back to your comment, Gibbs. It seems like a strange time. That must have meant something to him. Must have, man. Whether it was power, control, some kind of heightened arousal

to actually strangle during the sex act, that's the only thing I can think of. Because like you said, that's dangerous. Yeah, I remember when Andy told him to him with that movie. Here we go. We're going to go down the path of a movie that A, you can't remember what it's about, and B, you can't remember the name.

Andy, in the prison. Shawshank Redemption. Yeah, he's up there by the projector room And that's one of the most famous movies of all time. I love it, man. You can't remember Shawshank Redemption. You know, I'm not great with names. But you can remember the character's name.

Yeah, Andy. Tells those guys, the biting force. Now, just like some of the other victims, Orvieto is placed inside of an oil drum and dumped into Coney Island Creek. Now, Orvieto's body would not be found until July of 92. So Gibbs, Rifkin's next victim was named Mary Ann Holloman and again, I mean, he kills her in pretty much the exact same way as the previous two

victims, strangles her during oral sex, puts her body inside an oil drum, and he actually dumps the body in this same Coney Island Creek. Now, the interesting fact around this one is that Marianne Holloman's body is found two days before Lorraine Orvieto. body. So just two days apart, they find two bodies floating in this same little creek, river, I don't know what it is. But you have to imagine the discovery of these two bodies floating in the same kind of stretch of water so close together. I mean, that has to suggest to the police that you got a possible serial killer here. I would think so. But here's where it comes into play Gibbs, something that you and I have talked a lot about in a lot of our episodes.

And that is what priority do the police place on the victims? We've talked about it in cases where it's been homosexual men in some of our unsolved cases. And the same thing is happening here where the thought is the police did not give this a high priority because these were sex. workers, some of these women were drug addicts. They just didn't rise to the top of the priority list. And sadly, I think that happens all too often. Yeah, I mean, we hear that over and over again, right? I mean, even in some of the later cases, you know, in the early 2000s, right, with the West Mesa. I don't want to say it's not going on today. I don't know. I would hope it's not as prevalent as it was, but I can't say that.

So Gibbs, Rifkin goes back to school in 1992, believe it or not. His landscaping business had failed. He owed a bunch of money and back rent. But again, he just ends up skipping his classes. He doesn't go to school. I don't know what the whole point of it was. But one interesting fact that would come out is at this point in time, he's renting a lot of video porn. Now, renting video porn.

Rending video porn. VHS. VHS tapes. It shows you how old this case is. Yeah. At least they weren't beta. Well, who had beta? I mean, just rich people like you.

Remember the big disc? Easy now. You don't have to go bragging. So VHS porn. Like Debbie does Dallas? No, that was way old. Oh. And I assumed that based on his proclivities,

he was probably into some. something a lot more, how do I say it? Specialized. Specialized. Let's put it that way. So Rifkin's next victim was Iris Sanchez, 25 years old, sex worker, crack addict. And she caught Rifkin's eye and Rifkin ends up targeting her. He picks her up during the day, drives her to Manhattan.

He strangles her and then he dumps her body right next to the jail. FK International Airport. Interesting spot. Yeah, it is. I mean, you would think that's not a remote area. Yeah, I think there'd be too many potential witnesses. I would think so too. Now, what he does do is he finds this old mattress and he covers her body with that.

And this is kind of hard to believe. But again, Gibbs, she would not be found until after Rifkin makes his confessions. And he actually has to give police a. map to lead them to her remains. That's amazing. So you're telling me for a couple of years that her body lay under this mattress, not in the middle of a deserted woods, right, in a dump site next to the airport. That's almost amazing to think about.

Yeah. No one ever cut the grass. He next strangles a woman named Anna Lopez and dumps her body along the highway. Anna was 33 years old. Again, sex worker. He targeted sex workers. There's no other way to say it. She also had a cocaine addiction.

Her body ends up being found by a passing motorist. And she's missing an earring. And I know we kind of foreshadowed this Gibbs, but ultimately it's going to end up being found among the trophies that Rifkin kept from each of his victims. As the numbers started to increase, NID would, you know, okay, that has a photo, I know who that girl was, or a piece of jewelry, okay, I know that it's from that girl.

So yeah, it would help keep the sequence and to remember who was who and remember the events. So you and I have talked about trophies before. Yeah. Or cataloging. It's kind of a common occurrence among serial killers. it's interesting to hear Joel Rifkin talk about it in his own words of what the trophies meant to him. Yeah.

Now, he may have been doing other stuff with them, and you and I have talked about that a lot. Sure. What he says on the interview anyway is that it helped him put the murders in order, keep them straight. But again, Gibbs, you know he was reliving. Oh, sure. just to me really, you know, we have heard from other killers. And they're just, to me, they're so calm when they talk about what they've done. You know, it's just unsettling how nonchalant they talk about it.

And it's just, I don't know. It's just really unnerving in how they speak. I guess the question I would ask is how much of that is because they've been caught, they've been incarcerated, they're being interviewed, and what do they have to, to really to lose or to, not going to get emotional about it. Yeah, I guess. So in the beginning, Gibbs,

we talked about Rifkin bringing some of these victims back to his house. And now the last number that we've gone through, he didn't, right? He killed them kind of as he's out and then ends up dumping them. And the next victim, her name is Violet O'Neill. and he brings her back to his house, but this is the first victim that he's brought there in about a year. He strangles her after sex.

Of course. And he dismembers her body. Right. So there's a theme here. He only dismembers bodies when he has the time, when he has the house to himself, where he's able to do that. He ends up discarding the pieces of her body into a river in Manhattan

and parts of, of her body would later be discovered in the Hudson River. What a grisly find. Well, yeah, it would be if you're, let's say you're out fishing or, let's say you've got your kids. Yeah. Down by the river and you're just spending the day or doing whatever. I think you got a good one on the line.

A damn leg or torso or, God forbid a head floats up. I mean, how are you going to explain that? You talk about causing some psychological damage. It certainly would. Especially to kids, but I mean, I think that might cause me a little damage to find something like that. I'd have to lose my pole. I'm not even, I don't even have to say anything after that one. So Rifkin next targets a woman that he had been with before.

So this kind of goes back to the, to Yun Lee. You know, this is a woman that he had frequented. And her name is Mary Catherine Williams. And she had actually come to New York to be. be an actress, right? A lot of, a lot of women do. But like a lot of people gives, whether it's Hollywood or New York City, they come with these big dreams. And Mary Catherine Williams ends up becoming addicted to drugs. And like we talked about before, ends up following into that black hole of sex work in order to pay for her drug habit. Right. Such a strong addiction.

It is such a strong addiction. And then it becomes this. vicious cycle, right? You got to have the drugs. And how do you get the drug? Got to get the money. You got to get the money. You got to have the sex. So Rifkin ends up smothering her to death. But first he had tried to strangle her. And I guess she put up a hell of a fight. Good for her. Yeah, definitely good for her. And she wasn't going to let him strangle her. Now, he overpowered her and had to take a different route and he ended up smothering her. He ended up dumping her body in a town called Yorktown. And again, like so many of the other ones, she was unidentified until after the confession.

That's amazing. It really is if you think about it. Yeah, it's amazing. How many of these victims we've talked about that went unidentified for, you know, long periods of time? and wouldn't have been if it wasn't for him telling the police where they're at. Right. It may have never been identified. And, you know, we talked about it on last week's Unsolved about this database called NamUs for unidentified.

For unidentified people. Right. It's likely that their information could have been put into there, but stayed there and never been identified. So Rifkin murdered a woman named Jenny Soto in November. of 1992. So Gibbs, what are we talking about, right? He's been at this for over three years, killed a number of sex workers,

dumping their body all over Long Island and surrounding areas of New York. And he's in all the boroughs, man. Yeah, he's all over the place and a bunch of different bodies of water. But Jenny Soto was 23 years old, had a drug problem, but she tried to kick it many different times.

And we talked about the previous victim, Mary Catherine Williams, putting up a fight. But Jenny Soto, she went all out. She was being strangled by Joel Rifkin. She was fighting back. She ended up breaking all 10 of her fingernails trying to claw the shit out of him. I mean, she's trying to save her own life here, Gibbs. But unfortunately, Rifkin does end up strangling her, tosses her into, the same river as Yun Li, which was the East River we talked about.

And she's found the very next day and also identified from her fingerprints. Now, an interesting situation develops after the murder of Jenny Soto because police originally think that she was murdered by her boyfriend and gives, we've had this before. The first person that's looked at is the closest. Yeah. Or, you know, spouse, boyfriend, whatever. And imagine the suspicion around this guy because the police think he had something to do with it. And it's not until Rifkin confesses much later on, later on.

I shouldn't say too much later on. But imagine that period of time where this guy has to walk around with people thinking that he's a murderer, killed his girlfriend. Yep. It's hard. It's hard, hard to imagine. Not only did Rifkin confess, but they were able to tie some personal items of Jenny Soto

to things that they found in his possession. So again, we talk a lot about confessions and people taking credit for things, but there's evidence to back a lot of these confessions up. Now, February of 93, Rifkin murders a woman named Leah Evans. and Leah Evans was a single mom who had a drug problem and ended up becoming a sex worker to not only feed her drug problem, but to feed her kid too, I'm assuming. Yeah, you do what you got to do. Streets are rough.

Rifkin murders her on February 27, 1993. Now, Leah Evans Gibbs was 95 pounds, 4 foot nine. So she was tiny. Yeah, it is tiny. So Rifkin drives to an abandoned parking lot. They exchange $40 for sex. And when it's over, he strangles her to death. But here is something very interesting, Gibbs.

He takes her body to a wooded area in Long Island. And he actually digs a shallow grave and buries her. This is different. It is different. She's the only victim of, Joel Rifkin that got any type of grave. You can't call the East River. I mean, I guess you could, but I'm not calling that a grave.

Grave in the sense of like we normally think of it. And she is later found because one of her hands starts protruding out of the ground. That's freaky. Yeah, because you think pretty shallow grave, you get some rain, you get whatever. It's like a Stephen King movie. Yeah, that would be, again, talking about things. to come up on and witness. This is not on the top of my list at all.

Now we have to talk about Lauren Marquez. She was 28 years old. She was described as tall and thin. And she was actually from Tennessee. So I'd come from Tennessee to New York. And Rifkin starts to strangle her. But as he's doing this, somebody walks by. And she's almost able to escape.

And she's fighting him. Now, I don't know what this passerby is doing, apparently not much because whoever this person is doesn't stop or doesn't stop what's going on at least. He ends up snapping her neck and he dumps her body in the woods and she's later identified through DNA testing in late 93. So this brings us to Rifkin's last victim. And this is Tiffany Bresciani. And Tiffany wanted to become a dancer. She had actually come from Louisiana to New York. And just like we talked about Gibbs, a lot of people come to New York, Hollywood, places like that.

They want to be an actor, an actress. She wanted to be a dancer. But she ends up getting addicted to heroin. So how many of these stories, Gibbs, are pretty much the same exact pattern? Drugs, sex, and murder. Yeah. But a lot of this all starts by somebody getting addicted to drugs, and it leads them down the path of becoming a sex worker. Yeah.

And then someone takes advantage of the weak independent. So Rifkin picks up Tiffany on June 24, 1993. And he would later say that this was his fourth sex worker in two days. Now, he hadn't murdered four people in two days, but he had visited four sex workers in two days. But he ends up strangling her, Tiffany, in a parking lot. Now, there's another strange connection in this case. And that is, and it's that Tiffany was the girlfriend of a guy that was in this punk band. And the two of them together were addicted to heroin.

and she was working as a sex worker to pay for both of their drug habits. But what happens is soon after she's found murdered, her boyfriend commits suicide. So Rifkin drives back to his home in Long Island. He has Tiffany's body in the back and he ends up stopping at a store and he buys some rope. He buys a tarp. All of this while her body is in the backseat of his car. And the reason why he has to do this gives is because his mom's at home. Oh, Mommy's dearest.

I mean, this guy's 34 years old at this point. He lives with his mom. Nothing wrong with that. Because he's spending all his money on sex workers like we talked about. He's murdered somebody. And I'm not even sure this is his car. I think he might be using his mom's car as well. Yeah, probably is.

Because he broke. he's got to stop and buy some stuff to hide this body. And he, so he wraps up Tiffany in this tarp and transfers her to the trunk. When he gets home, his mom wants the damn car. Keep in mind, there's a dead body in the trunk. His mom takes the car to go shopping. So she's driving around with a dead body in the trunk. Luckily, whatever she bought, I guess she didn't put in the trunk because she made,

takes it home and at some point, Rifkin is able to get the body out of the trunk and into the garage and he leaves it in the garage for three days. Now, Gibbs, three days is kind of a long time. It's a long time. We're talking about June in New York. A little warm. Can get a little warm in June. So after those three days are up, Gibbs, he decides he's got to do something with this body. And he puts the body of Tiffany into his car and he's driving to dispose of it. And some New York state troopers notice that his rear license plate is missing. But when they try to pull him over, he takes off. They're following him. They're chasing him. And he ends up crashing into a telephone pole. They pull him out of the vehicle and what do they find on him? An exacto knife.

Kind of a strange thing just to carry around, right? Not like a pocket knife. Right. An exacto knife. So the one thing they notice about Rifkin is he's very panicky. And they can't figure out why he would take off over what is really just a small traffic issue, right? You're missing your license plate. Right.

You don't run from the cops, but it doesn't take them very long to notice the smell that's coming out from the back. and they find the decomposing body of Tiffany underneath this blue tarp. And I want to read this quote from Joel Rifkin during the encounter he had with police. He said she was a prostitute. I picked her up on Allen Street in Manhattan. I had sex with her. Then things went bad. And I strangled her.

Do you think I need a lawyer? This is the conversation that he's having with the state troopers. Uh, yeah. Yeah, I think you need a lawyer, Bub. I think you're going to need a really good one. So he's taken into custody, and he's interrogated for about eight hours. They were wearing me down.

It was already getting into afternoon. I, you know, I'm tired. He just didn't sleep the night before. They're very good at what they do. You know how to bring it to the edge and then take you back and then bring you back to the edge again. And then they decided to play number. his game with me.

And we asked him, like, how many have you done 100 or so? And he said, no, I did not do it 100 times. And I came out with more than one less than 20. And going through different numbers, he said 17. He gave us a number 17. So a couple of things interesting to me, Gibbs, is he knew off the top of his head, right? He knew exactly how many people he had murdered. Getting back to the trophy thing and him talking about how a lot of that helped him

cataloged his victims and I don't think there was any doubt. Unlike a lot of, there are a lot of serial killers that can't remember or, or unclear about some of the murders they committed. Seems like to me he really kept track of them. So Rifkin ends up confessing to 17 murders, names the victims that he could remember. We talked about the fact that he had to draw some maps so that police could find

some of the victims. Now, Ripkin would go on to talk about his preference. And he talked about preferring white, Latina, and Asian women. So that night, after the interrogation, they actually go to his house or his mother's house with a search warrant. And it doesn't take him long, Gibbs, to start finding all of the trophies. I mean, we're talking about jewelry, identified. Identification. certification cards, medication with people's names on it. And on top of that, he had a lot of things about serial killers. He had a book about Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer, who at that point hadn't even been identified. So obviously the book was about the Green River Killer, but they didn't know it was Gary Ridgeway at the time. Right. He had clippings about one of our craziest ones,

Arthur Shawcross. Absolutely. Not so. That guy was beyond evil. So his mother finds out that her son is a serial killer. She gets a telephone call from the police. And then later on,

she watches a press conference that the police hold where they name him and outline the murders. So he's into court pretty quickly because it's just June 29th. He's in court. he pleads not guilty for the murder of Tiffany. So keep in mind, I mean, that's the body that they found.

Now, they're finding some things that may tie him to some other stuff, and he's confessed. So his trial ultimately begins in November of 1993. They've had less than five months to put together as much evidence as they could put together. Now, they have his confessions. They have one body. and he led them to some other bodies. The trial lasts about six months, and in May of 94,

Joel Rifkin is found guilty of nine murders, and he sentenced to 203 years in prison. What I have done can never be forgiven, but I ask you to believe me when I tell you, but I will never understand the part of me that caused me to do these terrible things to your children. Not only will I go to my death, reliving these horrors, but I will go there never knowing why he did them at all. You all think that I am nothing but a monster, and you are right.

Part of me must be. Mr. Rifkin, in case there is such a thing as reincarnation, I want to be sure that you spend your second life in prison also. Sweet. You like to hear that. Yeah, I like that. Now, the strange thing Gibbs is that he'll be eligible for parole in 2197. If he makes it to 2197, he's got a shot. He's got a shot.

He'll be 238 years old. So chances are not good. Maybe some future podcaster can do that one. After we're long gone. So just a couple of tidbits as we wrap up this episode. episode. Rifkin ends up getting into a fight with a mass murderer named Colin Ferguson, no relation. That's like a perfect scenario, man. Take the two killers and throw them in a cage, man, and see who comes out. That should be a show right there, a real show. Yeah, like the running man.

Remember the movie The Running Man with Arnold Schwarzenegger? Yeah. Something like that. Something like that, but real. So apparently the fight started when Colin Ferguson asked Rifkin to be quiet while Colin was using the phone. They got into it and Colin punched him in the face. So we like that. We like when when they get a little prison justice. Yeah.

Now the guy doing it was also a mass murderer. So I don't feel too good about that part. No. Because of his crimes and his notoriety and all of that. Rifkin is locked up for 23 hours a day, kept away from general population most of the time. In 1998, he sold some of his artwork. And we've talked about this, Gibbs. We've heard this before.

He was selling artwork to compensate victims of his crimes, or I should say the families of victims. Half of the proceeds would go to the Victims Board, and the other half would go to Rifkin. I don't like that at all. I mean, I like the part about the proceeds going to the victims board and being used for good things. I don't like the part where he gets half the money. Yeah, shouldn't get anything. Shouldn't even be allowed to even do it. No enjoyment.

I don't like it at all. So the last thing I'll say about Rifkin is that there are some people that believe he may be responsible for some of the Gilgo Beach murder. So we're talking about the Long Island serial killer here. And famous case, unsolved. You know, that killer is operated for, I think, 20 plus years. And the reason why they believe that he could have been involved in some of the early murders was that there were some remains found in early 2011. But they must have figured out that these victims.

had been killed prior to Rifkin being caught. Now, the flip side of that is there's been a lot of victims that are believed to be tied to the Long Island serial killer that couldn't have possibly been killed by Rifkin because he was already in jail. So I don't know what you make of that. Could he have killed those people? Yeah, but it seems like he was pretty honest in his confessions.

Yeah, it seemed like it. I mean, he had nothing to lose to admit. if it was him. Right. I mean, he admitted to confess, or he confessed the things

that the police didn't know about, why would he leave two, three, four out? Why not just confess to those as well? Yeah.

Yeah. I'm not, I'm doubting that. But there is a lot of stuff on the internet about, but you see that a lot, right? People try to tie serial killers.

Oh, absolutely. Every time we research, it's always. Especially the unsolved. Yes. When we do the unsolved. Now, Rifkin would go on to say

that, that he didn't like the work of the Long Island serial killer. He thought he was sloppy. He didn't like the way that he dumped the bodies. He thought he dumped them all too close together. Now, I'm assuming it's a man. So again, Gives, based on those comments, I don't think he had anything to do with those.

I think he would have taken credit and confessed if those were, if those were him. Yeah, I think so too. But either way, unbelievably bad guy Bad man killed a lot of people People didn't even want to share his same name

Are you referring to the Seinfeld episode? I am I knew that was going to come in at some point All right, we got some voicemels to play But I want to play this one last clip Of the real Joel Rifkin I don't know if I was released If I ever killed again

I might Well that sums that up Right So anybody that would say that, they should never be released. Never. Ever. I mean, if you can't even fake it, that, oh no, I would never kill again.

Yeah. He knows in his heart that he, he probably would. He'll be out next year. No, he's never getting out. Never. All right, we said we had some voicemails, and then we'll wrap it up. Hi, guys. This is Masha calling again.

I just started listening to your episode. and I heard you guys say my name Mossa. It's Masha. It's like Marcia with an O-R. It's a Russian name. But my coworkers and I got a huge laugh out of it in a good way. So I just wanted to clear that up. Still love the show.

Still going to listen, even though you butcher my name. Thank you guys. Bye. Way to go, man. Yeah, I know. I try to tell you. I thought bad. You didn't tell me, Jack.

I said Masha. All right, we love Masha. Absolutely. I'm thinking of Brady Bunch. Masha, Masha, Masha, Masha. It is a call from Santa Cruz, California, where I just listened to a last week's episode about her moment. That was kind of cool, although we're not all serial killers on here.

Anyways, I just wanted me to say how much I enjoy your show. This is a great job presenting the stories. This last episode is, you were talking, Mike, you were talking. about pervert, burning his Johnson with lit cigarette. And I'm walking into work with my headphones on, of course, sipping on the tea.

And I'm going to keep up to good work. Oh, we love it when we can make somebody spit out their tea on a co-worker. Oh, man, that's perfect. Love it. Now, Gibbs, I have to say, that voicemail was like three times longer. And the whole middle part

was her talking about how much she loves you. So you cut that part out? I had to cut it down for time. Really? Yeah. I did. It was a very long voicemail. You couldn't love that in there.

No. I don't get much. I don't ask for much. And you couldn't give me that. But we appreciate it. We appreciate all the voicemails. All right, Gibbs. We've got to wrap it up, man.

Yeah, we do. It's another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.