Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Number 17 - Joel Rifkin American serial killer

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Number 17 - Joel Rifkin American serial killer · Murder Files Unsealed

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  Speaker 1: Welcome in. Today, we're exploring a case, a case it
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  really makes you question, you know, everything you think you
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  know about people. The unsettling story of Joel Rifkin, a
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  serial killer who operated in New York throughout the nineteen nineties.
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  You sent in this request, right, Yeah, because you're fascinated
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  by criminal psychology, right, and you specifically wanted to unpack
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  you know, how someone could commit such horrific acts while
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  maintaining a completely normal exterior.
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  Speaker 2: And that's exactly what makes Rifkin so so fascinating and
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  so terrifying. He wasn't some boogeyman living in the shadows.
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  He was your neighbor, your coworker, the guy you'd see
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  at the grocery store. You know, this case forces us
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  to confront a truly unsettling possibility that evil can often
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  wear the mask of the ordinary.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's leave the groundwork here. Riffkin was eventually
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  caught because of a missing license plate. Talk about irony,
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  but not before he murdered seventeen women. Yeah, how did
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  he even begin to disappear like so many people without
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  raising suspicion.
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  Speaker 2: This wasn't a spur of the moment crime spree, Rifkin
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  went to like chilling lengths to conceal his actions. He
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  would remove his victim's fingertips, file down their teeth, anything
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  to prevent identification and buy himself more time. The level
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  of premeditation, I think, is what truly sets this case apart.
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  Speaker 1: It's like something out of a horror movie, the way
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  he tried to like erase these women from existence. Yeah,
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  but before we get too deep into his crimes, I
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  have to ask who was Joel Rifkin before he became
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  a monster? Was there anything in his past that hinted
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  at this darkness within?
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  Speaker 2: Rifkin's early life was definitely troubled, though it's important to
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  emphasize that this is not an excuse, but rather a
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  potential piece of the puzzle. He faced relentless bullying in school,
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  and despite having a high IQ one twenty eight, undiagnosed
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  dyslexia led to significant academic struggles.
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  Speaker 1: So he was trapped in like this terrible cycle, ostracized
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  socially and falling behind academically. I can see how, you know,
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  resentment and anger could fester in that kind.
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  Speaker 2: Of environment exactly, and sadly for Rifkin, isolation seemed to
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  go hand in hand with a dangerous fascination with violence,
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  particularly strangulation. He developed an obsession with Hitchcock's Frenzy, a
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  film that centers around a serial killer who strangles his victims.
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  Speaker 1: That's a disturbingly specific obsession. Was that just a morbid interest,
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  or could you say that that fascination in the strangulation
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  was a kind of early warning sign, a red flag
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  that perhaps someone should have noticed.
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  Speaker 2: It's impossible to say for sure, of course, but it's
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  a question worth exploring. This isn't to say that everyone
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  with an interest in true crime or dark cinema is
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  a potential killer, not at all, But in Rifkin's case,
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  knowing what we know now, it's hard not to see
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  this early fixation as a window into his psyche. What's
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  fascinating here is that for him, these weren't just stories,
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  they were blueprints.
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  Speaker 1: That's a chilling thought. You mentioned that his first murder
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  seemed to be a turning point, a catalyst that took
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  him from fantasy to horrific reality. Tell me about that.
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  Speaker 2: What happened in nineteen eighty nine, while Rifkin's mother was
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  away on a business trip, he picked up a young
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  woman named Susie, a sex worker, and brought her back
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  to his home on Long Island. It was there that
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  he committed his first murder, bludgeoning Susie with an artillery
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  shell before strangling her to death.
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  Speaker 1: It's bone chilling how he exploited his mother's absence, how
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  easily he was able to compartmentalize and commit such a
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  horrific act, and even more disturbing, after the murder, he
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  meticulously dismembered Susie's body, even using pliers to remove her
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  fingertips and teeth. It seems he was determined to make
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  her disappear completely, but despite his efforts, a crucial mistake
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  was set off a chain of events that ultimately led to.
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  Speaker 2: His downfall, and this is where the story takes another
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  dark turn. Despite his meticulous attempts to dispose of Susie's remains,
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  a member of a golf club in Hopewell, New Jersey,
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  stumbled upon a horrifying discovery a can containing Susie's head.
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  The discovery of Susie's remains, I mean it sent shockwaves
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  through the community, right and it left investigators with this
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  gruesome puzzle to solve. Little did they know they were
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  dealing with the beginning of a terrifying saga, a string
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  of murders that would continue for years.
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  Speaker 1: It's chilling to think that like a seemingly ordinary man
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  was capable of such calculated cruelty, and tragically, this was
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  only the beginning. Did Rifkin's methods change over time? Was
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  there a pattern to his crimes?
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  Speaker 2: Disturbingly yes, a year after Susie's murder, Rifkin claimed his
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  second victim, a woman named Julie Blackbird. The similarities in
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  his approach were striking. He waited for his mother to
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  be away, lured Julie back to his home, and brutally
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  ended her life, this time using a table leg as
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  the murder weapon.
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  Speaker 1: It's like a horrifying ritual waiting for his mother's absence,
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  almost as if her presence provided this false sense of
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  normalcy that he could only shed when she was gone,
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  and as.
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  Speaker 2: If mirroring that internal conflict, his methods of concealing the
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  crimes themselves became more intricate, more desperate. This time, he
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  dismembered Julie's body, placing the parts in buckets, weighing them
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  down with concrete, and disposed of them in the East
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  River and a canal in Brooklyn. It was a clear escalation,
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  a a desperate attempt to stay one step ahead of
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  the law.
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  Speaker 1: Each detail is more unsettling than the last. And what
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  about this landscaping business he started that played a particularly
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  disturbing role in his crimes, didn't it?
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  Speaker 2: You're right, that's a particularly unsettling aspect of this case.
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  In nineteen ninety one, Riffkins started his own landscaping business.
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  And what's truly chilling is that he used his rented
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  job site as a holding ground for the bodies of
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  his victims. Imagine that he would go about his workday,
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  interacting with clients, all while harboring this horrific secret, literally
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  hiding his victims in plain sight.
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  Speaker 1: It's almost beyond comprehension, this level of compartmentalization. To think
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  he could maintain this facade of normalcy while committing such
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  heinous acts. Its bone chilling. And during this time the
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  body count continued to rise tragically.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, his victims were mostly women, Barbara Jacobs, Mary Ellen, DeLuca,
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  Young Lee, and Moore, many of them struggling with addiction
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  and caught in in desperate circumstances. Each life taken a
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  tragic story left untold. Meanwhile, investigators were struggling to connect
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  the dots, Unable to identify the victims or the person
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  responsible for these horrific acts, Riffkins seemed to be operating
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  with chilling impunity.
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  Speaker 1: It's heartbreaking to think about the lives lost, the families
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  left to grieve, all while he continued to spree. But
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  this reign of terror couldn't last forever. How did it
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  all come crashing down?
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  Speaker 2: As we touched on earlier, Rifkin's downfall was as unexpected
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  as it was banal a missing license plate. In June
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  of nineteen ninety three, he was driving his mother's pickup truck,
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  a vehicle that had, unknowingly to her become a terrifying
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  accomplice to his crimes, this time with the body of
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  his final victim, Tiffany Bresciani, hidden inside.
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  Speaker 1: So the very vehicle that had perhaps unknowingly transported so
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  many victims before ultimately became his undoing. What a tragically
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  ironic twist of fate. What happened next? What led to
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  that fateful traffic stop? So there he was driving the
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  this gruesome cargo, and then what a routine traffic stop
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  like throws everything into chaos exactly.
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  Speaker 2: Rifkin had gone to a store to buy rope and
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  a tarp, leaving Tiffany's body in the pickup truck. Yeah,
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  and in his haste, he'd driven off without the rear
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  license plate, A careless mistike, especially for someone so you know,
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  meticulously focused on covering his tracks. So when police officers
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  tried to pull him over, Rifkin panicked, leading them on
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  this high speed chase through the streets of Long Island.
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  Speaker 1: Talk about a desperate, last ditch attempt to escape. Where
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  did that chase end?
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  Speaker 2: Almost poetically, the chase ended with Rifkin crashing into a
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  utility poll right in front of the Nasau County Courthouse.
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  It's almost like something out of a Greek tragedy, you know,
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  his reign of terror ending right at the doorstep of justice.
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  Speaker 1: You couldn't script something like that. But even after the crash,
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  with his victor's body literally in the truck bed, did
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  he still tried to deny what he'd done.
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  Speaker 2: You'd expect a desperate fight to maintain his innocence, but
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  that's not what happened at all. Most immediately, Rifkin confessed
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  He provided these chillingly detailed accounts of each of his
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  seventeen murders, even drawing maps to help investigators locate the
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  remains of his victims who hadn't yet been found. It
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  was as if this enormous weight had been lifted, this
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  dark secret he'd been carrying, finally bursting.
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  Speaker 1: Into the open and a complete unraveling. Did he ever
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  offer any explanation, any shred of remorse for what he'd done?
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  Speaker 2: That's the question that continues to haunt this case even today.
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  On May ninth, nineteen ninety four, Rifkin was sentenced to
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  twenty five years to life for each of his murders,
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  plus additional time for the reckless endangerment during that final chase.
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  Those sentences, as you can imagine, added up quickly. By
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  January nineteen ninety six, he was facing a minimum of
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  one hundred and eighty three years, and that was with
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  several trial still pending.
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  Speaker 1: So essentially a life sentence. Like many times over, where
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  where is he now?
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  Speaker 2: Riffkin spent several years in solitary confinement at Attica Correctional
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  Facility due to conflicts with other inmates and what officials
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  described as as his disruptive behavior. In two thousand, he
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  tried to sue the prison, claiming solitary confinement violated his rights,
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  but the court sided with the prism. He was eventually
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  transferred to Clinton Correctional Facility, where he remains to this day,
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  one of hundreds of inmates separated from the general population.
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  Speaker 1: It's a blake end for someone who inflicted so much
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  pain and suffering. Looking back on it all, what do
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  you think is the most important takeaway from the Joel
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  Rifkin case? What can we learn from this descent into darkness?
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  Speaker 2: For me, it underscores the fact that evil isn't always
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  something monstrous and easily identifiable. Sometimes it hides in plain sight,
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  disguised as normalcy, as someone we might pass on the
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  street without a second glance. It's a sobering reminder that
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  we never truly know what darkness might lurk beneath the surface.
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  Speaker 1: It's definitely a case that stays with you, that makes
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  you question your own assumptions about the world around you.
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  This deep dive has been fascinating, a bit unsettling. Huge
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  thank you to you, our expert, for guiding us through
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  this complex and truly disturbing case. And to you, our listener,
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  we leave you with this, how much attention are we
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  paying to the quiet signals that the subtle inconsistencies and
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  the people around us. Could there be moments in our
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  own lives where we missed the warning signs, where a
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  closer look might have revealed a darkness we never could
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  have imagined.