Morbid - Episode 4: Joel Rifkin

Episode Date: May 23, 2018

Failed landscaper and all around malfunctioning human Joel Rifkin is currently serving a 203 year prison sentence for the murder and dismemberment of 17 women in Long Island and New York State between 1989 and 1993. Unfortunately, he is one of those, "Must be a monster living inside of me" type of turds. Joel, you're a real bummer. Sources: https://brockportbeat.com/2017/05/02/brockport-serial-killer/ https://youtu.be/SVUeaQ0Oyg4 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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free for 30 days. That's W-O-N-D-E-R-Y-P-O-D. Audible.com slash wonderie pod or or text WonderingPod to 500-500 to try Audible for free for 30 days. Hey, Weirdos, I'm Ash. I'm Alana, and this is Morbin. Woo! Hey guys! We are back for another week after talking about Dead Rations last week.

Hope you had fun. I bet you did. In today, coincidentally, as we record, the royal wedding happened. We're just like taking you down a happy trail today. Yeah, let's just, we start on a light note. Yeah, we could end on this light note, but why don't we just begin on it? Yeah, we'll just, then we'll slowly plummet down hill. We're gonna bring up just to crush your back down. So we're good at that.

So the royalding was delightful. It was so nice. It was so pretty. I woke up at like six and I was like, oh my god, the Royal Wedding's on. And they like love each other. Oh my god, they really do because I watch their vows and I'm not gonna lie to you, I cried a little bit.

That's been surprising. No, that's not surprising. But I did cry a little bit and then I was like, don't be a little bitch. Like Harry kept saying, I love you to her and you look amazing and I'm so lucky. I was like, girl. Her veil was all the different,

I think you see like provinces, is that what it is? Sounds good. Yeah, it was all the little places in like England. I don't know. In the England, I don't fucking know. There's a bunch of places on her way. It's like the Soviet Union of Russia. Yeah, absolutely.

Actually, that was outlined on her way. I'm sure it was. I think it's probably got to represent Russia, isn't it? I don't think there was really any other true crime things that happened this week. Not that I know, well. Golden State Killer is still shutting his damn trap. Yeah, fuck that guy.

So, we haven't heard anything about the zodiac yet. We still don't know about that lady in the woods. I don't know. Lady with the blifeless child. Seriously, when we haven't stayed on that... I just got them right now. I want to go with it's the Bermuda Triangle, and that was a ghost.

Do you mean the Bridgewater Triangle, because we're not a Bermuda? It's the Bermuda Tri and that was a ghost. Do you mean the bridge water triangle because we're not for you? It's the Bermuda. No the bridge water. Guys it's been a really long week. It's been the longest fucking week of my life. I swear to you. I caught my hand open at work.

Oh god. With a tool you used tools at work and I do too. I do use tools at work. It was a knife. It was a razor. It was a razor but. Hey. It's like the finger right open. That's almost worse than a knife.

Yeah, it actually was. Razors? Yeah, yeah. It was a sharper. Jagged little bitch. Jagged little bitch. It's like jagged little pill, but the really grunge version of it. Yeah, jagged little bitch.

Cool. I like it. That's another band name. Band name, jagged little bitch. Nailed it. Jagged little bitch. Band name. Cut. I love it. That's another band name. Band name. Jack a little bit. Nailed it. Jack a little bit. Band name. Cut.

I love it. Well, I guess now that we've enthralled you. Yeah, let's not be assholes. So much. It's been a very long time. We should probably get right into it. Here we go. One, two, three, go.

So June 28th, 1993. Set the scene. My brother's birth day. Look at that. And your mother's birth day. That's my mother's birth day. Look at that. And your mother's birth day. That's my mother's birth day. The date of my mother's birth, 1993. Long Island State Troopers, Debra Spargarin.

Sorry if I said that wrong, Debra. Usaboss. And Sean Ruin. Sorry if I said that wrong, Sean. I think it's really about how it's done. Ruin. sorry if I said that wrong Sean. I think it's really about how much the dog battery. Sounds better. So Debra Spargerin and Sean Ruin spotted a 1984 Mazda pick-up truck

driving around with no license plates at about 315 in the morning when nothing good happens. I'm just gonna tell you, I'm just gonna give you a quick tip. If you're doing spooky sketchy Weird shit make sure you have two license plates. Yeah, or at least one even. You don't want to be like ed camper Get pulled over for a bus to tail light have two dead bodies in your car. I mean also don't don't have two But dead bodies in your car. Just don't do that number one. So Not having license plates

is a big vehicular no-no as we all know. So these state troopers attempted to pull them over. The driver didn't exactly accelerate but he and so he wasn't speeding at all but he also refused to pull over. He was not convoying. But it wasn't a high speed chase, it was like a low speed chase. Like he just wouldn't pull over. This lasted for like 20 minutes. He never went over 50 miles an hour. They threw on the sirens. They used the loudspeaker to demand that he pull the truck over.

And he still just puttered along like he didn't even notice that they were there. They called for backup. But as soon as they were calling for backup, the truck missed a turn and slammed into a utility pole. They drew their guns and the driver literally got out of the car with his hands up and handed over his license with no issues at all. So as they looked over his credentials and got him out of the truck, they started to smell something um foul. Following their noses, they were drawn to something quite large and human-shaped that was wrapped in a tarp and wrapped in rope

in the bed of the truck. Quick little sneak peek in the tarp. Revealed a badly decomposing body of a woman. She ate. No good. No good. So they went over to the police car. Like tap, tap, tap. Hey. What's the dead lady in the tarp back there? And 34-year-old unemployed landscaper, Joel Rifkin, revealed that it was a sex worker named Tiffany Brasiani, and in his words he said, I killed her. She was a prostitute. Wow. I mean, thanks. He really was. He really was. I did find a fun little quote from investigator Dwayne Russell that when he basically, when he talked to her drill riffkin about this situation, he said, well, I picked up this hooker near Owl and Streetman Hatton. We had an arrangement for sex, but things got out of hand. I strangled her. He seemed kind of upset, but he wasn't really upset

about killing this woman. He was more upset about, but he wasn't really upset about killing this woman. He was more upset about getting caught because of the missing license plate. So he said, I know I had a plane on when I got when I left home. It's always a 25 cent part. What a bummer Joel. Those darn 25 cent parts. Get your car from every time. Yeah. So this is the story of Joel Rifkin, who confessed to killing 17 women. Over about a three-year period, I want to say. So he was a busy dude. He was real busy. So he was born, this is kind of funny, January 20th, 1959 in New York.

That's my brother's birthday. This is weird. There's a lot of daycare. Yeah. He was actually born to two unwed college kids and they gave him up for adoption, like immediately. To a super nice family. Yeah, he was adopted at three weeks old to Ben and Gian Rifkin. Is that Gian or Jean? Uh, Jean. We're gonna go with Jean. Sorry Jean, if your name is Jean. Um, so that he was adopted at three weeks old. To Ben and Jean or Jean Refkin. On February 14th Valentine's Day, 1959. Ben was a structural engineer and Jean was a homemaker, she liked gardening.

Uh, this family also adopted a daughter named Jan a couple years later. So apparently things were going pretty well with Joel at the time. Right, Joel Jan, Jean. Yeah, they moved to East Metal Long Island in 1965 and when I looked that place up it seems like it's kind of like middle upper class, like nice place to raise a family, all my good stuff. He seemingly had a loving and normal home life where he was taken care of properly

and not abused in any way. Like whatsoever. He even attest to that, that his home life growing up was really good. Yeah, he's not like these other ones that will like try to create a bad home life to make it like validate themselves for being a shitbag. I think he's literally like, yeah, I don't know why I did this.

Like I've never seen. He's confused about it. Yeah, so he was very different from like say Edmund Kemper. Right. Who had, you know, he just started out real bad. So the only real bummer with Joel, well not the only real bummer with the first real bummer with Joel, is that he was bullied pretty badly in school. You know what? Who wasn't? Yeah. I mean there were plenty of people who weren't.

Yeah, but not everybody, but a lot of people get bullied and don't turn to serial murders. Yeah, like I were bullied a bit. I was sent to an abandoned house when they said it was a cool party. Let's just say, fuck those girls. Yeah, you know who you are, girl. She's totally not. She doesn't have the device. She's still way too cool for podcasts. Yeah, fuck her.

Yeah, fuck her. You can host the best backyard barbecue. You can find a professional on Angie to make your backyard the best around. Connect with skilled professionals to get all your home projects done well. Inside to outside, repairs to renovations. Get started on the Angie app or visit Angie.com today. You can do this when you Angie that. What if you were trafficked into a cult over shot nine times or fell in love with a vampire or went into a minor surgery and woke up one week later, paralyzed. What would you do?

I'm Whit Missildine, the creator of this is actually happening, a podcast from Wondry that brings you extraordinary true stories of life-changing events, told by the people who lived them. From a young man that dunes his entire future with one choice, to a woman who survived a notorious serial killer, you'll hear their first person account of how they overcame remarkable circumstances. Each episode is an exploration of the human spirit and personal discovery. These haunting accounts sound like Hollywood movies, but I assure you this is actually happening. Follow this is actually happening wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Londoner app. So, but what I didn't grow up and become a serial killer, I grew up and started talking about it.

It's very different. Or I grew up to become an autopsy technician. So that can explain some shit. So I just want the more professional route. But either way, being bullied is not an excuse. You know what, being bullied is an excuse to show everybody that they were wrong. Precisely. Hell yeah. This is a PSA. A morbid PSA.

I'm being bullied right now. Just stick it to the man. Yeah. And the right leg. And you know what, when you get older? It's cool to be weird. I was going to say, everybody's trying to fit in when they're in school.

And the weird ones are always the ones that are picked on. But then later, everyone wants to be weird, and they're all trying to be like you when you're just a native. I literally bought EV and glasses, which are not even cool, but they're cool as hell now. Here I am. So see, everyone wants to be nerdy and weird now.

We win in the end, guys. Weirdos win in the end. So you're my fashion tips for me, all. That's right. So mainly what they targeted Joel about was his posture. Which is like, come on, guys. I guess he was very slumped over all the time because I think he was kind of like...

He was tired. He's just kind of a bummer. He walked really slowly at a very slow gate So they get they even nicknames like the turtle Which is like super clever guys you don't really get Even super offensive turtles are pretty cute. No, I mean as a kid that sucks You don't want to be called the turtle, but now it's like come on So he also is dyslexic, but he had an IQ of 128, which is pretty high. It's actually in 12. It's exactly. It's really high.

Compared to 12. That's huge. It's real high. It's actually in the 96 percentile and he actually only misses the Mensa qualification by two points. Mensa is literally a society of people with high IQs. No wonder, I don't know. I was just going to say the fact that you didn't say what's Mensa. She likes to shit on me. I'm being bullied.

You're shoveling the material. I'm digging myself a hole. No, don't worry. I love a simple life. I live a simple life. I enjoy the simple things. I just don't know. So unfortunately Joel tried really hard to fit in.

He actually joined the track and field team when he entered his teen years, but he was still bullied, even on the track and field, he was trying to do something. They really are. Kids suck. Once they decide that you're out,

you're just doing a bother. Yeah, just wait until you get out of school and you'll be fine. Read some books. Just don't become Joel Riftkin. He actually ended up joining the yearbook staff and he joined because he got a camera given to him by his parents, a brand new camera, because he was kind of into photography apparently, and immediately the camera was stolen. Which is shitty. That's shitty. Gotta go and murder people over here. He's still like attempted to, you know, do all the yearbook stuff. He met deadline.

He did what he needed to do. And at the end of the year, there was a rap party. And they didn't invite him. And I guess he was like, devastated by it. Which that sucks. They'll let me know how many men to say is. Maybe they knew what was coming. I know.

But I don't think they did. I think it's just suck. And I think, but again, this doesn't give him any right to knew what was coming. I know, but I don't think they did. I think it's just suck. And I think, but again, this doesn't give him any right to do what he did, or to just, you know, get out of there, throw him the middle finger, and never look back. That's all you gotta do. Come on, Joel.

So, classmates later said that he was routinely pushed into showers, fully dressed, tripped in the halls, and regularly called nerd Dooms and oddball. Dooms. Yeah, I guess cuz he was super depressed and like a bummer So they were like call them dooms You're kind of you're the reason he's a bummer like you're the reason he's dooms Yeah, they're dooms So of course this made him completely isolated. Like mistreatment like this is gonna start wearing on you. No matter who you are, it's gonna start

wearing on you. Some people just take it in a different direction. Yeah, he isolated himself completely. And he started living in his own kind of fantasy world. He kind of retreated into it. And he started kind of living off of violent fantasies about raping and stabbing women. He said he got a lot of his fantasies from the movie frenzy. Exactly. I was just gonna say because he was obsessed with that movie. It was from 1972. Basically the movie is about a serial killer in London who rapes and murders women. And in the movie he also strangles women. So, and you'll find out that's kind of something spoiler alert. He's still strangles women. During this time he started to become obsessed with sex

workers and fantasizing, and I think sex workers can kind of, since he wasn't really socially apt, sex workers gave him a way to get that part of. Right, they don't say no. What he needed and he could kind of fantasize at the same time, you know. He was more in control. Exactly. He felt like he was the big guy on campus here. And he said it became his drug of choice. It did. He was addicted, for sure. He was addicted. And his parents actually gave him a car.

He used this gift to troll for sex workers in Hampstead in Manhattan. His fantasies had still had this recurrent theme of rape, strangling, and sadism. So that's not good. Like especially when you start fantasizing about that stuff, eventually fantasizing isn't going to be enough as we've seen so many of these people. You're gonna say, I mean the more we do these different people, the guys who do this, we're gonna see this as a theme that it just doesn't satisfy them enough. It's like a drug. Eventually you need more and more to satiate. In 1977 he enrolled in Nasaw Community College. He was, again, he was super, super smart,

but he did shitty, and he did shitty in high school too, academically, because he just wasn't doing it. In college he wasn't going to his classes, he barely showed up at all. He was having so many interactions with sex workers that he was actually missing work and missing classes because of it. And this, he was going broke because if you're not working and you're spending all this money on sex workers, then you're, you know, you're not making enough money to survive. So he had ended up moving back in with his parents. He was also transferring schools quite a bit. He went to a few different colleges, getting shitty grades, and eventually in 1984 he just dropped out altogether. He went to a few different colleges, getting shitty grades, and eventually in 1984 he just dropped out altogether. He did apparently what I did see was that he

had a brief relationship with a woman like super brief. I don't know her name, but she described him as sweet but always depressed. In February 1987, his father completed suicide. Assumably it was to end a long suffering battle with prostate cancer. Joel even delivered the eulogy at the funeral. So obviously this family was close family. I said though I was watching this again. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And he, him and his dad argued a lot because his dad was a, I think his dad was like an engineer. Yeah, he was, he was a structural engineer. Right. So obviously very smart. And he wanted to impress his dad. So he took a biology class, just a random biology class,

and he was telling his dad like, I'm gonna do well, but he, like, based on past, like, occurrences. Performances. Yeah. He, his dad was like, yeah, right. And he, Joel thinks, so the dad, like, committed suicide, basically, to end his thing with cancer, his battle. And Joel thought that he did it on purpose to correlate with, like, when Joel was supposed to get his midter grade. Oh, that's really sad. He got a good grade in the class.

Oh, that's really sad. And he said that he just thinks that his dad is gonna always think of him as a disappointment, which is so doomsy. Yeah, and you know what? As sad as we feel about him right now, just wait because this guy's a real fucking asshole. Yeah, I just wanted to share that quick sad story.

That's really sad, but I mean his mother also became super withdrawn and depressed after the father's death, so that's tough. That same year, Joel was arrested in Hemstedstead, Long Island, for the first time for solicitation. He kept it from his mother because it seems like he kind of cared about what his mother thought. Again, they got along, everything was normal. It was around this time that he became obsessed with like serial killers who killed sex workers. Including Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer, and Arthur Schachross, who's a real piece of work. We'll get to him later. He was also super into Ted Bundy, who didn't kill sex workers, but I don't know. I guess he's probably on everybody's list if you're into serial killer.

And the side of Sam. Yeah. Yeah. He found down newspaper clubings. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. It was in 1989 that he finally followed through all these fantasies and killed his first victim. Unfortunately, his first victim when I identified for a long time, and there is a good reason for that. The first victim, he, when he confessed, because you'll find out later, he confessed to all of these. His first victim, he could only identify as Susie.

She was a sex worker who had a really bad drug problem. According to Joel, when he picked her up, she had asked him to stop several times to get drugs between the time she picked him up. He picked her up in the time they got to his house or his mother's house. Yeah, his mother's medication with the sister at his time. So they stopped a bunch of times from her to shoot up heroin. They ended up getting back to the house. They had sex and then she asked him to bring her to get more drugs. And he was getting real. He started getting annoyed because as

whatever else he did, he wasn't into drugs. That's one thing he says he was just not into it. So it was really annoying him. Out of nowhere, he picked up a howitzer artillery shell. Is that a gun? It's basically a cannon. So the shell is what comes out of it. And it's like two feet. This thing. It's a big thing. It's just that line around. He just barely had one line around. Normal. So that's pretty intense. He picked up this Howard Sir Artillery Show and he severely beat her with it. And she lived through that. She lived through that, fought super hard.

Even ended up biting his hand in the process. And he still has the scar inside. Yeah, so good. Yeah. Unfortunately, he ended up getting the upper hand and he strangled her to death. Hey there, fellow podcast listener, it's Elena. And Ash! And we're taking you back to the days before streaming services.

Whoa! You know when you would come home from high school and it was only a few hours until that TV show, everyone was watching was about to come on. Well, in 1999, that show was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In our podcast with Wondery, the re-watcher Buffy the Vampire Slayer, we take it back to 1999. So get out your knee high boots and paste that poster of Angel on the wall. It's time to enter the Buffyverse.

Some of you avid morbid listeners already know what we've gotten store. Hey, my nose. Join us as we sway our way through Buffy's drama, action, and romance. Episode by episode. Slacy. Follow the rewatcher, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Darn, darn, darn, darnirin, eirin, eirin! Oh, yeah!

Once he was done with that, he stuffed her body in a trash bag and took a nap. For four to six hours, he's a... So basically not even a nap, he went to sleep. Literally went to bed. He went through a REM cycle. Once he woke up from his nap, he dismembered her with an exacto knife, a teeny tiny little craft knife.

Like, I do topsies for a living, I have no idea how he did that and it would take so long. In fact, here's him talking about it right now. I just got fed up and I started hating him. Basically, he would tell my arms got tired and then we wrestled on the floor and ended up sprangling there. Cut it up, put a hobby knife. Basically I cut everything to the joint and then we popped a joints out that the legs the same way and proceeded to take a head off.

So now I had six pieces that I wrapped up and casually loaded into the truck at a car throughout the day. Yeah, so he makes that sound pretty easy, which is even creepier. Please don't try this. He's kinda, you'll see in these little clips, he kind of reminds me of like an Ed Kemper of BTK when he talks because he's very chill. Very matter of fact about it.

And he's very aware that it's messed up. And it's like, these, these, these are the people that were kind of fascinating when they're a little self-aware. Well, he describes himself as a monster. Yeah. And what he is. Yeah. Which could, again, could be just a very intelligent psychopath pandering and trying to make people feel like he really thinks he's a monster. I don't really think he thinks he's a monster. I don't really think he thinks he's a monster.

I think he's like just saying what he needs to say. He's pandering. So, after he dismembered her into six pieces with an exacto knife. This is so f**k. He removed her teeth with pliers I did not know that. And cut off the tips of her fingers to avoid identification. This is pretty interesting because the way he kind of describes this and the way that it comes out is like he just got angry and he just out of nowhere beat her with this how it's a shell and all that but it's like that's really next level shit to like think to take her teeth out and to take her hands out like

because he's thinking dental records and fingerprints. That's thinking really clearly, first of all. And it's also, that seems like he's plotted this out in his head before. Like, he knew what he would do if he did this. So I don't want to hear him say, oh, that's bad. No, I think you were planning this.

You just didn't know when it would happen, but you knew what you would do when you did do it. He actually stuffed her head into a paint cam and the rest of her went into different trash bags, which in the clip you hear him say he brought them out real casually one by one like throughout the day to his car. He ended up dumping the pieces in various locations around the city. The head and the arms went in the woods near Hopewell, New Jersey, and the torso and legs went off a bridge in Manhattan. Someone ended up finding her head, which... I hope to God that I never find anybody's anything.

From what I've heard it was a golfer who found her head. That was the end of the trip. That's why I don't move. That's why I stay inside. So she went unidentified until 2013. Her name is Heidi Bulk. So they finally identified her. They found DNA that they were able to use and identify her. What DNA could they find off of her head? Heads up DNA. Even millennial heads of DNA.

No, I know that. I'm just saying it was so many years ago, I didn't know that. Yeah, they probably... You're in stuff? Yeah, and they probably took samples. Like, when they find a dead body, they take all the samples anyway. Even though DNA wasn't a thing, they probably took care of samples, skin samples. And now they're able to get the things they need from it. He ended up waiting a whole year to kill again.

It was late 1990 that he picked up sex worker, Julie Blackbird, when his mother was out of town again. He had the house to himself, which seems to be when he does his most gruesome stuff. He had sex with her, and then out of nowhere, he took a table leg and slammed her in the head with it and a table leg. You know what he also said he said after the first one he vowed that he wasn't going to do it again. Yeah.

And then like, you know what he said after he, in the interview he was like, and then Julie happened. And you know why? I had a bad day. Yeah. I had a bad day. Valid reason, right? You know, I have beats someone with a table. I have days every now and then, too, Joel, and I don't beat people with your tables.

He ends up after he beat her with a table, like, he ended up strangling her and killing her. This is an interesting one, because when he looked at her after he had killed her, he considered it necrophilia for a moment. And then he says he had killed her. He considered Necrophilia for a moment. Because he was above it. Well, he said he was super into Ted Bundy, and Ted Bundy was all about it. Was all about it.

And so he thought about doing it because he wanted to copy him, which is like such a weird, he wanted to be interviewed to Ted Bundy. Yeah, like why? But like Ash said, he was like, you know what? I had a line. And in fact, here's another clip of him just quickly telling you, why didn't do it?

The thought occurred to me because I had heard of it, and then I shook off the thought and said, no. I'm making this dividing line and I'm like, all right, I just killed somebody, but no, I won't go, I won't do this next thing. I won't, you know, which is, I don't know this next thing I won't you know which is I don't know it's odd but the whole thing is odd. So yeah that's fun that he had you know everyone's got standards. Everyone's got standards. So he ended up

dismembering her because again he had the time because his mother was not home whenever she's not there and he has the time to bring these people back to his home it's when he takes his time and really make sure that he dismembers and places things, and places that people shouldn't be able to find them. He actually put her parts into cement, which is like weird. This is very odd, because he doesn't do this again, so that's weird. He must have just had an accident. Well, he said he actually went to the store and got some

it. So he just decided to try this I think. What should actually work? So he traveled, he dumped her head and torso in the East River and the rest of her in Brooklyn. She was never found. And the only reason that we know about her at all is from his confession. He was the one who said that I did this and this is how I did it. They did find her diary in his possession. In 1991 he started a landscaping business because he also went to Horticulture School for a brief time and he actually did well there. So apparently Horticulture was his thing. And it's funny that he started a landscaping business because it kind of reminds me of Bruce McArthur in Toronto, who was recently captured. Who was the killer of the missing men of Toronto. Because Bruce McArthur was also a landscaper,

and he used his landscaping business to hide these bodies. So it's funny that what an odd profession to be a similarity. Well, this did allow him to get a storage space to hold his like tools and equipment, and he started using it to hide bodies because he was living with his mama. The next victim was Barbara Jacobs, who was shocker, a sex worker. She had been arrested for prostitution and auto theft before. He picked her up, he took her back to his mother house, mother's house, he had sex with her, and he beat her with the same table leg that he beat Julie Blackbird with.

In the end, he strangled her too. That's how he oh yeah, and this is it's I feel like I should just say for the from now until the end, he strangles everybody. He doesn't dismember her though. He wraps her in plastic, puts her in a cardboard box, and then... I didn't even touch her. Oh. Oh. Ashley just almost knocked over the entire container.

I just flew into oblivion. Thank you for being worried about me. I don't even know how that happened. This recliner is haunted. Oh, that was a lot. I swear to God. So, he wraps her in plastic and puts her in a cardboard box.

He dumps that cardboard box in the Hudson River, which clearly that's going to float. That was not. He did nothing to hide that at all. So, it was super easy to find and she was finding really quickly. There was no connection to him at the time. The only reason this was connected to him was through his confessions later. So again, he gave...

He just called that himself to these things. The next victim was September 1991 when her name was Mary Ellen Deluca. She was 22 years old. she was a sex worker, and she was a drug addict. At the time, she had left a group of friends saying she was going to get drugs, and she ended up meeting and being picked up by Reffkin. After picking up some drugs around town, they got a hotel room together, and they ended up sleeping together, but she said that she wasn't into it at all, and she just wanted to get through it, because I think she wanted drugs, basically. I think the only reason it was kind of the promise of drugs that she was going along with this. He claims that he asked her, do you want to die? And she said yes. But again, this is him telling the story conveniently she's not around to tell about that side of the story.

So I think he's trying to take away accountability here. He seems like this is kind of his MO is to take all the responsibility off himself and just be like, I don't know why it was a monster who did it's not me. So I don't say that. Exactly. So I don't think he asked her that. And if he did like, fuck him man. So he ended up strangling her. And he disposed of her at a rest stop, which is weird, because up to this point he's been using water,

so it's kind of weird that he's just... Yeah, but I only did. This happened in September. She wasn't found until October. So she was out there for a month. It was really difficult to determine at that point anything substantial like how she died Especially because she was strangled which can be hard to see post-mortem anyways This is another one that wouldn't be connected to him until he confessed to it kind of crazy within the same month, which points to escalation,

in my mind, he murdered another woman named Yoon Lee. Now, she was Korean, she was a sex worker, but she was also married. Oh. Yeah. He actually knew her. What? They had had interactions before.

Like, he had picked her up. Oh, that's a sex worker. So she knew him and he knew her. He picked her up, he strangled her to death, and he said it actually kind of bothered him because of the familiarity. He said that one bothered him. Because he, all of a sudden, he more. Yeah. And he dumped her body in the East River, and she wasn't found until September 23rd, 1991. So it's weird that he picked someone he knew. He just couldn't. You know, in a lot of these cases, like the Green River Killer, Arthur Shawcross, anybody who targets sex workers and people that are

kind of a marginalized population of people, they're kind of seen as a lot of times they're referred to as less dead. Well, it doesn't draw as much attention. Well, that's the thing, they're less dead because they don't have a lot of connections to the world, basically. Right. Because a lot of these people are runaways or don't have good family ties. And you don't think of them. Well, I mean, we do, but the people that kill them don't think of them as nice. They're able to look at them, like, you know.

Which is horrible. These women, though, had a lot of family. Mother's, sisters, brothers, all these, you know, husbands, boyfriend. they all showed up and we're all devastated so he's a piece of shit. So yet another victim when I'm identified and it's still unidentified. Rifkin can't remember her name, he said, which makes me really angry. This is the first time that he actually strangled a woman during the act of Felatio, which is a very weird like he's really taken a walk on the wild so I do that because you're in a very

compromising position like that's very odd. He wrapped her up in a tarp and this time he put her in a 55 gallon oil drum that he dumped into the East River. While he was doing this, someone saw him. Whoa. And he ended up convincing this person that he was just out there collecting junk. He wasn't dumping anything, he was just collecting stuff. In the documentary, they said it was the cops. He said, two of New York's finest. That would be even crazier. It was like an A&E documentary on New York's movie. I believe in it, A&E. Me too. Yeah, they're reputable. Because he said, um, two of New York's finest, and I convinced them that I was looking for scavenging for car parts.

Wow. And they let him go. Wow. That's crazy. I didn't read that they were cops. Look at that. Crazy. So, like we, you know, so going back to the idea of like, you know, targeting people that are, quote, unquote, less dead.

Robert Reisler, wrestler, who is a former FBI criminologist who's kind of well known. About this case, he said there's a blend of hatred and sexual desire in men who prey on he says prostitutes, sex workers. It's misdirected anger. The killer doesn't appreciate the victim as a human being at all. So like we're saying, they're seen as subhuman by these people. Like they don't look at them as humans, they look at them as things that they can use, and then discard of, and no one's going to miss them. So, he went right back to add it in December 1991.

Next victim was Lorraine Orvieto. She was 28 years old. She actually came from a pretty like wealthy family, and was like popular in high school. She was a cheerleader. Unfortunately, she developed a cocaine addiction, She actually came from a pretty like wealthy family and was like popular in high school. She was a cheerleader. Unfortunately, she developed a cocaine addiction and a mental illness. So she was working the streets as a sex worker to pay for her addiction, which tends to be a story that you know, strings through a lot of these. He picked her up and again, he strangled her mid-foolishio.

So this is his new thing all of a sudden. I tried looking stuff up, but I got kind of creeped out looking it up about why somebody would do this or other serial killers who have done this, because I feel like I might have read something about this before. So was he strangling her to kill her at that point?

Yes. I didn't know if he was just strangling her during that and I'm not ended. No. Oh no, he killed her midway through. That's hard. Yeah. It's just weird that this is a sudden thing that he's doing.

Again, he put her in a 55 gallon oil drum, which is apparently his new thing. Now, he's switched. He seems to be very all over the place. He's just trying out. He has the same MO of strangling and sex workers as targets, but he's really like experimenting with things. He put her in the 55-gallon drum and he dumped her into Coney Island Creek. She was found July 1992. Whole year later. So the next one was Mary Ann Holliman. He strangled her the same way that he did the last two, mid-Falatio.

What the fuck? She was again placed in an oil drum, and he placed her into Coney Island Creek as well, which is funny because for a little while, people were thinking, you know, there's another pretty famous case, the Long Island Cereo Killer killer the go-go beach murders That's an interesting one that I'm sure we'll get to at some point There was some people who later when he was caught were like, oh wait a second. Maybe he's that guy

Right It doesn't turn out that it makes any sense because some of the things even happened after he was caught And he was very he said he wasn't which at this point he was very open about what he did. He probably would have said it. And one of his things was he said, no, I'm not that guy. That guy's super sloppy because he's putting his bodies in a two-small of an area. But this guy just dumped two bodies in the same area. Like, good chair.

Right next to each other. It's like, your sloppy is back, too. Just interesting that he said that. So he actually went back to college in 1992. After his business was failing, he was getting himself in debt. He was kind of on the downward spiral in all aspects. He was sitting in the dooms.

He was sitting in the dooms' yard. And again, he started skipping all his classes, not showing up. And around this time, probably because he was in so much debt and he was trying to work out of it. He kind of stopped seeing sex workers for a little bit and instead got really into watching VHS porn. So he should have just started with that. And he should have just just go with that man. Yeah watch what you want to do. Do you want to do my guess? Watch it. Exactly.

Unfortunately, that didn't last because his next victim was Iris Sanchez, who was 25 years old. She was a sex worker and a crack addict. Rifkin picked her up, he strangled her, and ended up dumping her body next to JFK airport, where he stuffed her under an old mattress right next to the airport. She wasn't found until he actually confessed later. He had to draw police a map to get to the spot. But she was for years. She was sitting under a mattress next to JFK airport.

They never want to found her probably. But how? She was sitting next to a goddamn airport. She was sitting right in the like that wasn't hidden at all That's insane. It's bananas to me that they didn't find her exactly Thousands of people every day. It's like insane. I'm so focused on getting on the plane You just put her under a mattress. That's crazy. I mean this guy got so like I don't want to say lucky But he got lucky with what he got away with. Well, that was lazy. Yeah, that was lazy.

The next victim was Anna Lopez, who was 33 years old, Asex worker. She had a cocaine addiction, and she was strangled as well, of course, and she was dumped along the highway. She ended up being found by a passing motorist, and it ended up that he had stolen one of her earrings like she was found missing an earring. He stole some jewelry from a few people. Yeah and again we'll get into he stole a lot of stuff for people. But this this was a noticeable thing I guess because she had specific earrings. The next victim was Violet O'Neill. He ended up bringing her back to his house. Now these other ones, I think we're a little different

because he wasn't bringing them back to the house. That's been my driven like horror. Exactly. So he brought Violet O'Neill back to his house. He strangled her after having sex with her and he dismembered her body. Because again, he's got time, he's got a place to do it now.

So he's going right back to his roots. He threw her pieces of her body into a river in Manhattan, and parts of her were found in the Hudson River. The next victim was another victim that he knew. He had been with this victim before too. Her name was Mary Catherine Williams. She had arrived in New York to pursue an acting dream and she fell into sex work because she developed an addiction to drugs. He smothered her to death after attempting

to strangle her. But she fought hard. She fought real hard and she couldn't strangle her. She was not going to let him strangle her And he ended up smothering her because that's easier to do. He dumped her body in Yorktown and she was identified until after he confessed and gave her name. The next victim was Jenny Soto and that was in November 1992 and she was 23 years old.

She had a drug problem. She was another one that really put up a fight. She ended up breaking all 10 of her fingernails, clawing him up. He was clawed up. So she really went at him. Unfortunately, he got the upper hand, he strangled her, and he tossed her body into the east river. She was found the next day. She was identified immediately from fingerprints. And originally actually her boyfriend, because she had a boyfriend at the time, was suspected. Oh, porc...

But Riffkin ended up taking responsibility later. So this poor guy, everyone thought he killed her. That must have sucked. They ended up finding her personal items in his possession, too, which ties him to it. February 1993, he murdered Leah Evans, who was 95 pounds in 4 foot 11. Oh my God! Yeah, she was a single mother. She had a drug addiction. She became a sex worker to make ends meet and defeat her addiction, unfortunately.

He picked her up on February 27th. He drove her to an abandoned parking lot. For 40 bucks, they had sex. He strangled her, and then he took her body to the woods and buried her in a shallow grave, which he has never done. That's a weird one. Like, it's very odd that he gave her a grave, like an actual what we all think of. As a grave.

Do you think maybe because she had kids, he felt something? I don't know. I thought it was weird to speculate because he's such a fucking monster. And who knows if he knew that she had kids, you know, she might not have told them that. I think he's just weird and manic and just experimenting on things, but it's just, it's still very weird. Eventually her hand actually protruded out of the ground which is how she was found because he sucks as a grave digger and he just threw in a really shallow

one, weather, elements and just rigor is gonna throw that hand into the air and it's gonna be found. The next one I know can you imagine? Stomach across the hand, do you think you tripped over a root on your hike, but it's someone's hand? I'm gonna be real. I've always wanted to stumble upon a body. I don't even know what's going on with that. I am who I am. Okay. Papa.

I gotta go now, my Uber's here. I mean, I'm just trying to be honest here. That's a semonasty for you. I don't want anyone to die, but if someone is gonna die, I'd like to stumble upon the body. That's all I'm saying. So going back to Jill Rifkin. Next victim is Lauren Marquez.

She was 28 years old and she moved from Tennessee to New York. I think she she probably came from the same reason that everybody else came probably you know pursue something greater than what she ended up doing. Riftkins tried to strangle her but somebody walked by while he was doing it. They didn't do anything. They just kept walking. Yeah so he ended up killing her by snapping her neck. Oh my god. Yeah. He ended and they by snapping her neck. Yeah. He did it and they just dumped her in the woods. She was identified via DNA in 1993. The last victim that we know of was Tiffany

Bouchiani. She wanted to be a dancer. She came to New York from Louisiana. Unfortunately, she developed a heroin addiction. So she had to become a sex worker to feed the addiction Which tends to be just a really sad cycle That you, you know, it's the only thing that you can think of to get the quickest money in the most money That's just to feed your addiction, but it's so dangerous June 24th, 1993, he picked her up. He said he had been on kind of like a sex worker binge I think he ended up seeing like four in two days. He didn't kill four in two days, but he had

He had interactions with four in two days. He strangled Tiffany in a parking lot and then he brought her back home to Long Island to his mother's home. Before he did that, he stopped and bought ropes and tarp with her in the back of his truck. He wrapped her in the tarp and brought her home. His mom when he got there was like, hey I got to go shopping because it was her car. Yeah so mom used the jean, used the car to go shopping with Tiffany in the trunk, wrapped in a tank. She had no idea. He said mom didn't use the trunk that day. Yeah.

Can you imagine if she had popped open the trunk to throw some bags in? Oh my God. When she got home, he transferred her body into the garage where he left her for three days in the summer heat. And he said they were real hot days. Yeah. It was, I mean, June and New York is hot. It can get hot.

I mean, that's just gross. It's disgusting. On the way to dispose of her is where he ended up getting arrested, which was the story we began this whole thing with. A full circle here. So when he was arrested, he was interrogated for eight hours. And he ended up confessing everything.

And here's Joel telling you that the cops did a really good job in getting that stuff out of him. Yeah, he really does. They were wearing me down. It was already getting into afternoon. You know, I'm tired. He's getting asleep tonight before. They're very good at what they do. You know, how to bring it to the age and then take it back and bring it back sleep the night before. They're very good at what they do. You know, how to bring it to the edge

and then take your back and bring it back to the edge again. And they decided to play. Not just game with me. I came out with more than one less than 20. So one of the investigators asked him, you know, 20 bucks for sex in the back seat of his mother's 1986 Toyota Canbury, then he then you ended up strangling her. Why?

Like why did you? Why? And this was senior investigator, C. Thomas Kaperz, who asked this, and Rifkin just said, I don't know. So he literally was like, I have no idea why I did this. I think it's so crazy to me. Now he gave, he gave his many names

as he could remember. Obviously, I can remember a couple. He drew maps to bodies. They ended up searching his mother's house, and that's where they found his collection of trophies that he had kept. In my notes, I wrote that his room was like nasty, yeah. It showed the pictures.

And like, you think my room is messy and gross? Your room is not messy and gross. It's not as messy and gross as Joe Rifkin's room. Well, you know what? What a feather in your cap. Here I am. Hold onto that. I will.

Here I am holding onto it. I like it. His room was nasty. Yes, it really was. And his poor mother said the thing that's never when in his room, because he's a grown ass man at that point and they were like, whatever. Well, he had kept bras underwear, jewelry, driver's licenses and a

library card of some of these people. In the diary? Yep, in the diary. I mean they there was there was even medicine bottles with their names on it so there was tones to connect him back to this. We're going to play a clip really quick of him kind of explaining why he did this. As the numbers started to increase an ID would you know okay the photo I know I know who the acro was. A piece of jewelry okay I know that it's from an acro. So yeah would help keep the sequence and to remember who was who and remember the events. It's fascinating to hear a serial killer who does collect because not all of them collect trophies. So it's fascinating to hear one that does say why he did it. Because the way he's saying it is like he kept it almost like a deceptimal system of murder

like he was like I would like to look back but he's also the way he said it was kind of being like I wanted to remember exactly what happened to each of these people so he like he probably looks at these items and relives each moment like it's more fantasizing that's all it is While they look while they went in his room they saw that he was clearly very in the serial killers Which you know so are we yeah? Everyone if you took a little look in fact, maybe I should post my library I'm gonna post a picture of my bookshelf Because if somebody came in and just looked at my books, they'd be like yes, something's wrong here So I'm not gonna take a whole lot of stock into that

We are not newspaper clippings like into that. No I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. Post it them and paperclip them together. No. That's how it gets weirder man. Like I don't have like you know the big wall of newspaper cuttings that have the red, the red yarn that's attaching all the things yet I don't have that. Not yet at least. Don't. Don't. Not yet. I mean if the zodiac gets identified I might get crazy. But give me that. That's your haul pass for crazy things. Yeah, that's my haul pass. So fingers crossed. So he immediately pled guilty to Tiffany's murder because they had the body. So we can really get out of that. His trial began in November 1993. They basically used his confessions, the fact that he led

them to bodies. So the trial was only six months. In May 1994, he was found guilty of nine murders and sentenced to 203 years in prison. And this is what the judge said. Yeah, it's this is hilarious actually. This is my favorite thing ever. Maybe I'll get this quote tattooed. Kudos to this judge. I have done can I be forgiven. But I ask you to believe me when I tell you that I will never understand the part of me that caused me to do these terrible things to your children. I don't only will I go to my death, reliving these horrors, but I will go there never knowing why you did them at all.

If 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. I almost wish more judges would like do that. I love this concept.

Like really bring the hammer down on these assholes. Sassy judges are my favorite. Yeah. And like, you hear him in that clip, he's saying like, you know, maybe, you know, I am a monster and I don't know why I did it. It was some part of me that did it. No no jewel it wasn't part of you who did it your whole body strangled these women it wasn't part of you that was disassociated like shut up yeah no one feels bad for you you know what I was

bullied too okay dude so hit me with another thing okay actually his defense was gonna really tried for an insanity defense Which doesn't make they said that he had like skits of freinia. Yeah, it doesn't none of it makes sense And it didn't work at all I'm not guilty by reason of insanity. Yeah, cuz this defense wanted to try for one And they were like that's funny. Well, they were actually gonna claim that his adoption status gave him unresolved anger towards his birth mother. And that's what made him lash out at sex workers. That's really crafty and bifty. And that makes it seem like adoption is a bad thing.

Yeah, fuck those guys. And it's like no, there's tons of people who are adopted. In fact, Jan, his sister was adopted. And she didn't go kill people as far as we know and Plenty of people get adopted into loving homes and you know don't make it seem like adoption is the issue here He was adopted at three weeks old and he was into a loving home. I didn't even know nothing to do with that Like come on so Come on So he was put away from the general population in prison, which was probably for his benefit

So he's in a cell for like 23 hours a day. He was the most prolific serial killer in New York State history. He even eclipsed Rochester's Arthur Shockross, which we mentioned a few times, and when we get to him in another episode, you'll see he's a crazy one. And he killed 11 women between 1989 and 1990. Neighbors of Joel described him as a kindhearted soul who would let a spider crawl out a window rather than kill it. But they were wrong.

They were very wrong. There was one woman who survived Joel. What? She is a sex worker that goes by Charlotte Webb. She survived two encounters with Rethgan. He got her again? Yeah, so she had two encounters with him. I don't think he tried to kill her two times, but like he she encountered him twice. She's 27 year old. 27 years old, she's a heroin addict, and she says that he picked her up in Lower Man

Hatton in April 1993. So this is right when he's in the heat of everything. It was only two months before he got caught. She was lucky. He paid her $40 for sex and she says, quote, some guys get rough but I never had an inkling with him. He was just a mellow nerdy guy. We talked about photography. He said he could get me a discount on a camera. He says that he told her his name was Jimmy and then he was going through a divorce and struggling to support two kids in college. She said, quote, he seemed lonely like me. She recalled, I told him, well, you have a friend. Stop it. So it's just it's all around the story is just kind of depressing in every sense of the word it really is Yeah, this one just kind of bums you out. So that's Joe Rufkin and he's still in prison. I

Met I did read something about him Making artwork and selling it which you don't want him to get any of that money But he said he did it in half of the money was going to the victim's families Why not all of it which it's like what a fucking gentleman But and they'll exactly why not all of it so I don't know I couldn't figure out exactly what happened there because I didn't think that they could make money off of that stuff So but I don't know I'm not sure I don't think they can't I mean I'm not yeah I mean I'm not positive on that so

Jorific it guys He's still kicking I'm gonna propose a deal next week Ted Bundy week after that Charlie. I like it all right So we're really hitting the big guys. Yes. Actually, Ted is going to be a multi-party. He's telling us too much. He is too much to put into one. I think we'd have you here for like three weeks. Everyone has a favorite, you know?

So Tatasou, I hope you liked. Yeah. Your suggestion. I hope you did. This was very interesting. Thanks for throwing it our way. Yeah, this was fun. Yeah.

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