Joel Rifkin Biography
Joel Rifkin is an American serial killer. In 1994, he was sentenced to 203 years in prison for the murders of nine women between 1989 and 1993.10 Quick Facts About Joel Rifkin
Joel Rifkin Age
Rifkin was born in New York City, New York, United States on January 20, 1959.Joel Rifkin Wife
Not much has been said about Joel’s wife. his wife’s name is Jenny Soto.Joel Rifkin Parents / Family
Rifkin’s birth mother was a 20-year-old college student, and his biological father was a 24-year-old college student and Army veteran. At three weeks old he was adopted by an upper-middle-class Long Island couple, on February 14, 1959. His adoptive father, Benjamin Rifkin, was of Russian Jewish descent and his adoptive mother, Jeanne, of Spanish descent, converted to Judaism when she married.
Joel Rifkin Murder
Rifkin committed his first murder in 1989, killing Heidi Balch in his home in East Meadow. He then dismembered her body, removing her teeth and fingertips, putting her head in a paint can and then leaving the paint can in the woods of a golf course in Hopewell, New Jersey, her legs farther north, then dumping her remaining torso and arms into the East River around New York City. Balch’s remains were not identified until 2013. Over the next four years, it is presumed he killed 16 more women. After his final arrest in 1993, he was implicated in Balch’s murder. In 2013, investigators determined this victim, a sex worker named Heidi Balch, was the same woman he described as his first victim. Police finally caught up to Joel Rifkin on June 28, 1993, when New York State Police spotted him driving his Mazda pickup truck without a rear license plate on the Southern State Parkway. A high-speed chase ended in Mineola, New York when he crashed into a utility pole directly in front of the courthouse where he eventually stood trial. Troopers detected a foul odor from the back of the truck. It came from the corpse of his final victim: sex worker and dancer Tiffany Bresciani, 22, the girlfriend of Dave Rubinstein. Joel Rifkin had picked Bresciani up in his pickup truck on June 24, 1993, where she was working on Allen Street in Manhattan, New York City. During his trial, Joel Rifkin was represented by Mineola, New York-based attorney John Lawrence. He was found guilty of nine counts of second-degree murder in 1994, and sentenced to 203 years to life in prison. His first possible parole date is February 26, 2197.Joel Rifkin In Prison
In early 1994, it was reported that Rifkin had engaged in a jailhouse scuffle with mass murderer Colin Ferguson. The brawl began when Ferguson asked Rifkin to be quiet while Ferguson was using a prison phone. The New York Daily News reported the fight escalated after Ferguson told Rifkin, “I killed six devils and you only killed women,” to which Rifkin responded, “Yeah, but I had more victims.” Ferguson then punched Joel Rifkin. Prison officials decided in 1996 that Rifkin was so notorious, that his presence in the general prison population could be disruptive. He was confined to his cell at the Attica Correctional Facility for 23 hours a day. He spent more than four years in solitary confinement before being transferred to the Clinton Correctional Facility in Clinton County.
Rifkin sued, arguing that his solitary imprisonment was unconstitutional. In 2000, a state appellate court determined that prison officials had not violated Joel Rifkin’s constitutional rights by housing him in isolation. His lawsuit sought $50,000 for each of his 1,540 days in solitary confinement (totaling $77 million). Had he received any money, it would have been subject to state laws that earmark most of the award for the families of his victims. Corrections officials say that Rifkin is now imprisoned with more than 200 other inmates at Clinton who are not allowed into the general prison population.Joel Rifkin Downfall
His final victim was Joel Rifkin’s undoing. Rifkin strangled Tiffany Bresciani and then drove the body back to his mother’s home to find a tarp and rope. At his home, Rifkin placed the wrapped body in a wheelbarrow in the garage where it festered for three days in the summer heat. He was on his way to dump the corpse when state troopers noticed his truck lacked a rear license plate. Instead of pulling over, Joel Rifkin led authorities on a high-speed chase. When the troopers pulled him over, that was when they noticed the smell. They found Bresciani’s corpse in the back of the truck. Rifkin then confessed to 17 murders. A judge sentenced Joel Rifkin to 203 years in prison. He will be eligible for parole in 2197 at the tender young age of 238. At a sentencing hearing in 1996, the serial killer apologized for the killings and admitted that he is a monster. A look inside Rifkin’s mind is telling as to how he managed to kill 17 women. In a 2011 interview, Joel Rifkin said, “You think of people like–* things.” Rifkin also said he couldn’t stop what he was doing. He also researched how to dispose of bodies to get rid of the evidence. Rifkin chose prostitutes to kill because they live on the margins of society and they travel a lot. No one misses prostitutes if their friends and families don’t know where they are. Sadly, like his victims, no one missed Joel Rifkin’s presence in school or sympathized with his academic troubles. No one thought that the lonely kid would turn into a serial killer. Perhaps Joel Rifkin’s life would have turned out differently if someone recognized that he had difficulty reading instead of having mental problems.Related Biographies.
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