Killers: Behind the Myth (2013–2015): Season 2, Episode 2 - The Crossbow Cannibal - full transcript

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NARRATOR: The most notoriouskillers hide in plain sight,

free to kill and kill again.

But most are not the criminalmasterminds of fiction.

In their minds, theycommit the perfect murder.

In reality, it's their foolishmistakes that get them caught.

NARRATOR: New Jersey,
March 5th, 1989,

in the quiet town of
Hopewell, a golfer

tees off for an early
Sunday morning round.

Just one of those
days, damp, cold.

People should not havebeen out golfing that day.



NARRATOR: Whilest looking forthis ball in the undergrowth,

the golfer makes a
horrific discovery,

the mangled, decapitated
head of a young woman.

Just happened that hesliced his ball into the area

where the head was laying.

NARRATOR: Police are
called to investigate

the gruesome murder.

Leading the team is
Detective Bruce Carnell.

We get down there
and I look at it,

and I was able to touch andfeel and knew if I hit it,

it was a real head.

The eyes are open and fixed.

The jaw had been
cut, and there was

like little marks on the face,cuts, and scratches, and all.



It's a chilling sight.

NARRATOR: The head is
only a few hours old.

I believe our
medical examiner placed

the time of death probably12 to 24 hours prior to us

finding the head.

NARRATOR: The killer
knew what he was doing.

Identifying the head from dentalrecords would be impossible.

All the teeth had been removed.

Actually, you
could see where they

pulled them out like pliers,and scratched jaw bone, and all.

NARRATOR: Police combed thearea for any clues that will

help them track the killer.

And no other evidence,
no other body parts,

and no other informationthat could lead us to who

did this gruesome murder.

NARRATOR: One month later,
a member of the public

finds a pair of legs
in Jefferson township,

80 miles north of Hopewell.

We'd use comparisons of knifemarks on the neck and the legs,

and it appears the same
instrument was used.

NARRATOR: DNA testing
confirms the legs

and severed head belong
to the same victim,

but figuring out who thevictim is proves difficult.

We found that the head
was positive for HIV.

It was narcotics in the tissue.

And also we had a
reconstruction done.

We did comparisons in a lot ofmissing persons in that area,

and they all turned up negative.

NARRATOR: With no
identity for the victim

and no leads on the killer,the case quickly goes cold.

I always kept in
the back of my mind

she's someone's daughter,and they need to know or find

out what happened to her.

NARRATOR: The mystery victim'skiller remains on the loose.

Four years later,
two New York State

troopers on a routine
patrol in Long Island.

On the night of June the28th, 1993, trooper Sean Rain

and Deborah Spogano were onpatrol on the Southern State

Parkway when they noticeda pickup truck driving

along a little erratically.

NARRATOR: Trooper Rain pullsup closer to investigate.

He notices that there'sno license plate on the car,

and he turns his lights on.

NARRATOR: But the drive
doesn't pull over.

He hits the gas and speeds off.

This chase ensued
for about a half hour,

covered about 30 miles,
a very high speed chase.

Where they ended upchasing this vehicle until it

crashed near the steps
of the courthouse.

NARRATOR: When police movein to make the arrest,

the driver offers no resistance.

He hands over his license,which identifies him

as 34-year-old Joel Rifkin, arecently unemployed gardener

from East Meadow, Long Island.

But they smell something.

They smell something that policeofficers are familiar with.

Immediately they know that thisis far, far more than simply

a routine stop.

NARRATOR: As the trooper
peels back a blue tarp,

he discovers the
naked decomposing

body of a young woman.

It is obvious she has beendead for several days.

Rifkin is immediately taken toa police station in Farmingdale

on suspicion of murder.

Senior investigator StevenLouder leads the interrogation.

When I first see Joel Rifkin,he's in the interrogation

room awaiting us.

He was pretty sullen.

He wasn't very,
very demonstrative

at all while he was there.

He seemed resigned to the fact,well, we had him with the body,

so he pretty much knew that,you know, what faced him ahead.

But we're just curious
to talk to him,

and get more background, andget some more information.

We wanted a confession.

NARRATOR: Rifkin tells
them that he had picked

up a woman in lower Manhattan.

He took her to a parking lotwhere he paid her for sex,

and then he strangled her.

He was not emotional at all.

He was dealing in a
very matter of fact way.

NARRATOR: As Rifkin
recounts the murder,

he admits to keeping some ofhis victim's personal items.

This startling admission
sounds alarm bells.

Louder knows this is a traitcommon to serial killers.

He now suspects that this murdermay have been one of many.

We asked the question,
was it more than 50,

was it more than 20,
was it more than 30?

NARRATOR: Rifkin
stuns police, as just

hours after being
arrested he confesses

to a total of 17 murders overa four year killing spree.

We don't have a
reaction in the room,

in the interview room, butit was quite surprising.

We didn't expect that.

NARRATOR: When the media
get hold of the story,

there's a feeding frenzy.

NEWS REPORTER: If the
allegations against him

are true, 34-year-oldJoel Rifkin would probably

be the most prolific serial
killer in New York state

history, and one of
the most prolific

in the nation's history.

NARRATOR: Rifkin's
claims proved true.

He gives police
detailed notes that lead

them to several of his victims.

Rifkin, it turns out,
is the real deal.

It was a chance minor
traffic violation

that led police to
the door of New York's

most prolific serial killer.

Knowing the game is
up, Rifkin recalls

all of his horrificmurders in clinical detail.

Once he started talking, it'salmost like he was relieved.

He had to write out,
for us, his list.

And he was able to
recall with detail

when, who, what he
kept from his victim,

and where he had placed them.

He actually mapped
it out for us,

and he led us to
a few bodies that

had not been discovered yet.

NARRATOR: Rifkin
tells police that he

made his first kill four yearsprior to his eventual arrest.

Joel's first killing
took place around 1988.

He picked up a woman by thename of Susie in Manhattan,

and he took her home, whichwas his mother's home.

Mother had been
away on a vacation.

He bought her drugs
on the way home.

And they had had sex.

And she was very clearly
a raging drug addict.

And she didn't
care about the sex.

All she wanted was
for him to go out

and to score more drugs for her.

NARRATOR: The girl's demands formore drugs infuriated Rifkin.

All he wants is more sex.

All of a sudden,
the urge just overcame

him to kill this woman.

DR. BARBARA KIRWIN: And hejust impulsively grabbed

a huge World War
II howitzer shell.

And he just started
beating her with it

on the back of her head.

He kept beating her.

He thought she was dead.

And he was running aroundthis house in a panic.

NARRATOR: But Susie
is still alive.

She fights back
with all her might.

When Rifkin tries
to move her body,

he pins her down and
strangles her to death.

At that point, all
he could think of

is what's my mother goingto say when she comes back?

NARRATOR: Despite this
being his first kill,

he seems to instinctivelyknow what to do.

Rifkin drags Susie's
body to the basement

and proceeds to
systematically dismember

her with a small hobby knife.

He dismembers her
body with a kind

of absolute cool
indifference, you know,

that he described as beingequivalent to dissecting

a frog in a biology class.

NARRATOR: Susie's was just thefirst of many body disposals.

In the eight hourinterrogation, Rifkin confesses

to 16 more brutal murders.

From what he said
to me is he confessed

to the strangling of 17
prostitutes in exchange

for a tuna fish salad sandwich.

NARRATOR: Forensic
psychologist Dr.

Barbara Kirwin was brought in todo a psychological evaluation.

When I first came
in to see Joel Rifkin,

it was a highly notorious case.

Hell, there was a lot
of security at the jail.

There were a lot of reporters.

There was brown paper
put all over the glass,

so that guards wouldn't seein to what we were doing.

Joel Rifkin had
murdered 17 women,

and here I was going intothis small room with him.

Was he somebody who
was so psychotic

that he was going to lungeacross the examining table

and strangle me?

I had no idea.

NARRATOR: Despite her concerns,Kirwin ends up spending

56 hours examining Rifkin.

Examining him was
like a travelogue

into the desert of
his mind and spirit.

There was some connection toemotions that wasn't there.

He talked about the murdersas if one were reciting

the grocery list,
a quart of milk,

I put my hands around herthroat, a loaf of bread,

I strangled her.

He had no horror, he had noremorse, he had no emotions,

he was a house that
nobody lived in.

NARRATOR: Kirwin hadexpected to diagnose Rifkin

as a sane sexual sadistwho was in complete control

of his actions.

When I did his psychologicaltesting, I was astounded.

His scores were
elevated off the scale.

They were like hospitalizedviolent schizophrenics.

NARRATOR: Kirwin
diagnoses Rifkin

as a paranoid schizophrenicwho was acting

on uncontrollable impulses.

Rifkin was a veritable posterchild for the insanity defense.

He did not really appear to knowthe gravity or the consequences

of his actions.

NARRATOR: Kirwin must nowprobe into Rifkin's past

to find out if he was
born or made this way.

Whenever we look at any
kind of human behavior,

and particularly when we'relooking at such horrific

and abhorrent human behavior,we want to weigh how much of it

is genetics, how much of itis nature, how much of it

is environment, nurture?

NARRATOR: Rifkin was bornon the 20th of January, 1959

to an unmarried couple
unable to keep him.

He is soon adopted
by Bernard and Jean

Rifkin, a childless couplefrom upstate New York.

Three years later, the Rifkin'sadopt a daughter and move

to East Meadow, a middle classneighborhood in Long Island.

His father was successful,and bright, and very community

oriented to the outside world.

But inside the home, he wascritical, he was detached,

he was a very tough taskmaster.

NARRATOR: Despite
having a high IQ,

Joel is dyslexic and
struggles academically.

His father would
sit down and try

to do math problems with him.

But the father would
get very frustrated,

and probably didn't quiteunderstand dyslexia,

as few people did back then.

Joel admired his
father tremendously,

and wanted his
father's approval,

and wanted to be successfulin his father's eyes.

And I don't think he ever was.

NARRATOR: But Joel's
troubles at home

are nothing compared to what heis confronted with at school.

Joel Rifkin was a
weird kind of child.

He was kind of goofy.

He was always kind
of a social outcast.

And his very earliest
memories of interacting

with other children
was of being picked on

and not being accepted
into the group.

NARRATOR: Rifkin's classmatesphysically and psychologically

bully him on a daily basis.

"True Crime" author
Harold Schechter

believes this had a profoundeffect on the young Rifkin.

If you fill a child withfeelings of incredible self

hatred and
worthlessness, they're

going to grow up
hating the world

and wanting to inflict
some pain on the world,

partly as revenge, partlybecause they just grow up

feeling that human
relationships, you know,

are based on that kind
of infliction of pain.

NARRATOR: In 1978, Rifkin leavesschool and heads to university,

where he meets Bob Mladinich.

The Rifkin that I knewin my-- maybe my early 20s,

he had a tremendous amount ofability and potential to have

a career as a photographer.

NARRATOR: But despiteexcelling at photography,

Rifkin drops out and beginsa cycle of dead end jobs.

His social life is
as much of a failure

as his professional life.

Joel Rifkin had verylittle experience with girls.

He was not appealing.

He was peculiar.

If he went into a bar or
a club, the women were

going to run the other way.

His social sense would be oneof just simply pushing himself

in front of a female and,you know, accept me as I am,

smelly, unkempt,
and badly dressed.

NARRATOR: Criminalpsychologist David Holmes

believes this
social incompetence

leads Rifkin to shuthimself off from reality.

Joel Rifkin, by virtue of hisinability to relate socially,

was living in anentirely different world.

He withdrew more and
more into a little

fantasy world that was
Joel Rifkin's and only

Joel Rifkin's.

NARRATOR: Influenced by
films and television,

he starts to fantasize
about strangling women.

I would suspect that hewas filled with all kinds

of sexual insecurities.

I think that leads
people like Rifkin

to seek out women that, on somelevel, they feel they deserve.

NARRATOR: Unable to
get a real girlfriend,

Rifkin resorts to
trolling the streets

of New York for prostitutes.

Every last dime
was spent on women.

He would literally go out everynight, or at least five or six

nights a week, and troll aroundthe five boroughs of New York

City looking for prostitutes.

When he realized
that, you know,

he could pick up prostitutesand they would actually

be OK with him,
he liked the idea

that he could relate tosomeone without being social,

without having to actuallyengage this person properly.

NARRATOR: But even withdrug addicted prostitutes,

Rifkin proves to be
completely inept.

Most of them took advantageof him in one way or another,

because they just
wanted to get it

over with and get more drugs.

So I think he developed, asmuch as he had an obsession

for them, I think, withoutquestion, that he developed

a hatred for prostitutes.

NARRATOR: As this
hatred intensifies,

the boundary between hisfantasy worlds and reality

becomes increasingly blurred.

He fantasized about killingevery single one of them.

He said that fantasy
of killing them,

in his words, jazzed
up the evening.

NARRATOR: Rifkin is leadinga secret double life

right under the nose
of his entire family.

Joel was living like achild under his parents roof.

His father would periodicallyget on him, make him clean up,

force him to get a job, forcehim to clean out the cars.

And so his father functionedas almost a guide person that

kept Joel within
very narrow confines

away from doing whatever thesehorrendous fantasies were.

NARRATOR: Then in February'87, tragedy strikes.

His father was
diagnosed with cancer

and commits suicide
with a lethal overdose

of barbiturates.

Rifkin came down
to the table and he

saw his dad slumped over.

And he went and he kind ofpushed him, and he nudged him,

and then his dad kind ofkeeled over and he realized

that his father was dead.

As soon as his
father passed away,

everything was over for Joel.

There were no controls.

NARRATOR: Over the
next two years,

Rifkin becomes increasinglydetached from reality.

Years of pent up anger andhumiliation crave release.

And in March 1989, without hisfather to keep him in check,

Rifkin finally breaks.

He flips when a
prostitute called Susie

demands he buys her more drugs.

At that point, he probablygot that thrill of control,

of dominating another person,that goes way beyond sex,

that fits into his
little non-emotional

world as being a high point.

NARRATOR: In an
instant, he transforms

from a perpetual victiminto a cold blooded killer.

He bagged her body
parts in different bags

and threw them, some ofthem into the river in New

York City, and he threw her headin a golf course in New Jersey.

NARRATOR: Her head is
found just hours later,

but Rifkin has left no clues.

Rifkin, a man who
has never committed

a serious crime before,
disposes of the corpse

like a seasoned pro.

This person who hadnever succeeded in anything

suddenly discovered this amazingtalent for body disposal.

NARRATOR: Rifkin has finallyfound something he can do

with conviction and expertise.

His reign of terror has begun.

Joel Rifkin has a dark secret.

He has killed a
prostitute called

Susie in his family home.

After Joel committed
his first murder,

he was so frozen with
fear for several weeks,

he vowed that he would nevervisit another prostitute,

and definitely he wouldnever kill another person.

But after a couple of weeks,that fear subsided, and he

started fantasizing once again.

He became comfortable with
the fantasy once again.

NARRATOR: Rifkin begins to seekthe services of prostitutes

once again.

And for over a year and a half,he resists the urge to kill.

But in the fall of 1990, hismother goes away on vacation.

Rifkin brings home a youngprostitute, Julie Blackbird.

They had sex.

And then they wanted
to have more sex,

but she wanted more money.

So Joel said we'll drive
to the ATM machine.

I'll get you more money.

They drove to the
bank about 8:00 AM,

but the bank was not open yet.

When they came back to the houseto wait for the bank to open,

Joel got the compulsion onceagain to kill this woman.

NARRATOR: With no money
for sex, Rifkin snaps.

He grabs an old piece of woodand beats Julie to death.

He said lightning
struck him, and then he

was like a lightning
strike to his victims,

that it was that
unpredictable, that it

was that random that it didn'tfollow any logic for him.

He was adamant about thefact that had the bank been

open when they went to getthe money the first time,

she would still be alive today.

NARRATOR: Determined thatJulie's body should never

surface, he
dismembers the corpse,

wraps up the
separate body parts,

and weighs them
down with concrete.

He then throws
them into the East

River and the Brooklyn Canal.

Julie's remains have
never been found.

In the months after
Julie's murder,

Rifkin continues tobring several prostitutes

to his family home
in East Meadow,

but they all leave unharmed.

There was no rhyme
or reason to it.

There was no pattern
to the girls.

They weren't shortbrunettes or tall blondes.

They were simply available.

It was opportunistic.

They were unprotected.

They were the people
who he could get,

who would approach the vehiclewhen he called them over.

NARRATOR: But his
obsession with murder

continues to consume
his thoughts.

Rifkin was psychopathic.

He clearly had a lack ofempathy, a callousness, a lack

of emotional feeling
for other people,

and probably for
himself at that time.

NARRATOR: Kirwin believes hisproblems were even greater.

Rifkin told her he
was hearing voices.

He heard something say to himin his head, a voice, yes, no.

He understood that ifthe voice stopped on yes,

that was when he was to increasethe pressure around the girl's

neck and crush her windpipe.

But if the voice said
no, he relaxed his grip

and there were several girls,who were potential victims, who

were lucky.

The voice that night said no.

NARRATOR: But on
July 13th, 1991,

Rifkin finally acts
out his strangulation

fantasy with his third victim,31-year-old Barbara Jacobs.

Put off by the thoughtsof another dismemberment,

he dumped her body whole
into the Hudson River.

Jacobs' body is found
just hours later.

But by this point,Rifkin doesn't even care.

After that third killing, hesaid there was an accelerated

period where I believehe did about four or five

in a relatively short periodof time, a couple of months.

NARRATOR: Rifkin has developed
an addition for killing.

He felt that he was justout of control at that point.

His appetite for
the killing became

even more insatiable than hisappetite for the actual sex.

I think Rifkin was alwayssearching for that rush

that he got during
the first killing.

It was a sense of power
over someone else,

being in control ofsomeone, momentarily even,

in a very cold and dispassionate
way that actually gave

him the impetus to carry on.

NARRATOR: Rifkin has becomean efficient, cold-blooded

serial killer.

Like other serial killers,he keeps his victims'

personal items as mementos.

He would have realized thathaving items from each victim

meant he could revisit
the whole thing,

go over the thrill again
by having a memento,

something that he can use toremember the detail of the act.

NARRATOR: As Rifkin
continues to kill,

he becomes more
adept at disposing

of his victims' bodies.

Some of the ways that heactually disposed of the bodies

were things that he hadseen on television shows.

One of the bodies he dismemberedand he put in a 55 gallon oil

drum.

And he had seen that on
a popular crime show.

There was one time where hedrove up to northern Manhattan.

And he drove to a
wooded area that

was-- little cliff over
looking some water,

hurled the body into the water.

And as he was walking
out of this brush,

these two cops had seen
his car and they were

investigating the flashlights.

NARRATOR: Rifkin tellspolice that he is scavenging

for pieces of scrap metal.

They believe his story and lethim go with just a warning,

but his close call
with the note does

nothing to stop his insatiableappetite for murder.

By the end of 1991, his bodycount has reached seven.

Preying on the most
vulnerable in society

means that often theirdisappearances go unnoticed.

At that time, New YorkCity was a little seedier,

much seedy than it is now.

And these girls inhabitedthat underbelly of the city.

So people not missing them,people not paying attention

to them, people going
about their business

and not looking at
them, because they're

looking down their
nose at them, so that

makes them very vulnerable.

NARRATOR: 1992 sees
Rifkin continue

his sick killing spree.

Although some of his victims'corpses are being discovered,

it is impossible to link
them back to one killer.

Well, a lot of
these, the bodies,

when we found them were in nocondition to be identified--

really identify.

A lot of them were
decompositioned

And DNA wasn't as
advanced as it is now.

Although each one of thewomen were prostitutes,

each one of the women
were strangled to death,

the disposal of the
bodies was different,

so there was no reason
to think that this

was the work of one person.

NARRATOR: In just
one bloody year,

Rifkin's rampage sees him takethe lives of seven more girls.

It is kind of
extraordinary, you know,

that somebody like Rifkincould go about pursuing

this secret life.

I mean, no normal, ordinaryperson could possibly do that.

With the knowledge, you know,that he was leading this kind

of life, and had
the power to pull

it off must have been a sourceof great gratification for him.

NARRATOR: In the early
hours of June 24, 1993,

Rifkin heads toManhattan's Lower East Side

to stroll for prostitutes.

His truck is having
engine trouble,

so he borrows his mother's car.

He picks up a girl, has
sex, and lets her go,

but his sick appetite
has not been satisfied.

At 5:00 AM, he picks up hissecond girl of the night,

22-year-old Tiffany Bresciani.

Rifkin drives Tiffany
to a parking lot,

where she agrees to
have sex with $20.

The sex attack goes ahead,but this progress very

rapidly to strangulation.

NARRATOR: Tiffany becomesworking 17th victim.

It was after he
murdered Tiffany,

strangled her, he
was in a quandary

of what to do with the body.

He had to get home, becausehis mother had to go to work.

So he covered her
with some newspapers

and he drove home
to East Meadow.

NARRATOR: His mother
is waiting for him,

and takes her car before hehas a chance to lose the body.

His mother wound up taking thecar from him, taking the keys,

going to her appointmentwith this body in the trunk,

and coming back, you know,two or three hours later none

the wiser.

She never knew that
she had transported

a body around that morning.

NARRATOR: When his
mother gets home,

Rifkin sets Tiffany's
lifeless body

in a wheelbarrow in his garage.

But before he can
dispose of the corpse,

he must first fix his
broken down truck.

His own truck needed somevery heavy engine work.

He actually had
another truck to use,

and he switched the engines out.

He actually did
that over a weekend,

those days where she remainedin the garage all that time.

But it's in the summer,and within a couple of days,

the body starts smellingvery badly, and decomposing.

But because Joel's in themidst of fixing his truck,

he can't get rid of the body.

NARRATOR: The
strong stench drifts

into neighbor's backyards.

So he slapdashes
his car together

just enough to drive thebody, you know, 20 miles away.

NARRATOR: Three days
after killing Tiffany,

Rifkin is finally ready
to dispose of her body.

He loads her rotting corpseinto the repaired trunk

and hits the freeway.

But Rifkin has made a
devastating mistake.

He neglected to put alicense plate on the vehicle.

And a very, very
diligent officer

was about to put the end toa very long killing spree.

NARRATOR: When
police catch Rifkin

after a chase
through Long Island,

they discover the true
horrors of his crimes.

Had he had a license
plate on that vehicle,

he quite possibly would stillbe out there committing crime.

I would like to
think eventually

he may have been caught, butwe have no way of knowing.

But it was just opportunity,and there was a good opportunity

that we're able
to-- the troopers

were alert and aware
enough to pursue

and continue with the pursuit.

It was a minor traffic
offense to our troopers,

but to him, it was
the end of his life.

NARRATOR: Rifkin is
caught red handed.

Within hours, he confessesto all of his 17 murders.

After the interview
was terminated,

we draft a search warrant.

It was specifically whatwe're going to go look for,

and what to do
if-- what we find.

We had no way of knowing
if anything he said

was going to be legitimate.

NARRATOR: The police
quickly descend

on his house in East
Meadow that he shares

with his mother and sister.

When we first arrived at thescene with the forensic crew,

it seemed very daunting,because it was such a pile,

upon pile, upon pile of mess.

His physical space, hiscar, his crimes, his room

were just as fragmented
and just as chaotic

as his internal
psychological state.

NARRATOR: It takes police twowhole days to search the house.

My team going in
there and then taking

things very methodically, andgoing through each thing layer

by layer, so that
we actually found

every piece that he described.

NARRATOR: Officers
gather over 1,000 items

linked to his murder spree.

Some of the items he keptwere driver's licenses,

identification,
jewelry, clothing,

different things
from each victim,

which he liked to
keep to remember them.

NARRATOR: In the garage,police find the bloodstained

wheelbarrow and the
tools that he had

used to dismember his victim's.

Police now have proof that theyhad in their custody New York's

most prolific serial killer.

Joel Rifkin's
relentless rampage makes

headline news around the world.

His trial is a media frenzy.

Joel was kind of
like a star attraction

as far as tabloid
journalism goes

for quite, quite some time.

NARRATOR: At the trial
for Tiffany's murder,

Rifkin pleads not guilty.

Kirwin testifies
for the defense,

diagnosing Rifkin as
clinically insane.

He did something
quite frankly that

was very crazy, and
very inexplicable,

and we couldn't put
our handle around it.

And as a psychologist,the only thing I could say

is that was typical
schizophrenic type

of thought disorder.

He had lost the
ability to trust

the evidence of his
senses and was suffering

from paranoid schizophrenia.

NARRATOR: But Kirwinbelieves that the defense's

case was doomed from the start.

The media was showing JoelRifkin slumped over the table,

daydreaming, clearly not intune with what was going on.

And, of course, the headlines
were saying, you know,

serial killer, has no remorse.

We knew that there was noway that any jury was going

to find Joel Rifkin insane.

NARRATOR: Theprosecution argues Rifkin

is a sane sexual predator
who took satisfaction

from killing his victims.

I never got the impressionthat he was mentally ill,

but I'm certainly
not a clinician.

But that was not my impression.

And I think just through thisvery difficult troubled past

that he led, he developedthis predatory behavior.

NARRATOR: Alongside the coldcase for Tiffany's murder,

Rifkin also faces trial foreight more of his killings.

But despite confessing todiscarding his first victim's

head on a New
Jersey golf course,

her case does not go to trial.

And this is because police areunable to identify the victim.

Without a full name, it
is impossible to charge

Rifkin for her murder.

Detective Bruce Carnall
leads the investigation

into the girl's murder.

At that time I, kind
of off the record,

spoke to Mr. Joel Rifkin.

The information he
provided was something

only the murderer would know.

We are confident
we had the killer.

NARRATOR: Rifkin tellsCarnall that the prostitute

was called Susie.

It's the lead they've
been looking for.

But despite reconstructionsand drawings

made from the severed
head, they were

unable to identify the victim.

I felt like I had
failed a little bit.

I knew there was
someone out there

who was missing their
daughter, and someone

must care about her.

And it was a personal
crusade, so to speak,

to try to identify her.

NARRATOR: But in 2006,Carnall retires from the force

and the case remains on some.

Hopeful detectives MichaelSherman and Bill Springer

reopen the case in 2013.

This case has been a mystery.

Thousands of hours, thousands ofleads, all of them led nowhere.

Myself and Lieutenant
Springer felt

that there were some
some other things

that maybe we could look into.

NARRATOR: Springer and Shermantore back through New York

arrest records looking
for prostitutes

going by the name of Susie.

One name stands
out, Susan Spencer.

Despite the record
claiming she was last

seen five years after
the head was discovered,

detectives follow the lead.

We looked into
arrest photographs.

And that's where the casesort of took a different turn.

They instantly recognizedthe person in the photograph.

Over the years, there'sbeen several renditions done.

When you compare
those renditions

to the actual photographof Susan Spencer from 1986,

it was pretty crystal
clear we had her.

The head had a
distinct scar, and it

ran through the right eyebrow.

And the picture from
1986 had that scar.

That was one of those
chilling moments

where you knew you had it.

NARRATOR: They discover thatSusan Spencer was an alias

of Heidi Balch, a young
woman who in the 1980s

fell on hard times.

Three weeks later,
police confirmed

that the head is
Heidi's through DNA

samples taken from her parents.

We all looked at each
other and we were like,

I think we did it, I
think we solved it.

NARRATOR: Finally
after 24 years,

the mystery of the severed headon the golf course is solved.

Such a relief.

It went on for such a long time.

It was a closure for
me, and I guess it

was a closure for her family.

And now she has a
resting place too.

NARRATOR: Although
the police now

know the identity of
Rifkin's first victim,

they have decided not topursue the additional charges

against him, because they knowRifkin will already see out

the rest of his days in prison.

JUDGE: As to count one,murder in the second degree,

what is your verdict?

JURY: Guilty.

NARRATOR: In 1994,
the jury find him

sane and convict him of themurder of Tiffany Bresciani.

Rifkin is successfullyconvicted of nine murders.

He is now serving a 200 yearlong sentence, guaranteed

to spend the rest
of his life in New

York's correctional facilities.

He is on a program
of anti-depressants

and anti-psychotic medication.

He said that he was no longerhearing these kinds of voices,

because he was
properly medicated,

and that he now believesthat if he had been properly

medicated at that time,
that these killings

would never have occurred.

And in a way, that was avindication for my diagnosis,

but it did not make me happy.

It made me really
tragically sad that

where was the help
for someone like Joel

Rifkin before 17 young womenwere put in their graves.

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