Joel Rifkin
Joel Rifkin is a serial killer who murdered 17 women in New York City between 1989 and 1993. Rifkin was caught after a high-speed police chase in June, 1993; police inspected Rifkin's truck and discovered the corpse of his seventeenth and last victim, Tiffany Bresciani. Rifkin was sentenced to 203 years in prison.
Fast Facts
- Born: January 20, 1959
- Residence: Long Island, New York
- Arrested: June 28, 1993
- Sentenced: May 9, 1994
- Nicknames: "Joel the Ripper"
- No. of victims: 17
- Victims were typically prostitutes
- Sentence: 203 years to life
Early Life
A shy, socially awkward teenager, Rifkin attended some community college before beginning training as a horticulturist. After his father's death in 1987, Rifkin became increasingly obsessed with prostitutes, often spending all of his money on them.
Crimes and Capture
In 1989, he murdered a still-unidentified prostitute, dismembered her, and scattered her body parts. Over the next four years, Rifkin killed sixteen more women, most of them prostitutes, using his landscaping truck to transport their bodies back to his East Meadow, Long Island home where he would dismember them. In 1993, police attempted to stop Rifkin's truck for not having proper license plates; Rifkin fled and when he was caught, police discovered Tiffany Bresciani's body in the back of his trunk. Rifkin confessed to sixteen other murders on the spot.
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