Chapter 10
JOEL Rifkin told police that he picked up Anna Lopez on May 25, 1992. He paid her for sex, and then he strangled her.
By now, he’d used up all his oil drums. He needed a new way to dispose of his latest victim. So he loaded Annie’s body in the back of his pickup and drove upstate to Putnam County. He found a spot—along the Park-n-Ride off Interstate 84 in Brewster. He didn’t bother to bury María Alonso’s child. He dumped her body in the woods.
Before he left, Rifkin unfastened one of Annie Lopez’s gold earrings. He put it in his pocket and drove home. Less than twenty-four hours later, on Memorial Day, a driver who stopped to urinate found the body.
Local cops took a photograph of the corpse and made hundreds of flyers, posting them in rest stops along the highway. They removed the single gold earring and placed it in an evidence bag.
* * *
When Annie didn’t appear on June 3, María Alonso turned to her sister, Blanca. “I told you before,” she said slowly. “If Annie doesn’t pick up this check, she’s dead.”
Blanca tried to be optimistic. “She’s probably sleeping,” she said. “You know she can sleep for a long time. Days even. We’ll see what happens tomorrow. Don’t worry.”
The next day there was still no sign of Annie. María and Blanca went to the Seventy-fifth Precinct.
María explained the situation. She told the police officer at the front desk that her daughter was a crack addict, but that she always came home for her social security check. This month, she hadn’t shown up. Something had to be wrong.
The officer on duty shrugged.
“She probably met someone and went to the Bahamas,” he said.
* * *
For the next month María Alonso canvassed the neighborhood. She went to the crack house, seeking out Annie’s friends. A young woman there told her that she, too, was worried.
“I’m scared,” the young woman said. “I haven’t seen Annie in weeks. It isn’t like her to disappear like this.”
On the street, María showed her daughter’s photographs—the ones before crack, when Annie’s eyes were bright, her smile real. A few people said they’d seen Annie Lopez. On the street. In the crack house. Talking to friends.
It gave María hope. But deep down, she knew it couldn’t be true.
She checked the city morgue, the jails and hospitals. July 3 came and went. A second social security check went unclaimed. That’s when María knew for sure.
She returned to the Seventy-fifth Precinct. This time she met with a detective. He was more sympathetic.
“Ma’am, it doesn’t sound good,” he told her kindly. “Go tomorrow to One Police Plaza. They’re going to show you photos.”
María turned to her sister. “Blanca, would you go with me?” she asked.
The two women took the subway to lower Manhattan the next day. “I know Annie’s dead,” María said wearily. “All I want is to find her body so she can have a decent burial.”
In a large, windowless room on the eleventh floor, police jotted down Annie’s height, weight, and hair color. They pulled out several heavy books of photos. The bodies in the pictures fit Annie’s general description.
María looked at two pictures and closed the book. She began to cry. “Blanca, can you look for me?” she asked.
Her sister gave her a hug. “Of course,” she said.
For the next hour Blanca searched through the pages of the book. María sat motionless a few feet away. Her eyes never left her sister’s face. She knew she would see it in Blanca’s eyes if Annie Lopez’s photograph was in that book.
Finally, Blanca closed the last book. The policewoman on duty looked up and smiled gently at María Alonso.
“Well, ma’am, you have to feel better,” she said. “She’s not dead because she’s not in the pictures.”
María tried to return the smile. She was so tired. She couldn’t think straight anymore. The police officer wanted to help—she knew that. But the truth was María didn’t feel better, she felt worse. Somebody probably threw her body somewhere and she’s rotting away, she thought to herself. Now I’ll never find her. If she’s not here, where is she?
Blanca reached for her sister’s hand. The two women thanked the officers and began to leave. At that moment—María Alonso still doesn’t know why—she turned and looked at the wall behind her. Posted on a board were dozens of Missing Persons flyers. María’s eyes went directly to the state police flyer from Putnam County—with the photo of Anna Lopez.
She walked slowly to the wall. She stared intently.
Finally, she broke the silence.
“Blanca,” she cried. “That’s her!”
The police officer shook her head. “No,” she said. “That’s some woman they found a long time ago in Brewster, New York.”
María Alonso read the description. It was wrong. It listed the woman as five foot four; Annie was five foot two. It said she had dark hair. Annie’s was light brown. It didn’t matter.
“I’m telling you, that’s my daughter,” María said. “It’s Annie.”
The officer called her supervisor. “This lady thinks the lady from Brewster is her daughter,” she said.
The supervisor pulled down the flyer. “Do you have a picture of your daughter?” he asked.
María pulled out several photos. The cop chose one and made an enlarged copy. He turned the copy and the flyer upside down and began examining the images carefully.
“It’s not your daughter,” he said finally. “The noses don’t match. They’re not the same.”
But María refused to give up. Later she decided that Annie must have wanted her to know the truth. She didn’t want me to leave without claiming her body, María thought. She wanted me to fight for her.
And so Annie’s mother did. “I’m telling you,” she said. “I don’t know how she died. But people when they die, their features do change. I gave birth to her. I know.”
The cop was equally stubborn.
“It’s not your daughter,” he kept repeating. “It’s not.”
Finally, María Alonso slammed her hand down on the table. “It is my daughter,” she said, “Don’t you want to do your job?”
The cop gave up. He reached for the phone. He spoke for a few minutes and then turned to María and her sister. He told them that a state trooper would pick them up the next day and take them to Brewster to identify the body.
* * *
During the ride upstate the next morning, María Alonso prayed. If she’s dead, she’s dead, she thought. I just want this to be over.
They went first to the local police station and answered questions about Annie—about her drug addiction, and when they’d last seen her. Then, the two women were driven to a funeral home. It only took one look.
“A mother knows her child,” María whispered as she touched the face of her Annie. “When they go to sleep you look at them. You know every little detail on their face. A mother knows her child.”
* * *
For a long time, María Alonso had believed that crack would someday kill her daughter. But when police told her that Annie Lopez had been strangled, the petite, soft-spoken woman became obsessed with finding her child’s killer.
María took to the streets. Carrying Annie’s photograph, she went up and down Atlantic Avenue, in and out of drug dens. Dealers and users became accustomed to seeing the dark-haired Puerto Rican woman. They understood her pain. They promised to help.
“Keep your eyes and ears open,” she’d always say as she was leaving. “Because if the killer is someone from around here, sooner or later someone’s going to talk.”
María’s oldest daughter, Claudia, pleaded with her to stay home. The idea of her mother in drug houses frightened her.
“Let the police do it,” she said. “Please, Mommy. It’s not safe.”
María hardly heard her. “It’s someone from around here,” she said. “I know it is. I have to find Annie’s killer.”
Now and then she was given bits of information. Someone, she was told, had been on the streets, bragging about having killed Anna Lopez. It took a few weeks before María tracked down a name. For the next few months she appeared at the crack house at various times, trying to find the man. After a while, others told her no. It wasn’t him after all.
Sometimes, María thought about the earring. Cops had told her that a single earring was found on her daughter’s body.
“That earring,” María told her sister. “That other earring’s someplace. It’s going to link her killer, Blanca. I’m not psychic, but these are feelings that mothers get.”
Some days, María didn’t have the strength to search. She kept thinking back: just when Annie had seemed ready to join a program and turn her life around. Some nights, it was too much to bear.
“She was going to do it this time, Blanca,” Maria would weep. “Just when she was ready. I believe in God. He always answers my prayers. If he could have given her one more chance. One more. This time, I know she was ready to do it.”
María Alonso and her sister spent many long nights talking about Annie. Blanca understood her sister’s determination to find the killer. She knew it was the only way María could finally put her daughter to rest.
* * *
María Alonso was in her living room on the evening of Monday, June 28. She put on the 11:00 P.M. news.
The lead story took her breath away. She listened intently. She looked at Joel Rifkin’s face as he was led out of state trooper headquarters in handcuffs. And she knew.
María ran around the corner and up the stairs. She banged loudly on Blanca’s door.
“That man killed my daughter,” she screamed. “Blanca. That man from Long Island. He did it. He killed Annie.”
She was right. The next morning, the name Anna Lopez was released by police. Blanca heard it on the radio. She immediately called her sister.
“You were right,” Blanca said. “Your daughter’s name was on the list of the victims.”
María Alonso called the detectives upstate who had been handling Annie’s case. She asked for Investigator Card. He had always been kind to her.
The investigator was surprised. He hadn’t heard anything yet about a link between Joel Rifkin and Annie Lopez. But he promised to find out. He said he would call state troopers on Long Island and phone her back right away.
Within minutes, he did. It was confirmed. Rifkin had admitted killing Anna Lopez. Also, the missing earring had been located in Joel Rifkin’s bedroom.
“We are one hundred percent sure that he killed your daughter,” said Investigator Card. “At least now, Mrs. Alonso, you can rest.”
But she couldn’t. The media blitz was just beginning.