Chapter 3

AS Capers and Louder interviewed Joel Rifkin, detectives fanned out along Garden Street in East Meadow.

Investigators Anthony Coppo and Kevin Walsh arrived first. They pulled up in front of 1492 Garden Street, on the corner of Spruce Lane, shortly after 6:00 A.M. Both men had been roused from bed two hours earlier and instructed to report to headquarters at once. After a briefing with senior investigators, they headed to East Meadow.

Their mission was simple: to learn more about the suspect. As they approached the Rifkin home, the cops couldn’t help but notice how the gray-and-white wood raised ranch stood out. The front and side yards were made up of elaborate gardens surrounded by towering black oak trees. Among the medley of colorful flowers and plants were beds of lavender, lamb’s ears, lilies, begonias, irises, and poppies. There was an ornate Japanese maple tree, a magnolia tree, and a black pine. The house, on a ninety-by-seventy-foot corner lot, looked tidy and inviting.

The investigators parked in front. For a while, they simply surveyed the area. Eventually Jan Rifkin emerged from the house, on her way to her job as a data processor. Around 8:00 A.M., not long after Jan’s Toyota turned off Garden Street, the investigators knocked on the door of 1492.

Jeanne Rifkin peered through the small window. The investigators held up police badges. The seventy-one-year-old woman’s heart began to race. Joel often stayed out late, but last night he hadn’t come home at all. And now, police were on the porch.

Jeanne Rifkin quickly unlocked the door and pulled it open. She looked smaller than her five-foot-four-inch frame as she stood slightly hunched in the doorway.

“Can we come in?” Investigator Coppo asked.

Jeanne Rifkin nodded. She led the two men into the living room. The investigators got right to the point.

“Your son is at state trooper headquarters in Farmingdale,” they told her. “He’s being detained for a traffic violation.”

“He’s alright?” she asked, tense.

“He’s fine.”

Jeanne Rifkin breathed a sigh of relief. She thought for a moment. “What kind of violation?” she asked.

Now it was the cops’ turn to pause.

“That’s all the information we have,” one of them told her.

For the next few minutes, Jeanne Rifkin answered questions. The investigators wanted to know if her son lived with her. She said he did. They asked what kind of car he drove. She told them about the Mazda pickups. He had two—one tan, the other gray. The investigators asked when she had last seen her son. She said the previous night. Joel, Jeanne Rifkin explained, had not come home. It wasn’t like him, she added. It wasn’t like him at all.

In a short time, several more police cars pulled up in front of 1492 Garden Street. Some of the investigators began to canvass the neighborhood, knocking on doors up and down Garden Street and Spruce Lane. They asked each resident the same question: “How well do you know the Rifkins?”

Neighbors had little to say. The Rifkins were quiet, and kept to themselves, most explained. As for Joel, he was polite, but distant. He spent most days tinkering under his trucks or working in the garage. Sometimes he helped his mother with landscaping in the yard.

The Rifkins’ next-door neighbors, Joy and Hal Reiter, knew the family best. Investigators quizzed them for a long time. They asked if they ever saw Joel with a woman. They wanted to know about his relationship with his family, or if he had any friends.

The Reiters said only good things about Joel Rifkin. They had always liked him.

“Joel is simply a gentle young man,” Joy Reiter told the police.

The buzz along Garden Street spread like a brush fire. Something was going on. Something about Joel Rifkin. A neighbor called Joel’s thirty-one-year-old sister, Jan, at work. The police, she explained, have been around all day, asking about your brother. What was going on?

Jan Rifkin had no idea. For the rest of the afternoon she couldn’t concentrate. She stared at her computer, her mind turning over possible scenarios. She called home repeatedly. There was no answer.

Throughout the day, Jeanne Rifkin tried to query the investigators. What kind of traffic violation? Why couldn’t Joel call her? She always got the same response: Her son was being detained. That was all the information they had.

A little past three, Jeanne Rifkin had had enough. None of this made sense. She called an attorney, a friend of the family who handled mostly civil cases. The elderly woman explained what little she knew. She told the lawyer the police had been around all day.

The family lawyer told her he suspected Joel needed a criminal attorney. He suggested one—Robert Sale, fifty-six, a well-known attorney from nearby Hempstead who had handled several high-profile murder cases. One of Sale’s associates was Eric Naiburg, Amy Fisher’s attorney.

The attorney offered to make the call for her. It was 3:13 P.M. when Sale’s secretary buzzed him on an intercom. Sale put aside his legal briefs and picked up the phone.

The Rifkin family attorney explained the basics: A man named Joel Rifkin had been stopped by state troopers some twelve hours earlier for a traffic violation. He was still being held at police headquarters in East Farmingdale.

Sale was puzzled. He’d been a criminal attorney for more than thirty years. He knew the way the system worked. “How could that be?” he asked. “It sounds like something more substantial. Let me find out more.”

Sale called Jeanne Rifkin. They spoke briefly. At Sale’s request, she handed the phone to Investigator Walsh.

Sale got right to the point. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Counselor, we are preserving a crime scene,” Walsh responded.

Sale pressed for details. “What exactly do you mean by a crime scene?” he said.

Walsh gave a vague answer, a general description of a crime scene. Sale began to get annoyed.

“Where is Mr. Rifkin?” he asked.

“He’s being detained,” Walsh said.

“Do you have a search warrant?”

The investigator admitted he did not.

“Look, unless you have a search warrant, I’m going to advise the Rifkins what their rights are,” Sale said tersely. “What’s the number of your headquarters?”

Walsh told him. Sale hung up and quickly dialed. He asked for Captain Walter Heesch.

“I’m sorry,” the trooper on duty said. “Captain Heesch is in a meeting.”

Sale then asked for Lieutenant Eugene Corcoran. He, too, was busy. The trooper took Sale’s phone number.

“Someone will get back to you,” he said.

Sale’s temper blazed. A classic runaround, he thought. He wanted answers. Immediately. He tried again.

“I have a client, Joel Rifkin, I understand is there,” Sale told the trooper firmly. “I insist on some information. Can you confirm he’s there, and tell me why he’s there and whether he’s been arrested?”

“Someone,” the trooper repeated, “will call you back.”

“Okay,” Sale said. “But unless someone calls me back in five minutes, I’m going to take appropriate action.”

The attorney then dialed the Nassau County DA’s office. Assistant District Attorney Fred Klein took the call. Klein had spent most of the day talking to senior investigators and studying police reports. In a short time, he planned to meet with a county court judge, to get a signature for a search warrant.

Klein ended the mystery.

“Your client is under arrest for a homicide,” the prosecutor told Sale. “A body was found in his possession. He’s being questioned in Farmingdale.”

Sale quickly hung up the phone. Without a beat, he redialed headquarters. As the phone rang, the attorney pressed the tiny button on his talking watch. The watch had been a gift from his five sons. “It is four p-yem,” it said.

At headquarters, the desk trooper on duty answered. Sale asked to speak with someone about the Rifkin case. In seconds, a familiar voice came on the line.

“Whom am I speaking with?” Sale asked.

“Lieutenant Corcoran,” he was told.

Sale didn’t hesitate. “What time do you have on your watch, Lieutenant? I’m calling at four P.M. Write down my name. I am Joel Rifkin’s attorney and I’m directing there should be no further questioning of my client.”

For a moment there was silence.

“I have four-oh-six P.M.,” Lieutenant Corcoran said.

Sale lost his patience. “It’s not,” he snapped. “It’s four-oh-two at the latest. In any event, I want you to stop questioning my client. I’m told you will comply with this.”

Lieutenant Corcoran agreed. Almost at once, Capers and Louder ended their interrogation of Joel Rifkin. By now the detectives were exhausted. At that point, they had been grilling the East Meadow landscaper for some twelve hours. With the copious notes they had compiled, the detectives had plenty to keep them busy.

*   *   *

Outside state trooper headquarters, journalists were getting restless. The press conference had been postponed four times since the original time—1:00 P.M. To ease their wait, Trooper Collins shared a box of Dunkin Donuts one of the reporters had brought for him that morning, to celebrate Collins’s twentieth anniversary on the job. The other journalists pounced, not leaving a crumb.

All afternoon, rumors had been circulating. There were more bodies. A lot more bodies. The number seventeen spread fast.

Trooper Collins sidestepped questions as best he could. He reminded journalists that he couldn’t confirm anything—he didn’t know the details himself. He encouraged the crowd to be patient. The story, he kept insisting, would be worth the wait.

It was. At 5:00 P.M., State Police Major Anthony DiResta, Jr., commander of State Police Troop L in East Farmingdale, and Captain Walter Heesch met with the press. DiResta read a prepared statement.

“All indications are that we have in custody a person who has committed multiple homicides,” he said. “The degree of detail provided in the suspect’s description gives us reason to believe this may be the largest case of serial murder since the Arthur Shawcross killings around Rochester in 1987 and 1989.”

The reporters didn’t need to be reminded about Shawcross. The Rochester man had been convicted of killing eleven prostitutes shortly after he arrived in that city in 1987. Previously, he had been paroled after serving 15 years for the 1972 murder of two children in Watertown, New York. During his trial for the prostitution murders, Shawcross’s attorneys argued that their client was legally insane. The jury didn’t buy it. Shawcross was sentenced to a minimum of 250 years in jail.

DiResta described the arrest of Joel Rifkin, how troopers had pursued the pickup and eventually discovered the decomposing body. He praised Capers and Louder. It was their skill that had disarmed the suspect and encouraged him to detail his crimes. DiResta reminded reporters that the investigation was just beginning; even though police had obtained a confession, no one knew for sure if Joel Rifkin was indeed responsible for seventeen murders. The number could be higher. It could be lower.

Questions flew. Reporters wanted details: Who was the woman in the truck? Who were the other sixteen? If everything Joel Rifkin told detectives was true, how could so many young women die and no one suspect a serial killer was at large?

DiResta and Heesch offered little more. It was much too early, they insisted, to get into specifics. When pressed by reporters to characterize Joel Rifkin’s demeanor, Captain Heesch said that the landscaper had been calm and composed. Despite his prodigious admission, Rifkin gave no motivation for his crimes. And he showed no remorse.

“If this is all true and he did commit these crimes, this is a very extraordinary case of human behavior,” Heesch said.

The press conference was over. Journalists raced to East Meadow, eager to track down Rifkin’s family members and friends. Meanwhile, investigators met to plan their next move: recovering and identifying bodies. Heesch was in charge. That night, the six-foot-eight-inch commander began delegating assignments. His boss, State Trooper Superintendent Thomas Constantine, summoned fifteen additional investigators from upstate divisions to work on the case. The detectives needed all the help they could get. The list of Joel Rifkin’s victims was ominously long.