Pod Insights Serial Killers & Murderous Minds Joel the Ripper: Joel Rifkin 2 About this episode Unable to control his violent lust, serial killer Joel Rifkin preyed on vulnerable sex workers across New York City with increasing frequency throughout the 1990s. As his crimes escalated, Rifkin became more reckless and sloppy, leaving behind crucial evidence. Ultimately, his growing carelessness led to his capture, and it was only a matter of time before police caught him in the act. Mind of a Serial Killer is a Crime House Original. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok @crimehouse for more true crime content.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Vanessa Richardson? Hi, everyone. Before today's episode, there's another show I want to tell you about. It's called What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Plus, Connor's infectious energy that'll make you realize history is the most fascinating thing on earth. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen, or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.
0:31 Vanessa Richardson? We have an exciting update for you. For the last few months, we've taken you deep into the minds of history's most notorious serial killers. But we've heard your feedback. You want more, more cases, more psychology, and a deeper look into the minds of all kinds of killers. And we're thrilled to bring that to you.
0:51 Tristin Engels? Starting March 17th, we're expanding beyond serial killers. We'll still be diving deep into the psychology behind history's most dangerous minds, serial killers. But now, we'll also cover cult leaders, crimes of passion, spree killers, and more.
1:09 Vanessa Richardson? The show format isn't changing. The only thing that is changing is the name of the show to Killer Minds. You'll still get the same expert analysis and in-depth storytelling you love. And we're making it even better. Every week, Part One of a Topic will drop on Monday and Part Two on Thursday, so you get the full story in one week. We'll alternate every week between covering a serial killer and another type of murderer, whether it's a cult leader, a spree killer, or a case of deadly obsession.
1:41 Tristin Engels? Again, the only thing changing is the name. You don't have to do anything. If you follow us, you'll continue getting all episodes right here in this feed, just like always. If you don't follow us, follow us now, because we're kicking things off with Charles Manson, our first non-serial killer case, starting on March 17th.
2:02 Vanessa Richardson? This has been an incredible journey for us, and we couldn't have done it without you. Thank you for your support, your feedback, and for being part of this community. We can't wait to take this next step with you. Again, there's nothing you need to do. New episodes will still appear on this feed.
2:18 Tristin Engels? Killer Minds is a Crime House Studios original. New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
2:28 Vanessa Richardson? And for more true crime content, check us out on Instagram and TikTok at Crime House. We'll see you on March 17th for our episode on Charles Manson.
2:47 Speaker 02 This is Crime House.
2:52 Vanessa Richardson? Sadly, too many of us know the horrors of addiction. Whether we've been through it ourselves, or watched a loved one struggle to overcome it. When your mind and body need something, crave it, it can be impossible to fight. That's especially true when it comes to substance abuse disorders, and dangerous drugs like heroin and crack cocaine. Unfortunately, it's something a lot of vulnerable people struggled with in the late 80s and early 90s. And Joel Rifkin took advantage of those individuals. Cruising the streets of New
3:31 Vanessa Richardson? York City, Joel preyed on sex workers who were fighting their inner demons. Their overwhelming desire for a fix made them more willing to get in a car with a stranger, and made it harder for them to fight back when he attacked them. In a sense, Joel was an addict too, except instead of craving drugs, he craved murder. And instead of trying to fight it, he gave in.
4:14 Vanessa Richardson? The human mind is fascinating. It controls how we think, how we feel, how we love, and how we hate. And sometimes the mind drives us to do something truly unspeakable. This is Mind of a Serial Killer, a Crime House original. Every Monday, we'll be taking deep dives into the minds of history's most notorious serial killers and violent offenders. And for more true crime stories that all happened this week in history, check out Crime House The Show. Each episode covers multiple cases unified by the same theme, so every week you get something a little different.
4:56 Vanessa Richardson? At Crime House, we want to express our gratitude to you, our community, for making this possible. Please support us by rating, reviewing, and following Mind of a Serial Killer wherever you get your podcasts. And to enhance your Mind of a Serial Killer listening experience, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode ad-free, and instead of having to wait for each episode of a two-part series, you'll get access to both at once, plus exciting Crime House bonus content. I'm Vanessa Richardson.
5:31 Tristin Engels? And I'm Dr. Tristan Ingles. As Vanessa takes you through our subject stories, I'll be helping her dive into these killers' minds as we try to understand how someone can do such horrible things.
5:43 Vanessa Richardson? Before we get into today's story, you should know it contains descriptions of sex work and murder. Listener discretion is advised. This is our second and final episode on Joel Rifkin, aka Joel the Ripper, a serial killer who stalked the streets of New York City between 1989 and 1993. Driven by an addiction to violence, Joel got his fix by hiring sex workers, then strangling them to death. Last time, we talked about Joel's difficult early life. How he was constantly bullied and retreated into dark fantasies until he finally acted on them.
6:26 Vanessa Richardson? In today's episode, we'll cover the unexpected conclusion to his killing spree, as well as the aftermath of his shocking confessions. And as always, we'll be asking the question, "What makes a serial killer?"
6:47 Vanessa Richardson? As a teenager, Joel Rifkin obsessed over his dark fantasy of strangling a sex worker to death. Throughout the years, it consumed his every thought, until February 1989, when 30-year-old Joel couldn't hold it in any longer. Over the next three and a half years, he killed 13 women throughout New York City. They were all sex workers, and many of them struggled with substance abuse disorders. For a while, partially due to their profession or addictions, their deaths were written off as drug overdoses. But by late 1992, the authorities realized these women had actually died
7:30 Vanessa Richardson? from strangulation, which made the police wonder, "Were they actually dealing with a serial killer?" They were right on that count, but for the moment, they had no idea who it could be. Joel had flown under the radar by targeting women on the fringes of society, those who could go missing without arousing suspicion. He also disposed of their bodies across a wide area, which made it harder to trace back to him. So for the time being, nobody had connected him to his victims, and Joel knew it, which meant he wouldn't, or couldn't, stop hunting women to murder.
8:13 Tristin Engels? We left off in episode one discussing how his need for thrill and stimulation can be similar to an addiction minus any physiological dependency. We discussed the concept of habituation, which again is when there is a decrease in a response such as that thrill or gratification because of repeated exposure to the same stimulus, in his case, clearly strangling women. Habituation is a behavioral theory stemming from the concept of operant conditioning, which means that his continuation of killing with more frequency is reinforced by gratification and thrill, but more importantly, the fact that there has been no punishment or consequences
8:57 Tristin Engels? for it yet are what also reinforce it. He's had some close calls already, and the thrill of that risk is also reinforcing his addiction.
9:08 Vanessa Richardson? A lot of serial killers are driven by inner compulsions. Is that the same sort of thing Joel was dealing with here?
9:16 Tristin Engels? In a sense, yes, because they experience obsessions about the act beforehand. If we recall, Joel was obsessed with the movie Frenzy, and he was also obsessively researching serial killers and had been actively fantasizing about engaging in these violent and sadistic acts since he was a child. As we also talked about, serial killers are thrill-seeking, so they eventually feel the compulsion to engage in those obsessions. This is not to be confused with obsessive-compulsive disorder, however. People with OCD, that condition, they may have violent and intrusive thoughts, but they do not engage in violent behavior,
9:58 Tristin Engels? and instead, they are very significantly distressed by these thoughts, and it can be very debilitating for them. Whereas, a serial killer experiences the opposite. To them, these obsessions, these thoughts, their fantasy, they're enjoyable and are no way upsetting to them.
10:19 Vanessa Richardson? Whatever was motivating Joel to kill, he struck again in November of 1992 when he murdered a 23-year-old sex worker named Jenny Soto. Like his first 13 victims, he strangled her to death. But this time, he didn't walk away unscathed. Jenny fought back and managed to leave scratches all over Joel's body. For the first time, it seemed like Joel was truly worried about getting caught. His survival instincts overpowered his addiction, and for the next three months, he didn't commit any more murders. Taking a break from killing might have been what he needed to get his life back on track. For the past couple of years,
11:03 Vanessa Richardson? Joel had been running a landscaping business. The space he rented to store his equipment also served as a convenient place to keep his victims' bodies until he got rid of them. But shortly after murdering Jenny Soto, he closed the business, maybe because he thought he was done killing.
11:22 Tristin Engels? Or maybe it was preemptively to conceal evidence, given his recent scare.
11:28 Vanessa Richardson? Regardless, he still needed to make money, so he signed up to work for a temp agency instead, and they got him a job stocking warehouses. According to a coworker, Joel seemed "normal." He carpooled with colleagues, went out to lunch, and even did happy hour on Fridays. But Joel still had some quirks that made him stand out from the other guys. For instance, Joel was weirdly protective of his car. He often hitched rides with his coworkers, but never returned the favor. And when his car was parked at work, Joel reportedly made an effort to keep his colleagues far away. Even more suspicious, when other employees shared what they got up to on the weekends, Joel apparently kept quiet.
12:15 Tristin Engels? It appears that Joel recognizes that his need for stimulation is overriding his judgment because he's becoming careless and a bit out of control. And that's why it makes me think that it's not really a coincidence that he sold his business and his storage space and went to find a different job. Because it's very common for serial killers to put on what's called the mask of sanity. They need to find ways to blend in with society and mirror what is considered pro-social and quote "normal" in order to stay under the radar of others. And that includes having a job or a family. But all of that is superficial. But I want to circle back to his car.
12:59 Tristin Engels? The fact that he is so protective of his car is really telling. He picks up his victims in his car. His car might be a memento in itself, since he's also killed in his car. It's a space that likely allows him to relive the thrills. So I'm not surprised that he's keeping that away from his colleagues and that he's being very protective of that car.
13:26 Vanessa Richardson? I'm curious, what separates killers who have a normal social life from those who struggle to maintain one? Are the ones who can maintain a double life sociopathic?
13:37 Tristin Engels? This is a great question. So sociopaths and psychopaths are terms that are often used interchangeably and their traits are very similar, but there actually are differences between the two. And the best way to determine that is to understand the course of the condition, their behavioral patterns, and whether there is a capacity for empathy. Psychopaths tend to show signs very early on and they are very manipulative. They also have a lot of superficial charm, which helps them blend into society better, much like Joel's hero Ted Bundy. They're more cunning, strategic, and less reactive. Not to say they aren't ever reactive, just that they have more containment of their emotions
14:21 Tristin Engels? when they're mirroring in society. Whereas sociopaths are more impulsive and volatile. They're prone to more emotional outbursts. They're less organized and more chaotic. And regarding empathy, psychopaths lack it entirely, but they can emulate it well. And that's because they're skilled at blending in and they're very manipulative. Whereas sociopaths might actually have a limited ability to feel empathy or understand morality in some ways. They can form some attachments in small groups. And some theorize that psychopaths have more of a genetic or biological-based component,
15:04 Tristin Engels? like that nature debate, where they're born this way. And that sociopaths are more influenced by their environment. Thus the "socio" in the name.
15:16 Vanessa Richardson? Even as Joel made these social connections, his urge to kill boiled back to the surface. On February 27, 1993, three months after the last murder, 34-year-old Joel went on the hunt for his next victim. That night, he drove out into the city where he hired a 28-year-old sex worker named Leah Evans. Joel drove them to a parking lot, but Leah didn't think it was private enough. When he refused to go somewhere else, she started to cry. That's when he attacked. After killing Leah, Joel drove her body to a wooded area on Long Island.
15:56 Vanessa Richardson? Usually, he dropped his victims into a river or creek, but this time, Joel decided to bury Leah in the ground. He didn't do a very good job of it, though. The grave was shallow, making it much easier for someone to find Leah's body. Joel's sudden sloppiness was a far cry from when he first started killing. Before, he'd gone to great lengths to make sure he could strike in private, then was meticulous about disposing of the evidence, but gradually, he'd become less attentive. And now, it seemed like he wasn't putting much thought into it at all. So far, Joel's mistakes hadn't caused him any problems,
16:38 Vanessa Richardson? but as the months passed, he continued to slip up. On April 2nd, 1993, a sex worker named Lauren Marquez was walking along Second Avenue. Joel picked up the 28-year-old, who was originally from Tennessee, and drove her to an area near the Manhattan Bridge. Like the parking lot where Joel had killed Leah Evans, the place he took Lauren Marquez to wasn't all that isolated. And when Joel attacked her, he was interrupted when a man walking his dog passed right by his car. The man didn't see what was going on inside the vehicle, but the momentary distraction gave Lauren a chance to fight back. Tragically, she wasn't able to overcome Joel.
17:23 Vanessa Richardson? In the end, he was too strong, and Lauren lost her life.
17:29 Vanessa Richardson? The close call didn't seem to bother Joel. A couple months later, on June 24th, 1993, he went out again, and came even closer to getting caught. That night, he picked up 22-year-old sex worker Tiffany Bresciani. Described as petite and waif-like, she'd moved from small-town Louisiana to New York with the goal of breaking into acting or dancing. Unfortunately, things didn't go her way. She turned to drugs to cope and ended up working as an exotic dancer and sex worker to pay her bills. After Joel hired her, he took Tiffany to another parking lot,
18:12 Vanessa Richardson? this time at the office for the New York Post, which wasn't exactly secluded. And once again, he was interrupted by a bystander. Someone else pulled into the parking lot, then got out and started doing Tai Chi. Tragically, Joel was able to avoid detection this time as well. The man eventually went on his way and never noticed anything was amiss. By then, Tiffany was already dead.
18:41 Tristin Engels? What is interesting about Joel that's not really atypical is that he continues to have the same target demographic and the same method. But what is standing out to me and what does seem to change is how he disposes the bodies. He started out by dismembering his first two victims, Suzie and Julie, and then disposing of them in the East River. And then his third victim, Barbara, was not dismembered. But she was disposed in the East River, only in a cardboard box. Then he puts, you know, remains in a trunk and left the remains of Mary Ellen at a rest stop. And then returned back to the East River. Now he buried Leah in a shallow grave.
19:25 Tristin Engels? Either he's trying to make it appear as if these are not all being done by the same person so that he can potentially throw off investigators, or it's because he's been killing with increased frequency and he's feeling more rushed and possibly even physically tired, which is causing him to change his patterns here. There's also the possibility that he is getting the thrill from the idea of how these poor women would be found and by whom. And maybe he even gets a thrill reading about this very thing in the paper. But changing up how you dispose of the bodies seems a little bit uncommon for serial killers, especially when he's maintaining the same method overall.
20:12 Vanessa Richardson? Well, after this latest close call, Joel put Tiffany Brashiani's body in the trunk. Then he covered it with newspapers and looked for a place to get rid of it. Ultimately, Joel ended up driving the body back to the house where he lived with his adoptive mother and sister. His mom was there waiting for him. Joel had taken her car and she needed it to go run errands. So Joel handed her the keys and she went about her business and somehow never noticed the dead body in her trunk.
20:46 Tristin Engels? Yeah, this definitely confirms to me that he is getting a psychological thrill out of this entirely. The idea that he could be caught but simply is not being caught is providing him with that reinforcement of gratification and stimulation.
21:01 Vanessa Richardson? Then, as if this latest brush with disaster wasn't enough, Joel took another extraordinary risk. After his mom got home that night, he put Tiffany's body in the family garage, lying in a wheelbarrow, where it sat decaying in the summer heat for three whole days. Incredibly, Joel's mother and sister didn't discover the body or notice the stench. After 72 hours, Joel finally decided it was time to do something about it. So on June 28, 1993, he loaded it into his pickup truck and went out to dispose of it.
21:42 Vanessa Richardson? His plan was to dump the body out near the Melville Republic Airport, about 10 miles away, but he didn't make it that far. Because as he drove down the freeway, something flashed in his rearview mirror: a police siren.
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23:14 Speaker 03 I'm James Buckley.
23:15 Speaker 04 And I'm Joe Thomas.
23:17 Speaker 03 Joe, to look at the script around ladies.
23:20 Speaker 03 And on our weekly show, Joe and James Fact Up, we bring each other a fact that we think is fascinating. Our only rule?
23:28 Speaker 04 Go on.
23:28 Speaker 03 The more interesting it is, the more true it is.
23:31 Speaker 04 We dive into the weird and wonderful, like whether you could survive on nothing but beans, or if Shrek deserves a Nobel Prize for discovering the fourth dimension.
23:38 Speaker 03 You might learn something new, probably something useless, but definitely something interesting.
23:43 Speaker 04 Listen or watch Joe and James Fact Up every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts.
23:51 Vanessa Richardson? Around 3am on the morning of June 28th, 1993, 34-year-old Joel Rifkin drove through Long Island with a dead body in the bed of his truck. He was looking for a place to dispose of his latest victim, Tiffany Brasciani. For the past seven months, Joel had escaped several close calls, but his luck could only take him so far. As he drove along the freeway, two state troopers appeared behind him and signaled for Joel to pull over, not because they suspected foul play, but because the car was missing a rear licence plate. Once the police turned on their sirens, Joel knew it was over for him.
24:36 Vanessa Richardson? Tiffany's body was only covered with a tarp. The troopers would surely notice it, but Joel wasn't ready to let that happen. Instead of pulling over, he made a break for it.
24:49 Vanessa Richardson? Joel slammed on the gas and quickly exited the freeway, leading the officers on a 20-minute car chase. He drove recklessly, reaching speeds of up to 90 miles per hour. But Joel couldn't shake them. Eventually, he lost control of his car and ran headfirst into a streetlight, which came crashing down. The state troopers got out of the cruiser and walked behind Joel's vehicle. They shined a flashlight into the bed of the truck, where they saw something covered up with a blue tarp. One of them pulled back the tarp, revealing what was underneath.
25:28 Vanessa Richardson? A body so blackened with decay that it was reportedly impossible to tell the person's skin color. Joel probably felt like there was no use denying what he'd done. He came clean as soon as the officers questioned him about the body. And it only took a couple hours before he told them about all his other victims, too.
25:52 Tristin Engels? So Joel taking officers on a high-speed chase was another thrill in itself. This isn't the first time the officers happened upon him after killing someone, but it was the first time he was actually behind the wheel when he was approached. So he had the ability to do this and to flee. I don't think that Joel has necessarily been wanting to be caught, but he was rational enough to know, like you said, that there was no getting out of this one. But why tell officers about the rest of the bodies? Sociopaths, like I mentioned before, are highly impulsive and more reactionary in their behavioral patterns. His decision to flee police, like I said, was a thrill, but also very impulsive, much
26:35 Tristin Engels? like his confession about the remaining victims. Also, he might have a sense of pride. Over this too. Like we discussed in episode one, Joel was forever trying to live up to his adopted father's expectations to earn approval and feel as if he was worthy or accepted. So he might have felt that he was actually, quote, "good at killing vulnerable women and not getting caught." This could be him wanting to boast or show off his, you know, skills in his own way. He might have been seeking some sort of approval or validation from officers, which he would get by simply seeing their reaction to his confession. If they're surprised, then that could be a sign of validation to him that he was in
27:20 Tristin Engels? fact, quote, "good at something in his own mind." Again, Joel's mind doesn't work the same as a pro-social mind, so this is all from his perspective of things, which arguably is very distorted.
27:34 Vanessa Richardson? Well, while Joel was spilling his secrets to the police and seeing their reaction, his mom was waiting for him to come home. She didn't find out he'd been arrested until the morning, but the authorities were still putting everything together and didn't want to tell her everything yet. At first, they only said Joel was being held in connection with a traffic violation. Of course, the truth was a lot worse than that. In reality, Joel was in the middle of telling the police just how serious his crimes were, and he didn't hold back. He wrote down the names of all seventeen of his victims, the ones he could remember, anyway, starting with the most recent and working his way back to the beginning.
28:19 Vanessa Richardson? He spoke matter-of-factly, as if he was talking about the weather, and he told the stories with incredible detail. Altogether, it took upwards of eight hours for him to get through all the particulars. It was almost as if Joel was proud of his crimes. In a twisted sense, it was like he was proving to the world that he was good at something after all, as you said, Dr. Engels.
28:44 Tristin Engels? Yeah, this was the sense I've gotten from Joel from the very beginning. He just wanted to be accepted. He wanted to be good at something. He wanted to be desired by people, and this just all really fits into that picture even more.
28:58 Vanessa Richardson? Well, when the confession was all said and done, Joel was utterly exhausted. Maybe the adrenaline rush of the car chase was fading, or maybe it was the emotional relief of confessing to his crimes. Whatever the case may be, he was so tired, he fell asleep on the floor of the interrogation room. While Joel was napping, his mother went to work on his behalf. That afternoon, she finally found out what he'd been arrested for, but she refused to abandon her son. Instead, she hired a criminal attorney named Robert Sale. Sale had defended a mass murderer in the past and was willing to take Joel on as a client.
29:42 Vanessa Richardson? He called the police station as soon as he could and told them to stop questioning Joel until he got there, but by that point, the damage had been done. Even with Robert Sale on his team, there was no stopping the police from getting to work. Less than 24 hours after the state troopers pulled Joel over, investigators were sent to Southampton to find the three bodies he'd claimed he'd left there. Meanwhile, another team was dispatched to Joel's mother's house in East Meadow, Long Island. In his room, they discovered a literal "mountain" of circumstantial evidence. He'd taken countless items from his victims, including underwear, jewelry, pill bottles,
30:27 Vanessa Richardson? and even a personal diary.
30:30 Tristin Engels? This is very typical of serial killers. These are his trophies. And serial killers often take trophies because they can relive the moments and continue getting psychological or sexual gratification from those trophies in between actual killings. They are also a tangible symbol of power and control. And I think for Joel, they also serve as reminders of perceived successes, like we talked about before, since that was, his core belief was to be successful at something. And so these are almost like, not just trophies, but awards in a sense for him.
31:09 Vanessa Richardson? Those trophies weren't the only things investigators found in Joel's room. There was also a book about the Green River Killer, who claimed to have murdered upwards of 80 women, most of them sex workers. Additionally, Joel had articles on Arthur Shawcross, known as the Genesee River Killer, who murdered 11 women from 1988 to 1990 in upstate New York. Joel had essentially used the resources as how-to guides. He followed in their footsteps by targeting sex workers and dumping their bodies in rivers. And Joel had left evidence to confirm it. The police also found a map marked with the locations
31:51 Vanessa Richardson? of where bodies had been discovered over the years. Perhaps most damning, in the garage, they found a chainsaw that had traces of blood and human flesh in the blades. Despite all this evidence and his confession, Joel pleaded not guilty the next day. Later, as he was escorted out of his court hearing, he held up his shackled hands in full view of the reporters' cameras and gave them the finger. It seemed like he wasn't going down without a fight, after all.
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33:47 Speaker 05 Natalie Jones disappeared July 4, 2020. Three months later, her body was found, and that is where the mystery really begins.
33:56 Speaker 02 There's nothing to indicate that she was shot, stabbed, or anything of that sort.
34:00 Speaker 06 There's a lot of people that had motive to do something. We want to paint Natalie as this angel. It's not all angelic.
34:10 Speaker 05 I'm your host, Sean Kite, and this is The Truth About Natalie. Listen and subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts.
34:19 Vanessa Richardson? On June 28, 1993, 34-year-old Joel Rifkin was caught red-handed with the dead body of Tiffany Bresciani in the bed of his truck. That same night, he confessed to all 17 of his murders. But it would take a while to put all the evidence together, so for the time being, prosecutors focused on convicting him of Tiffany Bresciani's murder. And the trial for that first case started the next year on April 11, 1994. A few weeks into it, prosecutors offered Joel a deal.
34:57 Vanessa Richardson? If he pleaded guilty to all 17 murders, he would get a sentence of 46 years to life. For 35-year-old Joel, that meant there was a remote chance he could live long enough to be released. Given the magnitude of his crimes, it was about as good as he could hope for. However, Joel had his sights set on an even better outcome. He thought he could get off on all of the charges and live out his days in a psychiatric institution instead. To accomplish that, Joel and his legal team were relying on an insanity defense. Their goal was to argue that Joel suffered from something called adopted child syndrome.
35:41 Vanessa Richardson? This syndrome, which was believed to affect a small percentage of adopted children, was said to be triggered by a deep sense of abandonment and loss. Joel's team claimed his separation from his birth mother was so traumatic, it made Joel strike back at women, and sex workers were an easy target. Furthermore, they argued that this condition made him mentally ill, to the point that he was unable to stop himself from committing serial murder.
36:11 Tristin Engels? Okay, let's discuss this.
36:13 Vanessa Richardson? Yes.
36:13 Tristin Engels? As someone who conducts evaluations of criminal responsibility, which is known as the insanity defense, and that's a legal term, the legal standard for meeting this threshold, which has been established since 1984, is pretty high. There are three legal standards, and they vary based on the state and the jurisdiction, but all three require that there be a severe mental disease or defect present, and the legal standard is very clear on what conditions meet that threshold. And I can confidently say that adopted child syndrome is not a clinical disorder recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Distorters, even back in 1994, while he was on trial.
36:56 Tristin Engels? It's not a diagnosable condition. Instead, it's a term that has been used to describe a series of emotional and behavioral challenges that can be seen in adopted children. And it's looked down upon by a lot of communities because it's biased. It's also sort of painting adopted children in a very negative light, when this is not the norm. Therefore, this would not meet the legal standard for the insanity defense in a court of law. In fact, until this Point, there's been no mention of any mental illness or even any mental health treatment in his history. That's not to say that he doesn't have a clinical disorder. I mean, certainly, he experienced depression and anxiety,
37:40 Tristin Engels? especially when experiencing relentless bullying as a child. There's definitely a learning disability there that we discussed in episode one. But there's been no indication, as you took us through this story, that he has a severe mental illness, like a psychotic disorder or a mood disorder. Even antisocial personality disorder, even severe enough that there are traits of psychopathy, is not a condition that meets the legal standard for the insanity defense. Because an individual with this condition can discern right from wrong. It does not affect their ability to understand or appreciate the wrongfulness of their actions. It does impair their ability to be empathetic for those actions, but that's different.
38:25 Tristin Engels? And when we go back to Joel, he made very significant efforts to dispose of his crimes. And he buried those efforts each time. And that itself shows an appreciation for the wrongfulness of his actions. And this is not a defense that he's likely ever going to win.
38:47 Vanessa Richardson? As the two sides battled it out over Joel's mental state, one detail in particular stood out. It was revealed that after he'd killed his victims, he would take back the money he'd paid them. That made it seem like he wasn't out of his mind with trauma-induced mental illness. He was cold and calculating. So it seemed pretty clear that he was aware of his actions.
39:09 Tristin Engels? Yeah, not to mention, he was aware that he needed to pretend for these encounters to be transactional in order to lower his victims' suspicions. And that alone shows he's quite rational and calculating and manipulative.
39:24 Vanessa Richardson? After this evidence was presented, the jury deliberated briefly on May 9, 1994, just under a month after the trial began. They took less than a day to return a verdict: guilty. Joel was sentenced to 25 years to life for the murder of Tiffany Bresciani, but that number was about to get a lot higher. After his first trial ended, Joel was handed off to the authorities in Suffolk County. They were ready to try him for the murders of Lauren Marquez and Leah Evans. Joel's team had been planning to use the insanity defense in that case also, but after it failed in the first trial, they realized it wouldn't work.
40:07 Vanessa Richardson? In September 1994, right before jury selection was set to begin, Joel decided he wasn't going to fight anymore. He pleaded guilty to both murders. Again, he was sentenced to 25 years to life for each count. That put him at a minimum of 75 years, a lot more than the 46 he'd been offered in the original plea deal. Joel was eventually charged with all 17 murders. From beginning to end, it took over two years to get through all the trials. In that time, he was confronted with his terrible crimes over and over again.
40:50 Vanessa Richardson? And during the sentencing period of his final trial, Joel made a surprising move. He apologized for the crimes he had committed. However, he couldn't explain why he'd done it.
41:05 Tristin Engels? It might seem surprising that Joel took this move, that he decided to apologize, but actually, when we really look at it, Joel apologizing really fits his profile. If we recall from Episode 1 that we discussed, and we've talked about it here too, in Episode 2, that we discussed, he's been striving to meet the expectations of his father since he was a child, and those expectations are likely generalized to the world and his view of how the world will perceive him. If he's not successful, he wouldn't feel value or accomplishment or even acceptance. So if we think about that as a child, and that's his worldview, I would imagine that he would be apologizing and submissive to his father
41:48 Tristin Engels? whenever he disappointed him, which, from the sounds of it, was often. So if in his depraved mind, he felt he was successful because he was able to murder and get away with it, now he's recognizing that his perceived success isn't really not something that should or would be celebrated, let alone accepted, and that he is instead being recognized in the courtroom as sort of a societal failure, so to speak. It makes sense he would apologize. But his apology isn't genuine in the sense that he regrets what he's done and he recognizes the magnitude of it. It seems more likely to me that apologizing was superficial and just something that he had learned he needs to do in order to appease others.
42:31 Vanessa Richardson? Well, whether or not Joel was truly sorry, the result was the same. When all was said and done, he was sentenced to 203 years to life. And he didn't find much solace behind bars. In prison, Joel had a rather unpleasant, full-circle experience. Joel was constantly teased and threatened by other inmates. It was almost like he was back in high school. Joel's mere presence proved to be a disruption to the rest of the prison's population. To keep him and everyone else safe, he was placed in solitary confinement, spending 23 hours a day alone with his thoughts. Joel struggled with the isolation.
43:15 Vanessa Richardson? It got so bad for him, he eventually sued the prison. He argued that keeping him in solitary was a violation of his constitutional rights. However, the court ruled against him. As of this recording, he's still being kept separate from the general prison population. And yet, it does seem like Joel has finally come to terms with his fate. In an interview, he said that even if there was a way for him to leave, he would prefer to stay. He claims that he functions better in prison.
43:50 Vanessa Richardson? Which works out in his favor because he'll be behind bars for the rest of his life. But that doesn't mean his story is finished. There are still so many questions about his case. Was he really driven to kill by his difficult childhood? Or could there be a problem with his brain itself? In the late 90s, Joel was part of a study to determine if that was a possibility. Along with other convicted murderers, his brain was scanned to look for some kind of structural abnormality that could be connected with becoming a killer. As it turned out, many of the criminals had deficits in the frontal lobes of the brain,
44:31 Vanessa Richardson? the areas involved with higher reasoning, planning, and impulse control. A psychiatrist described Joel's frontal lobes in particular as being, quote, "very, very seriously damaged." This is your expertise, Dr. Engels.
44:47 Tristin Engels? Yeah. And I touched on this a bit in episode one, and it's true. Research has shown that people with psychopathy or sociopathy have structural abnormalities and reduced connection in those areas of the brain. The research tells us that in some cases, individuals are predisposed to future violent behavior as a result. However, that's not to say that it's 100% certain that someone with a predisposition to future violence will turn out to be violent. Other things you have to factor in are their environment. If someone with these structural abnormalities in their brain are raised in loving, safe, and stable homes without any significant stressors or trauma outside of what's typical,
45:30 Tristin Engels? and there's no abuse or neglect, and they have overall good enough parenting and social support systems, then they're less likely to develop severe emotional or behavioral deficits that would lead to violence of this severity. Environmental triggers such as a lack of safety, a lack of stability or comfort, trauma, and no social support or nurturance do significantly play a role in future behavior and overall emotional health. So there are instances where there could be a predisposition like this without it actually, you know, developing. And there are situations where someone doesn't have that biological predisposition, but yet still develop violent behavior. It really goes back down to that nature versus nurture.
46:14 Tristin Engels? And when you have the predisposition and a not so nurturing home, it really does increase the risk for someone to become as violent as Joel.
46:25 Vanessa Richardson? Though neuroscientists are discovering new things about how the brain works every day, we're still far from understanding its complexities. But we can certainly examine and observe the aftermath Joel left in his wake. His arrest and trial rattled the people of New York City, dramatically changing how people felt about public safety. The NYPD faced backlash for not connecting the murders sooner and allowing Joel's killing streak to go undetected for so long. This inspired changes in the way law enforcement tracked missing persons cases so they could save lives by detecting potential serial killings more quickly.
47:08 Vanessa Richardson? And it also helped shift public opinion about how society views and treats sex workers, along with people who struggle with substance abuse. Tragically, these changes came too late for Joel's 17 victims. But hopefully, they can save many more people from a terrible fate.
47:42 Vanessa Richardson? Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next time with the story of another serial killer.
47:48 Tristin Engels? Mind of a Serial Killer is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media at Crime House on TikTok and Instagram. And don't forget to rate, review, and follow Mind of a Serial Killer wherever you get your podcasts.
48:12 Vanessa Richardson? And to enhance your listening experience, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode of Mind of a Serial Killer ad-free, along with early access to each thrilling two-part series, and exciting bonus content. We'll be back next Monday.
48:31 Vanessa Richardson? Mind of a Serial Killer is hosted by me, Vanessa Richardson, and Dr. Tristin Engels, and is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Mind of a Serial Killer team: Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Lori Marinelli, Stacy Warringer, Sarah Carroll, Nani Okulagu, Sarah Tardif, and Carrie Murphy. Of the many sources we used when researching this episode, the one we found the most credible and helpful was Joel Rifkin: The Horrifying and True Story of Joel the Ripper by Jack Rosewood and Rebecca Lo. Thank you for listening.
49:18 Vanessa Richardson? If you're looking for your next podcast, check out What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen, or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.
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