On this day, June 8, in 1994, Long Island serial killer Joel “The Ripper” Rifkin was sentenced for a string of murders committed over a four-year spree.
His first killing was in 1989, a prostitute he dismembered and tossed into the East River.
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Police caught Rifkin, then 34, in 1993, when state troopers tried to pull him over for driving without a rear license plate. A high-speed chase ended when Rifkin crashed into a telephone pole.
Troopers found Rifkin with Noxema smeared across his mustache and a foul odor emanating from the bed of the truck. Under a blue tarp, troopers found the body of Rifkin’s final victim.
The Noxema was a trick for dealing with the odor of decomposing corpses, something he saw in “The Silence of the Lambs.”
Rifkin explained that he had sex with the woman, but that things went badly and he strangled her. He then asked whether he needed a lawyer.
At the station, he confessed to 17 murders, making him New York’s most prolific killer. He was convicted of nine of the slayings and sentenced to 203 years.
