Cinder block layer cake wedges and medieval goblets of rice pudding are proudly splayed as sugary food porn for hungry johns. Shimmering pink neon diners are as grotesquely American as the shiny cherry pie served on their stained dishes. Diners are where political arguments are battled, existential dilemmas are pondered, and first dates nervously stammer over cheeseburger deluxe platters.
At the Seacrest Diner in Westbury, New York, customers lingered over late night meals during the long Memorial Day weekend. Talks of European trips and summer camps were brutally shattered by five sadistic young men who raped suburbia of its saccharine complacency.
The Sutter Avenue Boys, a gang from the gritty East New York section of Brooklyn, planned a night of theft and debauchery in the Land of Milk and Honey, Long Island. For kids from Brooklyn’s mean streets, Long Island was a criminal’s marketplace where ultraviolence carried the transgressive weight of biting frosting from a cupcake.
Fun night started when James Martin, Robert Samuels, Bruce Garrison, and brothers Michael and Robert Williams began the evening’s revelry with a jaunt to the Patio Gardens Garage on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. They robbed and beat the attendant and others in the garage, leaving just before midnight with over $2,400 in cash (quite a haul in 1982), eight gold rings, five gold necklaces, a portable television, and a black 1981 Cadillac. Thus began their journey to Long Island, where unsuspecting prey celebrated summer’s arrival in split-level cocoons, oblivious to nocturnal beasts who stalked nearby.
On this warm night, Fortune’s splintered wheel rolled over the Reilly family in Plainview, where a party was winding down. Gang members noticed numerous revelers through a living room window, and soon stopped three guests who were leaving. One member stayed outside with the guests while the others, armed with pistols, blackjacks, a rifle, and a sawed-off shotgun, invaded the house.
Four heavily armed creatures now stood aiming firearms at partygoers. Terrified people were ordered to strip their jeans and dresses. In this lawless house of gang rule, violent fantasies were savagely fulfilled. Guests were beaten, raped, and urinated upon. $2000 in cash was stolen, along with $6000 in jewelry and appliances. Wilding night had begun, and other dens awaited prowling.
About ten miles away, the criminals noticed the Seacrest Diner, a popular place where narrow stained-glass windows belied unholy acts that would soon transpire. Robert Williams claimed that the Seacrest Diner’s “church glass” made it a target, as “you couldn’t see in, or you couldn’t see out.”
Eighty patrons unwinding at their favorite eatery were forced to undress and have sex with one another. According to captive customers, anyone who refused sexual contact was horribly beaten. Two resistant people were shot, and a gang member raped a waitress. Local legends of forced incest and sex with strangers are still whispered throughout Long Island.
All five gang members were soon arrested and convicted of over 800 counts of attempted murder, rape, assault, and robbery. In 2002, Robert Williams was released after serving 20 years of his prison sentence. Robert Samules and James Martin were given life sentences after police connected them to a previous murder. Bruce Garrison and Michael Williams, Robert’s brother, are still in prison because they refused enrollment in a sex offender program. Michael, however, eventually enrolled in such a program, again following in his brother’s footsteps.
Nicholas Bouloukos still owns the Seacrest Diner, a stalwart example of the American business spirit. Mr. Bouloukos was horribly pistol-whipped on that terrible night, and his diner was robbed of both money and soul, but he refused to sell the place, or even change its name. And that prideful stubbornness is why the Seacrest Diner has endured.
Bouloukas claims that people still come in just to see the place. What each curious traveler seeks is a sinister touchstone; a reminder of H. Rap Brown’s adage that violence is as American as cherry pie.
Still Bleeding After All These Years: The Story Behind the House Behind the Amityville Horror
Terrified young babysitters, worm-eaten zombies, and grimacing devils splattered Bob Judd’s bedroom walls, along with any other macabre movie posters that he could procure from Floyd’s Videorama. His favorite flick was the legendary Amityville Horror, a supposedly true ghost story that Judd often pondered over Genessee Cream Ale and jalepeno poppers. “You tell me why the house’s next owner went crazy like the last guy who lived there,” Judd would proclaim in a grizzled, inquisitive tone traditionally used for sweating confessions from perps. “And what about the house’s gateway to Hell, or the Indian burial ground?” I don’t know if he ever made the pilgrimage to Amityville, but countless others have journeyed to the bloody little Dutch Colonial for a glimpse, albeit cautiously, of the world’s most famous haunted house.
With all the media madness and later marketing frenzy following The Amityville Horror book by Jan Anson and resulting movie, much of the actual story has been lost more times than an AOL user. Here are your Cliffs’ Notes: Back in late 1974, a local loser named Ronnie DeFeo shot his entire family in the early morning hours at his house in Amityville, Long Island. In court, it was discovered that DeFeo massacred his family to collect $200,000 in insurance money, resulting in a closed case with a confession of murder, right?
This tale of suburban angst, however, was given new life when the Lutz family moved into the DeFeo house, and in one month sprinted from the place with tales that make The Exorcist about as frightening as that Ben Cooper Chewbacca costume still tucked away in your parents’ attic.
According to George Lutz, the Amityville house was possessed by demonic spirits that plagued his family with high weirdness. Doors and windows mysteriously opened and shut, trickles of blood dripped from keyholes, green slime oozed down walls, flies swarmed in the playroom, and family members were lacerated, burned, and molested by hellish creatures in the Amityville abode.
Since these types of hauntings run a bit beyond the lead-based paint issue of home ownership, Lutz did some investigating at the Amityville Historical Society. He allegedly discovered that in the 17th century, the Massapequa Indians sold his house’s property to John Ketchum, a Satanist who escaped from Salem, Massachusetts during the witch-hunts. If that wasn’t enough of a reason for moving to New Jersey, throw in a hidden room where animal sacrifices occurred, and a boathouse where a red-eyed pig kept appearing and invading the house. Yes, a pig with glowing red eyes named “Jodie” scampered throughout the house and grounds, thus proving that your girlfriend’s Shih-tzu isn’t all that annoying.
Given this arena of devilish madness, perhaps there was a more haunted reason for Ronnie DeFeo’s murder spree other than material gain for insurance money. This theory never made it to the courts, and DeFeo is still serving six life sentences, one for each slain family member.
The possession angle may have missed the legal system, but Long Island and the world couldn’t get enough of Amityvillemania. With Anson’s bestseller in 1977 and a hit movie two years later, this Long Island house was made more popular with the freaky set than Jim Morrison’s grave. Can you actually imagine living in that house after Lutz and family moved out?
Pity poor Joe and Barbara Cromarty, the couple who moved into the home at about the same time the story became a media sensation. Picture millions of horror and mystery fans reading a gruesome novel wherein your newly purchased dwelling is depicted as Roderick Usher’s summer cottage. Would the chapter with the bleeding toilet trouble you when you brushed your teeth? How about a hit movie featuring angry, vengeful spirits inhabiting the very room where you sleep? Finally, who would want to plod home from that damn phone-monkey desk gig only to find sightseers and lunatics from all over the country peering in your windows, digging up your lawn, and exorcising demons in your driveway?
The plot took a crooked turn when the Cromartys claimed that the only hauntings at their new home were the aforementioned curiosity-seekers and dime-store psychics. No red-eyed pig, no swarming flies, no demons growling in the darkness. With the exception of the Amityville Chamber of Commerce, no one seemed to notice the Cromartys’ claim of household peacefulness. The big machine had started, and true believers weren’t about to let a few killjoys ruin their fun. George Lutz even countered the Cromartys by claiming that the Amityville demons had followed him to California where they still terrorized his family. Scooby-Doo, wherefore art thou?
Since the Cromartys’ assurance of a happy home didn’t slow the revelry, how about a possible conspiracy between Lutz, Defeo, and William Weber, DeFeo’s attorney? Stephen Kaplan, vampire hunter and investigative reporter, viewed The Amityville Horror as a well-crafted hoax between the three guaranteeing early parole for Ronald and filthy lucre for Lutz and Weber. (After all, Lutz’s first press conference was held in William Weber’s law office.) Although Weber eventually admitted that he and the Lutzes created the story during a lengthy bout of wine drinking, the horror house tale had already stirred our inner Lugosi, and no dopey little confession could herald the sunrise.
The house’s current owner, Brian Wilson (not the Beach Boy), vehemently denies any sightings of demon pigs in his kitchen or bleeding walls in his den. Wilson, like many people, claims that anyone who believes the place is haunted is a gold-durned wacko. This would presumably include Ric Osuna, an associate producer for a History Channel documentary titled The Amityville Horror: 25 Years Later. Ric believes that the only way to settle the ghost question would be to conduct a sonar scan of the Amityville property and perhaps find John Ketchum’s earthly remains, an Indian burial ground, or even that way-cool gateway to Hell that every young filmmaker yearns for. With all of this perpetual spooky hoodoo, I honestly can’t help but wonder what possessed (sorry) Wilson to buy the house of homicidal chic in the first place.
It amazes me why the town of Amityville refuses capitalizing on this pop-historical phenomenon. Salem has turned its witch trials into a profitable tourist industry, and Fall River, Massachusetts has converted Lizzie Borden’s home into a highly successful bed and breakfast / tourist attraction.
Peter Imbert, mayor of Amityville, was interested in moving the horror house downtown as a B&B or museum, but locals shouted treason, as such an act would exploit the murders of the DeFeo family. Couldn’t some revenue serve the taxpayers of Amityville? How about a portion of the money shunted into a fund in honor of the DeFeo family? Remember, sightseers are interested in a paranormal story, and surely have only pity for the slain family.
Why are we still mystified by the Amityville house twenty-eight years after the story first shocked the public? Why the pop-culture tidal wave of nine feature films, ten books ( Osuna’s brilliantly detailed work The Night the DeFeos Died was published in 2002), and countless websites? The horror house remains such a sensation because the demon was not only in our backyard, but the little bastard smashed through our collective whitewashed front door.
Most ghost stories occur in small, rural towns a la Blair Witch, but here was demonic possession in suburbia! The Amityville house was not hidden in the remote Black Hills Forest, but sat amidst crowded parkways with a short drive to Green Acres Mall. In Amityville, characters weren’t bounding through lonely woods, but chasing demons on their own piece of stale American pie.
The evil spirits in Amityville are the demons that haunt every suburbanite when he or she realizes that grisly murder does not only occur in the urban jungle, but has a home in the land of Levitt. Maybe the next Ronald DeFeo would date your sister, or befriend your child. Our capes and ranches were never really social forts against the bad craziness of the world, as proven on a cold winter night in Amityville, Long Island.
With all the media madness and later marketing frenzy following The Amityville Horror book by Jan Anson and resulting movie, much of the actual story has been lost more times than an AOL user. Here are your Cliffs’ Notes: Back in late 1974, a local loser named Ronnie DeFeo shot his entire family in the early morning hours at his house in Amityville, Long Island. In court, it was discovered that DeFeo massacred his family to collect $200,000 in insurance money, resulting in a closed case with a confession of murder, right?
This tale of suburban angst, however, was given new life when the Lutz family moved into the DeFeo house, and in one month sprinted from the place with tales that make The Exorcist about as frightening as that Ben Cooper Chewbacca costume still tucked away in your parents’ attic.
According to George Lutz, the Amityville house was possessed by demonic spirits that plagued his family with high weirdness. Doors and windows mysteriously opened and shut, trickles of blood dripped from keyholes, green slime oozed down walls, flies swarmed in the playroom, and family members were lacerated, burned, and molested by hellish creatures in the Amityville abode.
Since these types of hauntings run a bit beyond the lead-based paint issue of home ownership, Lutz did some investigating at the Amityville Historical Society. He allegedly discovered that in the 17th century, the Massapequa Indians sold his house’s property to John Ketchum, a Satanist who escaped from Salem, Massachusetts during the witch-hunts. If that wasn’t enough of a reason for moving to New Jersey, throw in a hidden room where animal sacrifices occurred, and a boathouse where a red-eyed pig kept appearing and invading the house. Yes, a pig with glowing red eyes named “Jodie” scampered throughout the house and grounds, thus proving that your girlfriend’s Shih-tzu isn’t all that annoying.
Given this arena of devilish madness, perhaps there was a more haunted reason for Ronnie DeFeo’s murder spree other than material gain for insurance money. This theory never made it to the courts, and DeFeo is still serving six life sentences, one for each slain family member.
The possession angle may have missed the legal system, but Long Island and the world couldn’t get enough of Amityvillemania. With Anson’s bestseller in 1977 and a hit movie two years later, this Long Island house was made more popular with the freaky set than Jim Morrison’s grave. Can you actually imagine living in that house after Lutz and family moved out?
Pity poor Joe and Barbara Cromarty, the couple who moved into the home at about the same time the story became a media sensation. Picture millions of horror and mystery fans reading a gruesome novel wherein your newly purchased dwelling is depicted as Roderick Usher’s summer cottage. Would the chapter with the bleeding toilet trouble you when you brushed your teeth? How about a hit movie featuring angry, vengeful spirits inhabiting the very room where you sleep? Finally, who would want to plod home from that damn phone-monkey desk gig only to find sightseers and lunatics from all over the country peering in your windows, digging up your lawn, and exorcising demons in your driveway?
The plot took a crooked turn when the Cromartys claimed that the only hauntings at their new home were the aforementioned curiosity-seekers and dime-store psychics. No red-eyed pig, no swarming flies, no demons growling in the darkness. With the exception of the Amityville Chamber of Commerce, no one seemed to notice the Cromartys’ claim of household peacefulness. The big machine had started, and true believers weren’t about to let a few killjoys ruin their fun. George Lutz even countered the Cromartys by claiming that the Amityville demons had followed him to California where they still terrorized his family. Scooby-Doo, wherefore art thou?
Since the Cromartys’ assurance of a happy home didn’t slow the revelry, how about a possible conspiracy between Lutz, Defeo, and William Weber, DeFeo’s attorney? Stephen Kaplan, vampire hunter and investigative reporter, viewed The Amityville Horror as a well-crafted hoax between the three guaranteeing early parole for Ronald and filthy lucre for Lutz and Weber. (After all, Lutz’s first press conference was held in William Weber’s law office.) Although Weber eventually admitted that he and the Lutzes created the story during a lengthy bout of wine drinking, the horror house tale had already stirred our inner Lugosi, and no dopey little confession could herald the sunrise.
The house’s current owner, Brian Wilson (not the Beach Boy), vehemently denies any sightings of demon pigs in his kitchen or bleeding walls in his den. Wilson, like many people, claims that anyone who believes the place is haunted is a gold-durned wacko. This would presumably include Ric Osuna, an associate producer for a History Channel documentary titled The Amityville Horror: 25 Years Later. Ric believes that the only way to settle the ghost question would be to conduct a sonar scan of the Amityville property and perhaps find John Ketchum’s earthly remains, an Indian burial ground, or even that way-cool gateway to Hell that every young filmmaker yearns for. With all of this perpetual spooky hoodoo, I honestly can’t help but wonder what possessed (sorry) Wilson to buy the house of homicidal chic in the first place.
It amazes me why the town of Amityville refuses capitalizing on this pop-historical phenomenon. Salem has turned its witch trials into a profitable tourist industry, and Fall River, Massachusetts has converted Lizzie Borden’s home into a highly successful bed and breakfast / tourist attraction.
Peter Imbert, mayor of Amityville, was interested in moving the horror house downtown as a B&B or museum, but locals shouted treason, as such an act would exploit the murders of the DeFeo family. Couldn’t some revenue serve the taxpayers of Amityville? How about a portion of the money shunted into a fund in honor of the DeFeo family? Remember, sightseers are interested in a paranormal story, and surely have only pity for the slain family.
Why are we still mystified by the Amityville house twenty-eight years after the story first shocked the public? Why the pop-culture tidal wave of nine feature films, ten books ( Osuna’s brilliantly detailed work The Night the DeFeos Died was published in 2002), and countless websites? The horror house remains such a sensation because the demon was not only in our backyard, but the little bastard smashed through our collective whitewashed front door.
Most ghost stories occur in small, rural towns a la Blair Witch, but here was demonic possession in suburbia! The Amityville house was not hidden in the remote Black Hills Forest, but sat amidst crowded parkways with a short drive to Green Acres Mall. In Amityville, characters weren’t bounding through lonely woods, but chasing demons on their own piece of stale American pie.
The evil spirits in Amityville are the demons that haunt every suburbanite when he or she realizes that grisly murder does not only occur in the urban jungle, but has a home in the land of Levitt. Maybe the next Ronald DeFeo would date your sister, or befriend your child. Our capes and ranches were never really social forts against the bad craziness of the world, as proven on a cold winter night in Amityville, Long Island.
The Amityville Horror House as it exists today
The famous side entry to the house
The site of Henry's Bar, Defeo's local hangout - it's now a 99 cent store!
Blood On the Tracks
Penn Station houses many small places where weary commuters can purchase alcohol for their journey of the damned back to Long Island. Beer vendors even perch on the concrete platforms adjacent to the tracks, thus proving a demand for twelve ounces of relaxation after working in the Unreal City. The 5:33 train bound for points east is a particularly crowded ride where harried passengers can forget about The Horror, and perhaps focus upon a more promising existence, far from the mighty harangue of their cubicle-strewn jobs. Maybe the gentleman studying his laptop is planning the perfect birthday gift for his wife, or a bedraggled secretary who quietly closes Grisham begins seriously considering those law school night classes. On one such hopeful ride back home in December, 1993, tired travelers were brutally peppered with twenty-nine rounds of Black Talon bullets fired from Colin Ferguson’s angry 9-mm. pistol, an attack that wounded nineteen people and left the future plans of six suburbanites dead on the floor.
Then arrived the overwhelming question: Why would he do this? Before the articles in Psychology Today, or Tom Brokaw interviewing the head of NYU’s Sociology Department, came the lawyers. Ferguson’s famed attorneys, William Kuntsler and Ronald Kuby, asserted that his rampage was an insanity resulting from “Black Rage,” a condition developed after years of living in a society hostile to African-Americans. Such an unhospitable environment twisted Ferguson’s thought processes, inexorably leading him to spray the Long Island Railroad’s #3 car with ammunition while shouting, “You’re gonna get it!” Ferguson opted against an insanity plea, and instead insisted that he was a victim of racial biasing from the passengers. Although more than fifty eyewitnesses saw him open-fire, Ferguson claimed that he was asleep when the shootings began, therefore somebody else committed the murders. Much to the surprise of his attorneys, Colin Ferguson exercised his sixth amendment right and defended himself in court claiming, “This is a case of stereotype victimization of the Black man.”
Counselor Ferguson’s defense strategies were slightly less plausible than Charles Manson’s Helter-Skelter philosophies. A particularly interesting legal trump card was Ferguson’s theory that the reason for 93 counts in his indictment was only because it matched the year 1993. He also compared himself to John the Baptist, a spiritual ancestor who, like Ferguson, was demonized and slaughtered by duplicitous tyrants. Such legal tactics are somewhat dubious, but Colin has six life sentences worth of time to clarify them for us.
Although Ferguson’s remorseless murder spree and subsequent courtroom antics revealed him as a dangerous psychopath, some people hailed him as a Black divinity who finally sought revenge on Whitey. In a speech before 2,000 spectators at Howard University, former Nation of Islam flack Kalid Muhammed drew thunderous applause when he shouted, “I love Colin Ferguson who killed all those White folks on the Long Island train…God spoke to Colin Ferguson.” Occasional music personality Wyclef Jean sang of Ferguson as “the vigilante” and his victims as “civilians running for their life, like the Devil on Judgment Night running from Christ.” Maybe Colin can write him a song. The message was clear: White boys have plenty of murderous icons; now here’s one for us.
Extolling Ferguson as a messianic militant for Black justice is like praising Timothy McVeigh for Nationalist heroics; neither makes much sense unless you are forwarding a hateful agenda, or trying to boost record sales. The disaffected can find heroes in Malcolm X, Emma Goldman, Michael Moore, or a myriad of other citizens who have opposed the cruel machinery of America. Leave Colin Ferguson as a pathetic signpost for hateful lunatics who are mad at all of the wrong people, or, just mad.
Then arrived the overwhelming question: Why would he do this? Before the articles in Psychology Today, or Tom Brokaw interviewing the head of NYU’s Sociology Department, came the lawyers. Ferguson’s famed attorneys, William Kuntsler and Ronald Kuby, asserted that his rampage was an insanity resulting from “Black Rage,” a condition developed after years of living in a society hostile to African-Americans. Such an unhospitable environment twisted Ferguson’s thought processes, inexorably leading him to spray the Long Island Railroad’s #3 car with ammunition while shouting, “You’re gonna get it!” Ferguson opted against an insanity plea, and instead insisted that he was a victim of racial biasing from the passengers. Although more than fifty eyewitnesses saw him open-fire, Ferguson claimed that he was asleep when the shootings began, therefore somebody else committed the murders. Much to the surprise of his attorneys, Colin Ferguson exercised his sixth amendment right and defended himself in court claiming, “This is a case of stereotype victimization of the Black man.”
Counselor Ferguson’s defense strategies were slightly less plausible than Charles Manson’s Helter-Skelter philosophies. A particularly interesting legal trump card was Ferguson’s theory that the reason for 93 counts in his indictment was only because it matched the year 1993. He also compared himself to John the Baptist, a spiritual ancestor who, like Ferguson, was demonized and slaughtered by duplicitous tyrants. Such legal tactics are somewhat dubious, but Colin has six life sentences worth of time to clarify them for us.
Although Ferguson’s remorseless murder spree and subsequent courtroom antics revealed him as a dangerous psychopath, some people hailed him as a Black divinity who finally sought revenge on Whitey. In a speech before 2,000 spectators at Howard University, former Nation of Islam flack Kalid Muhammed drew thunderous applause when he shouted, “I love Colin Ferguson who killed all those White folks on the Long Island train…God spoke to Colin Ferguson.” Occasional music personality Wyclef Jean sang of Ferguson as “the vigilante” and his victims as “civilians running for their life, like the Devil on Judgment Night running from Christ.” Maybe Colin can write him a song. The message was clear: White boys have plenty of murderous icons; now here’s one for us.
Extolling Ferguson as a messianic militant for Black justice is like praising Timothy McVeigh for Nationalist heroics; neither makes much sense unless you are forwarding a hateful agenda, or trying to boost record sales. The disaffected can find heroes in Malcolm X, Emma Goldman, Michael Moore, or a myriad of other citizens who have opposed the cruel machinery of America. Leave Colin Ferguson as a pathetic signpost for hateful lunatics who are mad at all of the wrong people, or, just mad.
The Grey Man
On a warm spring day in 1928, Albert Fish walked up 8th Avenue. Wearing a heavy suit and carrying a leather hand satchel along with a carton containing cheese and strawberries, his destination was 406 West 15th St., the home of the Budd Family. His stride was somewhat stiff, as his rectum was scarred thickly from repeated self-inflicted burns. In addition, the multiple straight pins he had inserted so deeply into his perineal area that they were irretrievable, would also be making themselves known on a walk of any length. Albert gently placed his satchel behind a newsstand near his destination, planning to retrieve it later. The butcher knife, cleaver and saws inside clinked softly as they touched the pavement. He called them his “implements of hell,” and he had an inordinate affection for them.
Albert was a grandfatherly man in his sixties by this time. He was the sort of man that you would trust to watch your children, the sort of man who may have reminded you of your own father or grandparent. Albert had already raped over 400 children, murdering at least six at this point. He ultimately confessed to victims in almost every state in the union – experiences collected over a lifetime of travel.
Today he was planning on visiting Edward Budd, a young man of fifteen, who he planned to lure away with the promise of a fictitious job as a farm hand. Albert did not own a farm. His objective was to take Edward to an abandoned cottage in upper Westchester, bind him, cut off his genitals and leave him to bleed to death. The “monkey and pee wees” (his term for the penis and testicles) would be carried back to Albert’s rented room in the city, cooked and devoured.
When Albert arrived at the Budd home, he found himself entranced by young Grace Budd, to the extent that he abandoned his plans for Edward. Thinking quickly, he stated that he had to attend a birthday party for his niece at his sister’s house on 137th St. and Columbus Ave., and would return to pick up Edward afterward. (Unbeknownst to the Budd’s, Columbus Avenue only extended to 109th St.) Fish gleefully asked if Grace would like to attend the party with him. The Budd’s, a working class family constantly struggling to make ends meet, were already enamored of Fish who had plied them with the aforementioned cheese and strawberries (fresh from his farm, he claimed), and handed out dollar bills to the children. They readily agreed. Grace was never seen alive again.
Albert took Grace downstairs and walked with her to the newsstand where he retrieved his leather satchel. They took the train up to Westchester, destined for Wisteria Cottage. Upon disembarking, Albert forgot his bag. Fortunately, Grace was alert enough to remind him so his precious tools were not lost.
Wisteria Cottage was a two-story structure. The exterior walls were weathered and gray like Fish himself, and its forbidding appearance could not have been lost on young Grace as they approached on foot. Albert sent her to pick wildflowers in the backyard while he entered the cottage and prepared. Preparation consisted of stripping naked in an upstairs room while watching Grace in the yard from the windows. When he was ready, Albert called to her to come inside. Upon entering the upstairs room and seeing Fish naked, Grace cried out. Quickly, Albert strode across the room. He strangled her and then cut her throat with one of his knives, catching the blood in an old paint can, which had been left in the room by a previous occupant. Once Grace was dead, Albert dismembered her and wrapped the choicest parts of her body in butcher’s paper. The ritual was not quite finished, however. Albert took a wad of absorbent cotton from his topcoat pocket and soaked it in lighter fluid from a small vial he had brought with him. He inserted the cotton into his anus and struck a match. He ignited the cotton and reached orgasm while inhaling the scent of his own burning flesh. He then took his package and returned home. Albert cooked Grace in a stew with onions and carrots in his room at 409 East 100th St. He spent the next week slowly consuming it while in a psychosexual haze – eating Grace’s cooked body, masturbating, and torturing himself with pins and fire.
Albert may never have been apprehended for this crime had he not felt the need to torment the already devastated Budd Family several years later. He was living in a rooming house at 200 East 52nd St. in Manhattan when he wrote the famous (in some circles) Budd letter.
Unfortunately, Albert chose to use stationary he found in his room, left there by the previous occupant. The envelope bore the letterhead of the Private Chauffeurs’ Benevolent Association on the back flap. It had been crossed out heavily with pencil but was still discernable. Detectives traced the stationary to a member of the organization who had stolen it for personal use. This person led them to the address of his previous lodgings. Detective William King went there, but Albert had vacated the room several weeks before. The landlady informed Detective King that she expected him back any day to pick up a regular check from his son. King was on hand the day Albert returned for his mail and took him into custody with only one minor incident – Albert removed a straight razor from his pocket when confronted. He was easily and gently disarmed.
Albert’s confessions once in custody enumerated a life of intense perversity. One psychiatrist who interviewed him stated that he was the only person he had ever encountered who practiced all known forms of human perversion and practiced them frequently.
Albert was executed by electrocution on January 16, 1936. Before his death he stated that he was looking forward to the experience.
Albert was a grandfatherly man in his sixties by this time. He was the sort of man that you would trust to watch your children, the sort of man who may have reminded you of your own father or grandparent. Albert had already raped over 400 children, murdering at least six at this point. He ultimately confessed to victims in almost every state in the union – experiences collected over a lifetime of travel.
Today he was planning on visiting Edward Budd, a young man of fifteen, who he planned to lure away with the promise of a fictitious job as a farm hand. Albert did not own a farm. His objective was to take Edward to an abandoned cottage in upper Westchester, bind him, cut off his genitals and leave him to bleed to death. The “monkey and pee wees” (his term for the penis and testicles) would be carried back to Albert’s rented room in the city, cooked and devoured.
When Albert arrived at the Budd home, he found himself entranced by young Grace Budd, to the extent that he abandoned his plans for Edward. Thinking quickly, he stated that he had to attend a birthday party for his niece at his sister’s house on 137th St. and Columbus Ave., and would return to pick up Edward afterward. (Unbeknownst to the Budd’s, Columbus Avenue only extended to 109th St.) Fish gleefully asked if Grace would like to attend the party with him. The Budd’s, a working class family constantly struggling to make ends meet, were already enamored of Fish who had plied them with the aforementioned cheese and strawberries (fresh from his farm, he claimed), and handed out dollar bills to the children. They readily agreed. Grace was never seen alive again.
Albert took Grace downstairs and walked with her to the newsstand where he retrieved his leather satchel. They took the train up to Westchester, destined for Wisteria Cottage. Upon disembarking, Albert forgot his bag. Fortunately, Grace was alert enough to remind him so his precious tools were not lost.
Wisteria Cottage was a two-story structure. The exterior walls were weathered and gray like Fish himself, and its forbidding appearance could not have been lost on young Grace as they approached on foot. Albert sent her to pick wildflowers in the backyard while he entered the cottage and prepared. Preparation consisted of stripping naked in an upstairs room while watching Grace in the yard from the windows. When he was ready, Albert called to her to come inside. Upon entering the upstairs room and seeing Fish naked, Grace cried out. Quickly, Albert strode across the room. He strangled her and then cut her throat with one of his knives, catching the blood in an old paint can, which had been left in the room by a previous occupant. Once Grace was dead, Albert dismembered her and wrapped the choicest parts of her body in butcher’s paper. The ritual was not quite finished, however. Albert took a wad of absorbent cotton from his topcoat pocket and soaked it in lighter fluid from a small vial he had brought with him. He inserted the cotton into his anus and struck a match. He ignited the cotton and reached orgasm while inhaling the scent of his own burning flesh. He then took his package and returned home. Albert cooked Grace in a stew with onions and carrots in his room at 409 East 100th St. He spent the next week slowly consuming it while in a psychosexual haze – eating Grace’s cooked body, masturbating, and torturing himself with pins and fire.
Albert may never have been apprehended for this crime had he not felt the need to torment the already devastated Budd Family several years later. He was living in a rooming house at 200 East 52nd St. in Manhattan when he wrote the famous (in some circles) Budd letter.
Unfortunately, Albert chose to use stationary he found in his room, left there by the previous occupant. The envelope bore the letterhead of the Private Chauffeurs’ Benevolent Association on the back flap. It had been crossed out heavily with pencil but was still discernable. Detectives traced the stationary to a member of the organization who had stolen it for personal use. This person led them to the address of his previous lodgings. Detective William King went there, but Albert had vacated the room several weeks before. The landlady informed Detective King that she expected him back any day to pick up a regular check from his son. King was on hand the day Albert returned for his mail and took him into custody with only one minor incident – Albert removed a straight razor from his pocket when confronted. He was easily and gently disarmed.
Albert’s confessions once in custody enumerated a life of intense perversity. One psychiatrist who interviewed him stated that he was the only person he had ever encountered who practiced all known forms of human perversion and practiced them frequently.
Albert was executed by electrocution on January 16, 1936. Before his death he stated that he was looking forward to the experience.
The Budd apartment location at 406 West 15th Street, NYC - it's a lumberyard now!
The bricks in the side wall of 408 - were they there when Fish was?
Another view of where 406 once was. Note the Fishophiles wandering by!
Matt enjoys a latte at the Starbucks catty corner to the Budd house. We're contacting Starbucks for a promtional tie-in.
409 East 100th Street - The location of the roominghouse where Albert Fish devoured Grace Budd. The old tenament is long gone.
Architectural detail on an old building across the street from 409 E.100th Street. This building looks like it was here back in the 20s, and that lion's head may have seen Albert carrying his wrapped bundle of stew meat back to his room.
A dramatic angle on 409 and the old building across the street.
Two Doors Down
Entrance to Cove Landing
Living in a private community instantly cuts you apart from others, dividing lush topiaries from brown hedges, and fresh asphalt from cracked, weedy sidewalks. The strange horror outside is blocked by vigilant gates and heavy stones, setting a perpetual fog of merciful calmness adrift among latte-colored attached houses. Denice Fox, a recently retired school New York City teacher, sought such a lifestyle and moved to Cove Landing, an insulated community on Long Island’s moneyed North Shore. Five months later, she was killed her in her vestibule by a man who lived several yards away.
Evan Marshall played on Manhasset High School’s baseball and football teams. After graduating from Arizona State University with a degree in history, he moved into mom’s house in Glen Cove, Long Island, and began student teaching at schools in Floral Park and West Hempstead. Evan Marshall’s life was following a seemingly idyllic suburban journey, but twisted detours lay waiting on the primrose path ahead.
As adulthood unfolded, Evan spent time at several psychological clinics, including Supervised Lifestyles Residential in Brewster, New York, where others remembered him for his quick temper. Rob Kass, a patient at the clinic, befriended Evan and often played guitar with him. According to Kass: “He was a nice guy, but when you walked into a room with him, it was like walking on eggshells. You never knew what kind of mood he was in.” In a friendly gesture worthy of a psychology thesis, Kass lent Marshall two films, Edward Scissorhands and The Exorcist, which Evan never returned.
Back home in Glen Cove, Evan began drawing attention from fellow townspeople. Cops knew Evan as the “mad midnight drummer,” since his late night drum playing often caused noise complaints from neighbors. One afternoon at nearby Charlie’s Deli, Evan became enraged when the owner, Steve Lamere, refused to change a large bill. After he was escorted out, Evan threw a Snapple bottle at Lemere from across the street. Even Evan’s mom, Jacqueline Marshall, called police when she could not control her son’s violent temper.
August heralds long days of maddening heat, keeping most people locked away in air-conditioned colonials and condos, occasionally braving the melting streets for a microbrew or cola. Denice Fox spent such a day ensconced in the cool latitudes of her townhouse, possibly planning her next New England jaunt or contemplating granite styles for the kitchen countertop. Early that afternoon, Evan Marshall visited from two doors down, stabbed Denice to death, and dragged her corpse through the moist back yard into his apartment. Later that evening, police found Denice Fox’s headless body dismembered and stuffed into two garbage pails on Evan’s basement floor.
Glen Cove police waited as Evan Marshall drove down Willada Lane. Evan was covered with scratches; he had dried blood on his shoes, and Denice Fox’s head in the trunk of his light blue Toyota. Evan’s rage finally reached its ultimate release when psychotic passion eviscerated stalwart suburbia. Somewhere, a retired accountant eagerly studies a glossy brochure that promises continual comfort behind far-reaching fences, deftly separated from the madness lurking beyond.
Evan Marshall played on Manhasset High School’s baseball and football teams. After graduating from Arizona State University with a degree in history, he moved into mom’s house in Glen Cove, Long Island, and began student teaching at schools in Floral Park and West Hempstead. Evan Marshall’s life was following a seemingly idyllic suburban journey, but twisted detours lay waiting on the primrose path ahead.
As adulthood unfolded, Evan spent time at several psychological clinics, including Supervised Lifestyles Residential in Brewster, New York, where others remembered him for his quick temper. Rob Kass, a patient at the clinic, befriended Evan and often played guitar with him. According to Kass: “He was a nice guy, but when you walked into a room with him, it was like walking on eggshells. You never knew what kind of mood he was in.” In a friendly gesture worthy of a psychology thesis, Kass lent Marshall two films, Edward Scissorhands and The Exorcist, which Evan never returned.
Back home in Glen Cove, Evan began drawing attention from fellow townspeople. Cops knew Evan as the “mad midnight drummer,” since his late night drum playing often caused noise complaints from neighbors. One afternoon at nearby Charlie’s Deli, Evan became enraged when the owner, Steve Lamere, refused to change a large bill. After he was escorted out, Evan threw a Snapple bottle at Lemere from across the street. Even Evan’s mom, Jacqueline Marshall, called police when she could not control her son’s violent temper.
August heralds long days of maddening heat, keeping most people locked away in air-conditioned colonials and condos, occasionally braving the melting streets for a microbrew or cola. Denice Fox spent such a day ensconced in the cool latitudes of her townhouse, possibly planning her next New England jaunt or contemplating granite styles for the kitchen countertop. Early that afternoon, Evan Marshall visited from two doors down, stabbed Denice to death, and dragged her corpse through the moist back yard into his apartment. Later that evening, police found Denice Fox’s headless body dismembered and stuffed into two garbage pails on Evan’s basement floor.
Glen Cove police waited as Evan Marshall drove down Willada Lane. Evan was covered with scratches; he had dried blood on his shoes, and Denice Fox’s head in the trunk of his light blue Toyota. Evan’s rage finally reached its ultimate release when psychotic passion eviscerated stalwart suburbia. Somewhere, a retired accountant eagerly studies a glossy brochure that promises continual comfort behind far-reaching fences, deftly separated from the madness lurking beyond.
The Marshall home at 3 Willeda Lane
The Fox home 2 doors down
Charlie's Deli - the location of the famous Snapple incident
Through extensive forensic projectile trajectory analysis, Matt and I determined this to be the likely place Marshall was standing when he threw the Snapple bottle at Steve Lamere.
Thursday's Children
5 Cornelia StreetLiving or dying as one of Andy Warhol’s mascared minions is like acting in adult films; no matter how small a role, you’re always a star. Warhol’s traveling sideshow of transvestites, socialites, actors, and transvestite-socialite-actors embodied heroin chic, New York City’s hipper-than-thou response to San Francisco’s flower child scene. Far from the joyous hippy spirit, Warhol’s circle engendered a cool detachment from Owsley’s day-glow hallucinations, instead fostering a black-and-white world where avant-garde pop filled a room with tin-foil pressed walls, while grainy films about quotidian reality were viewed through amphetamine perspectives. Some of Andy’s children, however, sadly lost their way home when the party ended.
When Freddy Herko dropped out of Julliard School of Music, he began a Greenwich Village troubadour’s wet dream consisting of experimental theatre, speed, and appearing in Andy Warhol films. Herko starred in three of Warhol’s early films, but like many Warhol superstars, he was directionless when his role in Andy’s mythopoesis ended. Herko became increasingly withdrawn, shooting and snorting amphetamine and living with a procession of male and female lovers. Herko’s friend, Johnny Dodd, saw Freddy one afternoon at Joe’s Dinette in Greenwich Village. Herko had been living on the street after getting thrown out of dancer Deborah Lee’s apartment. According to Dodd: “Freddy was covered in filth, and he was dancing on the counter…He said he hadn’t had any drugs for three days, but he was whacked out and his body was quivering.”
Dodd took Freddy back to Dodd’s apartment on 5 Cornelia Street where Herko took a long perfumed bubble bath. Dodd knew that Freddy loved Mozart, so he played the Coronation Mass while Freddy bathed. After his bath, Freddy danced naked around the living room, leaping towards the windows several times. Herko had recently been telling friends that he would soon execute a suicide performance, and Dodd wondered if Freddy was preparing for his final dance: “It was obvious that Freddy had to do it now- the time and place were right, the décor was right, the music was right.” Freddy made a final long run and leaped out of the window to his death.
Playwright and author Robert Heide was part of Warhol’s crowd during Herko’s suicide, and he and Warhol arrived at Cornelia Street a few hours later. Warhol asked him- “When do you think Edie will commit suicide? I hope she lets us know when she’s gonna do it so we can film it.” Warhol was referring to Edie Sedgwick, another Warhol casualty whose possible suicide happened in Santa Barbara seven years later. Sorry, Andy.
Andrea Feldman learned that if you wanted stardom, show up where the glitterati frequent and entertain with a freak show- cum- performance art. Feldman was a fixture at Max’s Kansas City, a Manhattan club that Warhol and company adopted as their round table. Feldman captured attention by shoving a Coke bottle inside her and singing “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.” She called her porno parody of Ethel Merman “Showtime,” a routine Andy Warhol would encourage her to repeat at gallery openings and glamorous parties.
Although Feldman had achieved cult status from her films, her greatest career move was her suicide leap from the fourteenth floor of her parents’ apartment on Fifth Avenue. According to Bob Colacello, the former editor of Warhol’s Interview magazine, Feldman was carrying a can of Coke in one hand and a rosary in the other when she jumped on August 8th, 1972. This was the tenth anniversary of Marilyn Monroe’s death, an actress with whom Andrea had identified herself. Andrea had “apparently made dates for that afternoon with half a dozen guys she had gone out with, including poet and diarist Jim Carroll, so that they would all be down on the sidewalk when she flew out the window.”
Warhol illuminati like Nico, Joe Dallesandro, and the Velvet Underground were able to parlay their talents into successful careers when the final amphetamine rush came crashing down, and it was time to go home. Others like Freddy Herko and Andrea Feldman were lost without Papa Andy, whose genius was his ability to remain detached from his detached crowd, thus insulating himself from misbegotten fatalities when his children’s final fifteen minutes chimed throughout the indifferent streets of New York City.
5 Cornelia Street looking up at the Dodd window
The top right window was the site of Freddy's fatal leap.
The window reflected in a puddle across the street
Grate across the street near where Herko's body may have landed
Teacher, May I Be Consumed?
Cannibalism and pedophilia are two topics generally shunned in educational psychology circles, but Long Island elementary school teacher Michael Reiner successfully synthesized both taboos on his website, widening the concept of giving back to the community.
Like many intellectual pioneers, Reiner was thwarted by traditionalist clock stoppers who fear the learning potential of child pornography. On a rendevous to meet his fellow webmaster, our perpetually jealous northern neighbors seized Reiner’s laptop at the Ontario border, claiming that images of young boys in sexually provocative poses are illegal in Canada. Canadian police additionally stated that Reiner admitted his fetish for young boys, slavery, and cannibalism, although he never actually consumed human flesh.
Like many intellectual pioneers, Reiner was thwarted by traditionalist clock stoppers who fear the learning potential of child pornography. On a rendevous to meet his fellow webmaster, our perpetually jealous northern neighbors seized Reiner’s laptop at the Ontario border, claiming that images of young boys in sexually provocative poses are illegal in Canada. Canadian police additionally stated that Reiner admitted his fetish for young boys, slavery, and cannibalism, although he never actually consumed human flesh.
Until his arrest, Reiner taught at the Long Island School for the Gifted, a private school in Huntington Station, where progressive administrators recognize the differentiated instructional possibilities afforded by cannibal pedophilia. When the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement visited Reiner’s school, school officials dismissed them as “ignorant,” and seemingly regretted firing their “beloved teacher” who had “excellent rapport with students…and parents."
Most school administrators sweat like boiling missionaries if mom calls and complains about too much math homework, or she feels that little Paige should not read Monster by Walter Dean Myers. Michael Reiner, the post-modern John Dewey, was arrested for spearheading a website devoted to one of the strangest niche fetishes ever clicked upon, yet officials at his school praised his teaching abilities. Perhaps he can secure funding and soon break ground on The Donner Party Country Day School for Curious Boys. Truly, no child left behind.
The small Cape at 82 Pengon Circle in East Meadow where Michael Reiner lived with his brother, sister-in-law and their children.
When we walked by we noticed that the house mysteriously had no number visible anywhere except for the above curb marker half obscured by weeds.
Matt enjoys a lollipop on Pengon Circle.
The Long Island School for the Gifted where Michael taught for many years. The faculty and parents were amazingly supportive of him after his somewhat disturbing hobby came to light.
The front entry doors to the Long Island School for the Gifted. Some of Michaels' DNA may still adhere to the handles.
A disquieting display of childrens' hands visible in the entry foyer to the school.
Joel Rifkin
On a warm and sunny summer day Matt and I drove out to East Meadow to visit the site of several of the Joel Rifkin homicides - the home at 1492 Garden Street where he had lived at the time of his arrest on June 28th, 1993. The area was as unassuming as any middle class Long Island community you could think of - winding suburban streets and closely spaced homes with attractively landscaped front lawns predominated. After finding the address we parked several houses away and proceeded on foot to capture a few images. Ducking under the spray of a lawn sprinkler we found ourselves walking past a lavender garage with white trim set several feet back from the sidewalk. This could only be the garage in which Rifkin had dismembered Tiffany Bresciani, his last victim. Indeed, when investigators entered the garage after his arrest they found a wheelbarrow with 3 ounces of human blood in it, a floor littered with rope and tarps, a pair of women's underwear, and a chainsaw with blood and bits of flesh adhering to the blade. The odors emanating from this structure (he kept her body stored there in the summer heat for 3 days while he worked on his truck out front) were assumed by neighbors to be from the chemicals he used in his landscaping business.
The Rifkin home (we are unsure of who the present inhabitants are) itself seems structurally the same as it was over a decade ago when the crimes associated with it came to light. The landscaping is more elaborate however, and seems designed to obscure the front of the house from passing viewers. It is deliberately, almost forcedly, cheery - colorful and floral. It reminds one of the disarming smile of the seasoned predator before he strikes.
So how did this happen? Who was Joel Rifkin and what led him to become who he became? It is a question all the more intriguing because of the setting which formed the backdrop against which these events took place.
Joel Rifkin was born on January 20, 1959 to a young unwed couple who were unprepared to raise a child. He was subsequently adopted by Bernard and Jeanne Rifkin in Upstate New York. They adopted a daughter, Jan, in 1962 and moved to East Meadow in Nassau County in 1965. Joel was educated at Prospect Avenue Elementary School and East Meadow High School. His education was saturated with cruelty and taunts from his classmates from the beginning. Joel was simply unable to fit in. He was nicknamed "the turtle" due to his slouching, defensive way of carrying himself. Unfortunately for him, he found academic success as elusive as social acceptance. Although his IQ tested in the 120's he was possibly dyslexic. His poor academic performance was a disappointment to his father who was a member of the school board and was so influential in the town that a room in the East Meadow Public Library was named after him.
As a teen-ager Joel's sexual fantasies ran towards bondage and rape, with some elaborate gladiatorial scenarios thrown in. In all of his fantasies, the victims were passive and simply accepted his actions without protest.
Rifkin graduated high school in1977, near the bottom of his class. Joel attended Nassau Community College and SUNY Brockport at various times in the late 70's and early 80's. He was unable to complete any academic program, however, and by 1984 had quit college completely. He held various menial jobs throughout the 1980's, and rented a few apartments on Long Island in an attempt to get out of his parents house. None of the jobs or apartments lasted for long and he always ended up living back home on Garden Street. At this time Joel was spending whatever small sums of money he earned on prostitutes. He was also regularly getting robbed by the women, once being duped twice by the same girl in the same way. Even on the streets, Joel was unable to fit in.
Joel's father was chronically ill with emphysema when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1986. He took an overdose of barbiturates in 1987 and passed on after several days in a coma. Joel delivered the eulogy at his funeral.
In 1988 Rifkin enrolled in a horticulture studies program at SUNY Farmingdale. He excelled there for the first time in his life, earning straight A's for two semesters. As a result he was selected for a prestigious internship at the Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay. While working there he became infatuated with a fellow intern. When she did not return his interest, Joel finally reached the breaking point.
Joel killed for the first time in March, 1989. His mother had gone out of town and he had the house to himself when he went cruising for a prostitute in Manhattan's East Village. He picked up a woman he remembers only as "Susie" and drove her back to his home, stopping several times to buy crack at her insistence. After sex she requested that he take her out to buy more drugs, but he beat her viciously with a souvenir Howitzer shell instead. He later said "I just lost control. I stopped when I got tired." She was still alive after the beating and bit his finger deeply when he tried to move her, prompting him to strangle her to death. After the murder Joel placed her body in a plastic garbage bag, cleaned up the room, and slept for a few hours. Upon awakening he brought her body into the basement laundry room, draped her across the washer/dryer and dismembered her body with an X-acto knife. To hinder identification her cut off her finger tips and pulled out her teeth with a pair of pliers. He decapitated her and placed her head in a paint can. He placed the other body parts into plastic garbage bags and loaded up his mother's car. He drove to New Jersey and disposed of the head and legs in the woods near Hopewell. He tossed the rest of the body into the East River surrounding Manhattan on the way home. The paint can with Susie's head was found in a few days and Rifkin panicked, following the story closely as it was reported in the news. He was particularly concerned when he learned that his victim was HIV positive. Susie has never been identified and her murder was only attributed to Joel when he confessed to it in 1993.
Rifkin continued this general pattern of behavior with some variation throughout the rest of his murders. He would pick up a prostitute, something would snap and he would bludgeon and/or strangle her to death. He killed many in his car in parking lots and on side streets, either before, during or after sex. He dismembered some at home, some he simply dumped into nearby bodies of water or threw into the woods on the way home. He went through a period during which he was infatuated with 55 gallon oil drums, purchasing several to use as containers for his bodies. As he learned that his victims were not the top priority of the police department and often were not even reported missing for days or weeks after the murders he became less concerned with concealing their identities. He made the effort to bury only one of his victims, Leah Evans. They were about to consummate their interaction in an abandoned parking lot when she demanded a more private place. When Joel refused she began to cry. He then proceeded to strangle her and drove her body to eastern Suffolk County where he buried her in a shallow grave in the woods. Did her display of emotion touch something in him, sparking a seed of remorse? Did he feel that her emotional response to his actions validated him in some way and thus he honored her with this final attempt at restored dignity after her death? Joel has never said.
It should be noted that Rifkin by no means murdered all of the prostitutes he came in contact with. During the killing times he was patronizing large numbers of women, the vast majority of which never saw any side of him other than that of the average customer. In fact, some of the murders occurred on nights when he had already been with one or more women before the victim.
Joel's series of murders came to an end in June of 1993 with the murder of Tiffany Bresciani. He picked her up on Allen Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side and drove her to the NY Post's parking lot where he strangled her at 5:30 am. She was his second woman of the night, his fourth in the past 2 days, but the only one to meet the killer Joel. He drove home to East Meadow with her body in the back seat, stopping along the way to buy rope and tarps. By the time he got home she was neatly packaged in the trunk of the car, and not a moment too soon. His mother was waiting there and demanded the car keys to run an errand. Joel surrendered the car and she spent the next 30 minutes or so driving around the area with Tiffany's body in her trunk. When she returned the car, Joel transferred the body to the garage. He then left it there in a wheelbarrow for 3 days as he worked on his truck out front and attempted to ignore the odors of human flesh decomposing in the summer heat. This was the longest time Rifkin had held onto a body before disposal and some have speculated that he was in a psychological fugue state for those 3 days as the mental stresses of the murders finally exceeded critical mass. Tiffany was number 17.
Joel finally came to his senses and decided it was time to dispose of the body on June 28, 1993. He loaded the tarp wrapped corpse into the bed of his Mazda pickup truck and began driving towards Melville's Republic Airport where he intended to make the body drop. State troopers Sean Ruane and Deborah Spaargaren attempted to pull him over on the Southern State Parkway when they noticed he lacked a rear license plate. Rifkin refused to stop and led 6 police cruisers on a chase through Wantagh before missing a turn and crashing into a telephone pole in Mineola, ironically right outside the court building in which he would eventually be convicted. It was 3:36 am and Joel offered no resistance when he was removed from his truck. He was unkempt and had a thick layer of Noxzema smeared under his nose. When searched they found an X-acto knife in his pocket. Drawn by the overpowering stench emanating from the bed of the vehicle, police discovered Tiffany's body wrapped in a tarp. When asked about her Joel replied "She was a prostitute. I picked her up on Allen Street in Manhattan. I had sex with her, then things went bad and I strangled her. Do you think I need a lawyer?"
Joel is now serving 203 years to life in prison at the Clinton, NY correctional facility. He will not be eligible for parole until 2197. One of the judges in his multiple murder trials stated "It is not in my power to give Mr. Rifkin the sentence he deserves. In case there is such a thing as reincarnation, I want you to spend your second life in prison."
Maggot House
The Link brothers lived under rain-rotted clay shingles in a wonderfully fetid house that scorned cable-ready notions of modern complacency. Like Wilton Tifft's evocative photographs of decaying Ellis Island, or the deteriorating beauty of deserted midwestern farmhouses, this Victorian in Yonkers blazoned its faded, terrible loveliness with pathological stoicism.
Ascending sharp, cracked steps to a pale-blue splintered front door, the structure's haunting magnificence was slowly revealed behind twisted, overgrown oaks and tangled shrubs. Every detail of Queen Anne architecture survived for decades, from fluted brick chimneys to multicolored turned spindles, with an overwhelming reality that almost none of this wonderful design had been touched since its original construction. In a strange mixing of natural forms, Adam and Michael Link mirrored the glorious decay of their home as they harmoniously fused with the slow rot of lumber, stone, and glass- a simultaneous descent of skeletal and wooden structures.
On a warm Sunday night in August when most people are alternatively contemplating new employment and suicide, Adam called emergency workers when his brother had difficulty breathing. Medical technicians discovered Michael lying in his own feces among sticky piles of junk mail and chipped peanut butter jars. According to Yonkers Fire Department surgeon Roger Chirurgi, Michael "had open wounds with maggots eating on the flesh." Firefighters donned hazardous materials suits while investigating the house after both brothers were taken out. The sensory onslaught of swarming flies, maggots crawling in blue-molded salami, and sharp smells of human waste sickened even veteran firefighters. At a Yonkers hospital, Michael died the next day. Adam is undergoing psychiatric evaluation.
Adam and Michael Link remained isolated from coffee break gossip, unbearable traffic jams, and petty office politics, choosing instead a different type of insanity. Whenever hazmat suits and yellow police tape appears among the living, wherever rescue workers are nauseated, you know that someone lived a poetic existence. The maggots spare no one.
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