Cold Case Files: The Rifkin Murders | show | 2023 | Official Clip - video Dailymotion

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Cold Case Files: The Rifkin Murders" documents the real-time New York State Police cold case investigation into the two  | dHNfWjZpUUhVSkVIYVU

Transcript

00:00 ♪♪

00:08 I'm now in a little cage,

00:10 and it's, "How did I get here?

00:12 How did they end up dead?

00:15 What happened?"

00:18 And I'm trying to make sense out of it.

00:20 I'm still trying to make sense out of it.

00:23 It didn't start out this way.

00:25 I've always been interested in Joel Rifkin's story

00:29 because I find it so unusual compared to what you would think

00:35 the life of a serial killer was like.

00:38 I think a lot of people, myself included,

00:40 think that to become a serial killer,

00:43 you need to be abused.

00:46 But he wasn't abused.

00:47 He came from what would be considered a good home.

00:50 He grew up in East Meadow, New York,

00:52 which is a suburb in Long Island.

00:55 His mother gave me home movies of Rifkin

00:58 growing up as a kid,

00:59 and it's filled with birthday parties,

01:04 visits to the park and playing with kids.

01:08 So he seemed to have a very normal and loving childhood.

01:12 ♪♪

01:16 His parents worked hard to give him

01:18 all the things he needed in life to succeed,

01:20 and yet he still became a serial killer.

01:25 And so after he was arrested, anyone that knew Rifkin

01:28 was completely surprised by the fact

01:30 that this mild-mannered kid that had grown up in East Meadow

01:34 was a serial killer that was living amongst them.

01:39 I've seen reports about it and read articles about it.

01:42 It's just not the Joel I could ever imagine.

01:47 He was kind of quiet, reserved, but to me, very friendly.

01:54 He wasn't a scary person at all.

01:57 He wasn't threatening to anybody or anything.

02:00 The person I knew was not an evil person.

02:03 He was just a soft-spoken, easygoing, polite guy who,

02:11 if a neighbor came home, if it was an older woman,

02:14 he would offer to help carry her packages.

02:17 There was literally nothing about this man

02:21 that would have led me to believe

02:23 that he would have ever done what he did.

02:27 I think that's what made it a shock

02:30 to everybody who knew him,

02:32 that it was almost like a Jekyll and Hyde thing.

02:36 The last time that I was ever with him was in '84.

02:41 Literally, the next time I heard his name

02:45 was that night on CNN nine years later.

02:48 There was an arrest of Joel Rifkin for murder.

02:52 I remember this like it was yesterday.

02:55 I hear the name Joel Rifkin,

02:59 and a chill goes up my back.

03:03 And on the screen,

03:05 law enforcement is bringing him into a police station.

03:10 ♪♪

03:13 And then I'm like, "Oh, my God, it's him."

03:17 It was not just shocking, which it clearly was,

03:19 but it was really sad.

03:21 ♪♪

03:24 I don't think Joel was just a maniacal-type person

03:29 that was destined to murder people.

03:33 I just think, you know, something happened,

03:36 clicked in his mind.

03:37 He's been asked why he's done it,

03:39 and every time I ever hear him ask that,

03:41 he kind of dodges the question.

03:44 He kind of says, "I really don't know."

03:47 And I can tell you this -- I'm certain that he does know,

03:51 but he just doesn't want to tell.

03:53 ♪♪

03:56 You don't want to say there is a profile of a serial killer,

03:59 but Rifkin checked a lot of the boxes that we find commonly.

04:04 Most serial killers

04:06 certainly have a degree of psychopathy and narcissism.

04:10 When you look at Rifkin's crimes,

04:12 I think that psychopathy, you can see that total disregard

04:16 for human life, for the value of these women.

04:19 These were just objects to him to meet his needs.

04:24 The narcissism, I think, is there, too,

04:27 because he thinks he's smarter than everyone

04:29 by doing this and getting away with this.

04:32 But with these serial killers,

04:34 we really don't know where this desire to engage

04:38 in this extremely violent pathological behavior comes from.

04:44 We know it's multi-determined.

04:45 There can be environmental influences,

04:49 contextual influences.

04:50 There can be genetic predispositions.

04:54 I talk about the nature-nurture tango.

04:56 It's a dance between the two,

04:59 and we don't really know how it all comes together.

05:04 But it becomes this combustible combination of these things

05:09 that result in Rifkin.

05:14 An analogy that I use a lot in trying to explain this --

05:18 so, you make a cake, all right?

05:21 And you mix up the batter,

05:25 and you put the cake in the oven,

05:26 and you get it out, and you realize,

05:29 "I didn't put any sugar in the cake.

05:33 How am I gonna -- Am I gonna massage that in the cake now?

05:36 Am I gonna be able to rub that sugar?"

05:38 No, no, you're not.

05:40 Or you pour motor oil in the batter.

05:45 How am I gonna get the motor oil out of the cake?

05:48 Well, you're not.

05:49 And it's the same with these guys.

05:51 They either are missing something they need

05:54 or they have something they don't need.

05:56 And right now, we don't know how to make it right.

05:59 ♪♪

06:03 ♪♪

06:05 ♪♪

06:15 ♪♪

Cold Case Files: The Rifkin Murders | show | 2023 | Official Clip

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