
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 29, 1993                   TAG: 9306290235
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Newsday
DATELINE: MINEOLA, N.Y.                                LENGTH: Short

DRIVER SAYS BODY IN TRUCK WAS 17TH

A Long Island man, stopped for a traffic violation Monday after a chase, told police he has killed as many as 17 women and dumped their bodies throughout the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut area, law enforcement sources said. The decomposing body of one woman, believed to be a Manhattan prostitute, was found in the man's pickup truck.

Joel Rifkin, 34, was arrested in Mineola around dawn when he crashed the truck into a utility pole after leading troopers on a chase of several miles. Troopers detected a pungent odor emanating from the truck and opened the back, where they found the body of an unidentified woman wrapped in a tarpaulin, New York Police Capt. Walter Heesch said.

Once police began questioning Rifkin, sources say, he began to talk of a two- to three-year killing spree that involved as many as 17 women believed to be prostitutes - women he would pick up in Manhattan, kill and then dump in sites on Long Island and in Connecticut, New Jersey and upstate New York, law enforcement sources said.

Heesch declined to say whether Rifkin had implicated himself in any homicides, but said state police were investigating more than 15 slayings of prostitutes in the past three years to which Rifkin may be linked.

by CNB