I came across this thread about the sale of
NY Serial Killer Joel Rifkin's house in East Meadow, Long Island, NY (in March 2011) while looking through the
True Crime Forum on CD.com and, though my posting that you will see below this paragraph revives this older thread whose last posting was 1.9 years prior to my new posting that you will see below this paragraph, I thought that this information might be of interest to all who are reading this thread . . . as it does relate to
Joel Rifkin. I had just posted this exact same posting in CD.com's Long Island (New York) Forum on 12/9/2013, in the thread titled
Famous Long Island Crimes. Read on:
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I actually knew the young woman who was said to be the very first victim of Joel Rifkin (the most prolific serial killer in New York State history, to-date . . . whose multiple
known murders happened in both Long Island and in New York City). Her name was Heidi Balch and she stayed with me in my apartment for a few days (3 or 4 days, if I recall correctly) when I lived in Manhattan (this was during 1980). I met her working as a waitress for a restaurant chain based in Manhattan and her housing situation was transient or homeless (or so she said). I had offered her to stay with me in my one-bedroom apartment until she could arrange some other viable situation or to get her life together. She said she'd think about it and then, the next day, she came to me and said she wound up walking the streets of Manhattan all night and asked me if she could take up my offer. She stayed for 3-4 days with me (I stayed in my bedroom and she stayed on my living room sofabed/couch) and then she just split (saying she found people to stay with in Greenwich Village or somewhere but wouldn't or couldn't supply me a phone number). I wished her the best and we parted.
Years later in 2006 (26 years after I knew her), I typed her name in Google (I was curious as to what ever became of her) and it immediately came up with a missing person report from the NYPD (New York City Police Department) and showed a photograph of her face. I recognized her and, of course, her name was attached to the supplied photograph . . . so it was definitely her. It said she hadn't been seen since 1995 (15 years after we were together). Every so often since my Google search in mid-2006, I would type her name into Google and check if any progress was made on learning of her whereabouts or her outcome. In June 2013, I typed in her name into Google and it came up with her picture and it showed her name and photograph and then said "Found"
or "Solved". I was obviously taken by this and I read further into it. It turned out that, in April 2013 (two months earlier), the New Jersey State Police and local New Jersey police (in cooperation with other law enforcement authorities in New York and perhaps the FBI) finally positively identified a decapitated head that was found in a south New Jersey golf course (stuffed into a paint can) in 1989 as being that of Heidi Balch. Joel Rifkin had picked her up as a street-walking prostitute in the East Village (Manhattan) and taken her back to his mother's home in East Meadow, Long Island, NY; reportedly after some "listless sex", he murdered her there and then took her body apart. He put her head in a paint can and left it in the woods of a south New Jersey golf course; he place her legs somewhere in northern New Jersey (they were found and matched to the head by DNA), and placed her remaining torso in the East River of New York City (which were never recovered, I believe). She had become a drug-addicted prostitute and her head (the remains of it) were found by investigators to be infected with AIDS . . . so, in my view, if she didn't die of being murdered by Joel Rifkin or someone else, she would have died of her AIDS or from all the drugs she used. When Rifkin learned about her head having AIDS from news reports (with her head having been found a day or two after he left it in a paint can on that south New Jersey golf course . . . and her legs as well being found around the same time in northern New Jersey), he was said to be infuriated (concerned that he got AIDS from her).
So I finally learned what had become of Heidi Balch. She had incorrectly been reported by her New York City-based aunt as being missing since 1995 but that was based on a erroneous report by someone else who thought he saw her in Brooklyn in 1995 . . . but she had actually been murdered in 1989 by Joel Rifkin. Based on the reports, she was said to have died at age 25 . . . so this would have made her age 16 when I knew her. I didn't know she was 16 when I knew her in 1980 (9 years prior to her reported 1989 death); I thought she was 18 or 19 (or maybe even 20) at the time I knew her.
Back when I knew her, Heidi Balch was a charming, bright, effusive young woman who was also very very beautiful looks-wise. In fact, she was enchantingly beautiful with such a beautiful smile and a beautiful face and hair. EVERYONE thought she was beautiful and noticed her (both men AND other women). She said she was originally from the Toledo, Ohio area and mentioned also having lived for whatever period of time in the Los Angeles - Hollywood, California area and had been involved with some man there whom she said she "loved". She had a portfolio containing many plastic sleeves holding modeling photographs of her and perhaps had aspirations to be a model (or at least had thought that this could be a way to earn income . . . whether or not it was to be her desired career long-term). I looked through her portfolio and commented to her that "you'll have no problem whatsoever getting modeling work with your great beauty" or words to that effect. She responded that agencies that hire models tend to want models who are very slim (even anorexic) and lanky and Heidi was rather more short and more filled out than slim and lanky . . . though EVERY man who saw her was taken and captivated by her beauty. Even a female hostess or maitre'd at one of the restaurant locations she worked at across from Penn Station (Manhattan) said to her "What a beautiful face you have !!!", to which Heidi responded "Well, if this job doesn't work out, I can always live off of my pretty face" and she laughed and smiled at her comment (I was there to hear and see all of this).
I can't imagine what would drive her to take up hard drugs and then prostitution. You don't abuse the temple of your being which is your body and your brain. Nothing good at all can come out of that path. And
ANY type of work situation or educational pursuit is better than resorting to street prostitution. The police reports of Joel Rifkin's testimony said that she was picked up by him hooking by herself in the East Village (Manhattan) and she got in his car with him and he drove out to his home in East Meadow, Long Island and she made him stop varied times in the city for her to score drugs (cocaine) before leaving the city . . . with my point being that it doesn't sound like she was under the control of pimps or other controlling parties but rather was an
independent hooker (unless I don't know all her details, which is possible).
WHY OH WHY would she turn to this as a way-of-life???!!!?!!?!??? . . . and she got AIDS from this way-of-life (!!!) even before she was murdered by Joel Rifkin, so she may well have died anyway of AIDS before she was even murdered later on.
Oh well, what more can be said by myself? I feel very sad for her and wish she could have had a better life and a better life outcome than this. She deserved better.
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Details about Joel Rifkins's (alleged) first victim
