Speaker 1: Novel.
Speaker 2: Hey, listener, in this episode, we'll talk a lot about
Speaker 2: acts of extreme violence, including murder. We'll mention serial killers,
Speaker 2: and we'll speak about drug use and sex work. But
Speaker 2: also we'll hear our very own doctor, detective Mindy Shapiro,
Speaker 2: get the chance to spar with a real life police detective.
Speaker 2: If you feel impacted by any of the themes while listening,
Speaker 2: I encourage you to check out our charity partner, DNA
Speaker 2: Doe Project. They work with law enforcement to identify Jane
Speaker 2: and John does using genetic genealogy in the hopes of
Speaker 2: reuniting the bodies of unidentified people with their families. You
Speaker 2: can find them at DNADO project dot org. And you
Speaker 2: already know you're probably gonna hear some swear words from me.
Speaker 2: I'm passionate. What can I tell you?
Speaker 3: Do you mind if I send the text? Yeah, I
Speaker 3: might get something right away.
Speaker 4: What who do you know?
Speaker 2: In the last episode you heard producer Anna and Raoul
Speaker 2: Montero are New York citizen sleuth zeroing in on one killer,
Speaker 2: in particular, Joel Rifkin. Shortly before Anna went to visit Raoul,
Speaker 2: she got her hands on a book.
Speaker 1: Not just any book.
Speaker 2: It's called from the Mouth of a Monster, which is
Speaker 2: written by someone who attended college with Rifkin. In the book,
Speaker 2: Rifkin confesses to seventeen murders between nineteen eighty nine and
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three. His first victim was a sex worker
Speaker 2: named Susie, who he killed in March of nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2: He told the books author about her murder and what
Speaker 2: he did with her remains.
Speaker 5: Driving back into New York City, he had it straight
Speaker 5: for an area near the East River in Lower Manhattan,
Speaker 5: the same area where he had been serviced by street
Speaker 5: walkers countless times before. His head was spinning as he
Speaker 5: parked the truck and flung the bags containing Susie's arms
Speaker 5: and torso into the frigid's swirling waters.
Speaker 2: Holy shit, Rifkin dumps Susie's torso in the East River.
Speaker 1: And you know where The East River.
Speaker 2: Opens up into the Bay which flows directly towards Front Street,
Speaker 2: Pier three, Staten Island. I'm Carol Fisher and from the
Speaker 2: teams at Novel and iHeart Podcast, this is the Girlfriend's
Speaker 2: Our Last Sister, Episode four, Desperately seeking Susie Coat.
Speaker 6: Am I taking us the wrong way?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 6: That must be that way that way.
Speaker 2: I'm with Mindy and producer Anna in Alphabet City on
Speaker 2: the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Speaker 1: Oh, I forgot to have too short legged peak pop.
Speaker 2: Here, Come on, Goliath, we're here because we've been mining
Speaker 2: from the mouth of a monster for more information. In
Speaker 2: the book, Riff can describe picking up a sex worker
Speaker 2: named Susie in Alphabet City back in the eighties. This
Speaker 2: block was one of New York's Red Lake districts.
Speaker 5: It feels powerful, like walking on pavements that you know somebody.
Speaker 1: Yet, Oh, it's really eerie to meet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's weird finding it with Yeah.
Speaker 1: We're walking towards Tompkins Square Park.
Speaker 2: It's a natural meeting point in the area and was
Speaker 2: a popular hangout for sex workers. But according to our
Speaker 2: resident New york Or Mindy, it has a radical pass
Speaker 2: going back much further.
Speaker 6: It was kind.
Speaker 7: Of the place where people stood on their soapboxes and
Speaker 7: expressed dissenting views in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, but
Speaker 7: then in the sixties and seventies it sort of became
Speaker 7: a free speech revolutionary place.
Speaker 2: And that would be the sound of a pneumatic drill.
Speaker 2: New York is such a peaceful place.
Speaker 7: In the seventies and eighties, it became sort of like
Speaker 7: a needle park, and the vitat devastated during the AIDS epidemic.
Speaker 7: The police kept on trying to clean it up, and
Speaker 7: they were.
Speaker 1: Like riots here.
Speaker 7: I remember seeing as a kid lies on horseback and
Speaker 7: you know, with their batons.
Speaker 2: At the time, there were clashes between the police and
Speaker 2: locals protesting against the gentrification of the park and homeless
Speaker 2: people being pushed out, but ultimately the police won the
Speaker 2: Tompkins Square park that we're in todays, where trendy moms
Speaker 2: push around expensive strollers while sipping out lattes. We sit
Speaker 2: down on a bench and Anna pulls out a copy
Speaker 2: of the book From the Mouth of a Monster.
Speaker 8: An excerpt from the book where Joel confessed to earling Susie,
Speaker 8: and I was wondering if maybe also want to read
Speaker 8: it because she proud about her Yeah.
Speaker 7: Okay, yeah, because reshig in silence is not good for
Speaker 7: a podcast.
Speaker 2: We're reading this book because we're longing to learn whatever
Speaker 2: we can about this woman who could be our lost sister.
Speaker 1: She said her name was Susie.
Speaker 7: After they negotiated a price for her to accompany him
Speaker 7: to Long Island. The relationship quickly deteriorated and his blood
Speaker 7: began to boil. Before leaving the city, she wanted to
Speaker 7: make a few stops for drugs.
Speaker 6: First, we stopped at her girlfriend's house.
Speaker 7: Were called, Joel contemptuously, because you always have to take
Speaker 7: care of their narcotic need.
Speaker 1: She's in this.
Speaker 7: Girl's bathroom like for hours as she chatted and smoked
Speaker 7: with her friend.
Speaker 2: We're not going to read out the whole passage. It
Speaker 2: goes into graphic detail about Susie's violent death, but there
Speaker 2: is one moment that for us gives a small but
Speaker 2: powerful insight into who this woman was. It happened just
Speaker 2: after Rifkin attacked her and thought she was already dead.
Speaker 7: To his horror, Susie suddenly popped up on the couch
Speaker 7: in a last ditch effort to salvage her life. She
Speaker 7: tore into her assailant and out of shape man with
Speaker 7: all the strengths she could muster. She even bit my
Speaker 7: finger almost to the bone.
Speaker 4: Joel said, how do you feel, count, I'm a little
Speaker 4: in shock, actually, I'm just a little bit in All
Speaker 4: of her strength to get the shit kicked out of
Speaker 4: her and then to kind of rise again and try.
Speaker 1: To, you know, set herself free.
Speaker 8: She must have.
Speaker 2: Been an amazingly strong woman, not just physically but emotionally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just it's horrible.
Speaker 6: It's just horrific.
Speaker 7: Yeah, nothing living, nothing living, should die like that.
Speaker 2: The three of us contemplate what we've just heard as
Speaker 2: we watch the other people in the park pass by,
Speaker 2: people who are probably doing something much more normal with
Speaker 2: their days, and we wonder where.
Speaker 1: Do we go from here. We know that when the.
Speaker 2: Book From the Mouth of a Monster was published in
Speaker 2: two thousand and one, Susie's torso is still missing. But
Speaker 2: it's been over twenty years since this book was written.
Speaker 1: And we're wondering was she ever found.
Speaker 2: We put in a freedom of information request to Hope
Speaker 2: Well Police department, who handled the criminal investigation into Susie's murder,
Speaker 2: and luckily, unlike our usual track record, we don't need
Speaker 2: to wait very long for a response. It's more info
Speaker 2: than we bargained for, So I call up Mindy and
Speaker 2: ask her.
Speaker 1: To talk me through it.
Speaker 6: Oh, you don't even really want to know.
Speaker 1: Oh God, your tone doesn't sound good.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, I've gotten a whole bunch of information.
Speaker 6: I'm trying to be kind. This is kind of difficult information.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, it's bad. Yeah, it's like really bad.
Speaker 6: I read it and had an emotional reaction to it,
Speaker 6: so hearing it might be difficult.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, Mindy's not wrong. It was difficult to hear.
Speaker 2: So I'll cut to the chase. We told you before
Speaker 2: that Susie's torso was never found, but some of her
Speaker 2: other remains were. In March of nineteen eighty nine, Susie's
Speaker 2: head was discovered on a golf course in Hope Will Township,
Speaker 2: New Jersey, fifty five miles down from New York. A
Speaker 2: short while later, her were discovered in a wooded area
Speaker 2: sixty five miles away. Nobody could understand such a senseless killing,
Speaker 2: and at the time.
Speaker 1: Nobody could figure out who Susie was.
Speaker 2: But in these documents we see the great lens the
Speaker 2: police went to and trying to identify her. They did
Speaker 2: nationwide requests asking for information on any missing person that
Speaker 2: would fit the description of the murdered woman. They put
Speaker 2: out flyers, held press conferences, They did canine searches, had
Speaker 2: divers dredged lakes, and a helicopter did an aerial search.
Speaker 1: Of the golf course where her head was found.
Speaker 2: The police spoke to the FBI about building a psychological
Speaker 2: profile of the killer. They conducted interviews with parents of
Speaker 2: missing women who believed her remains could be their daughters
Speaker 2: or sisters. After this initial flurry of activity, the case
Speaker 2: went cold. But then in two thousand one From the
Speaker 2: Mouth of a Monster came out and in the book,
Speaker 2: Riskin admits to killing a woman he knew is Susie.
Speaker 2: He then admits to dumping her head on a golf
Speaker 2: course and her legs in a wooded area. It was
Speaker 2: clear he was talking about the same case the Hopewell
Speaker 2: cops have been investigating for twelve years, but when they
Speaker 2: put the name Susie or Susan into the missing person's databases,
Speaker 2: nothing came up.
Speaker 1: Another dead end until she.
Speaker 9: Looks at it and she says, Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 3: I think that's your girl.
Speaker 7: Hi, Stephen, it's wonderful to talk to transcontinentally.
Speaker 6: Across the US.
Speaker 3: Him Anina, I'm.
Speaker 6: In northern California.
Speaker 7: Where are you.
Speaker 3: I'm actually talking to you from Mammouth County, New Jersey.
Speaker 6: I know it well.
Speaker 2: I grew up across the river okay, hi mindy speaking
Speaker 2: to Captain Stephen Orbanski, who in twenty thirteen was Detective Orbanski.
Speaker 2: Back then he was working in the missing persons unit,
Speaker 2: and he was the guy you called when you wanted
Speaker 2: help getting to the bottom of a case.
Speaker 9: I was called by two detectors from Hopewell Township Police Department.
Speaker 9: They called me for some advice and they want to
Speaker 9: get my personal opinion on what we can do more
Speaker 9: with the case.
Speaker 2: The Hopewell cops pass on all of their case files
Speaker 2: to Urbanski, but the thing that stands out the most
Speaker 2: is the book where Riskin describes the first time he
Speaker 2: killed a sex worker.
Speaker 9: He said that he could only remember her name as Susie,
Speaker 9: but he didn't have a last name. He didn't know
Speaker 9: any anything about her. So now we're looking at a
Speaker 9: girl named Susan. That's all we have.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: The first thing you do in trying to identify someone
Speaker 2: is look at the missing person's databases for a match.
Speaker 2: But when nothing turned up, Urbanski suggested trying something else,
Speaker 2: looking at arrest records of New York sex workers from
Speaker 2: the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 9: And we pulled all the girls that were named Susan.
Speaker 9: There was one that I was able to look at.
Speaker 9: It was a girl by the name of Susan Spencer.
Speaker 9: That's kind of something that stuck out to me. We
Speaker 9: also noticed after her last arrest, she kind of went
Speaker 9: off the map.
Speaker 2: Urbanski was able to obtain an arrest photo of Susan Spencer.
Speaker 2: In it, he sees a pale woman with long, light
Speaker 2: brown hair and blue eyes. Her face is covered with
Speaker 2: marks the kind you'd associate with the heavy drug user.
Speaker 2: But other than the photo, Urbanski struggled to find any
Speaker 2: other information in the system.
Speaker 9: We couldn't find any reports on Susan being missing. I
Speaker 9: think I went home that night after a long, long
Speaker 9: day of trying to look through pictures and doing interviews,
Speaker 9: you know, eating dinner, and right away open up my
Speaker 9: laptop computer and I start looking at different websites.
Speaker 2: Detective or Banski starts combing through New York and New
Speaker 2: Jersey databases. He's hoping to match the arrest photo he
Speaker 2: has with the missing person's report.
Speaker 3: A picture came up, believe it or not.
Speaker 9: I actually get my wife involved, and she comes over
Speaker 9: yelling at me because I have these pictures throughout on
Speaker 9: the top of.
Speaker 3: My table and I'm trying to review.
Speaker 9: It, but she looks at it and she says, yeah,
Speaker 9: I think you're right.
Speaker 3: I think that's your girl.
Speaker 1: But the missing woman's name isn't Susan Spencer.
Speaker 2: Her name is Heidi Bulch. The missing person's report for
Speaker 2: Heidi Balt was filed in two thousand and one by
Speaker 2: her aunt, Robin. At the time, Robin lived in New York,
Speaker 2: so the detectives decided to pay her a visit.
Speaker 9: Pulling up to New York City, it's a lot going on.
Speaker 9: There's a lot of traffic, you know, people walking by, and.
Speaker 3: We pull up to this high rise building. It was
Speaker 3: more of apartment complex.
Speaker 9: I don't know how to explain how I felt that day,
Speaker 9: but definitely excited, like is this it? Is this going
Speaker 9: to be the person that we looking for?
Speaker 2: Is this the answer an answer that the Hoopwo Police
Speaker 2: Department had been searching for for twenty four years.
Speaker 9: I remember knocking on the door and an elderly lady
Speaker 9: answered the door, and I think just her face alone
Speaker 9: was like that total shock, you know, is this about Heidi.
Speaker 2: Urbanski and his colleagues try to find out more information
Speaker 2: about Heidi from her aunt.
Speaker 9: She kind of talked her up, saying that she was
Speaker 9: a good kid growing up and she just got involved
Speaker 9: with the wrong people and got involved with drugs, and
Speaker 9: she just went down a wrong avenue during her you know, upbringing,
Speaker 9: and that it kind of brought it to dark places.
Speaker 2: The next stage in the investigation was to find Heidi's
Speaker 2: parents and get their DNA tested against the head and
Speaker 2: legs found in New Jersey. The detective sent local police
Speaker 2: to Heidie's father, who lived in Florida, while her Banski
Speaker 2: and two Hopewoll cops make it drive to Baltimore to
Speaker 2: track down Heidie's mother, and after a two hour journey,
Speaker 2: they pull up the Heidie's mom's house. They knock on
Speaker 2: the door, she lets them in, and then they tell
Speaker 2: her we think we found your daughter's remains.
Speaker 3: She was very quiet when we told her.
Speaker 9: She looked like was maybe ready to cry or like,
Speaker 9: you know, she didn't really have any questions for us.
Speaker 9: She gave us, you know, the background out of a
Speaker 9: daughter be involved with the prostitution and the drugs, and
Speaker 9: she said she has some problems back then herself since
Speaker 9: then got her life together. So I explained to her
Speaker 9: about the DNA, how we're going to compare it to
Speaker 9: the head that was found on the golf course and
Speaker 9: the legs. She was more than willing to give her DNA.
Speaker 9: She was very cooperative at that point.
Speaker 2: They take a swab from the inside of her cheek,
Speaker 2: they pack it away in a sterile container, and then
Speaker 2: they haul asked back to get it tested.
Speaker 3: There was a one hundred percent match. It was definitely Heidi.
Speaker 2: Finally, twenty four years after Heidi's murder, her case was solved.
Speaker 2: But when Heidi's DNA profile was entered into the system
Speaker 2: in the spring of twenty thirteen, there was another match
Speaker 2: for a torso, a torso that was buried on Hart Island. Okay, listener, so,
Speaker 2: if you're anything like me, you've probably been listening to
Speaker 2: this while putting dinner in the oven, driving to work,
Speaker 2: and getting your nails done all at the same time.
Speaker 1: So let's recap what we know so far, because it's
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 2: Joe Rifkin killed his first victim in March of nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty nine and confessed to dumping her torso in New
Speaker 2: York's East River. We now know that her name was
Speaker 2: Heidi Balch. Twenty four years later, in twenty thirteen, detectives
Speaker 2: investigating Heidi's case located her torso on Hart Island.
Speaker 1: And why does all this matter to us?
Speaker 2: Well, because we know that our lost sister's torso was
Speaker 2: disinterred from Hart Island in twenty thirteen. We've said before
Speaker 2: that the only reason our girl would have been removed
Speaker 2: from her grave on Heart Island is because she was identified,
Speaker 2: or because her body became part of a criminal investigation,
Speaker 2: or both. Could the torso of our lost sister and
Speaker 2: the torso of Heidi Balch be one and the same.
Speaker 2: Mindy pitches our theory to Captain Urbanski.
Speaker 7: In nineteen eighty nine, we knew that a torso had
Speaker 7: washed up on Shoren's Taten Island and that it was
Speaker 7: identified as the torso of Ga Cats and the family
Speaker 7: buried the remains of that torso in a cemetery in
Speaker 7: Queens Yes, the torso nineteen ninety nine or two thousand,
Speaker 7: somewhere around there.
Speaker 2: It was exhumed and oops, that's Mindy dropping her headphones.
Speaker 1: Way to play a cool detective Shapiro.
Speaker 7: And the remains were basically buried on Hart Island. So
Speaker 7: we got actually the records from Heart Island and saw
Speaker 7: that the body was exhumed in two thousand and thirteen.
Speaker 1: It all seems to add up to us.
Speaker 9: There's a lot of questions because there's so many bodies there.
Speaker 9: You might have another torso that's in. I know, for fact,
Speaker 9: you'd have a couple.
Speaker 1: We can't deny that he's right. At this point.
Speaker 2: Our theory is still just a theory. But a reality
Speaker 2: check is not all Urbanski gives mindy. He also has
Speaker 2: much appreciated advice for his fellow detective. What really matters
Speaker 2: in an investigation like this.
Speaker 9: If my sister, my mother, or somebody my wife went missing,
Speaker 9: I would want somebody putting their heart and.
Speaker 3: Soul into it.
Speaker 9: So do your job basically, and do it with compassion,
Speaker 9: do it with hard work, do it with an open mind,
Speaker 9: and do it as as if it was your own child.
Speaker 6: That's so beautiful.
Speaker 7: You know, the team here and my girlfriend Carol, they
Speaker 7: have dubbed me a dog with a bone because I'm
Speaker 7: just so persist about this. I frankly have not really
Speaker 7: found that term endearing. But speaking to you and your persistence,
Speaker 7: it makes me feel like that's not such a bet term.
Speaker 2: After all, I knew you'd come around eventually, Mindy, despite
Speaker 2: Urbanski's doubts, we really believe that Heidi Balt is our
Speaker 2: lost sister. There are just too many similarities, like the
Speaker 2: estimated date of death in early nineteen eighty nine and
Speaker 2: the year of disinterminent from Hart Island in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: But we need absolute, undeniable proof. More than that, we
Speaker 2: need to learn her story, and the best way to
Speaker 2: do that is by reaching out to Heidie's family in
Speaker 2: the hopes that they might have something, anything, that could
Speaker 2: prove the connection. After a bit more Internet sleuthen, producer
Speaker 2: Anna manages to track down one of Heidie's cousins, who
Speaker 2: lives in Maine.
Speaker 5: Dear Anne, I'm sorry to email you about this so
Speaker 5: out of the blue, but I've been searching for you
Speaker 5: for over a year. My name is Annasinfield. I'm a
Speaker 5: journalist and radio producer from the UK.
Speaker 2: It's funny I remember getting one of these emails from
Speaker 2: Anna myself before this crazy journey started. In the email,
Speaker 2: Anna tells Anne all about our investigation, that we think
Speaker 2: there's a link between our last sister and Heidi. That
Speaker 2: we want to bring her cousin's story to life and
Speaker 2: make sure she's not just a plot point in Gailcat's murder.
Speaker 5: I come with absolutely no judgment of the way she
Speaker 5: lived or how life happened to her. I'd just love
Speaker 5: to know more about her as a person. All the best, Annas.
Speaker 2: Anna sends off the email, and we hope and pray
Speaker 2: that Heidi's family are interested in speaking with us.
Speaker 1: For now, we wait.
Speaker 2: This whole journey has been one crazy ride.
Speaker 1: We'd been to the medical Examiner.
Speaker 8: We have like case number les.
Speaker 6: Yes, the Emmy case number is eighty nine five six.
Speaker 2: We trilled the archives at New York's biggest public library.
Speaker 7: And I'd like all information that I can find about
Speaker 7: that Torso.
Speaker 2: We spoke to pri investigators, criminal profilers, DNA experts. We
Speaker 2: went to the biggest public burial ground in the USA
Speaker 2: and trailed around.
Speaker 1: The city and beyond looking for leads.
Speaker 2: Hundreds and hundreds of hours have gone into this investigation,
Speaker 2: but our love and friendship have gone into it too,
Speaker 2: not to mention copious amounts of food and wine.
Speaker 1: And now it all comes down to this one last
Speaker 1: shot in the dark.
Speaker 6: Hello, Hi, is this Anne?
Speaker 9: It is?
Speaker 2: That's next time on the girlfriends Our Lost Sister, The
Speaker 2: girlfriends Our Last Sister is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2: For more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio. The show
Speaker 2: is hosted by me Carol Fisher, and our chief investigator
Speaker 2: is Mindy Shapiro. To find me on social media, search
Speaker 2: Carol A. Fisher, That's Carol with an E. The season
Speaker 2: is written and produced by Anna Sinfield and Lee Meyer.
Speaker 2: Our assistant producer is Madeline Parr. The editor is Joe Wheeler.
Speaker 2: Max O'Brien is our executive producer. Our fact checker is
Speaker 2: Dannia Suleiman. Production management from Shurie Houston and Charlotte woolf
Speaker 2: Sound design, mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander, Additional engineering
Speaker 2: by Daniel Kempson. Music supervision by Anna Sinfield and Nicholas Alexander.
Speaker 2: Original music composed and performed by Luisa Gerstin and produced
Speaker 2: by Louisa Gerstine and Nicholas Alexander. The series artwork was
Speaker 2: designed by Christina Linkol. Story development by Anna Sinfield. Willard
Speaker 2: Foxton is creative director of Development. Our executive producers at
Speaker 2: iHeart Podcasts are Katrina Norvel and Nikki Etour special thanks
Speaker 2: to Leona Hamid plus Ali Canter, Carrie Lieberman, and Will
Speaker 2: Pearson at iHeart Podcasts, as well as Carly Frankel and
Speaker 2: the whole team at w m E. And a special
Speaker 2: shout out to Vince Hayward, who's my life partner in
Speaker 2: True Crime for taking on the role of girlfriend's confidant
Speaker 2: and lead tech support
Speaker 3: Novel