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NJF890305/Balch, Heidi 2-1-95; NYC March 05 1989
Topic Started: Jul 27 2006, 10:40 PM (1,127 Views)
100PercentFound
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MERCER COUNTY
Unidentified Deceased Female
Composite Drawing
CASE INFORMATION The head of a white female was found on March 5, 1989 on the eastern embankment of the Stoney Brook, Hopewell Valley Golf and Country Club by the 7th tee.

NIC# U347704762

Case Number H02489-14

Date Body Found March 5, 1989

Estimated Date of Death Within the week prior to discovery

BIOLOGICAL PROFILE

Age 18 - 30 years

Sex Female

Race Caucasian

Height 5'0" to 5'9"

Weight 100 - 140 lbs.

Hair Light Brown to Dirty Blonde

Eyes Blue

SCARS & MARKS Mole, Left chin
Scar, 1-1½ inches, over left eye
Ear lobes scarred from piercing

OTHER Blood Type - A
Dental charting and x-rays available for comparison.


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If you have any information about this case or the identification of this individual, please contact:
The New Jersey State Police at 1-800-709-7090 or e-mail at missingp@gw.njsp.org .

Hopewell Township Police Department - 609-737-3100
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http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/b/balch_heidi.html

Heidi Balch


Above: Balch, circa 1987 (more recent photographs are unavailable)


Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance

Missing Since: February 1, 1995 from New York City, New York
Classification: Missing
Date of Birth: January 7, 1964
Age: 36 years old
Height and Weight: 5'3, 115 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Blonde to brown hair, blue eyes. Balch may use the name Heidi Balch Ulhag.


Details of Disappearance

Balch was last seen in the vicinity of the 3400 block of Avenue J in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, at 11:30 a.m. on February 1, 1995. She has never been heard from again. Few details are available in her case.


Investigating Agency
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
New York Police Department
646-610-6914



Source Information
New York Police Department
The Doe Network



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http://z10.invisionfree.com/usedtobedoe/in...topic=9991&st=0
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Unidentified White Female


Discovered on March 5, 1989 in Mercer County, New Jersey.
She was a victim of homicide.


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Vital Statistics


Estimated age: 18 - 30 years old
Approximate Height and Weight: 5'0"-5'9"; 100 - 140 lbs.
Distinguishing Characteristics: Dirty blonde to light brown hair; blue eyes. Mole on left chin; 1' to 1.5" scar over left eye. Ear lobes scarred from piercing. Blood type A. HIV positive.
Dentals: All teeth had been extracted except for 3rd molars which were incompletely erupted or impacted.
Other: Her name may be Susie.


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Case History
The victim was murdered by Joel David Rifkin in March 1989. He picked her up in Manhattan’s East Village, NY at around 10:00 pm. She was a drug addict and prostitute.
Rifkin beat and strangled her and then dismembered her body. To foil identification, Rifkin severed her fingertips and pulled her teeth with pliers, then jammed her severed head into an old paint can.
Rifkin drove the body parts across the state line to New Jersey, dropping the head and legs in the woods near Hopewell. Then he returned to Manhattan, pitching the arms and torso into the East River. On March 5, 1989, a member of the Hopewell Valley Golf Club in Hopewell Township, NJ found the can containing the victim's head near the 7th tee. Her legs were found in Pequonnock Creek, Jefferson Township, NJ on 4/8/89. Match confirmed by DNA testing.
The case remained unsolved until Rifkin confessed in 1993.


Joel Rifkin, circa 1993



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Investigators
If you have any information about this case please contact:
Hopewell Township Police Department
609-737-3100
You may remain anonymous when submitting information.

Agency Case Number:
H02489-14

NCIC Number:
U-347704762
Please refer to this number when contacting any agency with information regarding this case.

Source Information:
ID Wanted
Crime Library
New Jersey State Police

http://www.doenetwork.us/cases/288ufnj.html
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http://www.voicewin.com/crime/content/2/660/4.htm

Losing Control

Despite his history of morbid fantasy, Rifkin would later claim he had to plan the murder of his first victim, in March 1989. Rifkin acknowledged that his violent mental images were "a little more intense than regular" at that time. His mother chose that month to travel out of state, leaving Joel alone in the East Meadow house.

Cruising Manhattan's East Village for hookers one night, at about 10 p.m., he selected a young woman remembered only as "Susie." She was a hard-core drug addict, demanding several stops to purchase crack before they drove back to Long Island. After listless sex, Susie again asked Joel to take her out in search of drugs. Instead, he picked up a souvenir howitzer shell and beat her furiously. "I just lost control," he said later. "I stopped when I got tired."

Susie was still alive, however, and she fought back when he tried to move her, biting one of Rifkin's fingers deeply before he strangled her to death. After wrestling her body into a plastic trash bag, Rifkin cleaned up the blood and signs of combat in his living room, then lay down and slept for several hours as if nothing had happened. Upon waking, he dragged Susie down to the basement, draped her body across the washer and dryer, then used that makeshift operating table to dismember her corpse with an X-acto knife. In his mind, the grim task was "reduced to biology class." To foil identification, Rifkin severed Susie's fingertips and pulled her teeth with pliers, then jammed her severed head into an old paint can. The other parts went into garbage bags and then into his mother's car.

Rifkin drove the body parts across the state line to New Jersey, dropping the head and legs in the woods near Hopewell. Doubling back from there, he returned to Manhattan, pitching the arms and torso into the East River. Rifkin believed his victim would never be found, but he had been careless. On March 5, 1989, a member of the Hopewell Valley Golf Club sliced his ball into the woods along the seventh green and found the can containing Susie's head. Rifkin suffered "a major anxiety attack" after learning that Susie was HIV positive, following the case as police prepared artists' renderings of the victim in life and checked them against a list of 700 missing women. But Susie has never been identified. Her case remained unsolved until Rifkin confessed in 1993.

Joel waited more than a year to claim his second victim. He was vague on dates, different reports placing the crime 14 months after Susie's murder, or late in 1990. The victim was prostitute Julie Blackbird, selected for her "pseudo-Madonna look." Rifkin drove her home to East Meadow when his mother was again out of town, and they spent the night together. At about nine the next morning, Rifkin recalled "completely bugging out," beating Blackbird with a heavy table leg before he strangled her. When she was dead, he considered raping her corpse in conscious emulation of serial killer Ted Bundy, but the prospect repulsed him.

Determined not to bungle the disposal this time, Rifkin went out to purchase cement and a large mortar pan. He dismembered the corpse as before, placing the head, arms and legs in buckets weighted with concrete; the torso filled a milk crate by itself. Driving into Manhattan, he consigned Blackbird's head and torso to the East River, then dropped her weighted arms and legs into a Brooklyn barge canal. The remains were never found. We know Blackbird's fate today only from Rifkin's confession, and from her diary stashed in his bedroom.

Murder was easy.

Joel couldn't wait to play the deadly game again.
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"UPDATED 08/14/07"


MERCER COUNTY
Unidentified Deceased Female

Composite Drawing
CASE INFORMATION The head of a white female was found on March 5, 1989 on the eastern embankment of the Stoney Brook, Hopewell Valley Golf and Country Club by the 7th tee.

NIC# U347704762 - Mercer & U786215594 - Morris

Case Number 89-188/H02489-14

Date Body Found March 3, 1989

Estimated Date of Death March 3, 1989

BIOLOGICAL PROFILE

Estimated Year of Birth 1958-1973

Age 16 - 31 years

Sex Female

Race Caucasian

Height 4'11" to 5'2"

Weight 105 - 125 lbs.

Hair Sandy/Brown

Eyes Blue

SCARS & MARKS The victim had a mole on her left cheek
Scar, 1-1½ inches, over left eye
Ear lobes scarred from piercing

OTHER The victim's Blood Type is A.
A DNA test confirmed that this skull is a positive match with the legs that were recovered on April 8, 1989 in Jefferson Township, Morris County, New Jersey (NIC #U786215594).
Dental charts, x-rays, and DNA are available for comparison.
Dental characteristics are entered into NCIC.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have any information about this case or the identification of this individual, please contact:
The New Jersey State Police at 1-800-709-7090 or e-mail at missingp@gw.njsp.org .

Hopewell Township Police Department - 609-737-3100

http://www.njsp.org/miss/ui_mercer_u347704762.html
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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/head...ticle-1.1299952

Head found on Hopewell, N.J., golf course in 1989 finally identified
The remains belong to Heidi Balch, 25, of New York City, who is believed to be the victim of Long Island serial killer Joel Rifkin.
By Sasha Goldstein / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, March 26, 2013, 11:30 PM

A New Jersey cold case dating back to 1989 when a young woman’s severed head was found on a local golf course has been solved after police identified the homicide victim this month.

Heidi Balch, a 25-year-old from New York City, was working as a prostitute in March 1989 when she was murdered, her dismembered head found on a Hopewell golf course and her legs found in Jefferson Township. Her skull stayed in evidence as officers spent 24 years searching for Balch’s identity. The head tested positive for the AIDS virus, one of few leads the police had immediately after the discovery.

“It was a long investigation — it was a long, intense investigation,” former Hopewell Detective Bruce Carnall, who was the lead on the case from 1989 until his retirement in 2005, told the Times of Trenton. “This could have been easily put aside and forgotten.”

Though it is not confirmed, Balch’s homicide is believed to have been at the hands of Long Island serial killer Joel Rifkin, who told police 20 years ago Balch, whom he called “Susie,” was one of his 17 victims.

Joel Rifkin once said he began to hate women after contracting AIDS from a prostitute, which he said inspired his murders. Balch was working as a prostitute when she died, and DNA taken from her head confirmed she had AIDS.

“He obviously did it,” Carnall said. “There’s no doubt.”

New Jersey authorities don’t plan to charge Rifkin in Balch’s death.

Rifkin, 54, was sentenced to more than 200 years for his rampage and was known for dismembering and dumping his victims. In 1996, Rifkin claimed that his contracting AIDS from a prostitute sparked his hatred of women and his four-year killing spree. The claim was never confirmed.

New Jersey State Police eventually took over the cold case. Using Rifkin’s confession, they looked up New York City women with prostitution offenses around the time of Balch’s death, finding only one of 20, Susan Spencer, with the possible name “Susie.”

Lawyer Robert Sale and Joel Rifkin, who was sentenced to more than 200 years in his four-year killing spree. Rifkin told police 20 years ago he had killed Balch, although New Jersey authorities do not intend to charge him.

That led police to the aunt who had filed the missing-persons report for Spencer. They met with her on March 5 — 24 years to the day after Balch’s head was found on the seventh hole of the Hopewell Valley Golf Club.

“We showed her the picture, and she said, ‘Oh, that’s Heidi. She uses (the name) Susan Spencer,’” New Jersey State Police Detective Steve Urbanski said. “I think I was sold with that.”

The aunt explained a friend thought she saw Balch in Brooklyn in 1995, but she herself had not seen her niece since 1988 or 1989.

To verify, police got DNA samples from Balch’s mother and father. The samples matched DNA taken from the head in 2004.

“It’s the fulfillment of my whole career,” Carnall said.

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