Identified! NJ - Mercer Co., WhtFem 288UFNJ, 18-30, J. Rifkin Victim, Mar'89 - Heidi Balch

[Ambercat]

I really glad that she was identified. I am curious, though, how the date Heidi Balch was last seen was recorded as February 1, 1995? Is this the date the missing persons report was filed? Possibly a typo? There are a couple of missing people that I keep looking at over and over again comparing them to unidentified people and the dates seem a little off, so I never suggested them.

 

[CarlK90245]

I really glad that she was identified. I am curious, though, how the date Heidi Balch was last seen was recorded as February 1, 1995? Is this the date the missing persons report was filed? Possibly a typo? There are a couple of missing people that I keep looking at over and over again comparing them to unidentified people and the dates seem a little off, so I never suggested them.

The trouble is that if you tried to convince anyone to look at a possible match where the Date LKA was after the Date of Discovery, they would say "nah". :denied:

 

[ebonydarkness]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/head-found-n-golf-1989-finally-identified-article-1.1299952

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.

 

[CarlK90245]

Here are two mugshot photos of Heidi with her hair down, and without so much make-up, compared to the recons.

 

[kg0421]

I can't find the article now but after this news broke last night I did read that the reason her "last seen" date was 1995 was because a friend of hers claimed to have seen her on a street corner in Brooklyn in 1995. Aside from that, no one else had seen or heard from her since 1989. It is VERY risky business to try and say that you recognize someone on the streets of New York City as a missing friend you haven't seen in six years. I would have thought the missing persons report would have added this information in, rather than blindly accept that a friend of hers POSITIVELY saw her ONCE, in one of the most populated cities in the world, years after anyone else had seen her. Maybe she would have been identified sooner had they done so.

I will try to find the article where Heidi's aunt said this and post it. I'm so glad she's finally been identified.

Edit: Nevermind, I missed ebonydarkness's post above, the article is already linked.

 

[starmushrooms]

It makes you wonder how many other cases could end up never being solved because of date mix-up's like this.

 

[Ambercat]

The trouble is that if you tried to convince anyone to look at a possible match where the Date LKA was after the Date of Discovery, they would say "nah". :denied:

I know! Crissianni noticed missing person, Jay Walter Burns https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/11887/3379/ whose vital stats match up so super close to the unidentified man in the Chevrolet www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134101

Even the missing man's first name is Jay and the unidentified man signed his note "J." Except Mr. Burns supposedly went missing on January 25, 1984 and this is the same date the unidentified man was found. I thought about e-mailing the jurisdiction to confirm whether Mr. Burns was actually last seen on the 25th, but I really don't want them to think I'm weird. It's just everything else seems too close.

 

[zinc]

I might have said this before — I have very, very strong feelings that we amateurs and dilettantes should never rule out a MP/UID match based on one or two datapoint mismatches if the rest of the profile match is reasonably strong. This is doubly true for NamUs, NCMEC, or government/police department profiles and those substantially based on them, like many of the Doe Network entries. Many of those profiles are built from a single original report that has been manually copied or re-entered into databases multiple times. Information with only one source is weak; information that has been re-copied is weaker still.

Obviously, that doesn't mean to report every possibility to law enforcement. It does mean that when dealing with data we can't verify for ourselves, we should mentally give more weight to the points that rule in a given match than to the points that rule it out.

(And as Carl notes, pray that the investigator is smart about knowing when to ignore the eye color or date of last contact written on the page.)

I really wish that NamUs had

1. a way to casually submit a possible match based on MP/UID entry numbers. A possible match getting a certain number of hits submitted by the public could be flagged internally for rule-out by the investigating agencies.
2. a crowdsourcing match system. NamUs could pick a random UID or allow people to choose a UID from a pool with certain characteristics, then bring up one by one the possible matches it finds internally, mixed with a few non-matches. Show reconstruction/photo and some selected demographic/physical data side by side, with the option to open the detailed full profile for either as needed. Then simply, at the bottom of the page, ask the user to choose: strongly agree, agree, unsure, disagree, strongly disagree that these two profiles are the same person?

 

[ebonydarkness]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuzXxk2n78g

This documentary about Joel Rifkin has some information about the first murder. Starts from about 19:39 in the video. Warning: may be disturbing.

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2005/03/central_jersey_.html

The "Head Had AIDS" headline by the Trentonian pertaining to this case appears to have caused some controversy.

 

[kg0421]

It's horrifying the way he smirks and grins as he recounts how he dismembered her body.

It is a small relief to know that Heidi put up what sounds like a hell of a fight, and gave him a scar in the process.

 

[dotr]

Something to keep in mind when everything but the odd bits of info. do not line up.


http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2013/03/27/20690061.html
"They found a missing person report that matched her description but had been ruled out because it said the woman had been last seen in 1995, six years after the head was discovered.

Police met with the person who filed the missing person’s report and now believe the sighting date in the report was erroneous"

 

[carbuff]

I know! Crissianni noticed missing person, Jay Walter Burns https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/11887/3379/ whose vital stats match up so super close to the unidentified man in the Chevrolet www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134101

Even the missing man's first name is Jay and the unidentified man signed his note "J." Except Mr. Burns supposedly went missing on January 25, 1984 and this is the same date the unidentified man was found. I thought about e-mailing the jurisdiction to confirm whether Mr. Burns was actually last seen on the 25th, but I really don't want them to think I'm weird. It's just everything else seems too close.

Does "J" have a thread here? I'm not familiar with the case.

But it sounds like somebody who's in a position to examine the case more closely ought to take a look at it.

 

[webrocket]

what is interesting is how honest many of these serial killers are once they are busted. everything Rifkin said lined up. the name Susie, that he dismembered her body and placed it in NJ and while I can't quickly find the link, I am pretty sure Rifkin said he found a bottle of HIV medications on "Susie" and he flipped out and murdered her.

and the key thing that dragged out the investigation was the erroneous date of last being known alive.

 

[Donjeta]

what is interesting is how honest many of these serial killers are once they are busted. everything Rifkin said lined up. the name Susie, that he dismembered her body and placed it in NJ and while I can't quickly find the link, I am pretty sure Rifkin said he found a bottle of HIV medications on "Susie" and he flipped out and murdered her.

and the key thing that dragged out the investigation was the erroneous date of last being known alive.

Was Heidi called Susie?

Edit: NM

“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.”

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/cri...ly-identified-article-1.1299952#ixzz2P7yb6pGE

 

[carbuff]

Does "J" have a thread here? I'm not familiar with the case.

But it sounds like somebody who's in a position to examine the case more closely ought to take a look at it.

P.S. Never mind, I was misreading your links...argh! Sorry about that.

 

[wintermute]

what is interesting is how honest many of these serial killers are once they are busted. everything Rifkin said lined up. the name Susie, that he dismembered her body and placed it in NJ and while I can't quickly find the link, I am pretty sure Rifkin said he found a bottle of HIV medications on "Susie" and he flipped out and murdered her.

and the key thing that dragged out the investigation was the erroneous date of last being known alive.

Rifkin found out about Heidi being HIV positive from the news after the head was found. That is why his excuse of killing these women because he was angry about being exposed to HIV is BS; he killed Heidi before he even knew she had HIV.
Rifkin found the bottle of AZT medication on one of his later victims, Lorraine Orvieto.

 

[traacker13]

It's really upsetting to me to see erronous reports and reasons things are ruled out. I think they should look through everything with a fine tooth comb before saying anyone is ruled out. If DNA is available, they should definitely find the best way possible to use it if they have a strong possible match (even if some of the circumstances don't align exactly as expected). I have to wonder how much sooner Heidi would have been identified if she wasn't originally ruled out...sigh

 

[Donjeta]

It should be a no-brainer to file "Somebody thought they saw the person in a street corner several years after anybody else saw them but no one's really sure" type of sightings with a mile high question mark that wouldn't rule anything out.

 

[Richard]

Heidi Balch, Murder victim of Joel Rifkin

In March 1989, a woman named Susan Spencer was working as a prostitute in New York when she disappeared. Soon after that, a severed head of an unidentified woman was found on a golf course in New Jersey. Investigators determined that he victim had AIDS but were unable to identify the head, and the case quickly grew cold. The victim’s skull sat on an evidence shelf.

In 1996, seven years later, serial killer Joel Rifkin opened up about the fact that he had caught AIDS from a prostitute. He said this was the reason why he committed his crimes, though that claim wasn’t immediately confirmed. He also admitted to killing a woman named Susie.

In 2013, New Jersey police began to piece two and two together. They decided to knock and ask questions to an aunt who’d reported her niece missing. DNA evidence ultimately showed that the head belonged to a woman named Heidi Balch. Balch, when working as a prostitute, went by the name “Susan Spencer.” A cold case that had been 24 years in the making was finally solved.

LINK:

10 Horrific Discoveries Of Severed Heads And Their Stories - Listverse