The parking lot where Tiffany Bresciani was murdered

This is the parking lot where serial killer Joel Rifkin murdered Tiffany Bresciani.

It is situated at 210 South Street in Manhattan, New York.

At the time of the murder, the building was home to the New York Post newspaper. These days, it is owned by a self-storage company called Manhattan Mini-Storage.

Tiffany Bresciani moved to New York to become an actress

Bresciani was a 22-year-old sex worker from Metairie, Louisiana.

Initially, she had moved to New York with hopes of becoming an actress on Broadway. However, those dreams failed to materialize, and she eventually ended up dancing at strip clubs.

After moving to the Big Apple, Bresciani started hanging around the punk rock scene and abusing drugs such as heroin.

She also became involved in the sex trade.

For a short period of time, she dated Rick Wilder, who was the founder of the hardcore punk band The Mau-Mau's. However, their relationship ended due to her worsening heroin addiction.

Relationship with Dave Rubinstein

Not long after, she started seeing another punk musician named Dave Rubinstein (aka Dave Insurgent), who had co-founded the band Reagan Youth in 1980.

By the time Bresciani crossed paths with Rubinstein, he was a disheveled shell of his former self. The washed-up singer was heavily addicted to heroin, his band had broken up four years prior, and he was now living a pitiful, isolated existence on the streets of Manhattan.

During their relationship, Bresciani "turned tricks" to fund both of their drug habits. Whenever she was picked up by a client, Rubinstein would wait around on the street until she returned. When Bresciani arrived back with the cash, the couple would walk off together and buy some heroin.

Joel Rifkin

In the early hours of June 24th, 1993, Bresciani was picked up on Allen Street by Joel Rifkin, an unemployed 34-year-old who still lived with his mother.

Sadly, on this occasion, she would not return.

Rifkin was a serial killer who had started murdering sex workers four years prior. By June of 1993, he had already claimed the lives of at least 16 women.

On that fateful night, he was cruising around Manhattan in his mother's blue Toyota sedan when he spotted Bresciani working on Allen Street.

Following a quick discussion about the price, she jumped into his vehicle, and the pair drove southward to this parking lot at 210 South Street.

At the time, the area around the northern side of the Manhattan Bridge was a popular place for sex workers and their clients to "conduct business".

Murder

According to Rifkin, he strangled Bresciani to death in his car at around 5.30 a.m.

Following the murder, he proceeded to drive back to his home on Long Island. Along the way, he stopped at a store to purchase rope and a blue plastic tarp, which he used to wrap up her remains.

While all of this was unfolding, Rubinstein was still standing on Allen Street, waiting for his girlfriend to return. After some time had passed, he started to grow anxious. Fearing that something was wrong, he contacted the police and provided a description of the vehicle. He also searched for Bresciani at local hospitals and at some of the clubs where she danced.

When Rifkin arrived back at his house in East Meadow, he didn't have time to remove the body from the trunk. By that stage, it was long past sunrise, and his mother was eager to use her Toyota to run some morning errands.

After taking her car keys, she drove to a local supermarket, completely unaware that there was a corpse lying in the back of her vehicle.

Fortunately for Rifkin, his mother never opened the trunk. Consequently, he was able to move the tarp containing Bresciani's remains to a wheelbarrow in the garage later that day.

The body reportedly lay in the garage for three days while Rifkin worked on his Mazda pickup truck. He didn't decide to get rid of it until the growing, overpowering smell forced him into action.

Aftermath

At around 3 a.m. on June 28th, 1993, he loaded his victim's remains into the back of his truck and drove eastward towards Republic Airport in Farmingdale. However, as he was driving along, a state police patrol car noticed that he was missing a rear license plate.

Although the officers turned on their flashers and ordered him to pull over, "Joel the Ripper" decided to speed up and keep going.

This led to a 20-mile-long car chase, which eventually culminated in Rifkin's arrest and the discovery of Bresciani's body.

Rubinstein was heartbroken when he learned that his girlfriend had been found dead in such horrific circumstances. Sadly, this wasn't the only tragedy to befall him that week.

Less than two days later, Rubinstein's mother was killed by his father in a freak vehicle accident at their home in Queens.

Depressed and guilt-ridden by such an unfathomable chain of events, he quickly decided to take his own life.

On July 3rd, 1993, Rubinstein committed suicide by overdosing on heroin.

Photos

Photos of the parking lot and other related images.

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