The Landscaper's Secrets

(2 of 2)

"I don't go out with everybody -- I gotta look at'm first, gotta talk to'm first," says "Maria," a denizen of Rifkin's Lower Manhattan hunting grounds. But who would have suspected? Those who knew the adopted son of a respected Long Island school-board official are reeling in disbelief. "When I would come home at 1 or 2 in the morning," said Barton's 23-year-old daughter, "if I saw the garage light on, I'd feel safe because I knew Joel was around. Scary thought . . ."

In grade school, his hunched shoulders earned Rifkin the nickname "the Turtle." He never dated. The bumper sticker on his truck reads, STICKS AND STONES MAY BREAK MY BONES, BUT WHIPS AND CHAINS EXCITE ME. Still, no one knew that beneath Rifkin's banal facade lurked an abomination. And therein, say experts, lies the paradox of the serial killer: even as he lives a secret life of sex-driven crime, on the surface he is your neighbor.

The FBI estimates that somewhere between 10 and 50 serial killers are still at large in America. Trolling the night, they serve as reminders that the Jeffrey Dahmers, the Ted Bundys, the Joel Rifkins rend a community far wider than the victims they butcher. Who can be sure that a neighbor's yard does not harbor a garden of satanic delights?