VANISHED: Denise Griffin

Summary

Up and Vanished Weekly: VANISHED: Denise Griffin Host: Maggie Freeling | Release Date: February 12, 2025

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Introduction

In the February 12, 2025 episode of Up and Vanished Weekly, host Maggie Freeling delves into the mysterious disappearance of Denise Griffin, a case intertwined with the notorious serial killer Joel Rifkin. Joined by Payne Lindsay, creator of Up and Vanished, and guest Laura Norton from The Fall Line podcast, the episode explores the complexities of cold cases, the challenges in identifying victims, and the systemic issues that hinder justice.

The Joel Rifkin Case and Unidentified Victims

The episode begins with a recounting of Joel Rifkin's reign of terror in the early 1990s. On June 28, 1993, Rifkin was apprehended following a high-speed chase that culminated in the discovery of a decomposed female body in his vehicle. Rifkin confessed to murdering over a dozen women, primarily targeting sex workers. However, two of his victims, known only as Victim 6 and Victim 9, remain unidentified.

Notable Quote:

"When I tell you I will never understand the part of me that caused me to do these terrible things to your children."
— Joel Rifkin (09:09)

Denise Griffin: A Potential Victim

Denise Griffin disappeared on May 17, 1991, from Eatontown, New Jersey. At 24 years old, Denise's disappearance predates Rifkin's capture. Her case became a focal point when Rifkin implicated himself in numerous murders, leading investigators to cross-reference missing persons with his confessions.

Notable Quote:

"Rifkin like many serial killers, kept trophies or mementos from his victims. The earrings Rifkin describes from Number Six look similar to one of the trophies found in his home, which is a promising lead."
— Maggie Freeling (18:24)

Despite efforts, Denise remains unidentified due to the lack of a paper trail and the absence of digital records from the early '90s.

Challenges in Solving Cold Cases

The primary obstacle in solving Denise Griffin's case is the inadequacy of forensic technology from the time of her disappearance. Without modern DNA databases and limited investigative resources, connecting Denise to Rifkin's confessions remains arduous.

Notable Quote:

"The issue with a partial profile is that there's not enough discrimination to it. It's missing some essential key features."
— Payne Lindsay (30:23)

Payne Lindsay explains the complications surrounding partial DNA profiles, emphasizing the need for familial DNA matches to make definitive connections.

The Role of NAMUS in Missing Persons Cases

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NAMUS). Despite being a crucial tool, NAMUS faces challenges such as inconsistent reporting across states and administrative backlogs.

Notable Quote:

"There are some who have uploaded none... having that administrative support as well, training people how to put the information into NamUs, because you upload it and then it has to be approved before the information appears."
— Payne Lindsay (32:50)

Lindsay underscores the importance of comprehensive reporting and public accessibility of NAMUS to bridge gaps in missing persons investigations.

Forensic Anthropology and Mass Grave Excavations

Addressing Victim 9, found in a mass grave on Hart Island, the episode highlights innovative forensic techniques inspired by operations like Detroit's Operation United. These collaborative efforts between the FBI, local police, and forensic anthropologists aim to systematically excavate and identify remains, albeit the process is time-consuming and hindered by bureaucratic red tape.

Notable Quote:

"They had records, but they couldn't figure out precisely who was where... they really are training their students... just working through and IDing people that way."
— Payne Lindsay (40:25)

The Stigma Surrounding Victims of Sex Work

Maggie Freeling addresses the societal prejudices that often lead to the marginalization and subsequent neglect of victims involved in sex work. This stigma complicates efforts to locate and identify missing individuals, as these victims frequently lack robust support systems and face victim-blaming.

Notable Statistics:

• 82% of adult prostitutes reported being physically assaulted.
• 83% were threatened with a weapon.
• 64% experienced rape while working.

Notable Quote:

"It's astonishing to me that the victims whose lives were taken get lost in the process and their humanity gets glossed over just because of what they do to make ends meet."
— Maggie Freeling (43:07)

Call to Action

The episode concludes with a heartfelt appeal for listeners to remain vigilant and proactive in assisting with cold cases like Denise Griffin's. Freeling emphasizes the importance of community involvement and the collective effort required to honor and remember all victims, regardless of their backgrounds.

Conclusion

Up and Vanished Weekly offers a profound exploration of Denise Griffin's disappearance within the broader context of Joel Rifkin's criminal activities. Through expert insights and poignant discussions, the episode sheds light on the intricate challenges faced in solving cold cases and the urgent need for systemic improvements to support missing persons investigations.

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Additional Resources:

• Denise Griffin Case Contact: New Jersey State Police at 609-882-2000 (Case # H0259325)
• Joel Rifkin Information: Joel Rifkin Case Details
• NAMUS: National Missing and Unidentified Persons System

Podcast Credits: Produced by Tenderfoot TV in association with Odyssey. Hosts: Maggie Freeling and Payne Lindsay. Special thanks to Laura Norton.

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For more episodes and true crime stories, visit Tenderfoot TV or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.

Transcript

[Payne Lindsay]

Foreign you're listening to a Tenderfoot TV podcast.

[Maggie Freeling]

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[John Street]

A few miles from the glass spires.

[Payne Lindsay]

Of Midtown Atlanta lies the south river forest in 2021 and 2022 became a home to activists from all over the country who gathered to stop the nearby construction of a massive new police training facility nicknamed Cop City.

[Maggie Freeling]

At approximately 9:00 this morning, as law.

[Payne Lindsay]

Enforcement was moving through various sectors of.

[John Street]

The property, an individual without warning shot.

[Maggie Freeling]

A Georgia State Patrol trooper.

[Payne Lindsay]

This is We Came to the Forest, a story about resistance.

[Laura Norton]

The abolitionist mission isn't done until every.

[John Street]

Prison is empty and shut down.

[Payne Lindsay]

Love and fellowship it was probably the.

[Maggie Freeling]

Happiest I've ever been in my life.

[Payne Lindsay]

And the lengths will go to protect the things we hold closest to our hearts. Follow We Came to the Forest on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of We Came to the Forest early and ad free right now by joining Wondery.

[Laura Norton]

Up and Vanish Weekly is released every Wednesday and brought to you absolutely free but for one week early access and ad free listening. Subscribe to [e-mail] or on Apple Podcasts.

[Maggie Freeling]

This podcast discusses mature and sensitive content, including descriptions of violence that may be triggering for some audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

[John Street]

It's 3:15am on June 28, 1993, as New York State troopers are patrolling the Southern State Parkway, they notice a truck with no Rear license plate. Moments later, they pull behind the tan 1984 Mazda pickup and turn their lights on. Instead of stopping, the driver increases their speed and troopers soon find themselves in a quickly escalating high speed chase. Officers continue their pursuit, but the chase abruptly ends when the driver collides with a pole. Troopers slow to a stop, approach the truck, calling out to the driver. As they close in, they see a bumper sticker that reads, sticks and stones may break my bones, but whips and chains excite me. They cautiously approach the truck, not knowing the state of the driver. As they inch closer, they identify an unmistakable odor. The driver is pulled from the vehicle and troopers discover a horrific scene. Inside the vehicle is the decomposing body of a woman. The driver is immediately taken into custody and interrogated by authorities. As grisly as this discovery was, things soon became much more ominous. What initially began as a high speed chase quickly evolved into the discovery of one of New York's most notorious serial killers, initiating a decades long process to track down and identify his many victims. From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta, I'm Payne Lindsay.

[Maggie Freeling]

And I'm Maggie Freeling, and you're listening.

[John Street]

To up and Vanished Weekly.

[Maggie Freeling]

Hey, y'all. Welcome back to up and Vanished Weekly. I'm Maggie Freeling. Today I want to break away from our normal way of doing things to talk to you about a couple of disappearances that happened in the New York area back in the 1990s. I grew up around this area where the disappearances happened, but I was very young at the time. I grew up knowing who Joel Rifkin was. He was infamous on Long island, but I never knew anything about the women whose lives he took. Rifkin's crimes are gruesome and senseless. He's admitted to killing over a dozen women, but two have never been identified. They're known as Victim 6 and Victim 9. And because they went missing before modern technology, there's no paper trail or digital footprint to trace. So not much is known about them or what may have happened to them. But that doesn't mean they don't have people who care about them even today. I first found out about 6 and 9 while I was watching a recent A and E documentary called Cold Case. The Rifkin murders. New York state troopers are actively trying to find out who 6 and 9 are. And in order to do that, they have to understand more about the man who's admitted to taking their lives. And so we're going to do the same. But I know it's tricky because in many ways. It's a slippery slope to talk about serial killers because some of them commit their crimes for attention and notoriety, so talking about them only feeds their egos. But I do think that to try and unpack who victim six and nine are, we have to understand the context around the crimes that Rifkin admitted to, starting with who he is and how he became one of the most prolific serial killers in New York. Here's Payne with more.

[John Street]

Joel Rifkin was born on January 20, 1959. His mother was an unwed college student who put him up for adoption. At just three weeks old, he went into the care of Bernard and Jan Rifkin. He was an only child for a few years until age three when Joel's parents adopted a girl named Jan. The family lived in East Meadow, Long Island. At a young age, he developed learning disabilities, physical challenges and a stutter, and endured incisive bullying as early as a kindergartner, Rifkin was different from his peers and was an outcast. Throughout middle school and high school he remained close to his mother, but he lacked social connection with others. As he withdrew, his resentment manifested into sexual deviation and fantasies of killing. When Rifkin was arrested on June 28, 1993, he had been working as a landscaper. The decomposing remains in his car would later be identified as 22 year old Tiffany Bresciani. During his interrogation, Rifkin confessed to killing multiple women. He explained that his victims were sex workers whom he met and then violently murdered. After he murdered them, he dismembered their bodies so they could not be identified. Rifkin admitted that he became fascinated with the idea of raping and strangling women at a very young age. When he claimed his first victim, he said he soon became addicted to murder. He went on to share with authorities how at times he would brutally remove their fingerprints, dismember their bodies and discard their body parts in various places, including the Brooklyn Canal and East River. When authorities searched his home, they found a variety of women's items disheveled around his room. Just months later, Rifkin was convicted of nine counts of second degree murder and sentenced to 203 years in prison. At his sentencing in 1996, he addressed the victims families according to a New York Times article. Here's what he Some of you believe.

[Maggie Freeling]

That I felt that their murder was in some ways justified because they were prostitutes.

[John Street]

But this is untrue.

[Maggie Freeling]

I never felt that way.

[John Street]

Some of them were my friends and.

[Maggie Freeling]

Were kind to me.

[John Street]

My victims were people with dreams and families. And some of them had children of their own. What I have done can never be forgiven. But I ask you to believe me.

[Maggie Freeling]

When I tell you I will never understand the part of me that caused me to do these terrible things to your children. Not only will I go to my.

[John Street]

Death reliving these horrors, but I will go there never knowing why I did them at all. And in a strange twist, Rifkin also gave these chilling Please believe that there.

[Maggie Freeling]

Are other Joel Rifkins walking your streets right now.

[John Street]

Like me, they will eventually be caught.

[Maggie Freeling]

But not until they have caused more suffering and deaths.

[John Street]

I hope society can prevent this. After years of living in the shadows, authorities have pulled a ruthless monster off the streets, finally ending his reign of terror. But in a way, the work was just beginning. With several victims left unidentified, authorities now have the difficult task of understanding the profile and final moments of Rifkin's known victims to help solve the mysteries around the remaining Jane Does.

[Maggie Freeling]

Something that stands out to me about Rifkin is the inward conflict he's expressed about the women he killed. Most serial killers show little or no remorse for their crimes, but Rifkin is different. He's expressed that these girls were his friends and he doesn't know why he killed them. Rifkin began serving his sentence in 1996, and he'll remain in prison for the rest of his life. Normally, you would think that capturing and prosecuting a serial killer like Rifkin would be the end of the story. But in 2023, Rifkin shocked many by saying he was open to cooperating with authorities to help solve who 6 and 9 are. But figuring out the identity of 6 and 9 has proven to be very difficult, mainly because of the disorganization with how missing people were documented back in the 90s and even today. A quick search on NAMUS of the New York City and Long island regions between 1989 and 1993 shows there are still 28 missing females and over 160 unidentified identified females still waiting to be identified. Even when I narrow down the search, There are currently 15 missing females that fit the demographic of a Rifkin victim, and they all went missing from these New York counties. Rifkin was praying in to help identify his other known victims. Rifkin provided information about the women he recalled, such as their names, descriptions, and how he killed them. He also described where he put their bodies. Investigators have showed Rifkin over 100 photos of women in the sex work industry from that time period to see if he could pick out anyone resembling victim 6 and 9. Rifkin stopped on a picture of a woman named Denise Griffin and said she looks like number six. Victim number six's body was never found, but Rifkin admits he killed a young woman around the same time Denise went missing and dumped her body somewhere in the Bronx. Investigators went to the area in the Bronx that seemed like the spot Rifkin was talking about, but they were unable to find anything. So was Rifkin lying or potentially misremembering? When authorities pressed Rifkin again about Number six, he said it's more likely than not that Denise Griffin is number six. But with so little information to go on and no remains to use to make an id, it's proven to be very difficult for authorities to confirm if Number six is Denise. Our discussion continues after a quick break. Y'all, I am just going to drop it right at the top. Quince is one of my favorite brands. With Quince, I get high end, versatile pieces at prices I can actually afford. Literally like half the price of some of these brand name pieces. I can upgrade my style by snagging killer luxury essentials that sync with my vibe and Wallet recently ordered a sculpting mid thigh bodysuit and a silk mini slip dress to wear on top. And let me tell you, it's become my new favorite outfit along with a big chunky sweater. And did you know that Quince has all the must haves like Mongolian cashmere crew neck sweaters from $50, iconic 100% leather jackets and versatile flowknit activewear. And one of my favorite parts about Quint is that they only work with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices along with premium fab and finishes. In the past I've ordered a Turkish robe from Quince and I wear it every single day so you too can indulge in affordable luxury. Go to quince.comvanished weekly for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.comvanishedWeekly to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.comvanishedWeekly.

[Laura Norton]

Every year on February 3rd, people across the country pause to remember those who've gone missing. National Missing Persons Day was founded in 2018 by Joanne Loitzer after her own daughter Alexandria went missing back in 2010. What began as a grassroots movement to remember Alexandria has now evolved into a nationally recognized Day of Remembrance aimed at spreading awareness about missing persons. The sheer number of people reported missing in the us every year is alarming. The National Crime Information center has estimated that over 521,000 missing person cases were reported in 2024 alone. And tragically, almost 40% of those cases were still unsolved at the end of the year. So how can you help? Here are three simple ideas from suncoastpost.com first, use social media to share missing persons alerts, which can increase the chances of finding someone. Next, join local search and rescue organizations or community efforts that assist in missing persons cases. And last, support organizations that provide critical resources for families and law enforcement who keep the fight going. Remember, by working together, we can help combat the missing persons crisis.

[Maggie Freeling]

All right, now back to our case. So who exactly is Denise Griffin? Here's Payne with what we know.

[John Street]

Because Denise vanished in the early 90s, tracking down information about who she is and the circumstances around her disappearance is very difficult. After doing a few online searches, here's what we were able to find. Denise Griffin was born sometime between 1967 and 1968. At the time of her disappearance, she was 24 years old and living in Eatontown, New Jersey which is about an hour drive from New York. Some sources indicate she may have been married at the time, but again, this has not been confirmed. We know Denise had a C section score, so it's possible she has a surviving child. Any additional information about her immediate family remains unconfirmed. The last known sighting of Denise was May 17, 1991. There are reports that she was possibly seen in Manhattan or Brooklyn near Coney Island Hospital. When searching for case file information on Denise, it can only be confirmed that she's a missing person and there's no information available about who reported her missing or any other information from law enforcement, family or friends about the circumstances of her disappearance. According to some online sources, there are reports that in November 1988, Denise was arrested for driving under the influence and making terroristic threats against a county clerk. But since so little is known about Denise's life and the kind of person she was prior to her disappearance, it's important to keep these kinds of reports in perspective. With so little information about one of Rifkin's long suspected victims, authorities have had a difficult time connecting the dots between Denise Griffin and his unknown victim number six. To have any hope of solving this mystery, police would have to work closely with the man who claims to have killed her and see what clues he may offer to help solve this decades old mystery.

[Maggie Freeling]

Although information on Denise Griffin is not widely available, the lead is not a dead end. Rifkin like many serial killers, kept trophies or mementos from his victims. The earrings Rifkin describes from Number Six look similar to one of the trophies found in his home, which is a promising lead. Investigators were able to get a partial DNA match from the earrings, but unfortunately they can't put a partial profile into the database to see if it matches Denise. So they need to find a family member to compare the sample. And while we wait for that, they are also pursuing leads to uncover who victim nine is. Number nine was found in a 55 gallon steel drum floating in Newtown Creek in Brooklyn on May 13, 1992. A silver snake bracelet was found on her, but no DNA was able to be recovered from it. As part of their reinvestigation, New York State Police decided to exhume Number Nine's remains to get her DNA. However, they quickly realized this plan was more complicated than they anticipated. Number nine is buried on Hart Island, New York City's public cemetery. This is where people who have no one to claim them are buried. Over 1 million individuals are buried on Hart island, and unfortunately, many are in mass graves. When authorities went to exhume Number nine, they found her mixed with one hundred and fifty other people. Sorting through everyone to locate and identify her will take time. The only information the national association for Missing An Unidentified Person System lists for victim nine is that she was a white woman, about five seven, 140 pounds, between 20 and 50 years old. It's a wide swath of people to try and pinpoint just one missing person from. There are 400 missing females from the years Rifkin was active. Any one of these daughters, sisters, mothers, cousins, aunts, friends could have come to New York, encountered Rifkin and are still unidentified. There are so many people who have dedicated their lives to covering people like Joel Rifkin and others who have dedicated their lives to finding people like Denise. We're little is known about them and that includes my friend Laura Norton, the host of the podcast the Fall Line. And one strange thing. I've known Laura since I got into doing this kind of work. We're kind of a podcast family and have been on each other's podcasts and I've admired and respected her ever since I first heard of her. Laura takes time and care with each victim and their story and treats them like the humans they are, whether they have a face or not. And for years, Laura has covered all kinds of cases that other media does not take the time to. Whether it's because of their lack of interest bias or because, like Denise, there's not much evidence or information to go on. And because Denise's case is a bit of a puzzle, I want to get her thoughts on it. So stick around for my conversation with Laura after a quick break. You're listening to up and Vanished weekly.

[Payne Lindsay]

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[Laura Norton]

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[Maggie Freeling]

Hey listeners, if you have a tip or theories about a case you want to share or a case of interest you'd like to recommend to us, then we want to hear from you. Email us casesenderfoot tv DM us on Instagram avweekly or give us a call at 770-545-6411. Now here's John with this week's critical missing case.

[Laura Norton]

Hey, Maggie. So here's another really interesting case. 25 year old Kiera Zadie Smith disappeared from the Anchorage, Alaska area on December 1, 2024. Kiera left a family member's residence in Anchorage and she took an Uber to Walmart and she hasn't been seen or heard from since. She was supposed to go to her mother's house, but it's reported that she never showed up. Now what's interesting is that NAMUS also lists her last known location as the Anchorage Airport. Kiera is of African American ethnicity. She has a height of 5 foot 1 inch and a weight of 120 pounds. And she has black hair and black eyes and she would now be 26 years old. So, listeners, if you know any information about the whereabouts of Kiera, please contact the Anchorage Police Department at 907-786-8900. And you can reference case number 2400-37558. Or you can contact Malia Miller with the Alaska State Troopers at 907-269-5511. And you can reference case number Alpha Kilo 2500-3866.

[Maggie Freeling]

All right, now back to our case. Laura, thank you for being here to talk with me about Denise. The little we know and how we can find more information.

[Payne Lindsay]

Absolutely. I'm happy to join you.

[Maggie Freeling]

So you are truly an expert in this field. The work you do is amazing. Can you just give me kind of a top line, what your thoughts are on, on Denise?

[Payne Lindsay]

Well, in terms of fitting the profile as I know it, I think that roughly she does of course fit the profile. She seems to fit chronologically into what Rifkin was doing at the time. What struck me the most was just how little information was available even compared to the other possible victims that they looked at. In terms of the information I was reviewing. And so the first thing that struck me was how can we get more information on Denise to try and compare. And I know that was something you were concerned about too. Right?

[Maggie Freeling]

That's the main thing. It's like, where's her family? Where's this information on her? Who, who is looking for her? Do you often find cases like this?

[Payne Lindsay]

Yes. And when we begin to dig into those cases, of course, the easiest cases to work on that have little information available. Oftentimes that lack of information falls at the feet of the media. It falls at the feet of police that have either been overwhelmed by a number of Cases in a large metro area or cases that have simply been abandoned based on the profile of the victim, they're victims that are considered the less dead, you know, based on sexuality, based on intersectional issues, based on profession, you know, were they involved in sex work? But sometimes it's also people who didn't have a lot of strong connections at the time that they disappeared. And when we see victims like that, the first thing we start to do is try and go back not one year, not five years, but maybe even 10 or 15 years. And to do that, you really have to get back into not only things like census records or ancestry records. You begin to look for things like marriage records. You begin to look at things like birth certificates. But I also start to go back and look at things like middle school yearbooks, high school yearbooks, try to find those connections that existed before someone was an adult to see people who might have known them. Because the interesting thing is we think of ourselves now as a society that is very transitory, but it hasn't always been that way. A lot of people stay where they grew up, and they stay in the same small areas. And I noticed that some people who were commenting even on social media, who said they knew Denise were from New Jersey. So you start with those kinds of people. And of course, I know you do this as a reporter. What's the first thing you do? You start messaging people and saying, can I get a comment? But if you go and try and find, like, alumni groups for a high school, even if someone didn't graduate, they may know that person. You can find old addresses. You can go to those addresses, you know, and we tend to think about Googling an address. I know you go to libraries. You go to the library. What do they often have? Old phone books. So that's the kind of place where we start to try and make those little connections where they're not so obvious.

[Maggie Freeling]

So, you know, an armchair detective who hears this and wants to help find Denise. Is something like a birth certificate or a marriage record publicly available?

[Payne Lindsay]

It totally depends on the state. Some of this is going to be on ancestry, so you can at least see that it exists. And whether or not it's going to be publicly available is totally dependent on the state in general. It's going to at least show you there's a record, and that can get you on the way, because if it's there, someone can go. But I do want to caution armchair detectives, just because it's there, it doesn't mean that you personally need to reach out to people. But that is something that at least creates a connection. Right. And that lets, you know, okay, if I'm going to make say a missing persons poster, I can target that poster for that area, you know, geolocate it. It costs $10 to run a Facebook ad or an Instagram ad. People will respond to that.

[Maggie Freeling]

I remember listening to it was actually Billy Jensen. Talking about geolocating and using that kind of technology is fascinating. So I want to talk about the DNA that was found in this case. So there was a partial profile found earrings that may be Denise's earrings. They were the ones that Rifkin says he remembers that particular victim number six wearing. But they were not able to upload this profile. So can you help explain to listeners the problem with partial DNA? Now the investigators are saying they need to find her family. So they're probably using a lot of these techniques we just discussed in tracking down her family to, to get a full profile.

[Payne Lindsay]

Absolutely. And as you and I were discussing privately amongst ourselves, I do want to add the caveat that like, I'm not a DNA expert, I wrote a book that covered some of this stuff. But I describe myself as like a high school student of DNA who works with people who are experts. And they have kindly explained things to me. But the basic concept, and I was just talking to my friend Karen Binder, who is one of the sort of old school genetic investigative genealogists here up in New Jersey. She runs a whole program. We were talking, talking about this. The issue with a partial profile is that there's not enough discrimination to it. It's missing some essential key features. The way to think about it is, would be a kind of bad witness description of a perpetrator. Right. So imagine this, a dark haired woman with some tattoos walked into a convenience store. I just describe both of us. I'm twice your size. We look nothing alike. You have a lot more tattoos than me. And we have facial features that are completely different. However, we both fit that profile and based on that, we both get grouped in. And that's kind of how partial DNA works. Because working in unidentified persons, I've actually shared pieces of DNA with a couple of the John and Jane Doe cases I've worked on. And that little piece of DNA basically makes me a fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh cousin to that person. But if they had just been able to get that one little piece, it would have solved nothing. So they need enough of these special segments of DNA to meet this threshold that will actually help them match up. And the reason they're going to need family members is that you can't retest DNA that's already on file in different ways. That's something a lot of people don't quite get right. But if they can get a close family member of Denise and run it against that, they may be able to fill in some of those missing pieces and then say, oh, okay. And then be able to lay it against it and say these match up in this precise way. Suddenly the profile has a higher discrimination.

[Maggie Freeling]

So that also brings us to namus, which is something I've been wanting to talk about forever and I'm so happy to have you here to talk about it. We don't have a unified unidentified and missing person system in the us we have namus. Can you kind of explain for listeners who might not be familiar what exactly NAMUS is?

[Payne Lindsay]

Sure. So NAMUS was developed for that purpose. It was based kind of roughly on some of the community ones that already existed, like the DO Network, which was developed by my late friend Todd Matthews. The issue with NAMUS is that at the current moment, reporting is not compulsory in all states. It's roughly half of the states have compulsory NAMUS reporting. So until NAMUS reporting is compulsory for all states, we simply do not have a listing of all of the missing and unidentified people there in the system.

[Maggie Freeling]

So what you're saying is there are law enforcement agencies that are not uploading some of their missing people to this system.

[Payne Lindsay]

There are some who have uploaded none.

[Maggie Freeling]

I think a lot of people would find that shocking to know.

[Payne Lindsay]

Yeah. And what it comes down to is I think that a lot of law enforcement agencies don't quite understand the purpose of it yet. I think it comes down to having it explained a little differently. There's already ncis, there's codis, and so people see it as entering information over and over again. I think the essential piece that's missing is that those systems are not available to the public. And NAMUS is. So when we have namus, anyone can access it, a family member can access it, someone who is looking around, you know, has heard of a case, can access it. And having that public facing system is so essential. And I think that law enforcement really has to understand that there's also a huge backlog. So for instance, there is a personnel who works only with indigenous sovereign nations in the United States to help them get their backlog. And that's Cornelia Perry. And she started out only working to help Navajo cases from the Navajo Nation get uploaded. But now she's actually going out and helping get other Cases uploaded. And this wasn't because people didn't want to upload them. It was because there was such a huge backlog of cases, so many tiny departments who did not have administrative support to do it. So you're looking at a department that has two or three people in it. There's simply not somebody to sit there and upload 200 cases to Namus. So it's the idea of having that administrative support as well, training people how to put the information into NamUs, because you upload it and then it has to be approved before the information appears. And there's a whole backend that the average user can't see that has information like dental records, DNA results, rule outs, all kinds of stuff as well. So just having more support would be incredibly helpful.

[Maggie Freeling]

Yeah. And just to put this in context of Denise, maybe this woman could have been from California. A missing persons report was filed in California, but that never made it into namus. You could have a missing person from California and then an unidentified person that shows up in New York, a body, and never have that report put in NamUs. So someone might not even know to check for that missing person.

[Payne Lindsay]

It's one of the biggest issues, and one of the other issues is that people are often not reported missing or the reports don't get filed correctly or a case can be improperly closed. That was the case of Susan Lund, the woman that I discussed in my book. Her case was improperly closed by law enforcement, so her remains stayed unidentified for another 30 years. So these are all kind of the holes in the system that we really have to look at.

[Maggie Freeling]

More of our discussion after a quick break. You're listening to up and Vanish weekly.

[Payne Lindsay]

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[Laura Norton]

Hey, it's John from the up and Vanish team. If you're enjoying this episode, then you should check out the latest installment of the Monster franchise by iheart and Tenderfoot TV entitled Monster BTK. When 10 victims were found murdered between 1974 and 1991, the community of Wichita, Kansas was panicked for answers, and their nervousness only surged. As the killer sent taunting letters to police and made chilling phone calls to media outlets. He became notoriously known by the moniker btk Bind, Torture, Kill. When the killer's identity was finally revealed in 2005, his family, community, and the world at large was shocked. He was the serial killer next door. Listen to Monster BTK wherever you get your podcasts. Now back to the show.

[Maggie Freeling]

So I guess just in terms of Denise, when you were looking into it, how did you feel about the potential of her being victim number six?

[Payne Lindsay]

I mean, obviously I'm not an expert on this case, but in terms of the potential victims they were discussing, she seemed likely to me to be someone that should be compared. And I hope that they do go and speak to her remaining family members based on just some quick looking around I did. There did seem to be some people who claim to be related to her. And so I hope that they do go out and get some buccal swabs so they can begin to look into this.

[Maggie Freeling]

So in terms of victim number nine, and I just hate calling them numbers, but I mean, this is, this is where we're at. This is what law enforcement, enforcement is calling them. She is in a mass grave. We do know that. We just don't know who she is. I am so curious about the process of going through a mass grave trying to identify her.

[Payne Lindsay]

So it sounds impossible, I think, at the face of things, but I really want to point to something that's been going on in Detroit for a few years now, and it's called Operation United, and it is a task force that's made up of the local FBI and Detroit police and forensic anthropologists in the area. And they had a huge issue with mass graves of unidentified victims and also unclaimed persons that had been buried together for a long time. And some of them were mass graves, and some of them were simply graves where records had not been kept. Well, over a couple of cemeteries, if I'm correct. And we're talking hundreds of people.

[Maggie Freeling]

Sure.

[Payne Lindsay]

So they had records, but they couldn't figure out precisely who was where. So what they've begun to do is work together with the anthropologists, the FBI and police to do not exhumations, but excavations. So an exhumation would be fully bringing up a decedent out of the ground. And, you know, studying that way, an excavation would be digging down into the earth until you're able to expose enough to do an identification based on some key factors. And those would be anything unique about the bone, Dental records, things you have on hand and things we know that they know about a few. And so they've been very carefully just going through and IDing people that way so that if it's someone who was a homicide victim and they still don't know who killed them, they can then fully exhume that person for DNA testing. Or in some cases, they're getting a sample right there, and they're very slowly chipping away at this problem. We did an episode actually on the fall line about this and interviewed everyone involved. And a lot of the anthropologists involved in this had actually dealt with mass graves in countries where huge war crimes have been committed and have been looking at this. But there are practical ways to do this. It's just a matter of getting organized and getting the right people in there to do it.

[Maggie Freeling]

So how long does something like that take?

[Payne Lindsay]

A long time. I think a lot of it is the red tape part of it. But the thing with forensic anthropologists and biological anthropologists working together is they often are training their students, because a big part of students work is field work, and this is field work. So the combination of the medical examiner, the attorneys involved, the police, the FBI, they would go all together with a team of a hundred people and they would just work. And this was all started by one woman, a local detective, who had just piles of missing person cases on her desk. And she knew that the answers were there in the potter's field, and so she began to just make these connections. So this absolutely can happen. It just takes concerted community effort. And they're still closing cases one by one by one, getting people ID'd and getting remains returned to families.

[Maggie Freeling]

Wow. So I think that's what they're hoping to do with number nine. And we, I think we do have her dental record, so hopefully they will find her quickly.

[Payne Lindsay]

Yeah, I hope so, you know, but yeah, dental records are such a key factor in id, and I suspect for a lot of of the victims and decedents who are buried out there, they will have enough records to do some id.

[Maggie Freeling]

Laura, thank you so much for discussing all this with me.

[Payne Lindsay]

Absolutely.

[Maggie Freeling]

It's challenging to solve cases like Denise's and unidentified victim 6 and 9. The likelihood that their cases will be solved declines with each passing day. With Denise, it's unclear if investigators were will ever find her loved ones to get DNA or more information. If you're listening to this episode and you believe you may be related to Denise Griffin, I encourage you to reach out to authorities to help get this case solved. Until authorities are able to get additional DNA to use for testing, the painstaking process of searching for the families of victims 6 and 9 continues. During his confession, Rifkin identified his victims as sex workers. And I need to pause and talk about this because far too often the victims of horrific crimes get labeled with taboo titles like Prostitute society, and even authorities make judgment calls about them, and inevitably they become forgotten. And it's astonishing to me that the victims whose lives were taken get lost in the process and their humanity gets glossed over just because of what they do to make make ends meet. This can make it difficult to identify these women. And it's not uncommon for people like this to go unidentified for years because loved ones are ashamed at how they're being portrayed. The stigma associated with this lifestyle that distances the victims from their families and contributes to either no missing person report or a delayed report is a huge issue. And then once a report is made, victim blaming can lead to a lack of response from community and law enforcement. And when we look into these issues, it's easy to see why. For decades, serial killers have targeted sex workers. According to the National Institute of Health, sex workers are victims of violence at up to 18 times higher than the national average for women. In a study examining prostitution, violence and post traumatic stress disorder adult prostitutes, Their Word, not mine, reported that 82% had been physically assaulted, 83% have been threatened with a weapon, and 64% have been raped while working. And I want to make very clear, we cannot confirm Denise or victim six and nine were sex workers. For now, we'll wait until more information can be found that will help authorities confirm these women's identities. Denise Griffin is described as being 5 6, 105 pounds with blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair. Identifying marks include a keloid on her left shoulder and a lateral possible C section scar across her lower abdomen. Denise would now be 57 years old. Victim 9 is described as being 5'seven 140 lbs. Between 20 and 50 years old. If you have any information about Denise Griffin's disappearance, please contact New Jersey State Police at 609-882-2000 and reference case number H0259325. You can also contact the New Jersey Cold case unit at 609-882-2000, extension 5257 A huge thank you to Laura Norton for joining me for this episode. If you're not familiar with her work, go check out her podcast, the Fall Line and One Stranger Thing and check out her new book, Lay Them To Rest. It has become a personal favorite of mine. Everybody, thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode. I'll be back with you next week as we dig into another case. Stay safe, y'all.

[John Street]

Up and Vanish Weekly is a production of Tenderfoot TV in association with Odyssey. Your hosts are Maggie Freeling and myself, Payne Lindsay. The show is written by Maggie Freeling, myself and John Street. Executive producers are Donald Albright and myself. Lead producer is John Street. Additional production by Meredith Steadman and Mike Rooney. Research for the series by Jamie Albright, Celicia Stanton and Carolyn Tallmadge. Edit and mix by Dylan Harrington and Sean Nurney. Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan. Artwork by Byron McCoy. Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Special thanks to Oren Rosenbaum and the team at uta, Beck Media and Marketing and the Nord Group. For more podcasts like up and Vanish Weekly, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app or visit us@Tenderfoot TV. Thanks for listening.

[Maggie Freeling]

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[Payne Lindsay]

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[Maggie Freeling]

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[Payne Lindsay]

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