The young woman's skull had been kept in a Hopewell Township evidence locker for years, in the hope that she could be identified with DNA evidence.
HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP — An infamous Mercer County cold case has been closed.
The woman whose head was found on a Hopewell golf course and legs in Jefferson Township in 1989 has been identified, township police reported today. DNA evidence earlier this month confirmed the dead woman’s identity as Heidi Balch, a 25-year-old New York City woman.
Her skull had sat in a Hopewell evidence room for more than two decades as police and investigators tried to find out who she was. They had publicly speculated the case may never be solved. Now, police believe the young woman working as a prostitute was murdered in New York in March 1989 just days before being dismembered and having her body parts scattered by her killer as he disposed of them.
“It was a long investigation, it was a long, intense investigation,” said former Hopewell Detective Bruce Carnall, who was the lead on the case from 1989 until his retirement in 2005. “This could have been easily put aside and forgotten.”
Balch may have a connection to a notorious serial killer – Joel Rifkin, who claimed in 1993 that he murdered the girl in New York City. No charges have been filed against Rifkin for Balch’s death, and Hopewell police said authorities in New Jersey will not be pressing charges against him.
Rifkin, 54, is serving over 200 years in a New York state prison for nine murders. He claimed he murdered 17 prostitutes during his years of activity as a serial killer, including Balch. He claimed the young woman identified as Balch called herself “Susie.”
Carnall doesn’t just take Rifkin at his word, he sees similarities between Balch’s murder and the other killings Rifkin has admitted to.
“He obviously did it,” Carnall said. “There’s no doubt.”
Working off Rifkin’s confession, New Jersey State Police Detective Steve Urbanski investigated the cold case by going back to police records. Urbanski, who is assigned to the missing persons unit, got a list of arrestees picked up by the New York Police Department’s Ninth Precinct for prostitution offenses around the time of Balch’s disappearance. Out of the 20 names there was only one “Susie” – Susan Spencer.
“All the background checks we did on her, Social Security, we couldn’t find any information on her based on her arrest records,” Urbanski said today.
To add to the difficulty, Spencer had used at least 15 aliases, multiple dates of birth and social security numbers.
But it was a search of missing persons databases that turned on a light for Urbanski. He found a Susan Spencer who had been reported missing by her family in 2001. The only problem was, that particular Susan Spencer was apparently last seen in 1995, Urbanski said.
Urbanski took a chance and ignored that piece of information. On March 5, 24 years to the day that the head was discovered, Urbanski and Hopewell Lt. Bill Springer and Detective Mike Sherman went to New York City to meet with the aunt who had filed the missing persons report.
“We showed her the picture and she said, ‘Oh, that’s Heidi, she uses (the name) Susan Spencer,’” Urbanski said. “I think I was sold with that.”
The aunt explained that a friend of hers claimed she saw Balch in Brooklyn in 1995, but the aunt herself hadn’t seen Balch since 1988 or 1989, Urbanski said.
The case was coming together, but police said today they sought DNA tests to verify their information. So Urbanski and the Hopewell detectives journeyed to Baltimore earlier this month and met with Balch’s mother face to face.
“You could see some similarities,” Urbanski said.
She provided them with a DNA sample, and authorities in Florida obtained DNA from Balch’s father, who now lives there. The State Police’s crime lab compared the DNA to a tissue sample taken from the head in 2004, and the result was a match.
Three weeks ago, Hopewell Police Chief George Meyer was able to make a phone call Carnall had been awaiting for more than two decades.
“It’s the fulfillment of my whole career,” Carnall said.
A golfer on the seventh hole of the Hopewell Valley Golf Club stumbled upon the head near the waters of the Stony Brook on March 5, 1989. A blood test just a few weeks later revealed the presence of the AIDS virus.
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