Balch was murdered and dismembered in New York City, possibly by serial killer Joel Rifkin, who later claimed he killed her, police said.
HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP — For nearly a quarter-century, police wondered who she was.
As her skull sat in a township evidence room, police and investigators publicly speculated the case may never be solved.
Earlier this month, they got their answer. Using DNA evidence, authorities were able to identify the woman whose head was found on a township golf course in March 1989 as Heidi Balch, a 25-year-old New York City resident, police said.
Balch was murdered and dismembered in New York City, possibly by serial killer Joel Rifkin, who later claimed he killed her, police said.
“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, who was HIV-positive and working as a prostitute in 1989, “died a horrible death and led a troubled life,” Hopewell Police Chief George Meyer said yesterday. Meyer was on the scene with Carnall the day the head was found.
“It’s definitely gratifying after all these years,” he said. “I think what we always thought about was, there is a family that’s missing a daughter.”
Part of the reason for the mystery surrounding Balch’s identity was that her parents never reported her missing. Balch was finally reported missing to the New York Police Department in 2001.
Balch may have a connection to Rifkin, who claimed after his 1993 arrest on Long Island with the body of another woman in his pickup truck that he killed Balch while she was working as a prostitute 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 more than 200 years in a New York state prison for nine murders. It’s unlikely New York authorities will seek to try him for Balch’s murder, which police say occurred in their jurisdiction.
“It’s my understanding from the past information they don’t have an interest in prosecuting him because he’s serving 203 years,” Meyer said.
Rifkin claimed he murdered 17 prostitutes. He said he did not know Balch’s real name when he was questioned, but claimed the young woman identified as Balch called herself “Susie.”
Rifkin said “Susie” was his first victim, and said after killing her he knocked out all her teeth and dismembered her to make identification harder. A pair of legs found in a creek in Jefferson Township in Morris County days after the head discovery were linked to the head with a DNA test in 2007.
Carnall said he sees similarities between Balch’s murder and the other killings Rifkin has admitted.
“He obviously did it,” Carnall said. “There’s no doubt.”
“He basically confessed to it. He had information only the killer would know,” Carnall added.
During his time investigating the case, Carnall spent many nights in New York with the NYPD, combing areas of Manhattan where Rifkin supposedly prowled, looking for prostitutes who may have some information on the missing woman.
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, tried a different approach. He got a list of arrestees picked up by the NYPD’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.
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 early this year 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 Spencer was apparently last seen in 1995, Urbanski said.
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 an 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 had 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 yesterday 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.
“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 crime lab compared the DNA with a tissue sample taken from the head in 2004, and the result was a match.
Three weeks ago, Hopewell Chief 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. Now, Balch’s remains can be returned to her family for burial.
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 later revealed the presence of the AIDS virus.
Contact Alex Zdan at azdan@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5705.
CONNECT WITH US:
On mobile or desktop:
• Like Times of Trenton on Facebook
• Follow @TimesofTrenton on Twitter