Back in 1993 when I was working 3rd shift at a local Denny's as a waiter, my co-worker and I may have saved a womans life!

It was an unusually slow night and it was only me, and three other workers in the building. We had all of our side work done and were sitting around bull shitting as usual. Finally a customer came in and sat by himself in the smoking section. I remember bringing him water and letting him look at the menu for a while. I was never one to judge, but he gave off this "I'm a loser" kinda vibe. I can't remember what he ordered, but he sat there for at least 45 minutes, secluded.

Finally another customer came in. She was a friendly lady, I would guess in her 30's, and we sat her in the non-smoking section on the opposite side of the restaurant from the man that was there. As she placed her beverage order, we began talking about how she was driving from Massachusetts to Ohio by herself that night. My co-worker and I spoke to her a while before we went back to the kitchen. A few minutes later I went back to the dining room area, and there was the man with his food, sitting at her table! As he ate I could see she was signalling to me that something wasn't right. I approached the table and as I began to ask if she needed anything, he got up to use the bathroom. Once that door closed, she told us that he was freaking her out. We took her to the employee break room in the back of the restaurant and told her to stay there.

As the waitress and I went to the front, he came out and started being a dick, asking where his "friend" went. We told him that she left and he immediately paid his check, got in his shitty little pickup truck, and stalked the restaurant and the surrounding hotels. After seeing him drive through a few times, we called the troopers. They took a while to get there, and when they arrived, the man didn't appear. Once the troopers left, the freak reappeared, driving around and around. We called the troopers again, and when they arrived a second time, we couldn't find the guy. This went on a few times until we finally had a cop walk the lady to her car and drive behind her on Interstate-84 for a good distance to assure her safety.

It wasn't until around 6:45am that we saw this dickhead again. As our shift was ending, he came in to eat breakfast. Once he placed his order, I told the cooks to take their time so that I could gets the cops to show up long before the guy had a chance to leave. As I served him his food, a trooper came in with an annoyed look on his face. I guess the cop knew about the wild goose chase this guy had his fellow officers on that night, but he was glad to see the guy was still there. He approached the guy, and the three of us went outside. I listened to the questions the cop asked him. Name? Where you from? Is that your vehicle? Where's your ID? Blah blah blah.

Unfortunately "I was just a waiter" who was imagining that this guy was crazy. That's the impression I got from the cop. The guy didn't have ID on him. He was from Long Island. He was driving his mother's Truck. By law he didn't do anything illegal that night that any cop actually saw, so after a few questions, they let him go back inside and finish his breakfast. I just looked at the cop and said "The guy is a fuckin freak, you can't do anything???" He said "No", and left.

Well, about 5 weeks later, my co-worker that was working with me that night called me and told me to turn on the news. I turned the TV on... there was that familiar face from that night... there was the truck he was driving... his name was Joel Rifkin... he murdered over a dozen women in New York!!!

Click here to read the Crime Story of Joel Rifkin who is now serving a sentence of over 200 years for the murder of 17 women. Story written by Michael Newton.