Many punks and hardcore types will know Reagan Youth as one the best bands to come out of New
York during the early 1980s. As well as playing some blinding live shows, the band were renowned both
for their amazingly angry songs such as ‘Disorder’, ‘New Aryans’ and ‘I hate hate’ or for the ingenuity of
their later stuff, like ‘Miss Teen America’ or ‘Jesus was a Communist’. The tragic story of the
suicide of the band’s singer, Dave Insurgent, after the murder of his girlfriend, Tiffany Bresciani, is
much less well known, however.

Born five years before Dave Insurgent to unmarried teenage parents, Joel Rifkin was adopted at just
three weeks old in 1959. Despite being intelligent (he had an IQ of 128) Rifkin did badly at school and
was bullied, with people calling him ‘the Turtle’ due to his slouched posture and slow footsteps.
After graduating in 1977, Rifkin held a series of short-lived jobs, and spent the majority of his time living at home with his parents. Meanwhile, Insurgent and Reagan Youth
were releasing some great records and were very much active anarchists, playing some shows with the
Dead Kennedys on the ‘Rock against Rascism’ tour. Unfortunately for the band, Insurgent discovered
drugs and the clarity of his radical ideas was rapidly and sadly replaced by his heroin addiction.
Eventually, years of touring with no profit also began to take their toll, and a tired out Reagan Youth
quite fittingly officially disbanded when Ronald Reagan left the White House.

Unfortunately for Rifkin, his meandering existence was shattered in 1987 when his father, the
terminally-ill Ben Rifkin, ended his life. After the death of his father, Rifkin’s life took a turn away from
the comfortable home-life that he was used to, and he began to visit prostitutes. Rifkin also became
obsessed with serial killers, especially those who killed prostitutes, and started to collect books and
newspaper clippings concerning famous mass-murderers. At some point, Rifkin’s obsession crossed
over from being merely a detached fascination and became much more serious, leading to him
committing his first murder (of a prostitute) in 1989.

By the early 90s, Insurgent had met his fiancee, Tiffany Bresciani. Like David she was a heroin addict,
although she resorted to prostitution rather than music and drug dealing to fund her addiction. By May
1993 Insurgent was at even more of a low: his mother had died in a car accident, his band had split up,
he had lost much of the respect that had previously been afforded to him by his anarchist peers and
increasingly he was having to rely on Tiffany’s prostitution to fund his own drug abuse.

On June 24th, Bresciani was approached by a regular customer in a pick-up truck : Joel Rifkin. The pair
followed the usual routine: Tiffany would go with the customer to have sex, while Dave would wait
around for her return in 20 minutes. When Bresciani failed to return, Insurgent panicked and called the
police and then all the emergency rooms in the city, frantically trying to find his girlfriend.

It wasn’t until several days later in the early hours of June 28th that Bresciani’s body would be
discovered. Two state troopers working the night shift in Long Island noticed a pick-up truck that bore
no license plates, and decided to pull it over to issue a ticket for what was essentially a minor crime.
When the driver failed to stop, the troopers persued and, after a chase lasting well over an hour,
managed to force the truck off the road. With the police armed with pistols, the driver of the truck - Joel
Rifkin - was forced to give himself up. The two police officers quickly discovered the truck’s grim
contents - Bresciani’s body wrapped in plastic - and charged Rifkin with murder. At his trial, Rifkin was
found to have murdered 17 women in just a four year period around the New York area, with Bresciani
being his final victim. He was sentenced to 203 years in prison.

The needless deaths of both his mother and fiancee was simply too much for Dave Insurgent, and he
committed suicide a month after. Although he left behind him a musical legacy that will always be
remembered, it’s such a tragic shame that he died so needlessly.