Deliverance by the Sea
(“Dirty Little Secret,” Forensic Files)
Before going into this week’s recap, I’d like to share some exciting news — Bizarrepedia included True Crime Truant on its “Best True Crime Blogs and Websites” list.
Thanks much to the editors at the popular site for taking the time to check out my blog.
And speaking of all things bizarre, this week’s featured Forensic Files episode involves two people who put the “tan” in “satanic.”
“Dirty Little Secret” tells the story of a double homicide that happened after two middle-class couples met by chance at a bar in seaside getaway Ocean City, Maryland, on May 25, 2002.
Friendly fiends. The four hit it off so well that they went to a club together and then headed back to one couple’s penthouse condo to have more drinks and enjoy the hot tub.
Martha “Genie” Crutchley and her boyfriend, Joshua Ford, had no idea that Erika and Benjamin Sifrit were ghouls.
The friendly, respectable-seeming Sifrits had no criminal records and owned the Memory Laine scrapbooking store in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Erika, who grew up in Pennsylvania, had been a good student and basketball player. Benjamin Sifrit, known as B.J., was a former Navy Seal who graduated first in his class.
Unsuspecting victims. But the sun-loving pair were so horrible I almost don’t want to write about them — except to let the public know which prison they call home and whether or not they have any chance of getting out.
So I’ll make the recap quick (last time I said that, the post ended up 1,228 words long, but this time I really mean it):
Shortly after Genie, a 51-year-old insurance executive, and Joshua, a 32-year-old mortgage broker, got back to the Sifrit’s place in the Rainbow condo complex, their new friends set in motion a thrill kill game so awful that they make Leopold and Loeb seem like humanitarians.
Breastaurant heist. The Sifrits, both 24, terrorized, humiliated, and shot and stabbed to death the innocent couple from Fairfax, Virginia. Then they disposed of their bodies in a macabre fashion.
Fortunately, Genie’s and Joshua’s coworkers quickly reported them missing and detectives found witnesses who recalled seeing them and the Sifrits together on a shuttle bus to the night spot Seacrets.
(During his Forensic Files interview, Detective Scott Bernal described Seacrets as “one of the hottest night clubs in Ocean City.” I didn’t realize there were hot clubs in Maryland.)
The case broke wide open when a silent alarm summoned local police to a Hooters gift shop (yeah, I know). They found Erika and B.J. loading stolen Hooters merchandise into their Jeep.
Mementos. Detectives discovered Erika had the missing couple’s drivers licenses in her purse and found a photo of her wearing Josh’s ring on a chain around her neck — trophies from the kills.
Erika ended up making a deal with prosecutors after investigators built a solid case against the Sifrits, including ballistic (hollow point bullets) and blood evidence in their rented condo.
But the agreement fell apart when it became apparent that Erika participated in the killings to a greater degree than she originally claimed.
She ended up getting the longer sentence, life plus 20 years; the jury convicted her of one count of first-degree and one count of second-degree murder.
B.J. received 38 years after a jury found him guilty of one count of second-degree murder.
By the way, the Sifrits turned against each other at the trial.
So, do these two eastern seaboard versions of Deliverance hillbillies have any chance of tasting salt water and freedom again?
For Erika, probably not.
Drab accommodations. In 2014, U.S. District Court Judge Richard D. Bennett denied her appeal — the last of many she filed over the years — in which she claimed she was mentally ill at the time of the murders, her husband dominated her, and her lawyer, Arch Tuminelli, made errors during the trial.
The judge noted that her “claims are exhausted,” indicating legal avenues for exoneration have closed, according to a Maryland Coastal Dispatch story. (Warning: The article contains some gruesome details I could have lived without knowing.)
Erika, now 39, resides at Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in the town of Jessup.
Her husband, who occupies a cell at Roxbury Correctional Institution in Hagerstown, Maryland, has a much better chance of exiting prison on his two feet.
Stay gone. A judge gave him the 38-year sentence after lead prosecutor Joel Todd said that B.J. Sifrit “needs to be warehoused because he cannot be rehabilitated.” But the former military man is eligible for parole in 2021, when he’ll be in his mid-40s.
Let’s hope that’s enough time for friends and family members of the victims to plan a letter-writing campaign to keep B.J. Sifrit and his swastika tattoo behind razor wire for as long as possible — which in this case means 2040.
That’s all for this week’s post. Until next week, cheers. — RR
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Love this piece, thanks, it’s a riot. Just thinking about the whole matter of allegory. The Sifrits are animals, and the name sounds like ‘ferret.’ It’s a short hop to talking animals and a story line. Criminals are beneficial to the imagination! And animals are cute. True Crime Truant is wonderfully thought provoking.
Thanks! I would definitely take my chances against a bear robbed of her cubs or hungry Burmese tiger over the Sifrits.
Then you have never encountered a bear.
Then you never encountered the Sifrits!
but oh, yes i have. and much worse.
and the bear, too.
We’d like to hear about your encounter(s) with the Sifrits, I’m sure, being glad that you survived it…
And the bear…
I am a bounty hunter and nature photographer from the Northeastern Cascade mountains. Six months out of the year I hunt criminals, six months I venture out photographing wildlife for the Getty group.
The Sifrits are a metaphor for the others I have encountered that would make them appear tame.
The bears and I have had our conversations over the 30 years I have resided up yonder.
Yes, of course there’s worse than those two. It’s the male-female duality I thinks disturbs about them – unusual but by no means unheard of – and perhaps an aura of unstable menace.
Stay safe from both human and ursine danger…
PS: He’s eligible for parole in ’21; she in ’24. With one murder ii conviction parole’s understandable in principle in his case, but she has two convictions, at i and ii, and that should mean life to me – or much longer than she could have. They’re only 42.
He will be released on parole. She will not.
Well put!
Yeow. Hair-raising. BTW, I binge-watched FF in a hotel last night after a long evening of presenting. One of them was the guy who killed two teenagers in England.
That doesn’t ring a bell. Does this mean there’s an episode I haven’t seen?
Just from memory it sounds like the low rent character from some English village improbably named ‘Pitchfork’ whose case heralded the first time DNA was ever used. Mid-80s-ish.
He even had the low cunning to send a friend with a fake ID to give a blood sample during a (presumably also the first) DNA ‘dragnet’.
The friend babbled too much in a pub afterwards…they always do…and the slimeball Pitchfork was nabbed.
Like most of us, criminals tend to forget that telling one person is the same as telling everyone.
Congrats on the Bizarrepedia shout out! That’s really cool. And yes, this particular episode is the kind of story that makes you never want to go on vacation or talk to people or leave your house. Of course, plenty of people die in crazy ways inside their own homes, so I guess there are no guarantees!
So true! And as I’m fond of saying, friendliness is a blessing and a curse.
Stories like this make me afraid of talking to strangers! I hope they remain locked up for life.
Ditto!
What the Sifrits did was so evil that I was thinking this episode needed a warning label. (Hot tubbing with two severed heads?) So despite being inherently curious, and also despite loving this blog because I too want to know more, I am appreciating RR’s caution against reading the article she discusses above.
This case definitely showed me the limits of my own curiosity.
I knew Josh, when he was married to my (now ex) sister-in law’s daughter. He lived in Iowa for awhile, and they had a child together. They split up on friendly terms, and I remember him being a really nice kid. They came to a Halloween party that we had, and I still have pics of him from that night. Also met his mom at their baby shower, super sweet lady. Those murderers….. they do not even deserve to live, and I hope that they never see a day of freedom again.
Brenda: Yes, they’re appalling – and she seems even worse than him. Wicked is certainly the word for her.
RR: The ep that Mike mentions, above, and your query, is, I think, about a Colin Pitchfork, who raped and murdered two girls in Leicestershire, England (not far from where I live) – on FF ‘cos it was an early, if the first, example of DNA being used to convict, if I remember correctly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Pitchfork
Unbelievably he’s in an open prison (minimum security) and likely to receive parole (he’s only 58). I wrote to the Parole Board arguing this is atrocious. There was no ‘mental health’ mitigation: the parole is for so-called exemplary behaviour in prison. But what value two girl’s lives??? Surely in the US there’s no way he’d ever be released?
I just discovered this blog and love it. Heavily fascinated with forensic science and FF has been my favorite show since I was about 12 (28 now). Not too many episodes spook me out, but this one was just plain creepy. I still can’t believe neither Erika not B.J. didn’t receive LWOP or worse and hope they stay behind bars for the maximum sentence time. Despicable!
Thank you for the kind words about the blog. And I agree about the Sifrits — they’re too sadistic to be freed from prison.
You should be careful about what you write on an open forum.
Why so?
think…
Pray tell!
I completely recall these two monsters when the incident occurred …..knew all about this case. NEITHER ANIMAL SHOULD BE REPRIEVED……..EVER!!!!!!
They’re bad to the bone.
It’s people like the Sifrits who make the new campaign to end life sentences without parole (LWOP) difficult to agree with. For the record, LWOP is the new death penalty among the prison reform crowd. They say even murderers should be given a shot at life on the outside. From a committee article I read something to the effect of “the suffering endured for decades in prison equals the suffering shared by the family of the deceased.”
We cannot let free murderers whose MO or case indicates they may have the propensity or desire to strike again.
There’s also discussion particularly about juveniles sentenced to life and how unfair it is since they haven’t fully matured. In the episode “Breaking News” Hope was stabbed several times including in the throat by a complete stranger from her apartment building, let in on the pretense of wanting a glass of water. This cold-blooded murderer was 16. He knew what he was doing. He was mature enough. I can’t remember if he was sentenced to LWOP but if he was, it should stay that way.
The Sifrits and the majority of their ilk on FF belong behind bars at least until they’re too old to be of much danger to anyone.
I think she is beautiful. She has served long enough. The pretty ones are all treated better in the United States. It’s just how it works. What possible good does it do to keep her locked away? Everyone screws up somewhere in their lives. She was a young girl. She is not evil.
Did I read this correctly?
Both of these scum deserve the death penalty.
Every state needs the death penalty. And these two need to be erased from existence by way of electrocution and cremation with their ashes flushed down the dirtiest public bathroom toilet.
Amen!
Both of these monsters deserve to die of old age in prison. They are murderous, blood thirsty animals and deserve to live out their lives in a cage.
I second that!
Both of these c*nts should have gotten the death penalty.
Thank goodness he was denied parole on April 28, 2022.
I have to admit I think about them fairly often both because of the peculiarity of the case and because they dumped the bodies in my little state. Peculiar because of, especially, her background. Upper middle class, adoring parents, W&M grad, athlete, etc. Very odd indeed. I agree. NEVER let them out.
Agree, never let them out.
Being a therapist I can tell you FAR more about the case than a self-published and incorrect book ever could. Erika came from a very controlling family (her father) who had wanted a son and not a daughter. He got her into sports to get himself recognition. She was never a great student or basketball player. When she went off to college and away from her father’s influence, her grades tanked and she was removed from the basketball team because she was not any good. She only did well when she was under someone else’s control. She was Bipolar and had ADHD, which went completely unmedicated once she left home. This caused her to search out a replacement “controlling person” to look up to. She found BJ. The problem with this pairing is that BJ was not into being the controlling person in a relationship at all. His inability/lack of desire to control her 24/7 led them to constantly fight, and to Erika doing more and more dangerous stunts to get him to seize control. She single-handedly robbed three restaurants in broad daylight while he was getting tattooed just to get his attention. This was proven in court by the tattoo shop owner testified to her coming in and telling everyone she had done it. BJ has never been guilty of anything but trying to protect her from herself and her self-destructive behavior. SHE is the one who shot both people in Ocean City and then stabbed them. SHE is the one who woke him up afterwards telling him to “fix it”, SHE is the one is the one who called daddy and told him BJ did it all and to save her, even though she completely failed a lie detector test and lost her plea bargain due to that. Yes, he dismembered the bodies and disposed of them in an attempt to protect his wife and his marriage. SHE also wanted to rob the Hooters store right after the murders in the actual hope of getting caught. BJ never even knew she had kept mementos of the murders until their arrest. He had never even gotten out of the jeep at the store that she was robbing.
Then again, when all one has to go by, is one-sided media reports…I guess it’s expecting too much to get the facts straight. BJ has been a model inmate and Erika has been nothing but a drama queen since going to prison-flirting with many men through the mail, promising them things she can never provide, making deals for money, etc. Even her own attorneys accused her of being a dangerous person who should never be released.
Thank you for writing in with this — what a complicated and disturbing past Erika had to process. Hard to say whether ghouls are born or made that way. Maybe in her case it’s both. It’s an explanation but not an excuse.
H does a second degree sentence go to the guy creep. Go figure!
Because he didn’t kill them, she did…proven in court and in her lie detector test.