Doctor's lurid death in N.Y. stuns friends in South Jersey

Kiersten Rickenbach stood out for both her long blond hair and sharp mind at Washington Township High School, where she often spoke of her plans to attend Duke University and become a pediatric oncologist.

Nicknamed "Blonde" and "Barbie," she was voted "Most Studious" and "Most Likely to Succeed" by her classmates. In 1995, when she graduated, she was valedictorian.

"With Kiersten, there wasn't a doubt in my mind that she was going to become a physician," said Karin Eckert-Carpenter, her guidance counselor, who helped her apply to Duke. "I always knew that she had what it took."

So when Rickenbach, 38, a popular dermatologist and married mother of three young children, was found unconscious in the doorway of a New York apartment building Sunday, left there by two men she was apparently partying with, Eckert-Carpenter was stunned.

Police now say Rickenbach's death was likely from a drug overdose, and are not investigating it as a homicide. Rickenbach also went by her married name, Cerveny, and resided with her husband on Long Island.

Police said she was out that night with Marc Johnson, an HBO producer who was questioned but has not been charged.

"That would not have been the Kiersten that I knew at all," Eckert-Carpenter said.

From her time in Washington Township, where she grew up and helped out with the small furniture business her father ran, Rickenbach appeared destined for success.

As a girl, she took dance classes from a Sewell instructor, Debra DiNote. Later, in high school, Rickenbach would take those skills to the America's Junior Miss competition in Mobile, Ala., where she performed a step aerobics fitness routine that helped her win a $30,000 scholarship.

Rising through the local, state, and national levels of the competition, Rickenbach was also recognized for her academic success, placing in the competition's preliminaries for the Coca-Cola Scholastic Achievement Award. Onstage in Alabama, she said she would go to then war-torn Bosnia if she were an ambassador.

"You might want to describe her, really, as the perfect child," said Eileen Barca, 56, of Mantua Township, who has long known Rickenbach's parents and babysat the young Rickenbach.

Rickenbach, who Barca said often spoke about wanting to become a pediatrician, loved children. When Barca's first child, Rick, was born, the then-9-year-old Rickenbach came over to Barca's home and held him.

At her father's family business, which Robert Rickenbach operated from their home with Barca's husband, Richard, Kiersten Rickenbach helped put furniture together.

In high school, she was treasurer of the National Honor Society and a member of the Spanish Club. In the yearbook, on a page with self-descriptions of each graduate, she said she had participated in cheerleading, track, and varsity diving.

Under hobbies, she wrote, without explanation: "Dancing level 5 with the DWC, and hanging out with Skinny Minnie and Chickie." As well as: "Rockin' with Jenny and the Howletts, and Kickin' it with the New Faces Crew in Chicago."

Rickenbach, Barca said, was "just somebody that caught your eye."

"She was always a very beautiful, striking girl," Barca said. "Always with her long blond hair."

Rickenbach fulfilled her high school goals, graduating magna cum laude from Duke, and obtaining a medical degree from Tulane University.

In 2009, after an earlier marriage that dissolved, she married Andrew Cerveny, also a dermatologist. At the time, she was chief of dermatology at Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York, where one former coworker said Rickenbach was so beloved by patients, the phone was still ringing Monday from people asking to make appointments with her.

Rickenbach left the center several years ago for another job in the field.

Eileen and Richard Barca said they had spoken with Rickenbach's parents this week. Rickenbach also has a younger brother, Eric, who played football at Pennsylvania State University, following in the footsteps of his father, who played tight end there.

"Her family is heartbroken," Eileen Barca said. "They miss her so much."

Attempts to reach the family, who now live in Scottsdale, Ariz., were unsuccessful this week.

Meanwhile, those who knew Kiersten Rickenbach in South Jersey said they have tried to avoid the lurid tabloid coverage on her final hours. The Barcas said they want to remember her as the stunning, bright young woman she was.

Or, as Rickenbach described in her yearbook as her favorite song: "The Way We Were."

mboren@phillynews.com

856-779-3829 @borenmc

Philly.com staff writer Sam Wood contributed to this article.