The Ice Killer and his “hunt” for Dexter. “Ice Man” - I will kill you! Start of criminal activity
For his brutal atrocities and sophisticated mind, he was nicknamed “The Ice Man.” Seasoned killer and murderer Richard Kuklinski always dealt with his victims in different ways, disposing of corpses with particular cruelty. He could have frozen the body in the cell or planted a bomb to hide traces of the crime. Richard Kuklinski could easily strangle, stab or set a person on fire without experiencing any remorse afterward. One day, forensic scientists found an unmelted piece of ice in the body of one of the victims. After this, the killer began to be called the “Ice Man,” the legend of which terrified people. For his criminal activities, Richard Kuklinski received substantial fees from representatives of Italian-American criminal communities. The mafia generously rewarded the murderer for the service provided. His main employer was Roy De Meo, an authoritative gangster who was a key man in the New York mafia.
And few people can guess that this intelligent-looking man tall with a “professor’s” beard, he first committed murder at the age of fourteen. How could a young man turn into brutal killer? Let's consider this issue in more detail.
Curriculum Vitae
Hitman Richard Kuklinski (date of birth: April 11, 1935) could not boast of what he had happy family. He was born in one of the poor areas of the city of New Jersey. His father worked as a simple conductor on railway, and my mother was busy packing products at a meat processing plant. The future seasoned killer did not like his parents due to the fact that his father abused alcohol and his mother adhered to excessively strict measures in her upbringing. His younger brother Florian died from his father’s beatings, although law enforcement officers were able to convince him that the boy had suffered an accident. Another brother Joseph turned into a murderer and rapist, so Richard Kuklinsky, whose biography contains many interesting and remarkable things, grew up in a dysfunctional family.
Raised by the street
We can say that no one was involved in raising the boy, so he was left to his own devices.
All free time he wandered the streets, where a harsh law reigned, the essence of which boils down to the following: “Survival of the fittest.” Already at the age of 14, he had to prove his right to superiority: he got into a fight with a local hooligan and beat him to death. Soon, in the street environment, Richard began to enjoy authority: the young man did not hesitate to beat those who tried to cause him inconvenience.
Start of criminal activity
Having married a girl named Barbara at the age of twenty-five, Kuklinski was forced to get a job to provide for his family. Soon she was replenished with three offspring. However, no one was in a hurry to offer young man a good position, since he not only did not have higher education, but also school. But those who called him “loser” and “ignorant”, Richard could severely punish or even kill. And the young man did this calmly and coolly. Fate brings him into contact with members of the De Cavalcante family, who offered him to make money through criminal means. Gradually, murder turned into his main profession, in which he regularly improved. The young man gained experience by killing ordinary homeless people in Manhattan, whose corpses he threw into the depths of the Hudson.
The police were not immediately able to establish whose handiwork it was.
Working for Roy DeMeo
The killer Richard Kuklinski some time later meets the authoritative gangster Roy De Meo. But their meeting could not be called pleasant: the murderer owed money to the mafia. Wanting to teach the “irresponsible” borrower a lesson, De Meo began to beat him, using an ordinary whip and the handle of a pistol. However, Kuklinski had a weapon with him, which he did not use. With his behavior, he earned the gangster's respect, after which the latter offered the killer profitable cooperation.
To demonstrate devotion to his patron, Richard Kuklinski committed another atrocity. Once he stopped the car, De Meo himself chose the victim: it turned out to be a man who was walking his dog. The “performer” got out of the car and, approaching minimum distance to the man, simply shot him in the back of the head. After such “successful” work, the hired killer Richard Kuklinski was provided with “permanent orders” for a long time, having secured the approval of his “boss”.
Specifics of criminal activity
The “Ice Man” has been perfecting his skills as a brutal murderer for thirty years.
As has already been emphasized, he chose a wide variety of methods to eliminate victims. Richard could shoot a bullet at a person, poison him, or eliminate the offender with help. Kuklinsky preferred to use cyanide, since after it the death occurred quickly, and the poison left virtually no traces.
There is no limit to cruelty
The intricacies of the process of taking life by means of toxic substances and explosive ammunition “Ice Man” were taught to him by his “work colleague” Robert Prong, who bore the simple nickname “Mr. Softee”. It was the mentor who once ordered Robert to kill his own wife and child.
Kuklinski often dismembered the bodies of exhausted but still living people with a chainsaw.
Richard also liked to deal with victims using a 55-gallon oil barrel. Often the corpses of people were placed in "unsuitable for exploitation" vehicles in landfills or dumped in deep pits, where they were then eaten by rats.
The killer's "career" is going uphill
By the 70s, Richard Kuklinski, whose photo subsequently began to appear regularly in newspapers covering crime chronicles, had become a wealthy and financially independent person.
The killer purchased luxury housing in a prestigious area, where he lived with his family and tried to lead the life of a respectable member of the middle class. In those years, Iceman set the order price at 50 thousand dollars. Surprisingly, neither Kuklinski’s wife nor children last day and had no idea what the father of the family did for a living. He explained to them that he got rich by successfully building a business.
The crimes continue
But in reality, he did not stop practicing his former craft. In the first half of the 80s, the “Ice Man” brutally dealt with a certain Gary Smith, whose corpse was hidden under the bed of a hotel room. When examining his body, experts recorded traces of asphyxia.
Another shocking murder occurred in the fall of 1983 in one of the city parks. The victim turned out to be a certain Louis Masgay. The murderer first froze his body in a refrigerator and then “planted it” with the police.
Decline of a criminal career
Of course, nothing can justify the horrific atrocities committed by the hired killer Richard Kuklinski. The number of victims on his account has not yet been precisely established. However, the “Ice Man” himself once stated that he took the lives of more than two hundred people.
He was caught only in 1986. The only evidence against the killer was the testimony of secret agent Dominic Polifrone. Thanks to this evidence, law enforcement agencies were able to initiate a case against serial killer. The Iceman had to purchase a dose of cyanide from the embedded agent, meeting him personally. Just two hours later, handcuffs were locked around Richard’s wrists. A weapon was found in the killer's car. He was charged with many counts of articles providing for punishment for robbery and murder.
Pay
In 1988, in the homeland of “The Iceman” (New Jersey), a trial on the facts of his brutal atrocities. Representatives of Themis sentenced him to several life sentences. Theoretically, he could count on early release only after reaching 110 years of age. 15 years after the verdict, he confessed to the murder of New York police officer Peter Calabro, and his time behind bars was increased by another 30 years.
In places not so remote, the “Ice Man” willingly communicated with prosecutors, psychiatrists, and gave interviews to film producers and writers. Subsequently, a book by Phillip Caro was published about the biography of the killer, which served as the basis for the script for the film “The Iceman.”
Richard Kuklinski died in prison on March 5, 2006 at the age of 70. Autopsy results showed that the hitman died of natural causes.
Richard Kuklinski, a mob hitman, earned the nickname "The Iceman" after freezing corpses in his freezer. This idea was given to him by professional killer Robert Prong, nicknamed "Mr. Softee". He drove around in a Mister Softie ice cream truck. It was he who taught Kuklinski to use poisons and explosive devices. But the legend arose when a forensic expert discovered an unmelted piece of ice in the heart of one of the corpses. This is how the legend of the “Ice Man” arose.
This huge man, over two meters tall and weighing 135 kilograms, intelligent looking, with a representative professorial beard, took contracts for murders from all five families of New York, although most is known about his collaboration with Roy De Meo.
The beginning of Richard's life was not rosy, like many people in his profession. younger brother Joseph Kuklinski is a pedophile and murderer. When Richard was asked about his brother, he said: “We have the same father. And that says it all." The younger brother, Florian, died from his father's beating, although the police were able to convince him that he had fallen down the stairs.
Richard Kuklinski was born on April 11, 1935, in a poor neighborhood in New Jersey. His father worked as a conductor on the railroad, and his mother worked as a packer at a meat processing plant. He hated his alcoholic father and disliked his strict mother.
He studied at a Catholic gymnasium and even worked as an altar boy in a church. But by the age of sixteen, Richard was already an authority on the street. One day he brutally beat six guys from a street gang who had the temerity to accost him. According to his own statement, he committed his first murder in 1949 at the age of 14, when he beat some street hooligan to death.
In 1960, he met and later married a woman named Barbara. They had three children, but there was always not enough money. He couldn't get good job, because he never finished school and did not receive an education.
Kuklinski killed easily. He killed those who offended or irritated him. He began working for the De Cavalcante family early on. Improving his craft, he practiced the techniques he had in abundance on the homeless of Manhattan. However, it never repeated itself. He threw several corpses into the Hudson, others left in place. The police did not immediately understand that this was not a war of homeless people, but the work of a serial killer.
Acquaintance with Roy DeMeo began with the fact that Richard owed him money. De Meo did not mince words and brutally beat Kuklinski with a whip and the handle of a pistol. Richard had a weapon, but he did not answer. This earned him the respect of De Meo and contracts from the Gambino family, but not the hitman's respect in return.
One day, DeMeo stopped his car and chose a victim at random, a man walking his dog on a leash. Kuklinski got out of the car and, walking past the victim, shot the man in the back of the head. From then on, he was provided with contracts, and was De Meo's favorite hitman.
Kuklinski worked as a hitman for thirty years. He killed with a knife, blew up, set fire, even strangled with his bare hands to stay in shape, as he himself said, and poisoned.
Sometimes he used a chainsaw. He dismembered people while they were still alive. He could, for example, tear out a person's tongue and insert it into the anus. This was a kind of message and warning on behalf of those who ordered the murder.
By 1970, Kuklinski had improved his affairs and became a fairly rich and successful mafia hitman. He lived in a prestigious area, in good home with his wife and children, and led the life of a respectable member of the middle class. At this time, he was charging $50,000 to complete an order. It is noteworthy that even the wife, nor the children, nor the neighbors knew what the head of the family was doing. To all of them he was a successful businessman.
And he continued to kill. On December 27, 1982, the body of one Gary Smith was found in a hotel room. As the police found out, the man was poisoned and strangled. It is noteworthy that twenty people, replacing each other, lived in this room before a corpse that had begun to decompose was found under the bed.
On September 25, 1983, the body of Luis Masgay was found in a city park. The corpse was previously frozen in a refrigerator to make it difficult to determine the time of death. Iceman in action!
Exact number victims are unknown. According to Kuklinski himself, at least 200 people. He loved cyanide. He could spray the aerosol in the victim's face, and if the arriving doctor didn't know what he was looking for, he wouldn't find any traces. They were gone within two hours. He could poison the food, or he could just spill the poison on his skin. There were no traces left.
He disposed of corpses in different ways. But more often he rolled the bodies into a 55-gallon oil drum. He left the corpses in the trunk, or cut them into pieces, bagged them and took them to a landfill, as DeMeo's people usually did, or even fed them to rats.
He was arrested only in 1986, but all charges were based solely on the testimony of agent Dominic Polifrone, who was embedded in the family. Based on them, a case was opened six years ago by New Jersey police detective Pat Kane.
In an interview with HBO, Kuklinski stated that there was only one person whom he wanted to kill, and he did not kill. This is Phil Soliman who turned him in. A close friend of Kuklinski, with the knowledge of Detective Kane, pretended that he had a contract for Richard and recorded on tape all the details of the upcoming order.
On December 17, 1986, Kuklinski met with a federal agent to obtain cyanide for a planned assassination. He was arrested two hours later. A pistol was found in the car. Kuklinski was charged with a total of eleven counts of murder and robbery.
In 1988, a trial in New Jersey found Kuklinski guilty of five murders and sentenced him to multiple life terms in prison, with the expectation that he would be eligible for parole at age 110.
In 2003, Richard pleaded guilty to the 1980 murder of NYPD detective Peter Calabro. This added another 30 years to his sentence. It is noteworthy that gangster Sammy “Bull” Gravano has already been charged for the murder of a police officer. But Kuklinski told how he committed this murder. He parked his van on a narrow road, not far from Kalabo's house. Richard lay in a snowdrift until Calabro appeared at 2 a.m. Then he came out and shot him with a shotgun.
During his imprisonment, Kuklinski willingly spoke with psychiatrists, criminologists, prosecutors, and gave interviews to television producers and writers about his career and personal life.
The two documentaries are based on interviews with Dr. Park Dietz, who gained fame after interviewing Jeffrey Dahmer, a serial killer and sexual predator. The films aired on HBO in 1991 and 2001.
His body was taken to medical center Saint Francis in Trenton, New Jersey. The fact is that his death aroused suspicion because he was supposed to testify at the trial against Gambino family underboss Sammy Gravano. Richard claimed that he did not know that Calabro was a policeman, but even if he knew, he would have killed him anyway.
A few days after Kuklinski's death, charges against Gravano were dropped. Without Richard's testimony there was not enough evidence to proceed. trial. At the request of Kuklinski's wife, pathologist Michael Baden reviewed the results of Kuklinski's autopsy. His conclusion was that the mafia killer died of natural causes.
In 2006, Philippe Caro's book about Richard Kuklinski was published. It is she who is the basis for the script of the new film “The Iceman”, which will be released in 2013. The film stars Chris Evans, James Franco, Winona Ryder and Ray Liotta.
"The Iceman" teaser
Kuklinski killed his first victim at the age of thirteen. Richard is the older brother of convicted rapist and murderer Joseph Kuklinski.
Richard "The Iceman" Kuklinski (April 11, 1935 – March 5, 2006) was an American criminal and hitman in the service of the mafia. Worked with a number of Italian-American crime families and is alleged to have killed more than two hundred people over a thirty-year career. Kuklinski killed his first victim at the age of thirteen. Richard is the older brother of convicted rapist and murderer Joseph Kuklinski.
Rumors about Richard's connection with the Gambino clan arose due to Kuklinski's connection with bandit Roy DeMeo. They met when Richard owed a serious sum to one of DeMeo's friends, and he went to talk to him. After Kuklinski left the hospital after this "conversation" and paid his bills, he took up robberies and many other tasks that the clans assigned him; in particular, at one time the “Ice Man” was engaged in video piracy on the pornography market.
During one of the trips, DeMeo stopped the car at the side of the road, pointed Richard at a random passerby and ordered him to kill him. Kuklinski carried out the order without a single question, shooting the unfortunate pedestrian in the head; from that moment on, Roy began to consider him the best of his raiders.
Over the next thirty years, Richard, according to his own stories, killed many - with a pistol, a noose, a knife and poison. The exact number of victims has never been established; V different times Kuklinski spoke about different numbers, from one hundred to one hundred and thirty. His favorite weapon was cyanide - it killed quickly and left no traces for toxicological examination. It was administered either by injection, through food, an aerosol spray, or simply by direct contact with the victim’s skin. Richard preferred to dispose of bodies using a fifty-five-gallon oil drum; The killer did not disdain other methods - dismemberment, burial or dumping in the trunk of one of the broken cars at a local landfill. He said he sometimes simply left victims' bodies "sitting" on benches, dumped them in "bottomless pits" or fed them to giant Pennsylvania rats.
Although Kuklinski claimed that he was one of the main killers under DeMeo, no one from the gangster’s team later confirmed Richard’s involvement in the massacres committed by the gang; the only evidence of this kind is a photograph of Kuklinski at the Gemini Lounge club, where he is believed to have bought weapons for the gang. Richard also stated that it was he who killed DeMeo; All known evidence and testimonies, however, point to Roy's henchmen - Joseph Tusta and Anthony Senter - and his immediate leader in the Gambino clan, Anthony Gaggi.
Again, according to the killer himself, when he was already a mafia executioner, he married Barbara Pedrici; Later he had two daughters and a son. The family didn't know about him criminal career; it was assumed that he was just a very lucky businessman. Sometimes work forced him to rush off immediately, at any time of the day or night; this was also due to business requirements.
At first, Richard was known in the gang under the nickname "Pole" - because of his Polish origin. Then the killer conducted a series of experiments with the influence low temperatures to the decomposition of bodies; These certainly educational experiments were carried out in the industrial refrigerator of one of the Gambino establishments. It was after them that Kuklinski received the nickname “Ice Man”. He would later tell writer Phillip Carlo that the idea was given to him by fellow killer Robert "Mr. Softee" Prong, who used the truck of the Mister Softee ice cream company to lull the victims' vigilance. In general, Prong was to some extent Richard's mentor - he taught him how to use cyanide and sold it to him hand grenades; one day, at Robert's request, Kuklinski fulfilled an order for Prong's wife and his child.
The Ice Man's know-how ultimately failed him - one of the corpses he discarded did not thaw completely and the coroners made a number of interesting conclusions from the pieces of ice in the victim's heart.
When authorities finally caught Kuklinski in 1986, his charges were based on the testimony of an agent embedded in the gang. The New Jersey police had been following him for six years and finally pulled it off. complex operation for his arrest with the participation of an FBI agent. During the detention process, Kuklinski's wife was also arrested; the police agents treated her quite roughly, and this angered the killer so much that they had to restrain him the whole group officers.
During his imprisonment, Kuklinski willingly gave interviews and talked with psychiatrists. He told a lot enough creepy stories from your career. In 2006, Phillip Carlo published a whole book about him.
Richard died in prison. It was expected that he would give important testimony about one of the members of his former gang; many therefore considered his death not accidental. Forensic experts, however, found no traces of poison.
Over the many years that hundreds of books, films, TV series, and news stories have firmly introduced the image of a serial killer into our lives, it has become difficult to find a case that could surprise, about which one would like to say that it is different from others. Woman maniac? Yes, the story of Aileen Wuornos shocked us for some time, but then her followers began to appear, and with the help of the press and filmmakers, old cases in which a woman was also a ruthless killer began to emerge in the memory of society, and soon this ceased to be so unusual. Killer lovers working in pairs? A rare case, but the first such stories in real life began to happen more than a dozen years ago, and during this time cinema has already managed to attach itself to such unusual affairs, relegating them to another routine. And even if such unique things of their kind no longer surprise anyone, then what can we say about the maniacs who kill victims according to the number of squares on a chessboard, play with the press, take the lives of only elderly ladies or only whores, and even go out hunting only on a full moon all these plots were exploited so often that they became dead for the viewer, and their resuscitation in work of art practically impossible. But there is one more story in the world of maniacs, which can be called exclusive, isolated, since it is difficult to find another one like it. This is the life of Richard Kuklinski, officially classified as a contract killer, but at the same time often listed as a serial killer. The reason for this confusion is that he has all the signs of a classic serial killer, but he became the first person of his kind who not only learned to kill without stopping and get away with impunity, but also to earn a lot of money from it.
The film adaptation of Kuklinski's activities, which in its title refers to his nickname, which arose from his habit of disposing of bodies using refrigeration devices, has episodes that could pass for the intention of revealing the duality of the essence and history of this man - his hunger and anger when there comes a break in the killings , its gloomy family history and crimes committed in childhood, his external calm and timidity, behind which lies internal rage and aggression. But at the same time, the main things in the film are things that, on the contrary, make Kuklinski ordinary hitman, whose fate is of no interest, even taking into account the fact that he actually existed, and the number of his victims could number in the hundreds. Another point worth emphasizing in the Iceman's story is why he became so valuable to underworld New Jersey, including for its titans - Italian-American mafia families. Hot temper, recklessness, stupidity, addiction to alcohol, women and drugs, cowardice there are many things that classic killers hired by organized crime usually get caught doing. They can kill a person, and then go to a pub and, in a state of extreme intoxication, tell a random friend about the deed they just committed, who will split at the first interrogation. Richard Kuklinski did not have any of the vices that could lead to the risk of his capture, but the film only shows this at the beginning, when Ray Liotta's character points a gun at him, and he shows no emotion, which is physically impossible for normal person, but quite realistic for an indifferent serial killer, differently built inside.
The director of the film “Icy” Ariel Vromen, who took the book of crime writer Anthony Bruno as a basis for his work and hardly sinned against the truth by distorting the facts, decided that the main thing that is interesting in the story of Richard Kuklinski is his devotion to his family, the fact that being ruthless killer he knew how to pretend to be at home good husband and father, raised two beautiful daughters together with his equally beautiful wife. In second place in Vromen’s priorities is the actual consistent and accurate reproduction of events, which by the end of the film already begins to border on frenzied fanaticism; there are fewer and fewer scenes that make you think about the essence of Kuklinski, but there are episodes that evoke many others crime films, is getting bigger. Main problem The picture lies precisely in these two ideas of the director, which make the story of the Ice Man a classic gangster story, not famous for its particular originality in terms of drama, and the hero himself as another killer with stupid rules and vague motives. The fact that the actors involved in the film play their typical roles only adds a feeling of secondaryness, which does not cover even the fact that they cope well with them. As a result, “Icy” turned out to be a film about the wrong Richard Kuklinski, which does not fully fit into any classification; not about the man whose father and brother were murderers; not about the man who insisted that he had committed two hundred and fifty murders when only five had been proven. It turned out to be a picture about a small servant of the mafia, who was not an exception to the rule, but rather a rule made up of exceptions; who got burned by the stupidest mistake you can think of, and even if the film had a full-screen title with the inscription “two hundred and fifty,” it would not have removed that feeling of smallness of the story, which could have been much more interesting and multifaceted with proper processing.
In 2012, the American film “Icy” was released. At the Venice Film Festival, where it premiered, it caused a lot of controversy and discussion. With this film, Americans have once again exposed themselves as a nation that glorifies criminals. Although, I must admit, they do it with talent.
Icy is the nickname of Richard Kuklinski, a hitman who worked for the Italian-American mafia. For almost 30 years, he shed other people’s blood for money and sent about 200 people to the next world. And he earned the nickname because of his habit of freezing the corpses of his victims in industrial refrigerators.
During his lifetime, he was feared by his enemies and despised by his “friends.” But at the same time, it is impossible not to admit that Kuklinski was a rather extraordinary person. Therefore, his biography subsequently gave filmmakers a lot of food for inspiration.
Richard Kuklinski was born on April 11, 1935 in New Jersey into a family with Polish, Irish and American roots. In general, the guy still got the same family. Father Stanley Kuklinski was an alcoholic and a domestic tyrant who almost beat Dick and his other children.
When Richard was 5 years old, his father beat one of his sons, Florian, to death. But the whole family, intimidated by Stanley, told the police that the boy died himself, accidentally falling into a flight of stairs.
Richard's other brother, Joseph, was a pedophile, he was imprisoned for the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl. In such a family it was difficult not to become a moral monster, and Richard became a murderer. Already at the age of 13, he killed a person for the first time.
For Richard Kuklinski, accustomed to cruelty from childhood, sending a man to the next world was like wringing a chicken’s neck. When he started working for the mafia, he had no moral obstacles about murder.
There were only fears about how well he would kill. Richard practiced the technology of reprisals on the defenseless homeless people of Manhattan. The police found corpses, but were not very zealous in solving the crimes, attributing them to internal squabbles among the homeless.
Kuklinski began working early on for the Decavalcante mafia family. But at first he was paid little for fulfilling orders. Striving to live on wide leg, the aspiring killer fell into debt with Roy Demeo, a mafioso from another clan.
Somehow Richard failed to repay his debt on time, and Demeo brutally beat him with a whip and a pistol. Despite the fact that he was a real giant - 2 meters tall and weighing more than a hundredweight, Kuklinski stoically endured the execution, which earned him a certain respect from Roy. The mafia values steadfastness.
The mafioso invited him to work for himself, but first he gave him a test. Demeo, from the car window, pointed out to Richard the first person he saw and suggested that Kuklinski kill him. He did not argue, he simply got out of the car and, passing by the doomed passerby, shot him in the back of the head.
Since then, Kuklinski has taken assassination orders from all five of New York's largest mafia families. His most frequent customer was Roy Demeo. What distinguished Richard from other mafia killers was the diversity of his arsenal. In the movies, gangsters shoot blindly, but Kuklinski's favorite thing was cyanide.
Because of this, the deaths of his victims were usually attributed to natural causes, and therefore no one was looking for the killer. Richard could poison his victim's food, spray an aerosol in the face, or simply spill poison on the skin. After 2 hours, it became difficult to establish signs of poisoning.
However, he also had to shoot. However, in this case there was a need to get rid of the corpses. Sometimes he dismembered the dead, packed them piece by piece and transported them to various landfills. People from the Gambino family, commanded by Demeo, usually did the same. But more often, Kuklinski rolled the corpse into a 55-gallon oil drum and buried it, and sometimes fed the victim to rats.
An unhappy childhood certainly left its mark on Richard's personality and character. Having before his eyes the example of a tyrant father who regularly beat his mother and beat his son to death, Kuklinski did not want to repeat such a terrible fate for his children.
He married Barbara Pedrici, who bore him two daughters and a son. Richard doted on his children and tried to make his home filled with family comfort. None of his friends, neighbors and, of course, household members even suspected what he did for a living. For those around him, he personified the image of a successful businessman and an exemplary family man. Who could look at him and think that he makes other women widows and other children orphans?
The mafia has strict rules, so Kuklinski often had to urgently leave home at any time of the day or night in order to fulfill one or another urgent order. He followed orders unquestioningly mafia bosses. But among his family he often complained that he hated his job when it took him away from family dinners on weekends and especially if it did not allow him to spend Christmas with his family.
In criminal circles, Richard Kuklinski received the nickname Iceman for freezing corpses in refrigerators. He adopted this method from his teacher in the bloody craft, Robert Prong, nicknamed Mister Soft.
Pronzh drove around the streets in an ice cream truck from Mister Soft. It was great cover, and there was always a fresh corpse to hide in the ice cream van.
In addition, Robert taught Richard how to use poisons and explosive devices. According to legend, instead of paying for his science, Pronzh asked Kuklinski to kill his wife and child. And he did it. Apparently, the heavenly judge did not tolerate this and punished Mr. Soft for reprisals against his loved ones.
In 1984, Pronge's body was found shot in the head in the cab of his ice cream truck. After his death, there was only one person left who liked to hide corpses in the freezer. The police dubbed this method the “Kuklinski method.” The name stuck after a medical examiner found an unmelted piece of ice in the heart of one of the victims on a warm autumn day.
The police had long heard about Kuklinski’s criminal acts, but they just couldn’t catch him red-handed. Richard was detained more than once on suspicion of murders, but his involvement in them could not be proven.
The fact is that when experts examined the bodies that for a long time were stored in a refrigerator, it was very difficult for them to determine exact time death. Because of this, the investigation could not build a clear version of the crimes and bring charges against the suspect.
And then the detectives took a roundabout route. They pressed close friend Kuklinski - Phil Soliman, and he agreed to carry out their instructions. On instructions from the police, Phil contacted Richard and said that there was an order for him. Their conversation was recorded.
On December 17, 1986, Kuklinski was finally caught red-handed when he purchased cyanide for an upcoming murder from a dealer who turned out to be a federal agent. After his arrest, a pistol was found in his car, which became serious evidence.
In 1988, a New Jersey court sentenced Kuklinski to 5 life sentences for 5 proven murders. After Richard had no chance of being released during his lifetime, he confessed to another crime: in 1980, by order of the Gambino mafia family, he killed New York police detective Peter Capabro.
At the same time, the killer said that he had been lying in a snowdrift for a long time, waiting for the detective. This further cemented his reputation as the Iceman and added another 30 years to his sentence.
In prison, real fame came to Kuklinski: he willingly gave interviews about his career and personal life to television producers and writers. Based on them, two were filmed documentaries, which aired on HBO in 1992, 2001 and 2003. And in 2006 famous writer Philip Carlo has published a book about Kuklinski.
However, the famous killer could not sit quietly. After he testified that he received an order to kill a police officer from the Gambino clan, Richard, even behind bars, was seriously worried that he could be eliminated any day. For some reason he believed that he would be poisoned.
Therefore, when Kuklinski died in prison on March 5, 2006, his wife first insisted on checking whether he had been poisoned. However, pathologist Michael Baden concluded that the killer died of natural causes.
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