The Ice Man

by Philip Carlo

  Prisons are notoriously dangerous places, but hardly anyone wants to tangle with the Ice Man. Richard has grown to like his nickname; he feels it quite appropriate, for he really is like ice, he knows. Since he was a teenager he could kill a human being or torture animals and never think twice about it. He still doesn’t know if he was born that way or was made that way, but he knows he is very different from other people, and he likes that. He is proud of it.

  Richard still thinks about his father, still regrets not killing him. If any one factor contributed to his becoming the Ice Man, Richard believes, it was surely Stanley Kuklinski. I’m not blaming anyone for anything, but he made me a mean son of a bitch, I can tell you that.

  Richard’s brother Joseph slipped deeply into mental illness. By the time Richard arrived, he’d been in prison some eighteen years. He constantly talked to himself, regularly told other inmates and even guards about the girl he killed. He was proud of it. Most of his teeth had fallen out. He had to be forced to bathe and shower. When he did shower, he kept his clothes on. Over the years he had married several men in prison, and he’d had to have operations on his rectum because he’d been sodomized so often, so roughly.

  Richard had absolutely nothing to do with his brother. He never forgot what Joseph had done and still held it against him. Once in a while they passed each other, and Richard acted like he were invisible, looked right through him as if he were a glass of water. Joseph had to be kept in the Special Care Unit. He captured roaches, Trenton Prison guard Silverstein recently explained, dried them, crushed them up, mixed them with sawdust and pencil shavings, and smoked them in rolled-up toilet paper. Joseph told Silverstein that he was married to the child he killed, that she had been his wife. When a parole officer came to see Joseph to talk about his release, he pulled down his pants and mooned the parole officer. Joseph did not want to leave prison; he wanted to die in jail, and that came to pass in the winter of 2003. When Richard heard his brother was dead, he was glad. He still thought of his brother as a rapist, a killer of children, and had no use for him. In life or in death, he recently said.

  Richard still passionately hates rapists. The first time he had a problem at Trenton State it was because a fellow inmate in his section was a convicted rapist, and Richard told the man to stay the hell away from him, that if he came near him he’d “break every bone in your miserable fucking body!”

  To be threatened by Richard is a frightening, disconcerting experience. The rapist ran to a guard and told him what Richard had said, and Richard was punished—put in solitary for a while. He didn’t mind. Nothing bothers him. He has truly become an Ice Man. When he was returned to the section, the rapist was gone, moved to another section. Lucky for him.

  Richard agreed to be interviewed by Samuels on camera. Because Samuels was working as an agent for the attorney general’s office (unbeknownst to Richard), he was given unencumbered access to Richard at the prison.

  Samuels had never interviewed a stone-cold killer the likes of Richard, and he was out of his element, in over his head. Richard didn’t like him from the moment he set eyes on him. Richard felt he was condescending, supercilious, and judgmental.

  Samuels had the camera focus tightly on Richard’s disconcerting face and began asking him questions about his crimes, about murder. Oddly, when one looks at this footage, Richard appears fit as a fiddle, healthy, with good color, rested and relaxed. He looks better now, in fact, than when he was sent away. He looks like he’s been at a country club playing golf, certainly not in an austere maximum-security prison. When recently asked about this he said it was because of his attitude.

  I am not, he said, going to let them beat me. Never.

  Reluctantly, over several days of interviews—all on camera—Richard talked about murder. However, it soon became obvious to him that New Jersey State detectives were in a nearby room, watching on a small monitor and listening to what was being said, even giving Samuels questions to ask (Richard saw a second cable running from the camera under a closed door), and this really pissed him off. He had known what he was saying was for public consumption; what angered him was that Samuels didn’t tell him there were detectives eavesdropping and feeding him questions. Samuels was trying to hustle Richard, fool him, and Richard’s anger was becoming more and more evident. His lips began twisting off to the left. His face became stonelike. He wanted to throttle Samuels, break his neck, kill him, but he forced himself to stay calm, and gave Samuels, for the most part, what he wanted. Samuels had no idea how close he came to being killed by Richard. Richard told about these new murders because he had nothing to lose, he says.

  Samuels then interviewed Barbara. This was done at the pond in Demarest where she and Richard used to go and feed the ducks. She did not like being on camera, was uncomfortable talking about her relationship with Richard, but she did it. She told how kind, considerate, and excessively romantic he had been, said that she’d had no idea of the violence he was committing. She said, “What he’d done is against God and man and I still have a real hard time reconciling it.”

  Samuels managed to get Pat Kane, Dominick Polifrone, and Bob Carroll to promise interviews. Then, using the many front-page stories about Richard and several New York Times articles, Samuels managed to secure an appointment with Sheila Nevins, the head of HBO’s documentary division.

  Nevins watched Richard’s interviews and immediately saw how unique and promising he was, and she gave Samuels a development deal and attached HBO producer Gaby Monet to the project.

  Gaby Monet was a professional documentary filmmaker with a list of acclaimed pieces to her credit. She sat down with Samuels and listened to what he had, and together they put together the “look” of the story and went out into the field and interviewed Bob Carroll, Dominick Polifrone, Pat Kane, and medical examiner Michael Baden (who testified for the prosecution at Richard’s trial); using these interviews and a series of carefully put-together reenactments, Gaby Monet took the footage into an editing room and worked day and night for weeks and put together a gripping, compelling documentary called The Ice Man Tapes: Conversations with a Killer.

  When HBO big shots saw what Gaby Monet had done, they were thrilled. It was riveting and compelling and very original. It gave everyone who saw it chills. What made Conversations with a Killer so compelling was the matter-of-fact, truthful way Richard told about the violence and murders he had committed. He didn’t brag or boast; he wasn’t proud of what he’d done. He just told it as it was—the way he saw it and felt it and what had happened—in a calm, detached voice, the camera tight on his face, cold like ice. However, at the end of the piece, when Richard talked about his family, emotion welled up and he struggled to hold back tears. “I hurt the only people in the world that ever meant anything to me,” he said in a strained voice, tears in his leather-colored eyes. This was a part of the Ice Man never seen before. HBO got behind the project and advertised it, and it was aired for the first time in November of 1999.

  Overnight, Richard Kuklinski became a homicide superstar. He had told only a very small part of what he’d actually done, but that small part was enough to make Americans stand up and take notice. Conversations with a Killer was critically acclaimed and received overwhelming feedback. The New York Times praised it for “its chilling originality.”

  Suddenly, Richard Kuklinski of Jersey City had a distinguished place in the homicide hall of fame. Mail poured into HBO from the public, mostly praising Conversations with a Killer, though some people demanded to know why HBO was “lionizing a cold-blooded killer.”

  Gaby Monet’s answer was that Richard Kuklinski was so unique, spoke about violence and murder with such candid sincerity and authority, that it would be, in a sense, a public disservice not to let the world get a glimpse into his life.

  Richard received thousands of letters at the prison, from murder groupies, criminalists, and forensic doctors, reporters and news producers. Suddenly, everyone wanted to talk to the Ice Man. Geraldo Rivera wen
t to the prison to interview Richard; Richard refused to see him. Oprah Winfrey tried to get him to appear on her show; Richard refused. He also received, oddly enough (especially to him), many love letters from scores of women from around the world who wanted to have relations with him. Many women even sent photographs of themselves to him. In some of these the women were buck naked, boldly exposing all their charms. Richard was disgusted by these. He immediately threw them away. He recently explained: Any woman that puts a naked photograph in a letter to a stranger is a pig.

  Richard didn’t seem to realize that to these women he was no stranger, because he’d been so honest and candid in Conversations with a Killer. He was the ultimate “bad boy,” thus, to some, the ultimate aphrodisiac. Go figure.

  One of them had her legs open so wide, you could see her tonsils, he recently said, making a face.

  Secrets of a Mafia Hit Man

  The Ice Man Tapes: Conversations with a Killer was such an overwhelming success that Sheila Nevins and HBO decided to do a second sixty-minute documentary featuring Richard. This time George Samuels would have nothing to do with it. In fact, Richard refused to even be in the same room with him.

  By now Gaby Monet, an intense dark-haired woman with wise, contemplative eyes, had grown quite fond of Richard. They had had many phone conversations since the first piece aired, and Gaby had come to view Richard as an incredibly interesting man who had a lot to say about a subject few people knew as well as he did: murder. He was, in a sense, the Einstein of murder.

  Thus, the second set of interviews, now with Gaby Monet asking the questions, was done at the Trenton State Prison. This time, without the assistance of the attorney general’s office, it wasn’t so easy to get a film crew into the prison, but HBO managed to pull some strings, and Gaby Monet sat down and over a six-day period did a second, much more revealing, candid series of interviews with Richard.

  This second documentary was entitled The Ice Man: Secrets of a Mafia Hit Man, and in it Richard was far more relaxed and forthcoming, and for the first time told the world about some of the mob-related murders he had committed. The stress and strain he had when Samuels was asking the questions were gone, and a calm, even demure Richard described the shotgun murder of NYPD detective Peter Calabro. This was an earthshaking revelation. Richard said that at the time of the killing he didn’t know Calabro was a cop (which was true). “But,” he added, “I would’ve done it anyway.”

  Secrets of a Mafia Hit Man was aired December of 2001, and again was greeted with both scorn and praise. For the most part it was received well, though some critics wondered if the public should really be subjected to the dark musings of a stone-cold killer; as one reviewer put it: “Some things are better left unsaid.”

  Be that as it may, Secrets of a Mafia Hit Man’s rating went through the roof. It was one of the most-watched shows HBO ever aired. Again, mail poured into HBO, praising the network’s courage for bringing a person like Richard from the dark into the light. Hundreds of pieces of mail arrived at Richard’s cell every week. Even more women wrote him, sent him photographs, asked if they could meet with him.

  Secrets of a Mafia Hit Man was such an overwhelming success that the powers that be at HBO decided to do still another documentary featuring Richard. This was unprecedented—no killer in the history of television had ever received this kind of attention—but HBO felt Richard was so unique, so colorful and three-dimensional, so scary, that a third documentary was warranted. This one would feature Richard talking with a forensic psychiatrist and would logically enough be called The Ice Man and the Psychiatrist. HBO hired noted psychiatrist Park Dietz to do the interview with Richard.

  Now, however, the New Jersey attorney general’s office had suddenly become interested in Richard Kuklinski again. Detective Peter Calabro was, after all, murdered in New Jersey, and detectives from the attorney general’s office were dispatched to the Trenton State Prison to talk with Richard to see what they could find out.

  Detective Robert Anzalotti was a nice-looking, baby-faced young man who, coincidentally, had gone to school with Richard’s son, Dwayne. Anzalotti was a tenacious investigator, but he had a nice way about him, was easy to talk to, never took himself too seriously. Married with two young children, Robert Anzalotti was sent to the prison to see if he could get Richard to tell who had ordered the Calabro hit. Anzalotti’s partner was Mark Bennul, a quiet, introspective Asian American who said little but missed nothing.

  When the two detectives showed up at the prison, Richard refused to see them. At this point he wanted nothing to do with cops, especially cops for the attorney general’s office. He was surprised that the police hadn’t come around asking questions sooner. He told the prison guard that came to get him to tell the two detectives to contact his lawyer, Neal Frank, which they promptly did, and Detective Anzalotti told Frank that they wanted to discuss the murder of Peter Calabro; Frank relayed this request to Richard by phone.

  “Should I talk to them?” Richard asked Frank.

  “It’s up to you, Rich. It’s your call.”

  Curious, Richard agreed to see them, and thus a whole new can of worms was opened, and that can of worms was one Sammy “the Bull” Gravano.

  By now Richard was the most famous prisoner at Trenton State, indeed in any prison anywhere. Everyone, including the guards, had taken to calling him Ice Man, which he liked. Richard also liked his newfound celebrity. He felt he was finally getting just recognition for the “unusual” man he truly was.

  In truth, Richard had become one of the most infamous killers of modern times, thanks to the HBO specials. HBO had aired the pieces they’d done on Richard several times every month, and more and more people were stunned, shocked, and horrified—yet always intrigued—by Richard’s chilling words and chilling demeanor. Now many millions of people across America saw and heard and knew about Richard Kuklinski. His crimes, what he said, were becoming legendary. People around the world were watching Richard, for HBO is aired all over Europe, and in parts of Asia and South America.

  Richard Kuklinski, in a sense, became the Mick Jagger of murder.

  The Ice Man Versus Sammy the Bull

  When Richard first sat down with Anzalotti and Bennul, he was quiet and standoffish. But Rob Anzalotti had a very likable way about him. His boyish face and youth were disarming, and when Anzalotti told Richard that he had been a schoolmate of Dwayne’s, that they had been in the same class, Richard warmed up to him. Richard recently explained, I wasn’t going to tell them a fuckin’ thing, but when I found out Anzalotti went to school with my son, I kind of saw him like my son. I…I took a shine to him and I told him about the Calabro hit.

  Stunned, the two detectives sat and listened to how Peter Calabro was murdered on that cold, snowy February night. Anzalotti already had the file on the case, and it was immediately obvious that Richard knew facts and details that only the killer could have known. When Anzalotti asked Richard who ordered the hit, Richard refused to tell him unless he was given some kind of immunity. He knew he could get a death sentence for killing a cop. As much as Richard hated prison, it was, he reasoned, better than death. Anzalotti went back to his boss, who agreed to let Richard plead guilty to the murder of Peter Calabro, for which he would get only another life sentence. Neal Frank became involved, a deal was agreed upon, and Richard again sat down with Anzalotti and Bennul, and for the first time told how Sammy Gravano had contracted the killing; how Gravano and he met in the parking lot and agreed upon a price, how Richard received the shotgun and photo of Calabro from Gravano. Richard felt no allegiance toward Gravano. He knew that Gravano had cut a deal with the feds to testify against John Gotti and many other Goodfellas. Richard viewed Gravano as a rat, a low-life scumbag, and had no qualms about telling cops how Gravano had hired him, thus opening the door for Gravano to be tried for the killing of a cop.

  “I realize now,” Richard told Anzalotti and Bennul, “that the little fuck was using me. I mean, he never told me the guy was a c
op. He came to me because he didn’t want to kill a cop, because he didn’t want any of his guys to kill a cop. I realize that now, but of course I didn’t back then. Sure, use the dumb Polack to kill a cop. Dumb Polack my ass…

  “Truth is I would’ve done it anyway—even if he did tell me he was a cop. I’m not going to lie. But he didn’t and he should’ve.”

  Armed with this information, the New Jersey attorney general’s office contemplated bringing charges against Gravano for ordering the killing of Peter Calabro. Calabro might have been a crooked cop, surely worked with the mob, but he was still a cop, and still murdered in Saddle River, New Jersey.

  When Sammy Gravano decided to become a witness against John Gotti, the federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York were overjoyed, wanted to go do a jig in Times Square. They wanted John Gotti so badly that they were willing to cut a deal with Gravano that would enable him not only to serve just a few years, but to keep all the money he had earned from a lifetime of crime. The only problem was that Gravano had admitted to personally killing nineteen people. Gravano was clearly a very dangerous man, a clear and present danger, a true menace to society, a remorseless cold-blooded killer; yet the feds were still willing—it seems anxious—to give him his freedom, let him loose in society, if he helped them nail John Gotti.