The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer

by Philip Carlo

  The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer

  Philip Carlo

  He was Sammy the Bull Gravano’s partner in the killing of Paul Castellano. John Gotti hired him to torture and kill his neighbor. A favorite among all the seven East Coast crime families, Richard “Ice Man” Kuklinski conducted his business with coldhearted intensity. By his own estimate, he murdered over two hundred men, taking enormous pride in his variety and ferocity of technique.

  But behind Kuklinski’s trail of murder was a traditional, loving, Catholic family. A married father of three, Kuklinski was always regarded as being especially kind to children; he threw summer block parties in his New Jersey neighborhood, and he was always generous around Christmastime. And before his crimes finally caught up with him, his family never suspected a thing…

  From Publishers Weekly

  This stomach-turning account of the multiple atrocities committed over 43 years by Richard "The Ice Man" Kuklinski—as sadistic a killer as most readers would ever want to encounter in print—seems like more of an as-told-to than an independent journalistic narrative, though Carlo says that he verified Kuklinski's accounts where possible. But rather than critically assess Kuklinski's largely self-serving tales of his roles in such major mob killings as those of Jimmy Hoffa and Gambino boss Paul Castellano, Carlo (The Night Stalker) seems to accept them. Instead of applying objective insight into how such a murderer—who researched methods that would prolong his victims' suffering—came to be, the author presents instead chapter after chapter of Kuklinski summarily killing criminals he was hired to eliminate or randomly gunning down someone on the street to test out a new weapon. By disregarding the questions raised by Mafia experts such as Jerry Capeci about Kuklinski's credibility, Carlo has fumbled an opportunity. Sloppy errors (e.g., Rudy Giuliani served as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, not the Eastern District) also detract from the book, which ends with a bizarre invitation to the reader to write to Kuklinski at the Trenton State Prison.

  THE ICE MAN

  Also by Philip Carlo

  Stolen Flower

  The Night Stalker

  Predators and Prayers

  Smiling Wolf

  Philip Carlo

  THE ICE MAN

  CONFESSIONS OF A MAFIA CONTRACT KILLER

  THE ICE MAN. Copyright © 2006 by Philip Carlo. All rights reserved.

  This work is dedicated to my agent and dear friend, Matt Bialer,

  for always being there, for his constant help, guidance, and unwavering support.This has been a long, bumpy road, Matt, a harrowing journey

  I could not have made without you….

  PREFACE

  This book is based on over 240 hours of one-on-one interviews with Richard Kuklinski at Trenton State Prison. When and where possible all the crimes and murders Richard and I discussed were verified with underground Mafia contacts, police sources, documents, crime-scene reports, and photographs. When Richard and I discussed his life and the crimes he committed over a forty-three-year period, he never bragged or boasted. Indeed, much of what is contained in this book had to be prodded and encouraged out of him. In my estimation, Richard was always honest and truthful, sincere and forthright in the extreme.

  The names of certain individuals connected with this story have been changed.

  I first wish to thank my editor, Charlie Spicer at St. Martin’s Press, for all his expert advice, his guidance, and his belief in this book from the moment it arrived on his desk. Also his right-hand man, Joe Cleemann, was a huge help, on numerous levels. Many thanks also to John Murphy and Gregg Sulivan for their belief in and support of this book. Gaby Monet at HBO was an invaluable friend and assisted me greatly with understanding the enormous complexities of this story. Many thanks to my loyal friend and confidant, Mike Kostrewa, for all his guidance and expertise about Jersey City and the Polish people and culture. I also wish to thank Trenton State Prison for allowing me access to Richard Kuklinski at the facility. Also, thanks to Anna Bierhouse for her suggestions, and all the good people at Sanford Greenburger, the best literary agency in the world; they still treat writers like sensitive artists, a rare thing these days. I would be remiss if I didn’t thank my parents, Dante and Nina Carlo, for their unwavering support. My gratitude to Crystal Proenza for her patience and good cheer in turning my voluminous handwritten drafts into flawless manuscripts. I also wish to thank Barbara, Merrick, Chris, and Dwayne Kuklinski for their honest feelings and kind input.

  Lieutenant Patrick Kane of the New Jersey State Police was an invaluable source of detail, facts, emotion, times, and places. Also, Sergeant Rob Anzalotti and his partner, Detective Mark Bennul, were very helpful in shining light on the dark, violent phenomenon that was Richard Leonard Kuklinski’s life.

  MAFIA STRUCTURE

  Capo crimini/capo di tutti capi: superboss/boss of bosses

  Capo: boss/Don

  Consigliere: trusted adviser or family counselor

  Sotto Capo/Capo bastone: underboss, second in command

  Contabile: financial adviser

  Caporegime or capodecina: lieutenant, typically heads a “crew” comprising ten or more soldiers

  Sgarrista: a foot soldier who carries out the day-to-day business of the family, a “made” member of the Mafia

  Picciotto: lower-ranking soldier, enforcer; also known in the streets as the “button man”

  Giovane d’honore: Mafia associate, typically a non-Sicilian or non-Italian member

  “My husband is a good man, a kind man—a great father. All my children’s friends are always saying they wish they had a dad like my husband—like Richard.”

  Mrs. Barbara Kuklinski

  on the day Richard was arrested

  “Richard is both fascinating and as frightening as your worst nightmare. He represents the worst of who we are—yet, he is absolutely fascinating to listen to.”

  Sheila Nevins

  HBO producer

  “This is the devil—No question about it. This is the devil!”

  Dominick Polifrone

  Undercover AFT operative

  “He’s responsible for over two hundred murders—I mean personally responsible.”

  Gaby Monet

  HBO producer

  “I’d never hurt a woman or a child. It’s just not in me.”

  Richard Kuklinski

  “He killed with guns, poison, bats, knives, strangulation, his fists, ice picks, screwdrivers, hand grenades, and even fire. We’ve never seen anything like him. Truth is, we’ve never even heard of anything like him.”

  Bob Carroll

  New Jersey deputy attorney general

  “Even now, I mean so many years later, my stomach gets all tense and my hands tremble when I think about him. But I love my dad. I love him a lot! None of it was his fault…. My father married the wrong woman.”

  Merrick Kuklinski

  Richard’s oldest daughter

  “When he told me he loved me, which he often did, I’d say ‘Me too.’ That’s it…just ‘Me too.’”

  Barbara Kuklinski

  “My father terrorized us. We never knew when or where he’d explode. We tried to hide it from my brother because he would have tried to do something, protect us, you know, protect my mother, and my father would’ve killed him, I’m sure. One time this woman with kids in her car cut him off and he got out of the car at a light and tore the woman’s door right off her car.”

  Chris Kuklinski

  Richard’s daughter

  “They thought I didn’t know what he was doing, but I saw all the broken furniture and I knew my father did it. I s
aw my mother’s black eyes. I kept an ax under my bed and a machete just next to the bed because of him.”

  Dwayne Kuklinski

  Richard’s son

  “He’s very crafty and cunning, like some kind of jungle predator that nobody ever sees until it’s too late. We knew about him—I knew about him, was tracking him for years, but could never pin anything on him.”

  Detective Pat Kane

  New Jersey State Police

  “My mother was cancer. She slowly destroyed everything around her. She produced two killers; me and my brother Joe.”

  Richard Kuklinski

  “There are two Richards, and I never knew who would be walking in the door. He could be generous to a fault, or the meanest man on earth.”

  Barbara Kuklinski

  “We called him ‘the Ice Man’ because he froze some of his victims, kept them in an icebox he had for a while, then put them out so we could not tell when the murder actually took place, you see.”

  Paul Smith New

  Jersey Organized Crime and Racketeering Bureau investigator

  “I became very promiscuous because of my father. The only thing I had control of was my body. I did what I wanted—I did what he didn’t want me to do. I lost my virginity when I was twelve to an older man in a van. Just some guy who picked me up at a bus stop on the corner there.”

  Chris Kuklinski

  Richard’s daughter

  “I feel nothing inside for any of them. Nothing. They had it coming and I did it. The only people I ever had any kind of real feelings for were my family. Those others, nothing. Sometimes I wonder why I’m like this, feel nothing inside…. I wish someone could tell me. I’m curious.”

  Richard Kuklinski

  “Richard is totally unique. There’s not been anyone like him in modern times. He trusts me because I’ve never lied to him. He does have a nice side. Once he asked me if I was scared of him and I told him I wasn’t and asked him if I should be. He just stared at me. That was kind of scary—having him just stare with those chilling eyes of his.”

  Gaby Monet

  HBO producer

  “What the feds did was outrageous. I mean they knew Sammy Gravano ordered Richard to kill a cop and they still made a deal for Gravano to walk.”

  Sergeant Robert Anzalotti

  Bergen County Prosecutor’s office

  “I beat them to death for the exercise.”

  Richard Kuklinski

  “The Law, alone and aloof by its very nature, has no access to the emotions that might justify murder.”

  Marquis de Sade

  THE ICE MAN

  INTRODUCTION

  Rattus Norvegicus

  Richard Kuklinski was first drawn to the sprawling woods of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, because of their peace and tranquillity, solitude and fresh air. The woods reminded Richard of church, one of the few places in his life where he found solace and comfort and could think without distraction. Like a church, the woods were peaceful, quiet, and serene.

  The woods of Bucks County were also a good place to get rid of bodies. By profession Richard was a contract killer, and the disposal of bodies was always a concern. Sometimes it was okay to leave the victims where they dropped, in alleys, parking lots, and garages. Other times they had to disappear. That was specifically requested. One time Richard left a victim in an ice-cold well for nearly two years—preserving the corpse—purposely seeking to confuse the authorities as to the accurate time of death, thus earning his eventual moniker: “Ice Man.”

  Richard was careful never to leave two bodies close to each other here in the woods, lest the authorities become suspicious and stake out a given area. His business was the business of murder and he was particularly adept at it. He had honed killing to a kind of fine art form. No job was too difficult. He successfully carried out every contract he’d ever been given. He prided himself on that. In the netherworld of murder, Richard Kuklinski was a much sought-after specialist—a homicide superstar.

  Richard was unique in that he filled murder contracts for all five New York crime families, as well as the two New Jersey mob families, the Pontis and the notorious De Cavalcantes.

  It was now mid-August of 1972 and the woods were thick with lush green vegetation. As Richard moved in the quiet shade of elm, maple, pine, and tall, elegant poplar trees, he carried a double-barrel Browning shotgun with fancy engraving on the stock. The weapon, in Richard’s enormous hands, seemed like a child’s toy.

  Richard very much enjoyed this kind of cat-and-mouse game he had invented, sneaking up on unsuspecting animals and shooting them before they knew he was there. Richard was a very large man, six foot five in his stocking feet and 290 pounds of solid muscle, yet he had an uncanny ability to move silently and with great stealth, suddenly just being there, and like this Richard managed to shoot unsuspecting squirrels, woodchucks, skunks, and deer, which was all practice for the thing that Richard excelled at, his one true passion in life: stalking, hunting, and killing human beings.

  I don’t particularly enjoy the killing, you know; I enjoy the stalk, the planning, and the hunt much more, Richard explained.

  On one of these “practice outings” in Bucks County, Richard spotted it: a large rodentlike animal standing next to a thick oak tree. Thinking it was a woodchuck, he snuck up on the creature. All was quiet and still except for the rustling of leaves in a gentle breeze. Moving on just the balls of his size fourteen feet, using trees and shrubbery to get close enough for a clean shot—it was important to Richard that he kill with the first round—he managed to outflank the animal by staying upwind. When in good position, he took aim and fired.

  He hit the animal but it was still alive, its rear legs futilely kicking the warm August air. As Richard drew closer, he realized it was actually a huge brown rat—Rattus norvegicus—and it was snarling at him, baring its two large incisor teeth. Tough guy, Richard thought.

  Richard did not particularly want to cause the creature to suffer, and, admiring its moxie, he quickly killed it. As Richard began to walk away, he noticed a cave behind a thick mulberry bush at the foot of a steep granite slope dotted with kelly green moss.

  Always curious, Richard made his way to the cave and went inside. He immediately smelled them—rats—and saw their droppings but could see no rats. The cave went deep into the rise of granite and became too dark to see. Richard had a small penlight and used it. No rats anywhere, but he sensed them; he could smell them. Besides being endowed with nearly superhuman strength, Richard had amazingly strong senses of smell and hearing. His senses were like those of a predatory animal—a creature that regularly hunts for meat to survive.

  He left the cave and slowly made his way back to his car, thinking about the huge brown rat, a diabolical idea coming to him. He slid his shotgun into its fleece-lined leather case and put it into the trunk of his car. He didn’t want his wife or children to see it. Richard was always scrupulously careful about not letting his family know what he really did, seeing any of his extended collection of killing tools, which included razor-sharp knives; all sorts of pistols, some equipped with silencers; garrotes; different poisons (his favorite was cyanide); spiked clubs; hand grenades; a crossbow; ice picks; rope; wire; explosives; and plastic bags, to name but a few. He was particularly fond of .22 pistols because, he knew, when the bullet entered the skull it had a tendency to bounce about, causing massive damage to the brain. He also very much liked .38 derringers; they were small, could easily be hidden, and at close range, loaded with dumdums, they were quite lethal…could knock down a horse. Richard usually carried two .38 derringers, a knife, and a large-caliber automatic when going to work.

  Several days later, Richard returned to the Bucks County cave. It was drizzling. The deep August greens of the woods were shiny and more pronounced. Richard again had his shotgun with him. He also carried a brown paper bag containing two pounds of ground chuck. As he reached the darkened cave mouth, he saw hundreds of rat footprints in the wet soil. He took
fifteen or so steps into the cave. The musky, fetid stink of the rats came to him. He put down the meat and left.

  When Richard returned the next day, all the meat was gone; he smiled. Knowing rats were scavengers and would eat anything, Richard wondered if they would actually eat a human being. He wondered if he could make them unwitting accomplices in torture and murder.

  Curious, Richard got back into his Lincoln and returned to New Jersey. He lived with his wife, Barbara, and their three children in a split-level cedar house at 169 Sunset Street in the town of Dumont. It was a nice upper-middle-class neighborhood, a good place to bring up children. Here, everyone knew his neighbors. People said good morning and good evening and really meant it.

  Barbara was a tall, attractive woman of Italian descent. She had a natural air of style and elegance about her. Even in old jeans and a baggy sweatshirt Barbara appeared carefully put together, comfortable in her own skin. She had particularly long legs, was thin, and had curves in all the right places. She did not appear to have given birth to three children—two girls, Merrick and Chris, who were now eight and seven respectively, and a son, three-year-old Dwayne. Barbara had lost two children while still pregnant because of physical abuse she suffered at Richard’s enormous hands. Barbara recently explained: When Richard lost his temper, he was like a bull in a China shop—anything could break; nothing had value. He could be the sweetest, most considerate man one moment, or the meanest son of a bitch on the face of the earth whose cruelty knew no bounds, in the next.