The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer

by Philip Carlo

  Percy House was afraid of Richard. He knew how dangerous Richard was, that he’d kill as readily as he’d scratch an itch. But he hated being in jail; he wanted to be free, and he knew the only way he’d ever get out of jail was to talk, to tell what he knew, to cut a deal. Yet the prospect of crossing Richard was a daunting, unsettling thing. He took a long, deep breath, finally said: “Look…I can give you some names. I’m not sayin’ Big Rich killed ’em…but some people say he did kill ’em.” And House went on to tell Kane about the murders of three people: Louis Masgay, George Malliband, and Paul Hoffman. He knew about these killings because his brother-in-law, Phil Solimene, had told him, and thus the investigation into Richard Kuklinski suddenly took on new life.

  Armed with this information, Kane began to investigate these three killings. Kane did not like or trust Percy House, but he sensed he was telling the truth, though he needed concrete proof that could be used in a court of law. It didn’t take Kane long to find out that in both the Hoffman and Masgay killings, Richard Kuklinski had briefly been questioned, and had denied knowing either man. It had ended right there. Kane quickly realized that the crimes’ happening in different police jurisdictions was hampering any kind of solid investigation from moving forward. Kane mentioned what he had to state prosecutor Ed Denning.

  “Wait a second. Kuklinski…I know that name,” Denning said. “But not connected to these murders. There was a grisly murder a while back, a guy named George Malliband. That was one of the names Percy House mentioned. He was found sticking out of a barrel in Jersey City. He’d been shot five times, dismembered, his leg cut off so it could fit in the barrel. A big man. He told his brother on the day he was murdered that he was going to meet this guy…this Richard Kuklinski.”

  “You’re kidding,” Kane said, stunned.

  Denning continued: “But no one ever saw Kuklinski with Malliband, and the investigation never went anywhere.”

  It will now, Kane thought, and silently vowed that he would not rest no matter what until he got to the bottom of this. All things in his life would become secondary—his children, his wife, any other cases he’d been working on.

  Back at his desk, Pat Kane wrote a meticulous report outlining everything he had learned. The file on Richard Kuklinski was growing. For the first time someone in law enforcement was looking at the pieces, carefully scrutinizing them, making sense of where they fit.

  However, when Kane told his superiors and colleagues what he had, what he thought, they flat out didn’t believe him; in fact they mocked him, snickered behind his back, made jokes at Kane’s expense. They sarcastically dubbed Kane’s file on Kuklinski “the Manhattan Project,” after the A-bomb project, because the file had become so big, now containing crime-scene and morgue photos, maps, and police reports from numerous jurisdictions.

  Kane was right on target. Yet, they treated him like a fool.

  “Pat,” one of his bosses condescendingly said, “you’re saying you’ve got a guy here that poisons, shoots, and strangles victims, cuts legs off too. There’s no consistency here. Come on, open your eyes, Pat.”

  Still, Pat Kane believed with all his heart and soul that Richard Kuklinski was a diabolical serial killer hiding in plain sight—a master criminal—and he was intent upon proving it. But how? Where to start?

  Kane knew too that if he was right about Kuklinski, he and his own family might very well be in danger. He was sure Percy House was capable of telling Kuklinski about him. He knew Percy House might try to use Kuklinski to take him, Kane, out of the picture. With Kane gone, House would have a better shot at getting out of trouble. It was Pat Kane who had built the case against House, who had dotted all the i’s and crossed the t’s.

  Kane’s boss, John Leck, was worried about the young Kane. He believed he was suffering from some kind of delusional fantasy. Resources were scarce. Leck could not afford to tie up one of his investigators in murders that took place in other jurisdictions, let alone whose victims were thieves and degenerate gamblers, the very dregs of society. Who cared? Leck wrote up Kane’s ineptness to his youth, and he warned Kane to focus on other cases, to get over “this obsession you have here.”

  “Yes sir,” Kane said, clenching his teeth.

  Late that February, Roy DeMeo contacted Richard, and a meeting was set up for the following day. Richard left for Brooklyn a little after noon. He had a short-barreled .38 stuck in his pants, a pistol and knife strapped to his calf.

  Richard met Roy as planned at the Gemini. Roy didn’t look good at all. Richard hadn’t seen him in a month or so, but Roy looked as if he had aged ten years. He was gaunt, his hair was uncombed, and there were eggplant-colored circles under his eyes. They got into Roy’s Cadillac, and as Roy drove, he told Richard about his concerns, about the cases against him, about how federal prosecutor Walter Mack was going to charge him with the murder of both Espositos.

  Roy, Richard thought, seemed like a beaten man, a man at his wits’ end. They parked in a desolate spot in Sheepshead Bay and Roy went on and on about his troubles, how everything had turned against him. Richard had always viewed Roy as a tough, stand-up guy. But the man sitting next to him now was a mere shell of the man he knew.

  Richard was concerned…indeed, very concerned: after all, DeMeo knew the intimate details of numerous murders Richard had committed. Sitting there listening to DeMeo whine, Richard remembered how DeMeo had pistol-whipped him, pointed the cocked Uzi at him, embarrassed him in front of everybody.

  Rage soon began replacing any empathy Richard might have felt for DeMeo, and Richard made up his mind there and then to finally get even, and before DeMeo knew it Richard pulled out his .38 and let loose, shooting DeMeo five times, twice in the head, killing him. Richard then struck DeMeo numerous times with the butt of the .38, just as Roy had struck him, cursing him as he did so. Richard opened the trunk of DeMeo’s car, threw him in it. There was, Richard noticed, a lamp on the rear seat of the car. Richard knew it belonged to Roy’s wife, Gladys, and he removed the lamp from the rear seat and gingerly put it on top of Roy’s body. He didn’t want, he explained, anyone to steal it. He closed the trunk and left DeMeo there like that, the lamp resting on his body.

  As Richard began to walk in the direction of Flatbush, he had mixed feelings about what he’d just done. On the one hand, he was elated: he finally had his long-awaited revenge. On the other hand, he was sad; a part of him had taken a liking to Roy. They were, he knew, in many ways alike. Be that as it may, Richard walked on, glad DeMeo was dead, for dead men tell no tales.

  It was a large, dark brown, mean-eyed turkey buzzard, and it was intently picking at something wrapped up in black plastic, violently tearing away pieces of flesh.

  By pure happenstance a man on a dirt bike came riding down the lonely stretch of road near the West Milford reservoir, spotted the bird, slowed to see what it was eating. Through a hole in the bag, no doubt made by the sharp beak of the buzzard, the cyclist discerned a human arm, definitely a skeletonized human arm sticking out of the bag, seeming to wave for attention, for help. Disturbed, the buzzard took flight. Not sure if the arm was real or not, the cyclist moved closer and now saw a human head sticking out of the bag. It had a Fu Manchu mustache and missing front teeth. The bicyclist immediately went to summon the police, pedaling so hard he nearly fell twice as he went.

  The police removed the bag with the remains to the medical examiner’s office. As the ME peeled away the plastic, which had a tendency to preserve a body, a huge cloud of flies left the corpse, and then came hundreds of fast-moving carrion beetles out of every orifice. The ME found a billfold in the dead man’s pocket filled with photographs of children. She laid these photos out in the hall of the medical examiner’s office, hoping maybe someone recognized the children.

  Again, by pure happenstance, a detective who knew Pat Kane and the case he’d been working on did recognize the children: they were Barbara Deppner’s kids. Danny Deppner had been found. Pat Kane was soon notified. He hurried ov
er to the medical examiner’s office and quickly confirmed that the children in the photos were the Deppners’. Barbara Deppner was brought over, and she verified that the wallet and the photos were Danny’s.

  “I told you! I told you!” she kept saying.

  The cause of death, Kane was first told, was strangulation, though there were no signs of a struggle, and a little digested meal of burned beans was still in Deppner’s stomach, indicating, in Kane’s mind, that he, like Gary Smith, had been poisoned and strangled. Then, however, Kane was informed that Danny had been shot in the head.

  For Pat Kane this verified what he’d been saying and thinking all along, but his superiors still—incredibly—weren’t persuaded, and a very frustrated Pat Kane was just about ready to bang his head against a wall.

  Who could blame him? To work off his frustrations Kane beat a heavy bag he had set up in his basement. He went for long, arduous runs. What would have to happen, he wondered, asked out loud, for his bosses to see the light, to understand that there was a cunning, remorseless serial killer roaming free, murdering at will, when and where and how the hell he pleased?

  Richard was concerned about Robert Pronge. He was beginning to think Pronge was truly crazy, completely out of touch with reality. The beginning of the end of their relationship came when Pronge asked Richard to murder his wife and eight-year-old son. As remorseless a killer as Richard surely was, he would not kill a woman or a child. For him that was anathema, an unspeakable infamy, and he told Pronge just that. This created a chasm of sorts between the two men, and Richard was concerned. He had come to know Pronge as a raging psychopath and he was thinking Pronge might very well kill him for refusing to murder his wife and child—for judging him.

  The second issue that drove a stake between the two men was Pronge’s plan to poison with ricin a small reservoir that acted as drinking water for an upstate community. Pronge said a man would pay him several hundred thousand dollars to do the job, which was to kill a particular family that used the water from this reservoir. The problem was many other households used the water, and Pronge’s plan would kill hundreds of innocents, women and children. This truly incensed Richard, who made up his mind to stop Pronge.

  In mid-August, Richard walked in rubber-soled shoes to the garage where Pronge kept his Mister Softee truck. Pronge had actually laid gravel on the ground so it would be difficult for someone to walk on it without making noise, but Richard used his catlike abilities and silently made his way right up to the truck. Pronge was inside cleaning it up. Without a word, Richard shot him five times with a .22 pistol equipped with a silencer, killing him, and left him there like that, dead, in his Mister Softee truck. It seemed appropriate, Richard thought. Pronge never knew what hit him, who killed him, or even why.

  After Pronge was discovered, Richard decided to get rid of the warehouse, to finally get rid of Masgay’s body. Richard now broke open the cement on top of the well head, retrieved Masgay’s body, took it to a little-used area in upstate New York, and left it there, wrapped in black leaf bags.

  Again, by pure happenstance, the body was found within several days and the police were summoned. Interestingly, the frigid well water had completely preserved the corpse. Masgay had now been dead for two years but he looked as if he had just died—been murdered—only the day before. The clothes he was wearing were matched with missing-persons reports, and thus the authorities realized it was Louis Masgay, reported missing so long ago.

  On the day Masgay disappeared, the police knew, he’d gone to see Richard Kuklinski with ninety thousand dollars cash money on him. When word of this discovery reached Detective Kane, he hurried and told Lieutenant Leck. The lieutenant said: “Pat…Pat, you’ve made a believer out of me,” and he shook Kane’s hand. This murder finally vindicated Kane, and he felt ten feet tall.

  Now with Leck’s permission and encouragement, Kane dug deeper and quickly learned that Louis Masgay was last seen on his way to have dinner with Kuklinski the day he vanished. Kane also learned that Masgay had been buying porn and blank tapes from Kuklinski. Kane now turned his attention back to the murder of George Malliband, spoke to his brother Gene, and heard how Malliband was a heavy gambler, deep in debt to loan sharks and “Mafia characters.”

  Kane went for a long jog, thinking this out, trying to fit the jagged pieces of this bloody puzzle together. He had many good ideas while running, managed to see things in a new light—from different angles, as he says. While jogging he had the idea to contact the NYPD organized-crime unit and see if he could learn something more about Richard Kuklinski from them. He needed help, he knew. He was only a lowly detective in the small state police barracks at Newton, New Jersey, which had an absolute minimum of resources—a serious disadvantage, and Pat Kane had the good sense to know it. Kane’s query to the NYPD proved to be fruitful. He not only asked about Kuklinski, but he provided the OC Unit with Kuklinski’s mug shot; it was shown to a Mafia informant—Freddie DiNome—and Kane soon learned that the photo was of “the Polack,” a proficient hit man who had worked with Roy DeMeo, who himself had recently been killed. “He is supposed to be,” an NYPD detective told Kane, “a specialist at getting rid of bodies.”

  This confirmed what Kane had all along suspected, but to hear it from the NYPD OC Unit was very sobering. It sent shivers up his spine.

  How many people has he killed? Kane wondered, and his mind played over the long list of Mafia hits that occurred all over New Jersey. With this new information, Kane became even more concerned for both his and his family’s safety. If Kuklinski was a contract killer, what was to prevent him from coming after Kane, or his wife, or for that matter his children? Kane made sure to find out the license-plate numbers of not only all of Richard’s cars, but his family’s cars as well. With the information he took Terry aside and explained how he was on the trail of a dangerous killer, a contract murderer, who lived nearby, a ten-minute drive away, and he “might,” he said, come around looking to hurt him. This both troubled and confused Terry.

  “Why,” she asked, “would he come after you, Patrick, and not one of the other guys?”

  “Because I’ve been pursuing him for a while, and I think…well, I think it’s possible he found out about me.”

  “You, I mean just you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Terry, it’s long and involved. Just suffice it to say that I’m…I’m concerned, and I want you to be…”

  “To be what, Patrick?”

  “On guard—alert,” he said. “Keep your eyes open.”

  “What about the children, Patrick? Would he…you know, hurt them?” she asked.

  “Terry, I just want you to keep your eyes open, that’s all. No. No, he won’t hurt the children,” Kane said, but in truth he didn’t know what Richard would do, what Richard was capable of.

  Merrick Kuklinski’s boyfriend, Richie Peterson, was becoming abusive. He first took to pushing Merrick around, then striking her and breaking things. As much as Merrick loved Peterson, she was not, she vowed, going to enter into an abusive relationship the way her mother had. So she unapologetically, irrevocably ended all romantic relations and ties with Peterson. He was heartbroken, crestfallen, pursued Merrick, begged her to reconsider, promised he’d change, but she didn’t want to hear it.

  If Merrick had told her father that Richie Peterson abused her, Richard would have killed him and fed him to the rats. But Merrick kept silent about the abuse, and Richard still treated Peterson well. It was out of character for Richard to trust Peterson—or anyone—so much. Peterson was young, not an outlaw, and he had been involved with Merrick for a long time now. Richard thought of Peterson as a surrogate son. This familiarity, however, would come back to haunt Richard.

  Chris Kuklinski was still asserting her individuality by having a lot of male friends. She would sometimes be fooling around in vans parked right outside the house with Richard home; she would sometimes cavort with boys in her basement bedroom with Richard
home—just upstairs, watching TV.

  Chris, of course, knew all about her father’s bad temper, but she knew nothing about the second life he led; she had no idea what a truly thin, dangerous line she was crossing by doing these things. If Richard had caught her in these acts he would have gone berserk and sent any male she was with to the hospital, or worse—a grave. This was a tragedy waiting to happen.

  Several times, Pat Kane tried following Richard, but that proved to be very difficult. Richard’s doubling back, making sudden turns, pulling over on the side of the road and just sitting there waiting, made tailing him nearly impossible. Kane also thought about going into Phil Solimene’s store in Paterson to see what he could find out, but Solimene knew Pat Kane through an odd quirk of circumstances, and knew Kane was a cop, so he’d be made the second he entered the store.

  Kane came to view Solimene as a possible weak link, a way to get something on Richard, but the question was how? In truth Solimene was a genuine black-hearted outlaw and knew very well just how dangerous Richard was, and he’d be hard-pressed to do anything to undermine Richard or help the cops in any way.

  Though, with time, that would change.

  Kane now turned his stubborn nature to Kuklinski’s phone records, and soon learned he had four different phone lines and ran up huge bills…several thousand dollars every month.

  Upon closer scrutiny of Richard’s phone calls, Kane realized that Richard had been making phone calls to Louis Masgay’s number, which abruptly stopped the day Masgay disappeared.

  “Interesting,” Lieutenant Leck observed when Kane brought this to his attention. “Especially considering that Kuklinski denied even knowing Masgay.” As provocative as this was, it didn’t in any way prove that Kuklinski had killed Louis Masgay, though it certainly pointed in that direction. Kane went back to checking the hundreds of numbers called from the Kuklinski home. This was grueling, tedious work, comparing all these seemingly unrelated numbers, but suddenly, one of the numbers seemed to jump off the page and slam Pat Kane right in the face. “Bingo!” he shouted, and hurried into Lieutenant Leck’s office. “We got ’im,” he announced.