by Philip Carlo
“Something must’ve happened,” he said to Barbara—
Suddenly, all the vehicles surged forward and came barreling directly toward Richard and Barbara, no spinning red lights, no sirens.
“What the hell?!” Richard said.
“Watch out!” Barbara exclaimed.
At first Richard thought it was a hit, that he was going to get killed, that all he had done—or something he’d recently done—had finally caught up to him. He veered to the right. The car hit the curb. Agents and detectives burst from the vehicles and surrounded him. One jumped on the hood of the car and pointed a gun in combat position. Richard thought about reaching for the .25, but he was afraid, knowing many shots would surely be fired at him, at the car, and Barbara might get hit.
There was a cocked nine-millimeter pointed at his head—“Don’t fuckin’ move!” he was told. The car door was ripped open. Richard was roughly pulled from the car by Kane and men piled on him, trying to push him to the ground, trying to pin his massive arms behind his back so he could be handcuffed. Barbara’s door was torn open. Deputy Chief Buccino grabbed her and made her get on the ground, physically pushing her down. When Richard saw this, rage exploded inside his head.
“She has nothing to do with this, leave her; leave her be!” he yelled.
“Fuck yourself,” Buccino said, his animus showing, and he roughly pushed Barbara to the ground and put his boot on her back while she was cuffed.
“What are you doing?!” she asked. “Richard, help me!”
Richard went berserk. He got up and made for Buccino, intent on killing him, tearing him apart, not caring if he was shot dead trying.
Eight strike-force members were now fighting with him, struggling with him, wrestling with him, Pat Kane, Donahue, and Volkman among them, all of them amazed by Richard’s superhuman strength. Richard actually made it to the rear of the car, halfway to Buccino. Now the agents and cops lifted him up off the ground and slammed him to the hood of the car. It took four men to get his hands behind his back, but Kane couldn’t get the handcuffs on his wrists, they were so thick. He finally had to use leg irons to shackle Richard’s arms behind his back.
Richard was blind with rage at Barbara’s being manhandled, and even shackled with thick leg irons he resisted and still tried to get to Buccino.
“Calm down, calm down,” Kane told him. “It’s over, Rich, it’s over. You’re under arrest.”
“There’s no reason to involve her!” Richard bellowed. “She’s innocent. You know that!”
“It’s out of my hands,” Kane said.
Barbara was helped up and led to a van. The cops and troopers were still struggling to keep Richard from getting to Deputy Chief Buccino, who was ready to shoot Richard dead. Stunned, people on the block had called the Dumont police, and now two squad cars showed up.
All his life, throughout his long, sordid career in crime, Richard had always imagined he’d go out in a fierce gun battle to the death. He had, in fact, specifically planned that. He would much rather have been killed in a shoot-out than face the music, see the embarrassment, humiliation, and shame his family would surely suffer if who he really was were ever exposed. Of all things, Richard dreaded that—the humiliation of his cherished family. That’s all he cared about.
Now a mob of strike-force members boldly picked up Richard and put him in back of the black van. He was literally fit to be tied.
54
The Politics of Murder
Attorney General Al Smit, Bob Carroll’s boss, viewed the arrest of Richard Kuklinski as the absolute milestone of his career, and he wanted to get as much mileage out of it as possible. Knowing the arrest would go down today, he had ordered his office to contact the media so they’d be there in full force to cover the bust. The tagline the media was given was that lawmen were arresting “a serial killer who froze people, who killed with cyanide, guns, knives, and who also happened to be a mob hit man,” which, needless to say, caused a media stampede.
Al Smit had political aspirations. He was hoping for a shot at the governor’s office, and what better way to get there than this arrest, this media blitz? There is a long list of crime fighters turned politicians who rode well-publicized cases to higher office: the most obvious examples would be Rudy Giuliani using his prosecutions of Mafia bosses in the Southern District of New York to get himself elected mayor of New York, and Thomas E. Dewey using his highly publicized prosecution of Lucky Luciano to become the governor of New York State.
When, that morning, Richard was on the way to the Hackensack courthouse to be arrested, booked, photographed, and fingerprinted, a call came in that the press was lined up outside the courtroom and Kuklinski should look “presentable for media consumption.” With that the van pulled over, and five detectives helped Richard get out, made sure he didn’t look too messed up, and put him in the back of a black detective’s car. He had calmed down somewhat but was still pissed off that Barbara had been roughed up. He didn’t give a flying fuck what they did to him, but to abuse Barbara, throw her down and cuff her, was unthinkable, unspeakable, an infamy. Until he killed Buccino, he would not rest. If he died doing it he didn’t care; so be it.
“You know my wife is innocent; you know my wife didn’t do anything,” he kept saying, almost more to himself than to any of the detectives in the car, one of whom was Pat Kane.
“Nobody hurt her; calm down, Rich. Calm down,” Kane said.
“She’s sick. There was no reason to treat her like that—no reason!”
Instead of driving the car directly up to the entrance, they parked a good thirty feet away so Richard would have to walk the distance, giving the mob of wide-eyed, stunned reporters, producers, and cameramen a good look at this giant serial killer who killed and froze human beings. Richard did not try to hide his anger; he huffed and puffed and grumbled, seeming as if he might explode into a homicidal rage at any moment.
“How many people did you kill?” a reporter asked.
“Did you really freeze people—how many?” another begged.
“These cops,” Richard growled, his face a twisted mask of barely contained fury, “have seen too many movies.”
Inside, Richard was brought up to a holding area, still bellowing about Barbara’s treatment. That’s all he cared about. On the way to a holding cell, he spotted a bewildered, frightened Barbara sitting in the homicide squad room. She was still cuffed, crying, upset. How could she not be?
“Get those fucking cuffs off her!” he demanded. “She knows nothing, she’s innocent!” He tried to snap the thick chains holding his massive hands behind his back.
“Get those fuckin’ cuffs off her!” he roared so loudly that the reporters heard him all the way outside, the walls reverberating with his angry words. It took a half dozen detectives to wrestle him into the holding cell. Normally, the cuffs are removed from a prisoner at this point, but no one was taking the cuffs off Richard. It was obvious he’d kill anyone he could get his hands on.
Now, like a crazed beast suddenly plucked from a dangerous jungle, Richard paced his cell, cursing every cop he saw, taunting them, daring them to take the shackles off of him.
“I will kill you motherfuckers—I’ll kill you all, you motherfuckers!” he roared.
Back in Dumont an army of police personnel armed with warrants flooded the Kuklinski home. They were sure they’d find a huge trove of weapons, the freezer Richard used to freeze his victims; but they found no arms, no freezer—nothing illegal at all.
That night every six o’clock news show across America reported the arrest of Richard Kuklinski. He was big news. The hot leadoff story. Based on what the police told the media, anchormen and anchorwomen in turn told America that Richard had killed five people—naming George Malliband, Louis Masgay, Paul Hoffman, Gary Smith, and Danny Deppner—that he used cyanide to kill, and that he froze some of his victims to confuse the police as to the time of death, hence the moniker: Ice Man.
Aghast at the thought of such a
thing, America watched him being led into the rear of the courthouse, his face twisted into a snarl—over and over again across the country.
The following day the story was reported in sensational large print on the front pages of New York’s three major newspapers—the Post, the Daily News, and the venerable New York Times. The police had given Richard the perfect nickname. “The Ice Man” was evil and sinister and simple all at the same time, ideal for headlines and taglines for opening news reports. From the East Coast to the West Coast and everywhere in between, America heard about the diabolical machinations of the Ice Man, a contract killer like no other. He killed for fun and he killed for the mob. When the media realized that the Ice Man was married with children, reporters and news trucks swarmed Sunset Street in Dumont, trying to get interviews with the Kuklinskis’ shocked neighbors, with the Kuklinski children. Richard’s worst fear had come true in bold living color.
Barbara was released on her own recognizance, but the police charged her with possession of the .25 auto they found under the seat of her car. The police, of course, knew the gun was not Barbara’s, but they filed charges against her, thinking they could use that as leverage against Richard down the road, which is exactly what they did. When Barbara arrived home, her hands were still trembling. A mob of reporters surrounded her. She had to fight her way through them to get inside.
When Richard was finally allowed to make his mandatory phone call, he phoned Phil Solimene.
“Hey, Philly, how you doin’?” Richard asked, his voice dripping with syrupy disdain.
“Rich?” Solimene said, shocked. “What happened—where are you?”
“I just got off Route 80. I’m coming to see you,” Richard said, and hung up.
Solimene ran from the store as if his ass were on fire, his face filled with fear and panic and dread.
Pat Kane was finally at peace. He had done what he’d set out to do. It had taken nearly six years, but he had prevailed. All his hard work and diligence had paid off. Richard Kuklinski was in a cage where he belonged. Though there was still much to do, that night Pat Kane slept like a baby, his wife in his arms.
Life was good.
Life held much promise.
Kane had caught the cunning, very dangerous muskie.
55
The State of New Jersey v. Richard Leonard Kuklinski
On December 18 Richard appeared in New Jersey Superior Court, in front of Judge Peter Riolina, and was officially charged with nineteen felony offenses. Here for the first time Richard saw his nemesis—Deputy Attorney General Bob Carroll—and Richard did not like what he saw. It was obvious that Carroll knew the facts and details backward and forward, that he had planned and orchestrated Richard’s arrest, and that he would be trying the state’s case. Richard was now formally charged with the murders of Masgay, Malliband, Hoffman, Smith, and Deppner.
After the brief proceeding, Richard was brought back to a cell at the courthouse jail. It would be here that he would wait while the wheels of justice slowly, inexorably turned and the case was adjudicated.
When Barbara heard what the charges were against her husband she was apalled; she didn’t believe them. Daughter Chris wasn’t surprised at all. She felt, in fact, that her father was absolutely capable of what the police were saying. Richard’s son, Dwayne, now eighteen, also felt his father immanently capable of what the police were alleging. For the longest time, Dwayne had felt that sooner or later he would have some kind of life-and-death struggle with his father, and now Dwayne realized that such a confrontation would surely have ended with his being killed.
More than anyone else, Dwayne felt the stigma of being Richard’s son, a Kuklinski. By now both Chris and Merrick were out of school, but Dwayne was still attending school, and he saw the strange, curious stares, the pointing, heard the whispering. Richard’s favorite, Merrick, also wasn’t surprised at what the police said her dad had done, but still she was hurt and deeply troubled that her dad was in jail. No matter what he’d done, what heinous crimes the police said he’d committed, he was innocent until proved guilty. Merrick would love him and support him and be there 10,000 percent for him to the end.
When Richard learned that Dominick Polifrone was a plant, an ATF agent, and that he had taped most of their conversations, he knew he was dead in the water. Unless some kind of miracle happened, he’d never get out of jail, never see the light of day, would more than likely get a death sentence. He was so angry with himself, how stupid and gullible he’d been, that he couldn’t even look at himself in a mirror without getting angry and calling himself names: You idiot, you fool, what the fuck were you thinking? he said over and over again.
He paced his cell. He silently cursed heaven and hell, the world and everyone in it.
Richard often thought about killing Deputy Chief Bob Buccino, how he would torture him and make him suffer. Oh, how he wanted to see Buccino suffer, see the rats feed on him. He believed that Kane and Polifrone were, for the most part, just doing their jobs, but Buccino was another story. The way he had treated Barbara was, he believed, totally uncalled for, was bullylike, and he hated the man with a fiery-burning passion. Even now, so many years later, Richard gets angry, his face pales, his lips twist, when he thinks of Deputy Chief Buccino. I don’t know, he recently said, if the prick is still alive or dead, but if he died I hope it was a painful death. I hope he died of cancer of the asshole.
Shortly after his arrest, Richard decided not even to try to mount any kind of viable defense. His was a hopeless case; once a jury heard him talking, burying himself, he’d get convicted. The only question was whether he would get the death sentence or life in jail. Either way, it didn’t matter. He had fucked up big-time and he knew it, accepted it, didn’t try to blame someone else. Yes, of course, his “friend” Phil Solimene had set him up, but he should have sensed something was up, smelled it in the wind, seen the handwriting on the wall. Richard had never been trusting or easily fooled, yet he had walked into the carefully laid trap, he says, like a wide-eyed schoolkid with no sense at all.
Because of all the extraordinary media coverage of the case, the jury pool, he knew, was irreversibly tainted, and he had less chance than a snowball in hell. Also because of all the media attention he’d gotten, Richard was by far the most notorious prisoner in the county jail. One of his fellow prisoners began taunting him and teasing him everytime he passed his cell. “Ice Man my ass,” he said. “You ain’t shit; you ain’t so tough.” Richard just smiled, knowing sooner or later he’d get his hands on this guy. He was in a foul, homicidal mood, looking to kill someone, anyone. Murder would be like an aspirin for a headache.
Barbara was, in a sense, relieved that Richard was finally out of the house. For the first time since she’d married Richard, she knew a new kind of peace and tranquillity, she explained. For weeks after Richard’s arrest reporters hounded her and her children, but they were coming around less and less, thank God.
Pat Kane woke up every day with a smile on his face. He had done it. It had been a long, bumpy road but he’d done it.
He was ten feet tall.
56
It Was Due to Business
Thirteen months after Richard’s arrest, on January 25, 1988, his trial began for the murders of Gary Smith and Danny Deppner. The state had decided to have two trials; the second trial would be for the murders of George Malliband and Louis Masgay. Bob Carroll had decided not to try Richard for the murder of Paul Hoffman, because without Mr. Hoffman’s body, the case would be difficult to prove, so for now, he dropped it.
A young lawyer with the public defender’s office, Neal Frank, became Richard’s attorney. Richard was claiming to be indigent, and the state was forced to provide him with counsel. Perhaps out of lack of experience or naïveté, Neal Frank felt there was a fighting chance and told both Richard and Barbara that. But Richard knew better. He didn’t feel he had any chance at walking.
Barbara, however, believed Frank, believed that Richard would beat th
e charges and come home. She was torn about his return. On the one hand, she was finally free of him, not subjected to his volatile mood swings, his duality, his sudden, extraordinary violence. On the other, she missed the good Richard.
Still, she quickly got used to sleeping alone and liked it, she says.
Neal Frank told Barbara that she and the family should show up in court, to let the jury see them. It was important for the jury to know that Richard had a loving, supportive family. They had to see that Richard wasn’t the diabolical serial killer the press had consistently portrayed him as. This, the Ice Man story, had by now appeared on hundreds of front pages across New Jersey, indeed across the country.
The presiding judge was a stern, forbidding individual who wore granny glasses, slicked his sparse gray hair back, and was known as the “Time Machine” because he had a tendency to mete out the harshest sentences the law provided. His name was Fred Kuchenmeister, and he regularly showed open disdain for defendants. In his court defense lawyers claimed that you were guilty until you proved yourself innocent.
By the time jury selection was completed and the trial actually began, it was February 17. Finding a fair-minded jury had been, for Neal Frank, a Herculean task with all the media attention, but Frank felt he had managed to secure a reasonable jury that would listen to the case with “an open mind.”
Bob Carroll first presented an extremely well-put-together case, tight as a wet drum. Carroll, with co-counsel Charley Waldron, a tall, gray-haired man who knew well his way around a courtroom, put a series of witnesses on the stand, beginning with Barbara Deppner. Also up were Percy House, Richard Peterson, Pat Kane, two pathologists, Deputy Chief Bob Buccino, Jimmy DiVita, Gary Smith’s wife, and Veronica Cisek. Carroll even put on the stand Darlene Pecorato, a stewardess that had rented Richie Peterson’s apartment after he moved out. This was the place where Danny Deppner had been shot in the head by Richard, and Pecorato told about the bloodstained rug when she moved in, and Paul Smith then told how he had discovered bloodstains in the wood floor under the rug. And finally Dominick Polifrone took the stand. When Dominick walked in front of Richard, Richard said, “Hey, Dom, how you doin’?” actually smiling. Dominick was still, to Richard’s amazement, wearing that terrible wig.