Richard “The Iceman” Kuklinski
This week’s post is about my favorite hitman/serial killer to read about. This man scares me more than any other monster I have researched because I find something comforting and familiar about the way he looks and the sound of his voice. His story actually scares me so much that it’s taken me a couple days to write this post even though I’ve already done the research because it triggers my anxiety, specifically writing about his family life. Hope you guys enjoy, feel free to send me any feedback or requests.
TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of child abuse, death of a child, animal abuse and death, murder and domestic abuse
Richard Leonard Kuklinski, also known as “The Iceman” was born on April 11, 1935 in Jersey City, New Jersey. It seems as though he never had a chance to be a child. His father, Stanley Kuklinski, was a very abusive alcoholic and beat him and his siblings daily. When Kuklinski was six years old, his father beat his older brother, Florian, to death while intoxicated. After this, Stanley abandoned his family. Unfortunately, Kuklinski’s life did not get any better with his fathers absence. His mother, Anna Kuklinski, believed her children should grow up in a strict household so she hit him routinely. Kuklinski even claimed his mother broke a broomstick over his back. On top of the abuse he suffered at home, he was a target for bullies thanks to his small size. This all made Kuklinski a very angry person. In order to cope with that anger and give himself a sense of power, he would mutilate cats and dogs.
When Kuklinski was thirteen, he set out to get revenge on the leader of a small neighborhood gang that had been bullying him. He beat the boy to death with a wooden dowel then, to prevent authorities from identifying the body, he cut off his fingers with a hatchet and pulled out his teeth with pliers. Kuklinski claimed he hadn’t planned on killing the boy but proceeded to seek out the rest of the members and beat them almost to death with an iron rod.
As time went on, Kuklinski became a well-known pool shark who was heavily feared because of his short fuse. He claimed to have killed anyone who he felt rubbed him the wrong way, but had one rule. He would not kill women or children. Unlike most serial killers, Kuklinski did not abuse drugs or alcohol and he did not kill out of lust. He only killed out of anger and later on, for money.
It seems as though Kuklinski was as transparent as can be right? Except he wasn’t. His crimes were kept a secret from his family. His own wife had no idea what he did for a living, though by the time he met her, he was already an experienced killer. When Kuklinski was twenty-five, even though he was already married and had a little boy, he met and fell in love with the eighteen-year-old secretary, Barbara Pedrici, at the trucking company he was working for at the time. Barbara said Kuklinski was charming and always told her he loved her. As their relationship got more serious, Barbara grew worried that she was becoming isolated from her family and friends. She decided to try and end their relationship. When she brought this up to Kuklinski, he took a hunting knife and stabbed her in the back. He told her, “This is an object lesson: never leave me.” After this incident, Barabra found out she was pregnant with his baby. She decided to marry him in order to protect her image. Her family even paid for his divorce. They ended up having three children, two daughters and a son. While Kuklinski adored his family and even said that the time with his family was some of the happiest moments of his life, Barbara said there were two sides to her husband, describing them as “bad Richie” and “good Richie.” She said she never knew which one was going to walk through the door. Good Richie was loving and caring. He spoiled his children, took his family on expensive vacations and regularly visited Disney World with them. Barbara enjoyed these times, living with no worries about finances. If she wanted anything, good Richie made sure she got it. She didn’t know how he was able to afford their lifestyle but she knew better than to question him. Bad Richie was angry and violent. He never hit his children but he beat Barbara so bad, it caused two miscarriages.
Kuklinski gained a connection to Roy DeMeo(let me know if you guys want to hear about him too) and began pirating pornographic films for the Gambino Crime Family. He was quickly noticed by the higher-ups thanks to his now very intimidating look. The small, weak boy who was bullied for his height now stood six feet, five inches and weighed over 300 pounds. He became an enforcer for the family, making sure debts were paid. He became DeMeo’s favorite enforcer so he decided to put him up to a test. DeMeo randomly selected a target on the streets for Kuklinski to kill. He walked up to the man walking his dog and shot him in the back of the head with no remorse. From this point on, he began doing hits for the Family. He continued this life for thirty years, going out of his way to keep his “work life” away from his family. He claimed to kill anyone who threatened his family, sometimes even entire rooms of people. Since he didn’t have a preferred weapon or style of killing, it was very hard to catch Kuklinski. He also used different methods of hiding the bodies. He earned his nickname “The Iceman” from hiding bodies in a freezer after killing them then dumping them years later. This made it almost impossible to determine the time of death. In 1986, an undercover agent finally caught up with Kuklinski. On December 17, 1986 investigators set up a staged cyanide purchase deal and arrested Kuklinski.
In March of 1988, a jury found him guilty of five counts of murder, though he claimed to have killed over 200 people. He was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. He would turn 110 before he would be eligible for parole. On March 5, 2006, Kuklinski died from Kawasaki disease, a disease most common in Japanese children. His death was deemed suspicious because it was right before he was supposed to testify against Sammy “The Bull” Gravano(again, if you’d like to hear about him, let me know), a former mobster being tried for murder. One of the things Kuklinski was known for was poisoning some of his victims. Kawasaki disease has almost the exact same symptoms as mercury poisoning. Though his autopsy determined he died from natural causes, many people believed he was poisoned to keep him quiet. What do you think?
As for Barbara and their children, Barbara has changed her name and lives anonymously in New Jersey with her youngest daughter, Christin, and Christin’s boyfriend. Barbara has told an interviewer, “Look at me! I used to shop at Bloomingdale’s. We had a pool. I had the best of everything. I had a cleaner and a housekeeper. I wanted for nothing. If I wanted it, Richard saw that I got it. Now, I worry about the price of paper towels. But I have never been happier in my life. My husband’s dead and gone. Thank God!” Kuklinski’s oldest and favorite daughter, Merrick, keeps his ashes and has done a few interviews about her father. She is the only person to love him until the day he died.
