“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.”
“When he told me he loved me, which he often did, I’d say ‘Me too.’ That’s it…just ‘Me too.’”
“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.”
“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 saw my mother’s black eyes. I kept an ax under my bed and a machete just next to the bed because of him.”
“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.”
“My mother was cancer. She slowly destroyed everything around her. She produced two killers; me and my brother Joe.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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 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.”
“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.”
“I beat them to death for the exercise.”
“The Law, alone and aloof by its very nature, has no access to the emotions that might justify murder.”
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.
