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—
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 arrived home that day, Barbara was preparing dinner. She never knew what kind of mood he’d be in when he walked in the house, and always greeted him with a kind of wary trepidation. She did not smile until he smiled. He smiled now and kissed her and the children hello. She immediately knew he was not in a bad mood.
Barbara was married to two different men,
Barbara tried her best to shelter Dwayne from the bad Richard. Just about every weekend she sent him off to her mother’s home to keep him out of harm’s way, and she was quick to ferret Dwayne out of the house if she saw Richard’s mood changing, his lips tightening against his teeth, his face paling. Whenever he made a soft clicking sound out of the left side of his mouth, they all knew it was time to run. That sound was like an air-raid siren warning of attack.
Richard’s daughter Merrick was his favorite. She had had a failing kidney since she was a very young child, often had to be hospitalized, and had undergone several operations. Richard was always there for her, by the side of her bed, holding her hand, stroking her head.
Merrick never held anything her father did against him. The beatings he gave Barbara, the furniture he broke, the toys he tore apart, the cups and keepsakes smashed, all was forgiven. None of it was his fault. He couldn’t help himself. He just couldn’t control his anger, he had explained to Merrick—only Merrick—and she believed him. He was her daddy. She would love him deeply and profoundly no matter what.
However, daughter Chris remembered and held all her father’s outbursts against him, particularly how he abused her mother. Chris, too, loved her father; he was the only dad she had ever known, and when he was nice he was truly golden, but she hated the man her father became when he flew into one of his irrational rages. No matter how mad Richard became, though, he never hit either of his daughters or Dwayne.
Still, Barbara did not take into account, or perhaps just could not accept, the realities of the psychological damage Richard’s outbursts were causing her girls deep inside. Both Chris and Merrick had golden blond hair and sweet heart-shaped faces—the best features of both their parents. Chris had light blue eyes, Merrick’s were honey colored. They were both particularly attractive, with Richard’s wide Slavic cheekbones, Barbara’s long, perfectly straight nose and strong jawline, and the fair skin of the Polish. They looked so much alike that people often mistook them for twins. Barbara enjoyed buying them twin outfits, always two of everything. In most family pictures the girls are dressed alike, and there is a discernible sadness behind the smiles for the camera. The girls attended parochial school and were shy and polite, perfect little ladies. Warm and giving and quick to smile, they both made friends easily.
Chris and Merrick were now helping their mom set the table. The family soon sat down for dinner, roasted chicken and potatoes, one of Richard’s favorite meals. To an outsider they seemed perfectly normal, a well- adjusted, happy family. In truth, however, the man sitting at the head of the table, patiently slicing the roasted chicken, lovingly doling out preferred pieces, was America’s most prolific contract killer.
The contract came down in the first week of September. The mark had to suffer. That was the order. If he did suffer, the price would be doubled, the client said, from ten thousand to twenty thousand dollars, cash money. The mark lived in Nutley, New Jersey, in a fancy house with a curved driveway and elegant white pillars on either side of a large mahogany door with a big brass knocker in the shape of a ram’s head. Richard didn’t know anything about the mark other than that he had to suffer before he died. Richard preferred it that way. The less he knew about the mark, the better.
Richard had access to the camera because he produced pornographic movies for distribution all over the East and West Coasts and everywhere in between. Richard’s partner, the man who fronted Richard the money to start the production company, was the infamous Roy DeMeo—a psychopathic soldier attached to the Gambino family. DeMeo was an excellent moneymaker. He dealt in stolen cars, drugs, shylocking, pornography, and murder. He ran the most brutal, feared crew of killers organized crime ever knew. They were responsible for literally hundreds of
