The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer

didn’t know at this point whether the guy was for real or pulling his chain. On a map on the lieutenant’s desk were dozens of red pen marks where, Lieutenant Leck said, there had been unsolved burglaries. The lieutenant told Kane to take out this burglar and see if he, Kane, could match up what the burglar said with actual burglaries. Kane knew that Lieutenant Leck wasn’t sure if this rodent-faced guy was real or if he was bogus, another cornered rat trying to weasel out of a tight situation. What else is new? he thought.

Outside, as they approached Kane’s unmarked police car, the rodent said, “I’m going to help you and all, you know, show you all the jobs…but if they get wind a what I’m doing here, I’m dead. These are badass people; you understand that there?”

“Yes, I understand,” Kane said, thinking he was surely being melodramatic. Little did Kane know how truly dangerous this gang was; Kane himself would end up a target of them, tracked and stalked and set up for murder.

Kane proceeded to follow the informant’s directions, and they slowly made their way across three rural counties of northern New Jersey, going up and down back roads filled with potholes, raising dust, bumping along, and as they went, the informant indicated houses the gang had robbed. Kane copied down all the addresses—some of the houses didn’t even have addresses, they were so secluded. He would have to check every single one against Leck’s map to see if there had been a burglary. The informant did seem to know the inside of these homes, even what had been stolen.

Over a two-day period, the informant pointed out forty-three houses. This wound up presenting a monumental task for the young detective. Now, working alone, he had to verify all these burglaries and cross-index them with what the informant had said. Meanwhile, the informant also named his accomplices: Danny Deppner, Gary Smith, Percy House, and the leader of the gang—a guy known only as “Big Rich.”

Who, Kane wondered, is Big Rich?

Kane rolled up his sleeves and went to work, carefully investigating each of these robberies. It ended up taking him months to verify all the burglaries and present what he found to a New Jersey prosecutor, who in turn presented the case to a grand jury. By October of 1982, Detective Kane had single-handedly secured a 153-count indictment against the gang members. He managed to find and arrest Percy House, but the others were nowhere to be located. It seemed they had vanished into thin air. Intent upon locating the rest of the gang, Kane searched high and low for them. He staked out both Gary Smith’s and Danny Deppner’s apartments. Nothing. The Christmas holidays arrived. Terry Kane wanted Pat home with the family, their two children. This new case was obsessing her husband, she knew, and she didn’t like it. He assured her he’d be home for Christmas—Lieutenant Leck had promised he’d give him time off. But it didn’t work out that way. On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, Pat was on stakeouts, looking for Deppner and Smith. True, they had the gang foreman, Percy House, in jail, but he refused to say one word about anything. He wouldn’t even give them his name. He hated cops and had no qualms about expressing his animus.

Wondering where the hell Deppner and Smith had disappeared to, Kane continued to hunt for them, sensing something bigger was involved here, but not knowing what. One of the larger questions that loomed before him was where all the stolen goods had gone—televisions and VCRs, phone machines, all kinds of jewelry, guns, cars, and stereos. When Kane pressed the informant about this, he said all he knew was that Big Rich was in charge of that, that Big Rich sometimes hung around a shop in Paterson called “the store.”

“What store—what’s the name?” Kane asked.

“I don’t know,” the rodent-faced informant said. “Just ‘the store.’”

During the months that Pat Kane was trying to piece together the work of the B and E gang, Richard was particularly busy killing people. During those months alone, he filled fifteen murder contracts, all Mafia-sanctioned hits. Richard took all these victims to his garage-warehouse in North Bergen. It was an absolutely desolate area at night, perfect for Richard’s requirements, and Richard beat to death the fifteen men. He could have shot them or cut their throats, but he opted to kill them with his hands, beat them with a crowbar, a long screwdriver, hammers, and pipes. He also used the screwdriver, fifteen inches long and quite thick, to stab them and destroy their spines so they were paralyzed but still alive, and he beat them further still while they couldn’t move.

I was on a tear, he recently explained. I was beating them to death and enjoying it. It was…more personal, you know, intimate, and I…I needed the exercise. I was also doing it, I mean beating them to death, to get out my frustrations, my anger—my hatred, I guess you could say, at the world.

Richard taped the mouths of most of these victims so they couldn’t scream while he smashed and beat and destroyed their bodies. He had brought a truckload of fifty-five-gallon metal drums, which he stored in the garage. This space was wide enough to hold three cars. There was a hose hookup, and Richard used it to wash away the blood on the floor, though there were bloodstains all over the walls, and the ceiling too.

Richard got rid of these fifteen victims in two ways: inspired by DeMeo, he was now bleeding the bodies dry, then dismembering them, severing arms and legs at the joints, so he didn’t have to cut through bones. It’s easier that way. Some of these victims he wrapped up in plastic lawn bags, and he deposited different pieces in various Dumpsters he came upon. Most of them, however, he placed into the fifty- five-gallon drums in several pieces; then he cut grapefruit-sized round holes in the drums and sealed them tight by welding the metal top on. He had learned to do this because George Malliband had been discovered behind the factory in Jersey City when the top of the drum had popped off; that would not happen again. Richard then placed the drum into his van, drove through the Lincoln Tunnel, and returned to his old hunting ground, Manhattan’s West Side. Here there were miles of rotting piers where he could back up right to the water, open the rear of the van, and throw the barrels directly into the Hudson River. Because of the holes in the drums they sank right away, and in no time crabs—exceedingly efficient scavengers—began to feast on the flesh of the bodies inside the drums, easily able to get in and out, ultimately taking every bit of flesh. Because the barrels were metal, Richard knew, the salt water quickly corroded them, and the bones would be taken away with the currents of the river. Richard got this idea by watching people go crabbing along the river, and from a pirate movie in which people were fed to crabs. Thus, Richard developed another unique way of disposing of bodies. He chose to come to Manhattan’s West Side because there was so much traffic, he explained, so many vans and trucks; here, he knew, he could blend in. The piers and docks along Jersey City and Hoboken were abandoned at night, but he was more likely to get stopped by a nosy cop. On the West Side he became one with the constant hurly-burly of the city.

Interesting how Richard kept returning to the West Side, his original killing field, as though it were his alma mater, the place where he’d gone to homicide school and graduated with honors, with a doctorate in murder.

That Christmas was a joyous time in the Kuklinski home. This was Barbara’s favorite holiday. She went all out to decorate a beautiful tree and surround it with a lot of expensive gifts, all carefully wrapped, adorned with bows and fancy paper. Barbara painted Christmas scenes on the front windows, a waving Santa, reindeer, snowy hills with smiling children. Barbara and the children put up lights outside the house. Richard didn’t help with any of this. He gladly bought whatever Barbara wanted, but he didn’t pitch in. He seemed to both love and loathe Christmas. When it was time to pick out the tree, Barbara and Richard went to a tree farm, and he held up different trees so she could decide which one was best. About this Barbara was the boss. About all things relevant to the holidays, she was the boss. She chose a huge tree, as usual, and Richard dutifully carried it to the car, then into the house, where he put it into an oversized stand. Barbara and the kids had carefully, lovingly, decorated the tree, as Richard watched, seeming to enjoy it, but not participating. Barbara would have preferred if he weren’t there, because with him present there was tension. One never knew, she says, when he could go off. Barbara had Christmas carols playing on the stereo, Johnny Mathis and Barbra Streisand singing the Christmas classics.

Daughter Merrick now had a steady boyfriend, Richie Peterson, and he too helped decorate the tree. Richie Peterson was six foot six, had blond hair and blue eyes. Richard seemed to like him, though in the near future Peterson would finger Richard and talk up a storm.

That Christmas Eve Barbara had prepared her customary feast of all kinds of fish. Richard acted…strange; he had extreme highs and lows. Christmas reminded him of his childhood, of Stanley—the abuse, Florian’s loss—and he inevitably became depressed. On the other hand, he very much enjoyed buying gifts for the children, watching the decorating. Nothing was too good for his children. He gave Barbara whatever money she said she needed. No problem. No questions. Take it.

Barbara knew well how Richard could become quiet and gloomy during the holidays, just sit in his big easy