Richard Kuklinski

For the Polish colonel and Cold War spy, see Ryszard Kukliński.

Richard Kuklinski
Kuklinski in 1982
Born
Richard Leonard Kuklinski

(1935-04-11)April 11, 1935
Jersey City, New Jersey, U.S.
DiedMarch 5, 2006(2006-03-05) (aged 70)
Trenton, New Jersey, U.S.
Other namesThe Iceman
Big Rich[1]
Big Richie
Spouse
Barbara Pedrici Kuklinski
​
​
(m. 1961; div. 1993)​
Children5 (2 from first marriage; 3 from second marriage)
Conviction(s)Murder (5 counts)
Criminal penaltyFour consecutive life sentences
Date apprehended
December 17, 1986

Richard Leonard Kuklinski (/kʊˈklɪnski/; April 11, 1935 – March 5, 2006), also known as the Iceman, was an American criminal and a convicted murderer. He was engaged in criminal activities for most of his adult life; he ran a burglary ring and distributed pirated pornography. Kuklinski committed at least five murders between 1980 and 1984. Prosecutors described him as killing for profit.[2] He was nicknamed the "Iceman" by authorities after they discovered that he had frozen the body of one of his victims in an attempt to disguise the time of death.[1][3]

Kuklinski lived with his wife and children in the New Jersey suburb of Dumont. They knew him as a loving father and husband, although one who also had a violent temper. Kuklinski's family stated that they were unaware of his crimes.[1][3] Kuklinski's modus operandi was to lure men to clandestine meetings with the promise of lucrative business deals, then kill them and steal their money. He also killed two associates to prevent them from becoming informants.[4] Eventually, Kuklinski came to the attention of law enforcement when an investigation into his burglary gang linked him to several murders, as he was the last person to have seen five missing men alive. An eighteen-month-long undercover operation led to his arrest in December 1986.[5] In 1988, he was convicted of four murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2003, Kuklinski received an additional 30-year sentence after confessing to the 1980 murder of an NYPD detective.[6][7]

After his murder convictions, Kuklinski gave interviews to writers, prosecutors, criminologists, and psychiatrists. He claimed to have murdered anywhere from 100 to 200 men, often in gruesome fashion.[5] None of these additional murders have been corroborated.[8] In 2020, ATF Special Agent Dominick Polifrone said, "I don't believe he killed two-hundred people. I don't believe he killed a hundred people. I'll go as high as 15, maybe."[9] Kuklinski also claimed to have worked as a hitman for the Mafia.[5] He said he participated in several famous Mafia killings, including the disappearance and presumed murder of Teamsters' president Jimmy Hoffa. Law enforcement and organized crime experts have expressed skepticism about Kuklinski's claimed Mafia ties.[10][8][5] He was the subject of three HBO documentaries aired in 1992, 2001 and 2003;[5] several biographies, and a 2012 feature film The Iceman.[11]

  1. ^ a b c Camisa, Harry; Franklin, Jim (January 1, 2003). "RICH JOHN AND THE ICEMAN". Inside Out : Fifty Years Behind the Walls of New Jersey's Trenton State Prison. Windsor, N.J.: Windsor Press. pp. 247–249. ISBN 0-9726473-0-9. OCLC 52937928.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ a b "Ice Man: Tells of Killings". The Record. Hackensack, New Jersey. September 2, 1993. pp. D2. Archived from the original on February 4, 2021.
  4. ^ "'Iceman' pleads guilty to 2 more killings, admits another". The Central New Jersey Home News. New Brunswick, New Jersey. May 26, 1988. p. 17.
  5. ^ a b c d e Douglas, Martin (March 9, 2006). "Richard Kuklinski, 70, a Killer of Many People and Many Ways, Dies". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on August 7, 2019. Retrieved August 7, 2019.
  6. ^ "The Iceman Tapes: Conversations with a Killer". America Undercover. 1992. HBO.
  7. ^ Ex-hit man Gravano charged with arranging cop's killing by Andrew Jacobs and New York Times News Service in the Chicago Tribune, February 24, 2003 Archived April 19, 2023, at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ a b Markos, Kibret (June 27, 2006). "Ice Man Book Ridiculed as More Fiction than Fact". The Record. Hackensack, New Jersey. p. A1. Archived from the original on February 24, 2021. "I checked every one of the murders that Kuklinski said he committed," said Smith, who was a member of the task force that ultimately arrested Kuklinski, "and not one was true." "Authorities throughout the country could not corroborate one case based on the tidbits that Kuklinski gave," Smith said.
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ "Former FBI agent says Hoffa claim is hoax". UPI. April 18, 2006. Archived from the original on October 25, 2019. Retrieved October 25, 2019.
  11. ^ "7 Film Action yang Berdasarkan Kisah Nyata". CNN Indonesia. November 7, 2020. Archived from the original on January 26, 2021.