Latest / The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories / The Iceman Confessions Of A Mafia Hitman - Serial Killer Documentary - Richard Kuklinski

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The Iceman Confessions Of A Mafia Hitman - Serial Killer Documentary - Richard Kuklinski · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Mister Klesky, we're going to conduct a that search here
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: for your arms out.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: On May twenty fifth, nineteen eighty eight, Richard Kouklinsky was
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: convicted of multiple murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. This
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: ended thirty years of cold blooded killing by a masked
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: criminal police called the Iceman.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: Richard Koklinsky is one of the most dangerous criminals we
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: have ever come across in his state. He murdered by guns,
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: He murdered by strangulation. He murdered by putting poison on
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: victim's food. He did all of this at the same
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: time while exhibiting a normal, placid family existence, his wife,
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: his children.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: We're uninvolved in his criminal activities, yet uh we are
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: faced with uh evidence convicting evidence of uh numerous grizzly murders.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: How many people get killed? I mean that approximate guests
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: approximate of gaway more than a hundred. How do you
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: feel about killing? I don't. It doesn't bother me. It
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: doesn't bother me at home. I don't have a feeling
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: one way or the other. I think if I had
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: a choice, I wouldn't.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: The following program is based on seventeen hours of an
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: interview conducted under maximum security at Trenton State Prison. Law
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: enforcement officials allowed our camera's unprecedented access in an attempt
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: to uncover details of various unsolved crimes. It was also
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: hoped that the interview would help to penetrate the mind
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: of Richard Koklinsky, a mind made for murder, ridgie.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: When you were on the streets, what kind of weapons
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: did you use? When I was out on a street
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: to do something, I carried three guns and a knife.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: I had a damage in each pocket, put a gun
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: on my ankle, a bigger big gun just in case,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: and a knife. And it all depends how it came
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: about you yesterday that he used a shotgun, got a
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: stalk light or something like that, or I had a
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: red light. We were following this fella. I pulled up
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: a had a red light, came alongside of him and
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: shot the shotgun took his head off. He never saw
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: the green light. It was a sod off shotgun. It
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: was very uh As a matter of fact, when it happened,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: it surprised me. I expected the uh De man to die,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: but it really surprised me. It would have took his
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: head off. It was something I didn't expect.
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: Richard Koklinsky is not a serial killer. He's not a
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: drug crazed wild man running around with a machine gun.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: He's not a person that is driven by perverse sexual desires.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: He doesn't drink, he doesn't gamble. All of these things
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: which many persons that are involved in killing and murders
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: often are motivated by. Richard Koklinsky instead is nothing more
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: than a predator on human beings. His motivation is greed,
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: and his method of murder is very varied and very extreme.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Richard, I understand that you're an expert the use of side.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: How many times did you kill with it? Quite a few.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: It's the different ways you use side. You could uh
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: put it in liquid form, you could uh there could
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: person take it. For instance, a person could be in
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: a bar, you bunk into them, possibly uh by mistake,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: or say you were intoxicated, spill a drink on him
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: and leave. Everybody just looks around and thinks you were drunk,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: or but you just had an accent or something, and uh.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile it's soaking to their clothes, into their pores, and
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: into their system and eventually they'll die. Mm I've been
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: in a restaurant where we were eating and the guy
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: went to the bathroom, and when he was in the bathroom,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: we put a little boost in his food. And he
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: was rushed to the hospital after that, and he died
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: and they buried him, and I exactly show what they
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: put what they attributed his death too. But you know
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: it wasn't homicide.
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: Somewhere, and I don't know where. He picked up on
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: cyanide poisoning as being a good way, a good quick
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: way to kill somebody. It's such a good way to
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: kill somebody that that's the gas that's using gas chambers.
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: I mean cyanide in a gas flat form, which is
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: similar to cyanide in being eaten for him, kills very quickly.
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: It's a very It kills faster than arsenic, faster than stryckening,
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: and it's hard to detect if the person if it
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: isn't specifically looked for.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: He murdered sometimes months apart, years apart. He used different methods.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: He would go so far as to plan in his
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: crimes the actual deceit of law enforcement. By that, I
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: mean he would on occasion murder someone, cut their body,
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: wrap them in layer after layer of plastic bags and material,
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: and then deposit the body many many miles from the
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: murder scene.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: What is it to dispose of something? You throw it away,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: You throw it anywhere. It all depends if you don't
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: want it found, or if you want it found. If
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: if you want to find, it doesn't matter. Just leave
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: it there. If you don't want it found, you could
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: take it somewhere. You could bury it. You could uh
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: put it in a big drum. You put it in
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: the trunk of a car and have it crushed. If
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: you leave it in town, you can put it on
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: a park bench. I mean, you know, you can put
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: it anything you want. They found a few people sitting
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: on park benches, I'm sure, as a matter of fact,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: I know they have. Are there any murders that you
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: committed that that haunt you, that you just sort of
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: you feel.
• 8:50
  Speaker 5: And you do.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Nothing haunts me. No murders haunt me. Nothing. I don't
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: think about it. That's why it's hard for me to
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: tell you. But I it orders me to be able
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: to tell you when something happened, I'd have to think
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: about why. When if I think about it, it would
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: wind up hurting me. So I don't. I don't think
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: about it. If I had a choice, and of course
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: you as I already said to me, we all have choice.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Maybe we do at the time I didn't seem to
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: have one. But if I could have, I would like
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: to be different than what I am. I would've liked
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: to been different when than what I was. Yes, it
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: would be better. It would have been better for me.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: I would've liked to had a better outlook on like
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: But I can't change yesterday.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Richard Koklinsky was born April eleventh, nineteen thirty five, in
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: a low income public housing project in Jersey City. His
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: father was a brakeman for the railroad, and his mother
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: worked in a meatpacking plant.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: I didn't like my father because he would beat me
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: just because he felt like it to get my attention.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I guess he would think nothing of coming in and
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: smacking you. Yeah, basically, he just come in and give
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: you a whooping for another reason whatsoever. And my mother
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: was cancer. She would destroy everybody she thought I took
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: too long to do something. She didn't hesitate to give
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: me a swat here, and she didn't just use her hand.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: She she would hit me with a broomstick or something
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: like that wouldn't had hers. As a matter of fact,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: she's broke the broom on me more than once.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Richard's mother believed that harsh discipline at home should go
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: hand in hand with a rigid religious education.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: I was raised Catholic. M Uh we were very She
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: was strict as far as the religion goes. I went
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: to Uh my mother, Yeah, my mother. We went to
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: a Catholic grammar school and we were raised with the
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Catholic belief I was even an altar boy.
• 11:56
  Speaker 6: But uh.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Do in the course of my life, I don't really
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: believe it. It's just the way it happened. Didn't mean
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: it to happen that way, but it just happened that mer.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: When his father abandoned the family, Richard, a skinny, timid
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: young teenager, was left to fend for himself. He was
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: an easy target for street gangs, but by the time
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: he was sixteen, things began to change.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: When I was a young man, I found out that
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: if you hurt somebody, they'll leave you alone. Good guys
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: do finish last. When I tried to leave everybody alone
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: just do my own thing, everybody just wanted to hurt me.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Until one day I just decided, well, I've had enough
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: of this picking, and I went upstairs and I took
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: a a bar which the clothes used to hang on
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: in the UH closet, and I went back downstairs. And
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: they were like six young men, still figuring they were
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: gonna mess with my head, and UH we went to war.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: To their surprise, I was no longer taking the beating.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: I was giving it. And that's when I learned that
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: it was better to give than to receive. I've been
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: known to hurt people for no reason. If you check
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: out my background as I came up, I could be anywhere,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: and if somebody humiliated me, I would think nothing of
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: hitting them with acoustic in an instant, And the only
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: thing they might have done was made me feel bad
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: or challenged my authority.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: At the time, Koklinsky's reputation as a tough guy with
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: a hair trigger temper grew. By the time he was eighteen,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: the abused had become the abuser. It wasn't long before
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: he committed his first murder.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: I got into a fight in a bar. We got
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: into an argument to fight, and I hit him with
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: a but acoustic UH a few too many times, and
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: he died. How'd you feel after when you found out
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: that he had died? I had felt very bad, very
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: very bad. I was upset. I didn't mean to do it, actually,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: but surprisingly I felt sadness, and after a while I
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: felt something else. I didn't feel sad. It was said,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: along with some sort of a rush, that I had control.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: And if you mess with me, I guess it's if
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: you mess with me, I'll hurt you.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: By the time he'd reached his twenties, Kouklinsky had become
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: a petty crook and pool hustler. Then his life changed.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty he met a pretty nineteen year old
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: girl named Barbara Pedron.
• 15:42
  Speaker 7: He was absolutely flowers at the door every day, and
• 15:48
  Speaker 7: considerate and romantic and all of the things that anybody
• 15:53
  Speaker 7: could could hope for dream for. He bought me beautiful things.
• 15:58
  Speaker 7: We went fun places. Yes, he was happiest when we
• 16:03
  Speaker 7: were together. He was happiest when just he and I
• 16:05
  Speaker 7: were together.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: He and Barbara had three children, but with just an
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: eighth grade education, he could only get low paying jobs
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: that didn't pay enough to support his growing family.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't have the capability of getting a better paying job.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: How was I going to push a on truck the
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: rest of my life make menial amount of money. I
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: couldn't have afforded one child, let alone three.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: He went to work at a film lab where he
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: began to pirate pornographic films and sell them to outside
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: sources connected to the Gambino crime family. This connection led
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: to other criminal activities, and it wasn't long before he
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: went from being a small time hood to a big
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: time killer. He worked as a headman and associated with
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: a gang that worked out of the notorious Gemini Lounge
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: in Brooklyn above The lounge was a mafia killing factory
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: where victims were killed and dismembered. Hacked bodies were packaged
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: in plastic bags and carted away. Kuklinsky was the perfect enforcer.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: He was brutal and he knew how to intimidate. If
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: people owed money, they either paid up or paid with
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: their lives.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Most people paid their bills, some didn't. I remember one guy.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: He was owed a lot of money, but I guess
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: considered a little amount of money. He hid me. He
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: thought he could hide behind a door. It's a nice door,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: expensive door anyway.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Most people don't realize that when you come to answer
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: a door. Uh. If there's light in the background, the
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: person on the outside can look through the people and
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: see the guy coming to the door. So he came
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: to the door. I asked who it was, and he
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: looked through the people and he never saw it hit him.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: For Richard Kuklinsky, murder had become a way of life,
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: and the macabre became the commonplace.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: How would you ever use a chainsaw? I mean to
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: cut someone up? Yes, I've done that, to dismember him, yes,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: not to kill him though.
• 19:10
  Speaker 6: Mm.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: What was it like to cut somebody up with it?
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: And would they uh, you know, what were the guys? Dad?
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: How did you feel the custom guy up with the
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: to the chainsaw? Why? I didn't have any feeling one
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: way or the other that that just happened. That's the
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: way it had to be, Gussie, Yes, yes it was.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Did it make it sick?
• 19:40
  Speaker 8: No.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: I've had a requests where the guy wanted the guy's
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: tongue cut out, and he also wanted his tongue put
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: in his uh rear rent, So I'd believe it was
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: a definite point he wanted to get across. I have
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: an experience that I don't know if I should tell you,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: uh that it might it probably would offend a lot
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: of people. Uh, I don't know. I don't think I
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: should I go into that. Go ahead, No, it's not
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: a good one. Ahead to him. It was a man.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: He was begging and pleading and.
• 20:40
  Speaker 9: Uh mm and praying, I guess, and.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: He was pleased, garden all over the place. So I
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: told him he could have a half hour to pray
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: to God, and if God could come down and change
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: the circumstances, he'd have that time. But God never showed up,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: and he never changed the circumstances. And that was that.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: It wasn't too nice. That's one thing I shouldn't have
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: done that one. I shouldn't have done it that way.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: By the nineteen seventies, between his illegal activities and contract killings,
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: he was becoming a wealthy man. He now lived in
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: an expensive home in a middle class neighborhood with his
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: wife and three children.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Risia, what did you charge for a head? If I
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: hit somebody, I wouldn't hit it for peanuts. I'd like
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: to have some money, I say, if I were to
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: do somebody, I want at least five figures and at
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: least up in the better half, not the lower half
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: of the five figures.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Kuklinsky kept his criminal life secret from his family and neighbors.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: He told them he was a business man. No one
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: knew his business was murder.
• 23:04
  Speaker 7: We were perfect, My children were never in trouble. We
• 23:07
  Speaker 7: were perfect. We were the all American family. I mean,
• 23:12
  Speaker 7: we had what seemed to be the perfect life. They
• 23:16
  Speaker 7: were wonderful times, and time with his family was the
• 23:21
  Speaker 7: only thing that he was really concerned. I mean, if
• 23:23
  Speaker 7: he never had to leave the house, he would have
• 23:25
  Speaker 7: loved it. He hated to have to travel, he hated
• 23:27
  Speaker 7: to go away. He came back as soon as he can.
• 23:32
  Speaker 7: He wanted to be home all the time. He wanted
• 23:36
  Speaker 7: to be with us all the time.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: I enjoyed that way of life. I felt I had
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: to achieved something. I very seldom left the house unless
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: I had to, because I felt secure in house. I
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: felt very secure ray to provide the best for them,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: as I knew how might not have been the right
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: way to go, but it was for me the only way.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: I tried to never let anything touch the house. I
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: brought nobody there. My family was not exposed to anybody.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: I wanted to showed him the good side of life,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: not the bedside.
• 24:33
  Speaker 7: Richard had a very, very sad childhood. You got the impression,
• 24:36
  Speaker 7: or I knew, because he would like say something going
• 24:38
  Speaker 7: to drop and change the subject, that he was abused
• 24:41
  Speaker 7: and that there was no love. He grew up absolutely
• 24:44
  Speaker 7: without any love, without a doubt. I mean, the first
• 24:47
  Speaker 7: Christmas with my family, he was an oree. He couldn't
• 24:53
  Speaker 7: believe it. It was a tree and everyone was cooking
• 24:57
  Speaker 7: special things, and there was lots that we were laughing
• 24:59
  Speaker 7: and it was fine. And he kept saying, I can't
• 25:02
  Speaker 7: believe that this is what happens.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Who was a Jekyll and High at existence? The way
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: it was, the way I wanted it to be, was
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: absolutely two different, two different lives. I wanted one life.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: I had to have another life.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: This other life would interrupt. One Christmas Eve, while his
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: family was celebrating the holidays, Kuklinsky left his home to
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: collect on a bad debt. Business was business, even on
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Christmas Eve.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: The man owed me money. He was giving me a
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: run around. I told him I wasn't happy that he
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: wasn't going to pay me. Hey, he had the attitude
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: that nobody could hurt him. I think he was wrong.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Only way he never saw Christmas? Who did you use? U?
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: A gun? Extremely loud inside of a car. Matter of fact,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: my ears were ringing for a long time. What'd you
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: do afterwards? I walked away, got in my car and
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: went home. What did you do when you got home?
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: I put toys together for the kids for Christmas. I
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: saw a broadcast while I was putting the toys together
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: that came down mob related killing. That was the first
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: time I knew I was mob related. How do you feel?
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I was annoyed. I couldn't get the damn wagon together.
• 27:14
  Speaker 7: I never questioned him, and you just knew, don't do it.
• 27:18
  Speaker 6: Don't ask.
• 27:19
  Speaker 7: If he got up at two o'clock in the morning
• 27:21
  Speaker 7: or during dinner and put on his shoes and looked
• 27:23
  Speaker 7: out of the door, you said bye. You didn't say
• 27:26
  Speaker 7: where are you going or why are you going? And
• 27:28
  Speaker 7: it was just understood that that's the way it was.
• 27:33
  Speaker 7: He was very private. You only knew what he wanted
• 27:37
  Speaker 7: to do to know.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: By the nineteen eighties, after twenty five years of working
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: as a hitman for the mob, Richard Kuklinsky became the
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: head of his own crime ring. He developed new ways
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: to profit from murder. The case of Paul Hoffman was
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: typical of the way he operated. On the afternoon of
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: April twenty nine, ninth, nineteen eighty two, Hoffman arrived at
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: a warehouse leased by Koklinsky. Like numerous victims of the Iceman,
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: he had been set up for a phony business deal.
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: Paul Hoffman was a pharmacist and he was looking for
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: a quick buck. He was out to purchase a drug
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: called Tagament, which was at the time a wonder drug
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: for ulcers. And he felt that if he could purchase
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: a large quantity of this Tagment at at a very
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: low price, that he could indeed make a huge profit
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: on that. And that was the alleged deal that he
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: had with Richard Koklinsky.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: When Paul Hoffman showed up to buy the Tagament, he
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: was carrying twenty five thousand dollars in cash.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: He took the bag door, opened it, showed me a hole,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: mess of money, mess the cash. He said, I got
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: the money right here. And he came back. He says,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: what are we gonna do? What are we gonna do?
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: How am I gonna get this merchandise? I put the
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: gun under his chin and I said there is no merchandise,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: and I shot him. He didn't die. The gun jammed.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: He was.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Gurgling. I had hit him. It was uh. Blood was
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: pouring out of his mouth and uh. He was in
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: a I would imagine a lot. It looked like he
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: was in a lot of pain. So there was a
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: tire iron there. I took the tire iron and hit
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: him with it, which knocked him out, and he died.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: I then took him and put him in a fifty
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: gallon drum, put it on the side of a motel.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: It was behind Harry's corner. I listened to the people.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: I went in Harry's every morning. The thing was there
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: for a long time. I looked at it every day.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: It was there. I went in Harry's every day. One
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: day it was just missing. Continue to go in Harry's
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: to see if anything was said about it. Not to
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: was said. I don't know what happened to the drum.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: By the nineteen eighties, Koklinsky was involved in narcotics, pornography,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: arms dealing, money laundering, hijacking, and contract killing on a
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: worldwide basis. He was also pressing fifty and getting tired.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: He started to make mistakes. He began to leave traces,
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: and law enforcement officers who had suspected him over the
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: years began gathering evidence. Koklinsky would protect himself by killing
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: anyone who could testify against him. On December twenty seventh,
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty two, a body was discovered at the York
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Motel in New Jersey. The body was identified as Gary Smith,
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: thirty seven. Smith had been given cyanide and then strangled
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: to death. This was the first of men any mistakes
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: Kuklinsky was to commit.
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: Gary Smith was found under a motel bed in New Jersey,
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: as I recall, where some twenty people had used the
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: room in five days and nobody had realized it was
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: a rotting body underneath it. The body was found in
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: a decomposed state. It was very hot weather. Smith would
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: have not been identified as a murder victim if he
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: had died only of the cyanide. If the cyanide had
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: worked and he had died and he didn't need to
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: be strangled, that ligature mark around the neck wouldn't have
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: been seen, and he would have been possibly a drug addict.
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: Overdose or lots of other things of a non homicidal
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: nature would have to be considered.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: On September twenty fifth, nineteen eighty three, the body of
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: Lewis Masgay was found, as he had done many times
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: before us the time of death, Koplinsky had frozen the
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: body in an industrial freezer. This was the murder that
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: earned him the name of Iceman. This murder was also
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: his second deadly mistake.
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: He did too good a job in that body, because
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: he left that body in the freezer for two years,
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: then took the body out and dumped it in Rockland County,
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: and the body was found before it had fully thawt out.
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: So the doctor doing the autopsy the medical was having
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: in Rockland County when he opened the body up, saw
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: ice inside the body in the summer's day and said,
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: there's something wrong here. This guy could not have died
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: two days ago the way he looks like from the outside.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: On May fourteenth, nineteen eighty three, a bicyclist was riding
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: down a lonely road in a wooded area and saw
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: a buzzard feeding on a body. It was Daniel Depner,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: forty four, the third business associate of Richard Koklinsky to
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: be found dead. The body count grew there would soon
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: be five unsolved murders with one thing in common. The
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: last person to see the victims alive had been Richard Koklinsky.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: After thirty years of getting away with murder, Richard Koklinsky's
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: time was running out. He had been under investigation for
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: three years and the police were beginning to put the
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: pieces together.
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: What I told my superiors in Trenton was that, hey, look,
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: you know, we can check with the FBI, and we
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: can see that there's a certain number of given serial
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: killers roaming around this country of ours. But take a
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: good hard look at what we got here. We got
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: Richie Koklinsky, and there is only one of him.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty six, a division of the New Jersey
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: Crew Mental Justice Department set up a task force made
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: up of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. The
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: task force analyzed existing investigative material and gathered new information.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: They had one mission to arrest and convict Richard Kouklinsky.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: When I first read the file, which at the time
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: was nothing more than a compilation of several different unsolved homicides,
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: the more you looked for connections, the less you found
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: in this particular case, because there was different types of
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: murders different devices used. The final method that was used
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: was in fact the introduction of a undercover federal agent,
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: Dominic Polophone, who was able to win mister Koklinsky's confidence
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: and was able to record conversations where he detailed his
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: participation in these murders.
• 35:50
  Speaker 10: I portrayed myself as a hit man, tol I worked
• 35:53
  Speaker 10: for the Wise Guys Downtown New York, and my brother
• 35:58
  Speaker 10: was a good fell at downtown and uh, I went
• 36:02
  Speaker 10: by the name of Dominic Michael Provinzano.
• 36:07
  Speaker 11: You're willing to go on a on a on.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: A contract if the price is right. I don't talk
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: to anybody. Yeah, sure.
• 36:15
  Speaker 10: And you mean to tell me your way.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: Is nice and clean and nothing fucking shows up.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: Oh it may show, my friend, But it's quiet, it's
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: not messy, it's not as noisy, it's not uh you know, yeah,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: but how the fuck do you put it together?
• 36:29
  Speaker 7: Like?
• 36:29
  Speaker 10: You know what I'm saying.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: There's always a way, there's a will as a way.
• 36:33
  Speaker 10: My friend, we used to sit down, we talk. Either
• 36:37
  Speaker 10: we'd go to those tables over there and get away
• 36:39
  Speaker 10: from people and we discuss how to murder people.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: You know, I just have a few problems. I want
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: to dispose of. I have some brats I want to
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: get rid of it.
• 36:48
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 36:49
  Speaker 10: The only fucking thing I don't understand, don't you use
• 36:51
  Speaker 10: a fucking piece of irond to get these fucking people
• 36:53
  Speaker 10: use this fucking cimib messy into.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: A nice and calm.
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: It became apparent at later points in the investigation that
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: mister Koklinsky fully intended on murdering Dominic Polophone in addition
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: to the victims that were being discussed at the time.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: They were having these tape recorded conversations, so he could
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: pretty much tell Dominic Polophone anything because he knew shortly
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: that he had plans for mister Polophone too.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: You put that stuff in a myst you spray it
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: at somebody's faith, and they go to sleep.
• 37:27
  Speaker 6: No shit, as long as he's dead.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: That's the bottom line.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing is that no matter how it
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: was done, I mean, I know guys that went to
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: sleep and never.
• 37:34
  Speaker 8: Woke up again.
• 37:35
  Speaker 10: I mean, you know, he says he had one guy
• 37:39
  Speaker 10: he went and get a hamburger. They'd come back and
• 37:41
  Speaker 10: he put the cyanide on his hamburger and was sitting
• 37:45
  Speaker 10: down and he's telling me. He says, you wouldn't believe it,
• 37:47
  Speaker 10: he says. I'm waiting for this guy to kill over.
• 37:49
  Speaker 10: He says, because once he's cyanide, usually would you'd roll over.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: And that's it.
• 37:54
  Speaker 6: He says.
• 37:55
  Speaker 10: This guy had the constitution of a fucking bully. Says,
• 37:57
  Speaker 10: you wouldn't believe it.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: He says, he wouldn't. I'm dying.
• 38:00
  Speaker 10: We're both laughing about this, and I'm saying, the back
• 38:02
  Speaker 10: of my mind, I said, Holy God, I said, look
• 38:04
  Speaker 10: at this. I said, what kind of person is this?
• 38:07
  Speaker 10: I said, I said to myself right there, I said,
• 38:11
  Speaker 10: you better cover your butt. I said, because you just
• 38:14
  Speaker 10: don't know what this guy and he'd be kidding about it,
• 38:17
  Speaker 10: and I'd be laughing. In the back of my mind,
• 38:18
  Speaker 10: I'm saying, this is the devil, no question about it.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: This is the devil.
• 38:25
  Speaker 8: I know one hear that card.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: On December seventeenth, nineteen eighty six, the Special Task Force
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: set up a roadblock and arrested Richard Kuklinsky outside his
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: home in Dumont, New Jersey. They felt they had all
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: the evidence they needed for a conviction.
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: The whole road was blocked off for cops, local police,
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: State Police, Division of Criminal Justice investigators County personnel. It
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: was no place for him to go, so he stopped
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: his car. He was told to get out of the car,
• 39:06
  Speaker 5: and he did not, so he was taken out of
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: the car and he was placed face down on a
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: street in a position where we thought we were safe.
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: And then I handcuffed him. That guy's big I did
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: everything I could to get one click on a handcuffs,
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: and later on I tried to put leg irons on him,
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: and there's no way they would go on. They just
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: wouldn't go on.
• 39:48
  Speaker 12: Law enforcement authorities have arrested one of the most notorious
• 39:52
  Speaker 12: contract killers in state history. A self employed Bergen County man,
• 39:57
  Speaker 12: is behind bars, charged with five murders, and prosecutors are
• 40:01
  Speaker 12: investigating his involvement in dozens more.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: This is done warrant unnecessary. These guys watched too many movies.
• 40:11
  Speaker 7: Here is such a cold blooded killer.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: They call him the Iceman.
• 40:14
  Speaker 12: After being convicted of two murders, he confessed to two
• 40:17
  Speaker 12: others in court today.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: I shouted George Mawman five times Lewis Masgay on July
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Ferris nineteen eighty one. I shot him once in the back.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: Of the head when the judge asked him why he
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: had killed the two men. Koklinsky replied, there is due
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: to business dominic Polophrone's tapes had nailed Koklinsky, but in court,
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: the iceman greeted the undercover cop with a smile.
• 40:46
  Speaker 6: Oh. He seemed to be quite cheery about saying hello to.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: You, who I reciprocated.
• 40:53
  Speaker 10: The only thing is I'm going home, and he's going
• 40:57
  Speaker 10: to a different environment.
• 40:57
  Speaker 6: At the present time, it wasn't real to us.
• 41:09
  Speaker 7: We've just had a hard time dealing with what was
• 41:12
  Speaker 7: in the press, and I kept saying in no way,
• 41:16
  Speaker 7: and I don't believe it. And then when I actually
• 41:17
  Speaker 7: heard his voice, you know, in court, it was very
• 41:21
  Speaker 7: hard to believe that he's talked like that.
• 41:24
  Speaker 6: It is very, very difficult to believe.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I've done it all right, as far as you've known
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: or heard too many things, I haven't tried no matter
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: how it was done. I mean, I don't guys know
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: what to sleep and have a little company.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, the consensus of the federal, state, county,
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: and local law enforcement agencies that were involved in this
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: investigation is that Richard Koklinsky is one of the most
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: dangerous criminals we have ever come across in this state. Further,
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: it's our feeling that he is of such a diabolical,
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: methodical type of killer that it's very possible that when
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: all is said and done, we still may never know
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: how many people he has actually killed.
• 42:16
  Speaker 7: What Richard has been accused of and found guilty of
• 42:19
  Speaker 7: and spoke to you about it goes against God and man,
• 42:28
  Speaker 7: very strong feelings. I am totally anti violence. I mean
• 42:32
  Speaker 7: as all my children, and I can't make those wrongs right.
• 42:41
  Speaker 7: I can't make them right in my own mind. We
• 42:49
  Speaker 7: are Richard Koklensky's family, and we aren't ourselves anymore where
• 42:58
  Speaker 7: Richard Koklinsky's family.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: I've never felt sorry for anything I've done other than
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: hurting my family. The only thing I feel sorry for.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm not repenting. No,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I do want my family to
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: forget me. Oh boy, I canna make this one. Oh shit,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: this would never be me, This would not be me.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: I feel for my family. M you see the iceman crying,
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: not very macho. But I've heard people that mean.
• 44:49
  Speaker 13: Everything to me, but the only people that mean thanks
• 45:00
  Speaker 13: for me.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: I would move heaven, hell and anything in between to
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: get to you. You wouldn't be safe anywhere if I
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: was mad at you. And that's that bulld dip, that's truth.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: I've went up against people. You could pull a gun
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: on me, and if I'm mad at you, I'm coming forward.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: You'd have to shoot me to stop me. And if
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: you don't kill me, you're stupid. That's the next time
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: you see me, I will kill you. Was your good close?
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: If you were to doctor, I start chair with your
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: arms out.
• 48:04
  Speaker 8: In nineteen ninety one, Richard Koklinsky, a contract killer known
• 48:09
  Speaker 8: as the Iceman, was interviewed by HBO for an America
• 48:13
  Speaker 8: Undercover special.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: How many people have you killed? All right? Approximate? Guess approximate?
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: Well go more than one hundred.
• 48:40
  Speaker 8: After a lifetime of killing for hire, Koklinsky was finally
• 48:44
  Speaker 8: caught by an undercover ATF agent wearing a hidden wire.
• 48:49
  Speaker 10: You're willing to go on a contract price is right.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: I don't talk to anybody.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: To put it together like you know what I'm saying.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: The way that the will and the way my friend.
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: Richard Koklinsky is one of the most dangerous criminals we
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: have ever come across in this state. He murdered by guns.
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: He murdered by strangulation. He murdered by putting poison on
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: victim's food. He did of all of this at the
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: same time while exhibiting a normal, placid family existence.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: His wife, his.
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: Children were uninvolved in his criminal activities. Yet we are
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: faced with evidence convicting evidence of numerous grizzly murders.
• 49:39
  Speaker 8: In nineteen eighty six, the ATF and the New Jersey
• 49:42
  Speaker 8: Organized Crime Task Force set up a roadblock outside Koklinsky's home.
• 49:48
  Speaker 8: It took five men to bring down the six foot five,
• 49:51
  Speaker 8: three hundred pound killer and force handcuffs on him. The
• 49:56
  Speaker 8: Iceman's career as a master criminal was finally over. Richard
• 50:04
  Speaker 8: Koklinsky knows he will never get out of jail. With
• 50:08
  Speaker 8: nothing left to lose, Koklinsky reveals new secrets about the
• 50:12
  Speaker 8: years he spent as a contract killer for the Gambino
• 50:16
  Speaker 8: crime family and tells what happened in his life that
• 50:19
  Speaker 8: turned him into a man law enforcement called the Iceman.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: I hated my father. If I could have, I'd probably
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: would have killed him. Probably would have felt good about
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: it too. My father would beat me just just if
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: I looked at him. He gave me this impersonal feeling.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: I have to when people die in front of me,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: especially loud a mount people. Loud a Mount people remind
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: me of my father. Once it's a loud my person
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: starts with me. I love it. That's the only excuse
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: I need.
• 51:09
  Speaker 8: One night in a bar, a loud mouth made the
• 51:12
  Speaker 8: mistake of insulting the eighteen year old Kaplinsky in front
• 51:15
  Speaker 8: of people. A couple of hours later, the iceman saw
• 51:20
  Speaker 8: his chance to get even.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: I come out of this bar and I see him
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: sleeping in his car as I got you, a little sucker.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Now I got you. I'm gonna give you a l
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna light your fire. And I did. I got
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: myself a bottle some gasoline, and I threw it in
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: the car with him. And he was screaming and yelling
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: and burning, and the car burnt and I could smell him.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: Walked down the block and I could hear him as
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: I turned the corner. You're still yelling. This was a
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: personal thing, I see. This was the guy I disliked.
• 52:17
  Speaker 6: What did he do to you?
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: He made me mad.
• 52:37
  Speaker 8: By the age of twenty five, Richard Koklinsky had no
• 52:41
  Speaker 8: problem with murder, but now he wanted to get paid
• 52:46
  Speaker 8: for it. There was money in contract killing. To prove himself,
• 52:53
  Speaker 8: he auditioned for Mafia Coppo. Roy Domeo.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: Said, well, I would expect should do uh if you
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: came with me, I expect you to uh. If I
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: told you to whack somebody, you'd whack him without any question.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: So I said, well, I could probably do that. He says, uh,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: you probably could do it, or could you do it?
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: Did you do you think he could do it? I said, yeah,
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: I think I could do it. So he told Freddy
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: to get the car. Got the car, he and I
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: got in the back seat. Freddie was driving. We drove
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: someplace I don't know where it was with someplace in
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: there Ork, and we were sitting there for a while.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: We got to where we were going, were sitting there
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: for a while, and the man came in the distance.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: He was walking his door. It looked like said, all right,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: take this guy down. I said, which, what which guy
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: we talk about here? So he says the man walking
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: the door. As I got out of the car and
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: I started walking towards the man and the mayo was
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: walking his dog just like irregular guy. As he passed me,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: I could turn around and shot him. Freddie and Roy
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: pulled up in the car. I get in the car
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: and we drove away, and that is how I got
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: involved with Roy, with doing things like that.
• 54:54
  Speaker 8: Roy de Mayo's hangout was the Gemini Lounge in Brooklyn,
• 54:57
  Speaker 8: New York. It was a house of horrors where over
• 55:01
  Speaker 8: one hundred people were murdered, chopped up, and disposed of
• 55:05
  Speaker 8: by De Mayo and his gang of lethal contract killers.
• 55:12
  Speaker 8: After proving himself, Koklinsky quickly became one of Tomeo's favorite enforcers.
• 55:17
  Speaker 8: De Mayo ordered the hits, and Koklinsky executed them without question.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: He wanted this guy taking care of but he wanted
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: to talk to him first. So when I got to
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: the place, I asked the man for the money. So
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: the guy says he didn't have it, and Roy would
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: just have to wait until he got the money to
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: pay him, and that was that he'd have to wait.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: And so I said to the man, I said, well,
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: you have to then talk to him. He wants to
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: talk to you, So out of the phone number and
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: he got on the phone and I said, he wants
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: to talk to you. So he was talking to him,
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: and I guess they were acting like everything was all
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: right because he got off the phone. He handed me
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: the phone back. He says, hey, I tell you he'd wait.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: He's in the frame of mind I don't worry about
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: he wants to talk to you now. I picked up
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: the phone and he said kill him. So I shot him,
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: went up the phone and walked away. I'm just a
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: hard working expertata of sorts. I looked as my self
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: as a person who did something that somebody wanted done,
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: and they paid me a good price.
• 57:02
  Speaker 8: In the early eighties, the Gambinos were feeling the heat
• 57:05
  Speaker 8: of an intense investigation, which reached as high as their boss,
• 57:10
  Speaker 8: Paul Costellano. As the pressure from law enforcement grew, the
• 57:15
  Speaker 8: family began to worry about potential witnesses. One in particular
• 57:20
  Speaker 8: presented a major problem. His name was Peter Callabro. The
• 57:25
  Speaker 8: family ordered a hit, and Kuklinsky was given the contract.
• 57:33
  Speaker 8: On March fourteenth, nineteen eighty, Koklinsky drove for hours on
• 57:38
  Speaker 8: a snow covered road in Saddle River, New Jersey, waiting
• 57:41
  Speaker 8: for a call to come through on his walkie talkie.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: I get a call that they're on their way, so
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: now they're coming. The roads are very bad, a lot
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: of snow slipping and sliding, and I was in a van.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: So what I figured is, at the last moment, I
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: had had a a different plan, but at the last
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: moment I decided, well, I'm gonna double park this thing.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: This will get me the edge because this will make
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: him have only one way to come by, and that's
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: he has to come right by to this van. And
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: I go to the back of the van and I
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: go out the back door. I take the shotgun with me,
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: of course, so I kneel down and I will come
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: to the van so I can see where he's approximately at.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: And so I watch him come up to where he's
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: almost in the front of the van, and I stood up,
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: and as he's going by the van, I fied, I
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: never knew the man, you know, what he looked like
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: or what his job was. Then I found out the
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: next day that he was police. What had I been
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: told to do him anyway? And I knew he was
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: a police, I'm most likely would have done it anyway.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: I don't think I would have said no.
• 59:39
  Speaker 8: Koklinsky had killed a cop, a cop who had gone
• 59:43
  Speaker 8: bad selling information to the Gambinos, a cop who was
• 59:47
  Speaker 8: eliminated before he could turn state's witness for Koklinsky. Contracts
• 59:55
  Speaker 8: like the Collaboro murder were strictly business. They gave him
• 59:58
  Speaker 8: the money he needed for his family. The iceman was
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 8: leading a double life. He lived on a quiet street
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 8: in Bergen County, New Jersey, surrounded by neighbors who had
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 8: no idea they were living next door to a mafia
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 8: hit man. He was determined that no one, not even
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 8: his own family, would ever find out who he really was.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 7: I never questioned him, and you just knew, don't do it.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 7: Don't ask if he got up at two o'clock in
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 7: the morning or during dinner and put on his shoes
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 7: and looked out the door, you said bye. You didn't
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 7: say where are you going or why are you going?
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 7: And it was just understood that that's the.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 6: Way it was.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: I was the happiest when I was with Barber, never
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: involved anything I ever did, never told her anything I did.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: If I did, I probably would have shocked the pants offer.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: She knew I had a violent temper, and I did
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: have a violent temper, but I don't think she thought
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: I would go as far as I did go.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 8: Richard's time with his family was sacred and any interference
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 8: would throw him into a rage. It made him even
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 8: more angry if it happened during the holidays.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: This fella, and he owed me about sixteen hundred dollars.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: So here we come Christmas Eve. And I go there
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: and he says, now, I come with me. We'll go out,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: we'll have a good time with party. We'll meet some
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: broads with this, that and the other thing. And I said, no,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: I gotta I would really like the money. I gotta
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: buy something. And you know, he he gave me a story,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: bull story. So I left there. I was a little
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: bit upset, got on the bus, went home. I was
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: putting the toys together for the kids, and this thing
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: was really bugging me. He was annoying me. We just
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: making my whole disposition bad thought. It just occurred to me,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: this bullshit.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 8: It was Christmas Eve, after midnight, his family was sleeping.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 8: Kaklinsky got in his car and drove to New York City.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: I went to the bar. They told me he just left,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: and he was parked a couple of blocks down in
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: the parking lot put in. The parking lot was closed,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: but he was parked in there, and so his car.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: His car was running, but it had snow on it.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: So I knocked on the door and he says, hey,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: how are you ain't go ahead to see you come
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: in to sit down. So I go walk around the
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: pasture's side to sit down, and talking to him, I said, look,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: I really need the money. I says, you know it's
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: not right. You been You just been playing me like
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: a fool. Here. I had this pistol in my hand,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: and he just was annoying me to no end with
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: this babbling, and he was just going on and on,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: and I fired, and I couldn't see a damn thing
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: cause there was snow on the windows, and when that
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: flash went off, I just had spots before my eyes.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: My ears were ring because the noise inside the car
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: when the the gun went off. Couldn't hear, couldn't see.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: Then I panicked, cause now I don't know what's going
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: on anyway. I had caught the guy in the temple,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: and as he moved back, the second shot caught him
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: in under the chin. All about the time I could see.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: I reached in the man's pocket and he had a
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: roll of money. I took my sixteen hundred dollars off him,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: put the rest of the money of him that was
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: his in his pocket, got out of the car and
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: walked away. And that's it happened. One Christmas Eve in New
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: York City.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 8: The iceman had killed by gun, by knife, by Molotov,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 8: cocktail and cyanide, but he also liked to experiment of courss.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: Was I just popped a guy in the forehead with it? Actually,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: it was just seeing if it would work.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 11: What was he doing at the time, looking at me? Well,
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 11: was he sitting down or were you standing over him?
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 4: No?
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: He actually bent down and looking at car window like
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: I was asking him directions. I didn't know the man.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 11: Was this a contract murder or was it something out
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 11: of anger or was it a personal thing?
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: Neither?
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 6: What was it?
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to see if this thing would work.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 11: You mean you're experimenting on somebody, right?
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 6: Did it works?
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 5: Sure?
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 7: Did?
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: Went halfway into his.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 8: N Koklinsky was always looking for new ways to get
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 8: away with murder. In the eighties, a man who was
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 8: nicknamed Mister Softy teamed up with Koklinsky. This harmless looking
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 8: ice cream vendor was in reality an Army trained demolitions
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 8: expert who was a violent and vicious killer.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 14: Mister Softy was an individual but name of Robert Pronge.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 14: He used to operate a mister Softy truck. That's why
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 14: he got the name mister Softie. He became friendly with Kokuinsky,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 14: very friendly with him, and it is our opinion that
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 14: that friendship led to Richard Kokuinsky learning a lot about
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 14: killing with different types of chemicals, including cyanide.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: He taught me a lot basically, but he was extremely crazy.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: But he would read all kinds of books of destruction
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: and all kinds of ways to destroy somebody. He used
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: to go around this mister Softy truck. That's how he
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: used to spot people and get the outlay of the land,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: you know where they were in easy ways. And sometimes
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: he eat do it right from the truck. And he
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: sold ice cream, Yes he did, sold mister softly. He
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: had one of those mister Softy truck. Did you ever
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: see them? That's what he sold.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 6: And he so cream the little kids in the nail.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: Yes he did, and that's what he did. He sold.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: He'd go into these neighborhoods and saw ice cream to
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: the kids and maybe kill one of their fathers.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 8: On August ninth, nineteen eighty four, Mister Softy was found
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 8: dead hanging out of the driver's side seat and his
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 8: Mister Softy ice cream truck. He had been killed by
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 8: multiple gunshot wounds to the head.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 14: I think Koklinsky killed him because he used him for
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 14: his information. He used him for his knowledge. He probably
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 14: brought him around, brought him with him on certain jobs
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 14: that he did, and it was time for the boss
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 14: to make the decision that he didn't want any more
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 14: loose ends. He may have said something the wrong way
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 14: to Richie.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: Who knows.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 14: Whatever it was, Kokwinsky, in my opinion, made the decision
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 14: to kill him.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 8: After Prongay's murder. Coquincy was hired for a dangerous contract
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 8: no one else would touch. It was here in a
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 8: crowded discotheque that the cyanide killing techniques learned from mister
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 8: Softy paid off.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: Couldn't get to this person. He's in a disco. So
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: I was really in a bad way because there was
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: a time schedule involved.