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Inside the Mind of a Hitman · The Infographics Show Podcast

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Beyond Infographics, the show where we take the
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: most complex research and while we break it down into
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: knowledge you can actually use, we go past the headlines,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: past the jargon, to give you the real psychology behind
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: some of the world's most challenging topics.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: And today we are definitely tackling a challenging one. We're
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: mapping the psychological territory of a figure that's deeply mythologized,
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  Speaker 2: the contract killer.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Right, we think of a hit man in pop culture,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: you get this one, very sleek, very specific image exactly.
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  Speaker 2: But the sources we're looking at today use hard data
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  Speaker 2: to build a real structured empirical framework to understand these offenders.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: It's fascinating stuff, it really is.
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  Speaker 1: So our mission today is to get past that movie stereotype,
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  Speaker 1: the cool, silent assacid and to really unpack this formal
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  Speaker 1: psychological model they developed. It's called the Narrative Action System model,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: or the NAS model.
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  Speaker 2: And it gives us genuine insight into the how and
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: more importantly, the why behind these crimes.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: And there's a real need for this kind of model
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  Speaker 1: because this is surprising to me. Contract murder is a
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  Speaker 1: very poorly understood type of fomicide it is.
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  Speaker 2: You have scholars like Schlessinger, even back in two thousand
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  Speaker 2: and one, arguing that we seriously underestimate how often it happens,
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  Speaker 2: and that it might even be increasing.
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  Speaker 1: That's a genuinely terrifying thought, especially when you think about
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  Speaker 1: how hard it is to even study this crime. Oh.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, the research points out two huge problems. First, if
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: the hit is successful, a lot of these murders are
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  Speaker 2: just never identified as contract killings. They get written off
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: as an accident, a mugging gone wrong, maybe even a suicide.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: They disappear into the statistics they do.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: And the second problem is the really good ones, the
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: successful contract killers, they're never caught. Their whole career is
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: built on anonymity, on efficiency. They don't want to leave
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: a psychological signature.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: But the incredible thing about this NAS research wish is
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: that they found one.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Anyway they did. You know, previous attempts to categorize these
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  Speaker 2: killers were more intuitive, maybe based on a few cases,
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  Speaker 2: but they lacked that formal psychological backbone. The NAS model,
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: which Canter and Young's developed in two thousand and nine,
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  Speaker 2: completely changed the game.
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  Speaker 1: It gives it an empirical basis. It lets you actually
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  Speaker 1: differentiate them based on evidence.
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  Speaker 2: Right, we can finally move the conversation beyond just the motive, which,
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: let's be honest, for a contract killing is almost always money.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: This model looks at the behavioral expression of the killer
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: during the crime itself, and.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: That's where we get these four major narratives, these four
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: faces of the.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Contract killer, the professional, the revenger, the hero, and the victim.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: And understanding what separates them is the key to unlocking
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: the psychology of the violence.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: So before we get into those four types, which I'm
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: really excited to break down, let's talk about the foundation.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: How did they actually do this? How do you take
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: the complete chaos of a crime scene and turn it
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: into a well a clinical framework.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: It's all about rigorous methodology. This is serious investigative psychology.
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  Speaker 2: The researchers took a sample of seventy five confirmed contract
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  Speaker 2: killer cases. And this wasn't just you know, newspaper clippings.
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  Speaker 2: This was testimony, forensic reports, deep behavioral accounts.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, so a solid data set, a.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Very solid data set, and from that they managed to
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  Speaker 2: pull out fifty six distinct crime scene actions.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Fifty six everything.
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  Speaker 2: I mean from a fender wore a mask to victim
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: was dismembered to something as simple as murder happened as
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: planned every possible variable.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's a huge number of data points, So how
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: do you even begin to structure that? To find any
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  Speaker 1: meaningful patterns.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: They use a really clever statistical technique called smallest space
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: analysis or SSAI.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, you've got to explain that one.
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  Speaker 2: Think of it like this. Imagine you have a big
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  Speaker 2: empty shart and you plot all fifty six of those
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  Speaker 2: variables onto it. The SSA program arranges them so that
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: behavior that happened together frequently in the real world end
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: up right next to each other.
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  Speaker 1: On the map. So it's like a proximity map for
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  Speaker 1: criminal behaviors.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly if weapon brought to scene and quick departure almost
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  Speaker 2: always happened in the same cases, the SSA map will
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  Speaker 2: put them side by side. It visually reveals the killer's
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: operational script.
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  Speaker 1: That makes sense. It's a way of seeing the connections precisely.
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  Speaker 2: And when they ran this analysis, the very first thing
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  Speaker 2: they found, the foundational finding. It actually validated the oldest
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  Speaker 2: stereotype of the hit man, but it did it with
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  Speaker 2: empirical weight that at its absolute core contract killing is
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  Speaker 2: a highly instrumental behavior.
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  Speaker 1: Instrumental okay, so in psychological terms, that means the murder
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  Speaker 1: itself is just a means to an end. It's a tool.
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  Speaker 2: It's a tool to get the money. The killer's primary
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  Speaker 2: investment isn't in the victims suffering or the act of killing,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: it's in successfully completing the tasks to get paid.
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  Speaker 1: And this showed up on their map.
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  Speaker 2: It showed up as a tight, dense cluster of variables
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  Speaker 2: right in the center of the SSA map. This is
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: the clinical baseline. This core paints a picture of impersonal,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: extremely focused and very carefully premeditated violence.
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  Speaker 1: So it's all about efficiency, not emotion.
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  Speaker 2: Zero emotion. The attack is swift, it's usually on a
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: vital part of the body, like a headshot, and it's
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  Speaker 2: followed by an immediate departure. There's no there's no lingering,
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  Speaker 2: no extra engagement with the body after death.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: And the research actually put numbers to this, right, it
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  Speaker 1: showed just how consistent this baseline is.
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  Speaker 2: The consistency is honestly astonishing, and yes they quantified it.
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  Speaker 2: For instance, in eighty eight percent of the cases, the
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  Speaker 2: killer brought the weapon to the crime scene.
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  Speaker 1: Which is the highest frequency, and it just screams premeditation.
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  Speaker 2: It's pure planning. Then you see the victim was ambushed
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  Speaker 2: in eighty four percent of cases, the murder happening exactly
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: as planned eighty three percent, the victim's body being left
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: at the scene also eighty three percent.
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  Speaker 1: And there was one more right about how the victim
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: was found.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, and this one is so telling. In eighty percent
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  Speaker 2: of the cases the victim was found exactly as they fell.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: That detail feels huge. Yeah, victim found as fell. It
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: means no state, no repositioning the body, no unnecessary interaction
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: at all.
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  Speaker 2: The job is done. The second the victim died, the
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: killer's operational narrative just ends right there. They're gone.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: So this cold, clinical detachment, this tightly controlled core, that's
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: the anchor for all contract killing. It is.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: But the really fascinating part is what happened when the
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: researchers looked at the other behaviors, the ones radiating outwards
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: from that center. They created four distinct psychological regions on the.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Map, and those are our four narrative styles, the signatures
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  Speaker 1: that make each killer unique. Okay, now that we have
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: that foundation, that instrumental core. I think we have to
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: dive into those four regions. This is where it gets
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: really interesting, distinguishing these killers not just by the fact
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: that they kill for money, but by how their own
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: personalities and needs shape the violence itself.
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  Speaker 2: Let's do it.
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  Speaker 1: So, let's start with the one everyone thinks they know,
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  Speaker 1: the ultimate professional. This is what the model calls the
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: professionals adaptive adventure right.
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  Speaker 2: And this type it aligns perfectly with that classic stereotype.
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  Speaker 2: It reflects a really high level of criminal proficiency.
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  Speaker 1: This is your John Wick type figure sort of.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. They have experience, they operate with a noticeable lack
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  Speaker 2: of emotionality, They're often connected to organized crime, and they
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: are the absolute epitome of forensic awareness. They're wearing masks,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: they're taking precautions to avoid leaving any evidence, and.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Their signature is a firearm right signifying precision distance exactly.
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  Speaker 2: But this is where the SSA mapping found something that well,
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  Speaker 2: it really challenges that image of the silent, invisible sniper
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  Speaker 2: hiding on a rooftop.
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  Speaker 1: Oh.
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  Speaker 2: It found that the variables victim tried to escape and
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  Speaker 2: victim was chased clustered right there in the professionals region.
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  Speaker 1: Wait a second, So the professional, the guy who's all
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  Speaker 1: about control and anonymity, is willing to reveal himself and
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  Speaker 1: chase his target.
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  Speaker 2: He is It introduces a massive risk.
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  Speaker 1: It seems completely backward. Why would you risk getting seen,
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  Speaker 1: getting identified by engaging in a chase? What psychological payoff
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  Speaker 1: is worth that kind of forensic risk.
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  Speaker 2: This is where that name adaptive adventure becomes so important.
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  Speaker 2: The interpretation here is that the chase isn't a mistake.
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  Speaker 2: It actually satisfies an internal need to master the environment.
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  Speaker 2: To master the environment, the professional's pleasure doesn't come from
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  Speaker 2: the murder. It comes from successfully executing a complex, high
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  Speaker 2: stakes task. It's like solving a really difficult puzzle. The
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  Speaker 2: chase just becomes an extra level of difficulty.
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  Speaker 1: So if the target runs, the professional doesn't see that
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  Speaker 1: as a threat to the mission.
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  Speaker 2: He sees it as an opportunity, an opportunity to prove
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  Speaker 2: how good he is, to show that he can adapt,
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  Speaker 2: overcome the unexpected, and still close the deal. It's about
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  Speaker 2: taking pride in a job well done.
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  Speaker 1: It connects his ego directly to his competence. It's an adventure.
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  Speaker 2: It's an adventure.
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  Speaker 1: Narrative.
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  Speaker 2: You actually see similar psychology in high end burglars or
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: art thieves. They're not just in it for the money.
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  Speaker 2: They want the adrenaline, the mental game of navigating a controlled,
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  Speaker 2: hostile environment and winning.
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  Speaker 1: So the contract is less about the paycheck and more
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  Speaker 1: about getting that A plus on the assignment. That's a
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  Speaker 1: perfect way to put it, okay, So the professional is
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  Speaker 1: defined by that cold adaptive control. Our next type, the revenger,
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  Speaker 1: sounds like the complete opposite. It sounds like a total
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  Speaker 1: loss of control. It is.
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  Speaker 2: We're moving into the region they call the revenger's conservative tragedy.
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  Speaker 2: And this offender is they classify him as semi professional.
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  Speaker 2: He exhibits really strong aggressive behavior.
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  Speaker 1: So he has some experience like the professional.
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  Speaker 2: Some yes, but the finding feature is this intense emotionality
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  Speaker 2: that's just fueled by pure anger.
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  Speaker 1: This feels like where the instrumental goal the contract gets
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  Speaker 1: completely hijacked by something else, by expressive violence completely.
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  Speaker 2: And the sources are well, the graphic this category includes
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  Speaker 2: truly horrific excessive violence.
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  Speaker 1: What's the behavioral signature we're talking about.
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  Speaker 2: We're talking about extreme X decapitation, dismember burning, victims alive, strangulation,
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  Speaker 2: things that go so far beyond what's necessary to just
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  Speaker 2: kill someone.
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  Speaker 1: It's expressive, meaning the violence itself is the point. It's
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  Speaker 1: satisfying some deep need.
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  Speaker 2: In the killer exactly. It's about the offender's internal world.
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  Speaker 2: It's links to this deep seated anger, maybe a personal
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: vendetta that's being projected onto the victim. It's not about
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  Speaker 2: what the client asked for.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: So why is it called a conservative tragedy? Conservative seems
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: like an odd word for that kind of chaos.
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  Speaker 2: The term conservative is used to suggest that while the
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  Speaker 2: killer has some experience, their approach is fundamentally undermined by
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: their own actions, and it's a tragedy because their personal,
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  Speaker 2: uncontrolled rage completely sabotages the primary goal of the hit.
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  Speaker 1: Right the second you start dismembering a body, you're not
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: being efficient. You're creating a mountain of forensic evidence. You're
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: guaranteeing a much more intense investigation than a simple clean
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  Speaker 1: hit would.
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  Speaker 2: Their emotional narrative literally destroys the instrumental task. It's aggression
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  Speaker 2: completely replacing instrumentality. It creates this this total mess that
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: just screams for attention and risks exposing everyone involved.
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  Speaker 1: So the money is still there, that's the instrumental core.
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  Speaker 1: But the killing itself becomes a vehicle for the Revenger's
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: own personal rage.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: Yes, the hit becomes a way to in their mind, legitimize,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: or maybe even monetize, an act of profound personal hatred.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, moving on from the Revenger to the hero.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: This name sounds almost positive, but the description says their
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  Speaker 1: actions are just as violent they are.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: The hero's expressive quest also involves highly aggressive behavior, but
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: the key difference is the motive. It is an anger.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: It's a need for recognition, for respect. It's driven by
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: a kind of positive emotionality.
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  Speaker 1: And the other crucial detail here is experience.
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  Speaker 2: Right right, And this is a huge contrast. The hero
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  Speaker 2: is defined by a striking lack of experience. They have
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: no prior history as a contract killer. This is their
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: first time.
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  Speaker 1: So you have an amateur who is seeking glory through
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: extra violence. What does that look like at the crime scene?
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: It creates this really interesting paradox. Like the Revenger, they
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: are extremely violent. You see overkill, multiple wounds, a lot
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: of beating or bludgeoning. But this expressive violence isn't about rage.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: It's about demonstrating their own strength, their capability. They want
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: to be seen as powerful, as important.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: They're not doing it to satisfy the client. They're performing
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: for an imaginary audience, or for themselves exactly.
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  Speaker 2: They are on a quest for status. They want this
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  Speaker 2: murder to be their signature, to serve as an example
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  Speaker 2: of their newfound power and competence.
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  Speaker 1: But because they're amateurs, the planning must be a mess.
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  Speaker 2: It's completely inconsistent. They might try to stage the crime
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: scene or maybe hide the victim's identity, which shows they
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: have some awareness of forensic risk, but that little bit
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: of preparedness is just it's immediately swamped by the sheer
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: excessive brutal violence they use.
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  Speaker 1: It sounds like the hero is trying to fake being
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: a professional, but can't stop themselves from indulging in these
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: very amateur express needs.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to think about it. They're trying
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: to balance the instrumental motive get the money, with the
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: expressive need for recognition, get the respect. The excessive beating
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: isn't needed to kill the person, but it is required
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: for their internal story of becoming a feared and respected operator, which.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Brings us to our final type. The one who is
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: just completely out of their depth, the victim.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: The victim's integrative irony. This theme is all about clumsy,
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: incompetent behavior. This is the amateur type in its purest form.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: They have absolutely no experience, and their emotional state is
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: defined by confusion, panic, and desperation. They're often, you know,
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: coerced or pressured into doing the hit.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: This is the narrative that just falls apart from the start.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Why is it called integrative irony.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: It's integrative because they are trying to integrate this one professional,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: controlled act that hit into their already messy, chaotic life.
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  Speaker 2: But the irony is that their attempt at control immediately
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: collapses into panicked and competence. It's a breakdown of the
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: planned assassination.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: What are the behavioral signs of that kind of collapse?
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  Speaker 1: What does investigators see the scene?
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: They see secondary criminal activity, things that are completely unnecessary
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: for the hit itself. They might burglarize the house or
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: rob the victim. They might be using drugs at the
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: time of the murder just to cope with the anxiety.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: And the biggest one, and the biggest.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: One critically, is that they kill unintended victims. They either
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: kill the wrong person entirely, or a sudden unexpected eyewitness
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: shows up and they panic and kill them too.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: So they start with this clean, simple goal kill one
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: person for money, and it just devolves into this panicked,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: disorganized spree that basically guarantees they're going to get caught.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: That's it, exactly. This is the offender who completely shatters
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: that cold control image. The emotional chaos, the panic, the desperation,
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: it just overwhelms the initial instrumental motive and it leads
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: them to make all these rash decisions that are frankly
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: easy for investigators to trace back to them.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: So this model really shows that contract killing isn't just
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: one thing. It's a whole spectrum radiating out from that
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: cold efficient core to this panicked, desperate chaos.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: A perfect summary.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, now that we have this incredibly useful framework, this
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: NAS model map of contract killer behavior, let's try to
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: apply it to a real world figure, someone whose career
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: was so long and so varied that he seems to
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: embody all of these types at once. Richard the Iceman Kuklinsky.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: Kuklinsky is the perfect case study, but he's also a
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: very messy one. His life story shows how a single
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: killer can, on one hand, embody the clinical efficiency of
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: the professional while at the same time secretly indulging in
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: the expressive brutal violence of the revenger, and.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: His early life shows traces the victim type too.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, we really have to use the nas model as
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: a kind of lens to make sense of his very
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: contradictory existence.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: I think the most powerful psychological tool he used, the
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: thing that allowed this all to happen, was compartmentalization. He
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: was a ruthless killer for the mafia, but he somehow
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: made maintain this seemingly normal life at home.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Compartmentalization is a very high level, very powerful psychological defense mechanism.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: It's when you mentally separate conflicting thoughts, beliefs, or experiences.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: In Kuklinsky's case, it was the love he claimed to
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: have for his wife and children versus the brutal reality
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: of his day job.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: And you have to have that separation to avoid cognitive dissonance, right,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: that mental stress of trying to hold two completely opposite
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: ideas in your head at the same time.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's what allows people in really high stress or
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: morally ambiguous jobs to function. Think about soldiers or er surgeons,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: or in this case a hitman. You have to build
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: a wall to block off the emotional toll of your actions,
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: or you just can't do the job.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: And the facade Kuklinsky build was by all accounts masterful,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Oh it was.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: He was a successful businessman, drove nice cars. He was
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: known in his suburban New Jersey community as a prominent,
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: if maybe a little private member. He famously hosted these
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: weekly summer barbecues for the whole neighborhood.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: It has that classic sopranos vibe, that middle class Italian
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: American normalcy.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: It really does. And his family was kept completely in
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: the dark, totally separate. They had no idea what he
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: really did.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: So to maintain that kind of facade, he must have
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: had to align very strongly with the professional mass type.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: What were the psychological traits that let him maintain that duality.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Well, he clearly had adept social judgment, He knew how
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: to read people, how to blend in. His personality was
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: defined by a need for orderliness, for control, and this
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: constant paranoid vigilance, all traits that are essential for a
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: high level professional criminal.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: And he must have had ways to justify it to himself.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: He relied heavily on rationalization and reframing. He would view
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: the murders not his acts of personal evil, but as
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: a technical job that needed to be done. He had
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: this terrifyingly exceptional ability to encapsulate, to box up his emotions.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: So let's start with his professional work, his signature instrumental
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: kills for the mafia, where he was just textbook professional.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: His professional methods were the apps height of instrumental efficiency.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: He reportedly earned anywhere from four to five figures per kill,
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: and his preferred weapon was cyanide.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: And that wasn't a random choice. It wasn't for show,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: not at all.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: It was a purely technical choice. Cyanide is incredibly effective.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: It acts very quickly, and most importantly, the symptoms it
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: produces often mimic a heart attack or a stroke.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Which means unless a medical examiner is specifically looking for
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: it with a targeted toxicology screen, the desk just gets
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: written off as natural causes.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: And that's the ultimate instrumental success. Isn't it a murder
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: that just vanishes? It's never even recognized as a murder.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: The perfect tidy technician.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: Of death absolutely, and he claimed to administer it in
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: these chillingly casual ways. He'd talk about spraying it on
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: someone's clothes from an aerosol can so it would just
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: seep into their skin, or of course the notorious Hamburger
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: incident where he put it in a victim's food and
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: just watched him collapse while eating.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: That is cold, it's controlled, it's efficient, it's a pure
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: adaptive adventureocused on technical mastery. But the second you look
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: past those contract kills, that's when this terrifying expressive side
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: starts to surface.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: And this is where his hybrid status just becomes undeniable.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: This is what pushes him directly into the Revenger and
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: hero territories. His personal life was just it was saturated
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: with extreme expressive violence.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: The stories of his domestic abuse are just shocking. When
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: his girlfriend, who later became his wife, Barbara, suggested maybe
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: they see other people, he stabbed her, just stabbed in
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: the ribcage.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: And that was just the beginning of this decade's long
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: campaign of intense, possessive abusive behavior. He beat her so
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: badly he caused multiple miscarriages. That's not just violence, that
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: is a controlling expressive ownership of her body, of her
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: very existence.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: That kind of intense personal rage, that inability to control
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: his emotions at home. It pushes him right into the
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: psychological signature of the revenger. The violence is a personal release.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: And then, completely outside of his contract work, he was
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: acting as an entirely different kind of killer. He would
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: perform these non contract killings on the homeless victims he
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: just chose at random, slitting their throats, strangulations, stabbings, and.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Those acts served no instrumental purpose at all none.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: They were entirely discretionary. They were designed purely to satisfy
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: his own internal need for dominance and power. This is
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: what cemented his status as a hybrid offender. He crossed
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: that boundary from being a contract killer into the territory
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: of a serial killer by the FBI's own definition, killing
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: two or more victims and separate events in.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: That underlying rage, the thing that fed the revenger. It
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: was there from the very beginning of his life, which
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: links him all the way back to the impulsive behavior
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: of the victim type. Tell us about his first murder.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: His first known victim was a boy named Charlie Lane.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Richard was only thirteen years old. Lane had been bullying him,
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: and Richard just snapped. It wasn't a contract, it wasn't premeditated.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: It was a chaotic, blind fit of rage. He repeatedly
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: bludgeoned him with a bar.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: That kind of graphic up close violence. The bludgeoning. It's
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: incredibly impulsive, it's disorganized. It's the complete opposite of the cool,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: detached professional he would later become. It aligns perfectly with
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the desperate panic nature of the victim type.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: And that pattern continued. Just a few years later, at sixteen,
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: he killed a police officer, an officer named Doyle. He
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: poured gasoline on his car and just burned him to death. Again,
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: these early kills were raw, highly emotional acts of aggression.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: They were driven by impulse and anger, and they show
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: a total lack of the control that would later define
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: his professional work.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: So his career path was really a journey across the nasmap.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: He starts as this panicked, emotional amateur the victim. He
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: evolves into this highly successful, controlled business operative of the professional,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: all while constantly engaging in these acts of extreme personal
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: violence on the side as the revenger and the hero.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: It's the story of a man who successfully built the
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: professional's exterior, this perfect facade of control, but his underlying
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: trauma driven raid, which just kept bubbling to the surface,
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: constantly pushing that expressive violence out and undermining the very
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: control he was trying to maintain.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: But there's a huge asterisk on all of this, isn't there?
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: We can't talk about Kuklinsky without addressing his massive narrative distortion.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: The sources are very clear that his own interviews were
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: incredibly unreliable.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, this is a critical psychological insight. Kuklinsky was a
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: compulsive liar and a totally unreliable narrator. He would change
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: fundamental details of his own stories. Take his first murder,
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: he changed the victim's name from Charlie Lane to Johnny.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: He changed his own age at the time from thirteen
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: to sixteen. He changed the weapon from a bar to
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: a stick.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: That's not just forgetting the details. That's actively rewriting your
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: own history.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: It is he was constructing a better story. He also
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: inserted himself into famous public narratives. He claimed he was
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: involved in the Pilonal murders, for example, which has never
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: been corroborated by anyone, and.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: The victim count he claimed anywhere from one hundred to
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty victims, which can't be verified.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: This kind of narrative, and it serves a really deep
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: psychological purpose for him. It's about maintaining the legend of
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: the Iceman. His need for control didn't just extend to
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: his victims. It extended to the public's perception of his
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: own competence and his own fearsome reputation.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: He also had that famous code he claimed to follow
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: that he wouldn't kill women or children.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: A code that was just blatantly contradicted by his own
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: history of severe violence towards Barbara, the violence that led
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: to miscarriages. That code was just another layer of rationalization.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: It was designed to make the story of the Iceman
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: more palatable, maybe even admirable. By applying these moral limits
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: that were clearly completely absent from his actual behavior, the
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: story became more important than the facts. The story of
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: Richard Koklinsky was his ultimate act of control.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: This is all so fascinating, But before we dig even
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: deeper into this psychology of control, I just want to say,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: if you are finding this kind of in depth analysis valuable,
• 23:54
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• 23:56
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• 24:00
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• 24:02
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• 24:04
  Speaker 1: deep into the source material for you.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: We'd really appreciate it.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, So let's pivot from Kouklinsky's own messy narrative to
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: the fundamental question here. If a hit man is primarily instrumental,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: what is the core psychological reward. If it's not the
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: pleasure of the kill itself, what keeps them in.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: The business, the motivation, especially for the pure professional It
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: all comes back to one thing, absolute control. There's this
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: chilling testimony from a Russian hit man, a guy named Misha,
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: who is a former Soviet Special Forces operative. Okay, and
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: he contrasted two very different experiences. He said that killing
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: and anger brought him panic and fear, which is the
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: revenger's experience, right, But killing for a job that provided
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: a massive, exhilarating rush of control, that is.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: A profound distinction. The chaos of emotional violence is terrifying,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: but the order of instrumental violence is rewarding.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly Misha described his job not as something monstrous, but
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: as the work of a tidy technician of death. He
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: even compared himself to a doctor or a soldier, and
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: that reflects the deep depersonalization that's inherent in the professional type.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: They're hyper organized, their focus is solely on executing the plan,
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: not on the person they're killing.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: So the success isn't really linked to the death of
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: the target. It's linked to the demonstration that the killer
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: is in total command of the environment, the situation, the outcome.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Even when things go wrong, like in that adaptive Adventure
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: chase scenario we talked about. It's all about mastery, but
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: we can't.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Really talk about Kuklinsky's obsessive need for control without looking
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: at the cycle of isolends that created it in the
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: first place. His childhood, I mean, it was horrific, and
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: it aligns perfectly with something called the trauma control model.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: It does.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: We know his father, Stanley, was severely abusive. The most
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: devastating example, of course, was when he beat Richard's six
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: year old brother Florian to death. It was nineteen forty one.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: The parents lied to the police and claimed he fell
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: down the stairs by accident.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: That kind of severe early childhood trauma. It's a massive
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: psychological determinant. It is.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: The trauma control model basically suggests that this kind of
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: abuse often sets a child up for a lifetime of issues,
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: chronic aggression, emotional detachment, a real difficulty in forming healthy attachments.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: When a child has no control over the abuse they're suffering,
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: they often retreat into fantasy to try and regain some
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: sense of control.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: And those escape fantasies can then mutate later in life
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: into real world mechanisms for dominance. The victim of trauma
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: seeks to become the perpetrator.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Of control precisely, and that psychological shift is what enables
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: the dehumanization of future victims, which is an essential skill
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: for a professional killer. Koklinsky said something to his own daughter, Merek,
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: that just illustrates this terrifying blur between fantasy and controlled
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: reality perfectly.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: What did he say?
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: He told her that if he ever killed her mother,
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: he would have to kill the rest of the family too,
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: just to ensure there were no witnesses. But then he
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: added this chilling little rider. He said, you, Merik, you
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: would be the hardest to kill.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: That's not affection, that is expressed ownership. It's a demonstration
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: of his complete, terrifying control over his own family's existence.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: He's telling his daughter that she's the ultimate challenge, the
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: hardest puzzle to solve.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: It's the professional's internal narrative, that adaptive adventure bleeding into
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: his home life. The challenge of murder is being applied
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: to his own child. It's a moment where his compartmentalization
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: just utterly fails and that expressive need for dominance completely
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: takes over.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: We mentioned earlier that he crossed the line into being
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: a serial killer. Let's just reinforce that distinction, yeah, because
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: it's so critical for understanding how useful the man's model is.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: The distinction really comes down to motive and target selection.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: A professional hit man kills instrumentally for a fee paid
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: by a third party. The victims are chosen by the.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Client, whereas a serial killer, a.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: Comfort or gain oriented serial killer, chooses their own targets
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: and they do it to satisfy a personal emotional need
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: for satisfaction or control or security.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: And Koklinsky did. Both. His contract hits the Zionide for
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: the Mafia were textbook instrumental killings, but his random murders
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: of the homeless killing his own associates like Gary Smith
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: and Daniel Depner, and those early impulsive murders, those were
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: purely discretionary, expressive, and self serving acts.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: He was a true hybrid. He defied any clean separation
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: between the categories, and he proves that the psychological landscape
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: of a killer isn't static. It can be dynamic. A
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: killer can move along that nasmap, shifting between the efficient
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: professional and the panic revenger, depending on whether the act
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: is being driven by a paycheck or by their own
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: internal personal needs.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: And finally, we just can't ignore the bizarre and potentially
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: very ironic circumstances of his own death. Right.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: Kuklinsky died in prison in two thousand and six, supposedly
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: of natural causes. He was seventy years old, But the
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: crucial detail is that this happened just before he was
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: scheduled to testify against a very powerful mob boss, Salvator
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: Gravano Sammy the Bull.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Given his whole career his reliance on untraceable poisons, the
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: suspicion around his death is unavoidable.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: It is. It just raises the obvious question. Was the
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: man who perfected the cold professional instrumental hit the man
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: who invented the cyanide in the burger trick, was he
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: ultimately taken out by that very same brand of efficiency.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: The ultimate irony it would be.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: If the professional was finally eliminated by the same methods
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: and efficiency that he himself championed. It proves that even
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: the most controlled and feud operators are ultimately disposable when
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: their usefulness runs out.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: So, as we wrap up this really intensive look into
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: the NAS model and the case of Richard Kuklinsky, let's
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: just try to summarize the key takeaways.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: I think the biggest one is that the NAS model
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: gives us this essential framework. It moves investigative psychology beyond
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: just simple motivation, and it lets us categorize a killer's
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: behavior based on their experience and their emotionality. It gives
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: us us four faces, the cool, adaptive professional, the angry
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: sess of revenger, the glory seeking inexperienced hero, and the panicked,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: incompetent victim.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: And we learned that the central psychological tool that allows
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: someone like Kuklinsky to maintain that kind of violent career
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: was compartmentalization. That ability to lock the chaos of murder
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: away from his home life, all supported by this deep
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: seated need for order in control.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: And at the end of the day, the psychological reward
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: for the true professional isn't cruelty, it's not bloodlust. It's
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: that rush of control, the feeling of being that tidy
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: technician of death who can successfully pull off an impossible task.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: Which brings us back to our final trust, the one
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: about our societal fascination with the cold professional killer. We
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: watch endless movies and TV shows about them. Why do
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: we so often stand in awe of the professional Why
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: do we admire their control instead of just feeling contempt
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: for them like we do for an impulsive, emotional murderer.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: I think it comes down to how we value success.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: We kind of despise the criminal, whose emotional chaos makes
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: them sloppy and easy to catch, but we admire the
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: one who deals in death swiftly, efficiently, and unnaturally. The
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: professional killer commits these deeply immoral acts, but they do
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: it with style, with success, and most of all, with
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: that cold control. We value the mastery even when it's
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: mastery of murder.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: So here's the provocative final thought. We want to leave
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: you with if the professional is the most admired of
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: these narrative styles, the one our culture elevates in stories,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: and they're also, by definition, the hardest type to detect
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: because their methods are designed to erase forensic signatures. Does
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: our cultural fascination with the idea of cold control unintentionally
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: create a kind of psychological shield for them? Does it
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: allow the most dangerous and efficient offenders to remain hidden
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: in plain sight?
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: It suggests that the glamour we project onto the professional
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: killer might just be the most powerful weapon in the
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: sophisticated criminals arsenal.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: A fascinating and pert chilling note to end on, thank
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: you for joining us for this deep dive into the
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: psychological narrative of contract killers. If you enjoyed getting this
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: knowledge quickly and thoroughly, please show your support and rate
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Beyond Infographics five stars. We really appreciate you listening, and
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: we'll see you for the next one.