All language subtitles for Very.Scary.People.S03E09.The.Iceman.The.Murder.Business.Part.1.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-BurCyg_track3_[eng]

♪♪

♪♪

Man: What did you want them
to think as they died?

Richard: Just see
my pretty face.

I'll take it to them.

But the last thing
they ever saw was me.

And if they carried that glimpse
to eternity, infinity,

or whatever it is, they're gonna
be thinking of me...

...all that time.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Welcome to "Very Scary People".

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

He was living a double life.

He seemed like a quiet husband
and father,

but he was a vicious,
cold-blooded killer.

Richard Kuklinski
was a part-time hitman

and a full-time psychopath.

His disturbing collection of
murders was motivated by money,

by rage, and sometimes,
by nothing at all.

He was so skilled at killing

and covering up his crimes
that to this day,

the true extent of his sins
is unknown.

So, how did Kuklinski evade
capture for so long?

Even I can't believe the story
you're about to hear.

Here is part
one of "The Iceman".

♪♪

♪♪

[ Weed trimmer whirring ]

Carroll: In September of 1983,
a fellow that was working

for the road department
in Orangetown, New York,

was cutting grass
on a roadway.

And he saw a series
of plastic bags,

and he thought he saw flesh.

[ Footsteps ]

He went over and looked at it,
and it was a body.

He was brought to the medical
examiner's office and examined.

Several interesting things
came from that.

This subject,
after he had been killed,

had been methodically
wrapped in plastic.

27 layers of garbage bags.

And it looked at first as
if perhaps he'd recently died.

This turned out
to be Louis Masgay.

Smith: Louis Masgay disappeared
in July 1981.

Two years before the body
was found.

But he had the same clothes on

that he disappeared
in two years prior.

They knew that this was
pretty strange.

Smith: Even more interesting
is they found

what they termed
as ice crystal artifacts,

which indicated that he,
in fact, had been frozen.

In the hope that the time
of death would be not known.

Carroll: Later, we were able to
establish that Mr. Masgay

had been taken to a garage

in North Bergen, New Jersey.

Carroll: That garage, we
believed, was a killing ground.

Kane: And he was shot once
in the back of the head.

Smith: Then, took his body,
placed it in the freezer,

where it remained
for approximately two years.

Until it was dumped.

Carroll: That particular crime
was the genesis of the name

"Iceman".

We knew we were looking
for somebody

that had literally
frozen a person.

An evil person.

Evil to the core.

♪♪

Richard: One part of my life,
I killed people for nothing.

Just for somebody to look
at me wrong, I would kill them.

♪♪

Smith: From what we understand,
Kuklinski got a job

working in a film lab
in New York City,

where he was dealing
with videotapes

and making duplicate copies,

and he also segued into making
copies of pornographic films.

Schumacher: He met a man
named Roy DeMeo

through the underground
pornography industry.

Roy DeMeo was a soldier
within the Gambino crime family,

and best known
for killing people.

He had a crew of sociopaths,
basically,

who operated out
of the Gemini Lounge.

They used to chop up people
in the Gemini Lounge,

just like in "The Sopranos",

where they put them
in the bathtubs,

they chopped them up, and then
they get rid of the bodies.

DeMeo saw Kuklinski as someone
who could be an asset for him.

Kuklinski was a very large
fellow, very intimidating,

so he thought
he could be an enforcer.

If he came to you
asking for money, you would pay.

But it wasn't long before
DeMeo discovered that Kuklinski

was probably even
more valuable as a killer.

As the story goes,
Roy DeMeo wanted to find out

what Kuklinski was capable of.

One day, they were
riding in a car,

and Roy DeMeo said, "Okay,
well, kill this guy here."

Kane: And it was a guy
walking his dog.

Didn't know the man.

Could've been me
walking down the street.

Could've been anybody.

Heide: Richard got out...

♪♪

[ Dog barks ]
...and shot this man,

and at that point,

Roy DeMeo knew that Richard had
essentially what it takes...

[ Gunshot ]
...and that's how Richard

got into the business

of murdering people for profit.

From that point, from there,

he launched a career
being what he represented

as one of the most
prolific mob killers.

♪♪

♪♪

Carroll: It's interesting
'cause a person like Kuklinski,

the one area of knowledge,

his base foundation of
knowledge, was in killing.

He really prided himself,
it seems, on the various ways

and different ways
in which he killed people.

According to Kuklinski,
he killed with firearms,

with knives.

He also strangled.

♪♪

He said that he'd killed
an individual

that was involved
in a pornography business.

[ Doorbell rings ]
He said that he went there

and he rang the doorbell,

and the person asked
who was there,

and when that person
looked through the peephole...

He squeezed the trigger
and blew the guy's head off.

On another occasion, he stated
that he had thrown a person

off a building in Hawaii.

In one case, he claimed
to have allowed rats...

[ Rats squeaking ]
...to eat a person alive.

He talked about how he had
some people beg for mercy.

Kuklinski was a different breed,

a different breed.

Heide: Normally, when we think
of serial murder,

we think of the lust killer,

somebody who's getting perverse
sexual satisfaction of killing.

However, there are a number
of types of serial murderers.

We have another type
who kills for profit

and a serial killer who kills
for power and control,

and those two seem to be
fused for him in most cases.

He did it 'cause he liked it.

Polifrone:
He had no remorse whatsoever.

He loves that stuff.

He's into it.

Carroll: He was
a killing machine.

He could do it
on a moment's notice,

with no hesitation,
no conscience.

Carlo: This guy, I thought,
made Richard Ramirez,

the Night Stalker, seem like
a quiet boy lost in the woods.

Believe it or not, he was truly
a devoted family man.

He kept his work life
very separate from his family.

Smith: Richard Kuklinski married
Barbara in 1961,

and they had three children --
two girls and a boy.

He loved them more
than anything.

They were his pride and joy.

Sanderson: They moved to
Dumont, New Jersey,

which is a pretty nice town,
and lived a suburban lifestyle.

None of his neighbors
had any clue

who this guy was
who lived next door.

Carlo: He was a Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde.

He had a duality that is
very, very, very rare.

He could be the nicest,
sweetest, giving guy,

a good neighbor, somebody
you want to live next door,

and the next minute, he could be
slowly torturing somebody.

Sanderson:
His wife, Barbara, told me

she really didn't know too much

about what he did.

I think she knew him
as a businessman.

I don't think she knew
much more than that.

♪♪

Heide: He liked that the victims
were looking directly at him.

Pleasure from seeing
someone terrified

in the sense
of power and control.

Richard: Shot a guy one time
in his Adam's apple,

see how long
it would take him to die.

Man: How long did it take?

Richard: A few minutes.

He drowned, actually.

Man: Drowned on his blood?

Richard: Mm-hmm.

I was with somebody else.

We had a $50 bet.

I lost.

Kane: Richard Kuklinski was
a Mafia contract killer,

but he was also
a freelance killer.

He would do jobs on the side.

He became involved in a series

of what we would call
the commercial murders.

Smith: After making contact
with somebody,

he would lure them into thinking
that he was able to provide

a quantity of something that
that person was looking for,

whether it be videotapes,

whether it be
a pharmaceutical product,

and he got them
to bring cash to locations

with the hope
of making a score.

And all of a sudden,
they weren't seen again,

nor was the money.

Smith: He didn't just rob them.

He would kill them so they could
never come back

and say anything about him.

Kane: Then the money would
dry up in spells,

and he'd have to go out
and hunt again,

just like a lion in Africa
trying to select his prey,

then come home
with the goodies.

In 1980, Kuklinski met up with
a man named George Malliband.

♪♪

Carroll: Malliband's brother
had indicated

he was supposed
to meet somebody.

The purpose was
to buy videotapes,

and he had to bring cash.

Richard: I was sitting
in the van.

I'm in the driver's seat.

Georgie boy was over here
in the next seat,

which was, you know,
just like that.

[ Gunshots ]

And I went pop-pop-pop.

And then I went pop-pop.

Smith: He was shot by Kuklinski.

His body was taken, and
it was put in a 50-gallon drum.

Kuklinski couldn't get his body
into the drum

'cause Malliband
was a large male,

and he cut his legs,
the ligaments,

so he could bend his legs
and stuff him into the drum.

Sanderson: And then he tossed it
from a cliff.

♪♪

Smith: His body was found
on February 5th

in a Jersey City
industrial area.

Carroll: As the state police
and the local authorities

investigated that murder,
they had very few leads.

Case didn't go anywhere
at the time -- nowhere.

They had a body in a barrel,
they had some ballistics.

So, it was a completely
unsolved crime.

♪♪

♪♪

Roberts: You have said
of Richard,

"There are two Richards.

I never knew who would be
walking in the door.

He could be generous to a fault,
or the meanest man on Earth."

Tell us more about that.
Barbara: That's true.

He was kind,
considerate, you know,

he would have done
anything for all of us.

Very generous --
gifts and flowers

and the best dinners
and nice wine.

But when whatever twisted him,
whatever happened,

it didn't matter how good
those times were,

because the bad was so bad.

And he abused you,
physically?

He certainly did.
What did he do?

Stabbed me, broke my nose,
lost consciousness many times,

strangled me, would wake up,

you know, at two o'clock
in the morning

with a pillow over my face,

and he would tell me that he'd
decided that was the day I die.

So, the idea that he may
have killed you

was not outside of
the realm of possibilities?

Absolutely not.

Merrick, he talked to you
about that.

What did he say?
Merrick: He had said that

if he ever went
too far with mom --

Killed her.
Right.

That I would
have to understand

that he would have to
get rid of all of us

because he could leave
no witnesses,

and that it would be hardest.

He'd have to kill you?

And how old were you
when he told you this?

That was probably about 14.

Your father said,
"If I accidentally kill

your mother
in a fit of rage,

I'm gonna have to
kill you, too?"

Mm-hmm. But that could have
happened at any time

during the rages,
that he could have slipped

and killed any of us,
all of us.

You expected that.
Yeah.

And you accepted that?

A lot of times,
that might have been easier.

There was no choice.
What was the choice?

What did you think
of your father?

Merrick and him
were very close.

I was not close with him.

I was more --

I protected my mother,

and that was
where my alliance laid.

Merrick, you made excuses
for him?

For his behavior at home?

I don't know if
it was excuses, per se,

but I think that I tried
to make him see different,

to try to calm him,

and so my role was to try
to keep him happy.

Right.
To keep him calm,

so that
the outbursts were less.

Good dad was always
overshadowed,

but bad dad could be there
any second.

We had to be
the "perfect" family.

Smiling and --
That's the difference.

When he was around,
we had to smile.

We were born into this,
and this was normal life for us.

This is what home life
was all about.

We didn't know that our friends
didn't live like this.

Carlo: In his own sick,
weird way,

he loved them
more than anything.

They were his pride and joy.

The only time I ever got
any emotion out of him

during all the many hours
I spoke to him was

when he spoke
about his family, his dear,

profound, twisted,
sick love for them.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Schumacher: Probably
the smartest thing

that Richard Kuklinski did

as a hitman or as a killer
was to leave very little trace

of what he had done.

♪♪

One of the methods
Richard used to kill

and actually preferred
was cyanide.

Holstege: Cyanide is a toxin
that can work very fast

on the body.

It's a really potent toxin,

meaning that it doesn't
take much

in the way of milligrams
to cause toxicity.

♪♪

Kuklinski used a number
of different

means of delivery of cyanide.

He talked about
putting it on food.

There's also injection.

He could walk into a bar,
bump elbows with a guy,

he's got cyanide in the drink.

Richard: Spill the drink
on him and leave.

Everybody just looks around,
thinks you're a drunk

or that you just had
an accident or something,

and meanwhile, it's soaking
through their clothes

into their pores

and into their system,
and eventually, they'll die.

Then there's the spraying in
the face that he talked about.

You can put it
into a spray bottle.

Guy takes five, no more than
10 steps, falls to the ground.

There's no turning around
from that at all.

Not at all.

Once they ingest that
into their system,

it's gonna kill you.

As a murderer, I can see
where Kuklinski thought

this was a good method.

'Cause there's always
the problem of the body.

He wants to take somebody out.

They suddenly look like

they're having a heart attack.

No one thinks it's cyanide.

Chris, did you ever wonder
why your mom

didn't take you
and flee the situation?

Oh, many times.
And?

I begged her. I said, "Please,
let's get out of here.

Let's leave.
Let's go someplace."

There wasn't anywhere to go.

Carlo: They planned to poison
him, Barbara and Chris.

They actually were planning
to kill him,

but they realized
that if they tried to do it

and it didn't work,
that he would kill them.

♪♪

♪♪

Heide: Paul Hoffman was
a pharmacist in New Jersey.

At the time, the drug Tagamet
was very popular

and was being ordered
in large quantities

by a lot of the populace.

It was a very expensive drug.

Kane: Hoffman wanted this drug
that Kuklinski said he had.

I don't know what the price
was going back then,

but let's just say if the going
price for the medicine was $5,

he was gonna buy it
for under a dollar.

You can make a ton of money.

Smith: Richard Kuklinski
told Hoffman

that somebody was gonna deliver

a van filled
with Tagamet for him,

and Hoffman emptied out
his bank account.

Carroll: He had, I believe it
was, $20,000 or $25,000 in cash.

Smith: Kuklinski had
Paul Hoffman come to his garage

on new Kirk Avenue...

♪♪

...and he closed the door.

♪♪

And he says, "How am I gonna
get this merchandise?"

I put the gun under his chin,
and I said,

"There is no merchandise."

And I shot him.

Heide: Paul Hoffman did not die.

He was struggling and gurgling,

and Richard tried
to shoot him again,

and the gun malfunctioned.

Kane: So, Kuklinski took
a tire iron out...

[ Tire iron thudding ]

...and beat him to death.

He then took his body, and
he put it in a 50-gallon drum,

and he placed concrete
on top of the body,

and he sealed the drum.

♪♪

Kane: And that's how
Paul Hoffman met his demise.

The murder seems pretty cruel,
calloused,

no feeling,
no remorse at all.

♪♪

♪♪

Welcome back to
"Very Scary People".

By 1982, police said
Richard Kuklinski had killed

three men in New Jersey --

George Malliband, Louis Masgay,
and Paul Hoffman --

as part of what was dubbed
his commercial murders.

The murders were committed,
and the bodies dumped

in three
different jurisdictions,

and though Kuklinski was thought
to be the last person

to see each of them alive,

these killings were unsolved
and unlinked for a long time.

But all that was
about to change.

♪♪

In the 1980s, Kuklinski began
working with a small crime ring

in the Northern part
of New Jersey.

They were doing house burglaries
and stolen cars

and stuff like that.

Carroll: Richard Kuklinski
was the boss.

Underneath him was Percy House.

Two of the more productive
of his crew,

if you call it that, were
Gary Smith and Danny Deppner.

I had 40 house burglaries
in a three-county area,

and I had an informant with me
that was part of the crew.

I said to him one day, "Where's
all these proceeds going to?"

He says, "You don't
want to know."

I said, "Why don't
I want to know?"

He says, "Because the guy
running this whole thing --

if he finds out that you're onto
him, he's coming after you."

He said,
"He is the most vicious person

I've ever seen,
I've ever heard of.

All he has to do is look at you,

and you feel like
you're running for the hills."

I said, "Give me his name.
I want his name."

He gave me the name
Richard Kuklinski.

Smith: After time, there was
enough evidence

to indict several
of those individuals

on several charges
regarding stolen property,

including Gary Smith
and Danny Deppner.

Although there was not
enough connection

to implicate
Richard Kuklinski.

Kuklinski knew
that Deppner and Smith

posed a real threat to him.

They could possibly talk
and give him up.

Carroll: Building on his
lifelong evolution of a killer,

these were risks that for him,
were unacceptable.

And he got rid of them.

One by one.

Carroll: Kuklinski took
Gary and Danny off the street

and moved them
to a series of motels.

♪♪

Eventually, they were put
into The York Motel.

Richie would visit them,
bring them food,

tell them not to leave the room
under any circumstances.

Smith: On December 23rd,
Kuklinski decided

that he was gonna kill
Gary Smith.

[ Door knob clicks ]

Sanderson:
Kuklinski got together

with Deppner and Smith
for a meal.

They ordered hamburgers.

Kuklinski decided that
he would kill Smith

by poisoning him
with cyanide.

Cyanide looks like
just salt, table salt.

So, Kuklinski had mixed cyanide
in the ketchup

that was then brought on
a hamburger to Gary Smith.

Smith: Gary Smith started
to eat the hamburger.

Carroll: Gary got
about halfway through.

His eyes went goofy and rolled
back in his head,

and he just fell back
on the bed.

He was gagging
and trying to breathe.

Kuklinski went next to the bed,

ripped the lamp cord
off of the lamp,

threw it to Danny.

Smith: And he then ordered
Danny Deppner to finish him off

with the cord,
which Danny Deppner did.

Carroll: He got behind him,
put the cord around his neck,

and choked off his air stream.

Gary Smith's body was then

placed under the mattress
in the bedroom of the hotel,

and it remained there
for a number of days.

Sanderson:
The room was rented out

to several guests several times.

They had no idea that this
guy's corpse was underneath it

before the owner
finally got the hotel staff

to find it and call the cops.

There was decay
that had occurred,

and so the body had actually
turned the skin dark in color,

to the point where
they thought it was

an African-American
male initially.

Sanderson: Kuklinski knows that
there's someone else

who has to be eliminated
from the case,

and that's Mr. Deppner.

Kane: In may of 1983,
Danny Deppner's body

was found up by a reservoir
in the woods

and wrapped in multiple
layers of garbage bags.

When I got to the scene,
I remember saying to myself,

"You son of a bitch,
I'm gonna get you now.

Come hell or high water,
I'm gonna get you."

And that's when I started
to zero in on him.

We found three reports
that were sitting in,

like, a dead file going nowhere.

Hoffman, Masgay, and Malliband.

Heide: The police made
the connection

that Richard Kuklinski appeared

to be the last person who
had been seen by these three men

who subsequently were murdered.

When I discovered that,
I go, "Oh [Chuckles] wow.

How many people
did this guy kill?"

They didn't have anything
that linked Kuklinski

to these cases for sure.

Given that Kuklinski was
pretty experienced

as having been a mob hitman,
he knew how to cover his tracks.

He was very careful
about making sure

nobody would ever find out
what he'd done.

They had a lot
of disparate crimes,

and because Kuklinski

was actively working
to eliminate evidence,

they were still lacking with
proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

They needed to find a way
to link Kuklinski

to all these different murders.

Polifrone:
They needed direct evidence.

They needed to hear
from Kuklinski himself

how he murdered
these individuals.

♪♪

I am what you call
a person's nightmare.

Because of the way
I project myself,

people think
they ain't getting by,

and then all of a sudden, when
they wake up, it's too late.

♪♪

Heide: One of the dynamics
we look at

is how did Richard get into
the business of being a killer?

What was the template
upon which

this mass murderer
was formed?

Carlo: Well, basically, Richard
was a severely abused child.

Richard Kuklinski was born
April 11th, 1935

in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Sanderson:
Kuklinski had three siblings.

They were Florian, Roberta,
and Joseph.

His family was not well-off.

Richard had a very difficult
upbringing.

His father,
according to Richard,

was physically abusive.

Beat him, beat other
members of the family.

Carlo: He wrapped a
Garrison belt around his fist,

and he hit them in the head
and knocked them out.

Heide: And his mother was
verbally abusive, very strict,

and at times, would also
beat him with a broom.

There's a lack of love
in that family

and quite a bit of what
I would call brutality.

So, that's really not a very
good environment, I would say.

Richard's brother, Florian,
died at approximately age 8.

Initially, what was believed,

that he had fallen
down the stairs

and sustained injuries
from that fall.

Richard has said
that actually,

what happened was that Florian
was beaten to death

by his father.

The impact, I think, stayed
with him his whole life.

Carlo: And I asked him, "do you
have any regrets, Richard?"

And he said, "Yeah, I regret
not killing my father."

He hated his father.

Heide: The question is often
raised, "Is killing genetic?"

Particularly, if an individual
comes from a violent home.

If the child is genetically
at risk,

if that child is raised
in a violent home,

it's likely
the combination of both,

and in Richard's case,
from what we know,

it was likely both.

What's particularly odd
in this case

is that Richard was not
the only killer in the family.

Smith: Richard Kuklinski had a
brother by the name of Joseph.

In 1970, he was charged
in the rape and killing

of a 12-year-old girl.

Smith: He had lured her
onto the roof of a building,

where he sexually assaulted her,
and afterwards,

he threw her body
off the building and killed her.

He was convicted of murder.

Heide: When you have violence
in the home,

it can create the dynamics that
can lead to violent behavior,

and in a very small percentage
of cases,

it can also lead to killing.

In this case, clearly, that rage
could propel someone to kill

or to explode
under certain circumstances.

♪♪

Smith: We had acquired a lot
of information

through various
law enforcement sources,

which pointed
to Richard Kuklinski.

The problem with it was there
wasn't enough information

to arrest him.

Carroll: The idea that was
suggested was maybe, just maybe,

we could have an uncover pose
as another criminal.

To build evidence that would
support a prosecution.

When the investigation
of Richard Kuklinski

needed an undercover operative,
they went and got Dom Polifrone.

If there was a Mount Rushmore
for undercover agents,

Dom's face would be carved
in the granite.

Dominick Polifrone was
a decorated Federal Agent

that had successfully
infiltrated major mob families

in New York.

I worked all organized crime,
five families in New York

before I came over
to New Jersey.

I had a lot of experience.

I spent 15 years in the streets.

He could talk the talk,
walk the walk.

Polifrone: I didn't play a
different part, I was myself.

That's who I am, and that's
who I'm gonna die as, okay?

He had the look,
he had the dialect.

He was the person, if anyone,

that could get close
to Richard Kuklinski.

Polifrone: So, I read the
information about Kuklinski.

They had a huge folder on him.

Where he lived, his family,
his associates.

And they alleged that
he committed five murders.

There was this poison involved,

and if it got
into your skin there,

there's no way an antidote
would work there.

Headquarters called me.

They said, "Are you sure
you want to do this?

This is a case that is totally,

totally like
a 'Twilight Zone' case."

So, I said,
"Yeah, I want to do it."

I used the name of
Dominic Michael Provenzano.

So, to make this false persona
character real,

Michael Dominic Provenzano
had fake IDs,

fake criminal histories,

mugshots on file,
a fake apartment,

all which were available
and accessible

and verifiable
to solidify his credibility

if anybody was trying to look
at him from the outside in.

Polifrone: The main function
of this investigation was

get the information on how
Kuklinski murdered them people.

Bottom line, we have
to meet Richard Kuklinski.

Smith: He was very
unpredictable.

He was very cunning.

He was very wary
of outside people.

And we knew it'd be
very difficult

to get an undercover
into him.

The way Dominick sort of
integrated himself

into this world
was there was a store.

This was a place where guys
like Kuklinski used to hang out.

I guess you could describe
the store as a combination

of a social club

and a location where different
criminal elements

would meet to discuss
and to purchase stolen property

and other criminal activities.

Dobyns: Dom's generic persona
cover story

was that he was a guy
that could obtain contraband.

Dom was a black market guy
that knew all the people

in all the dark alleys
in all the hidden corners,

and he could go find
what you needed,

regardless of
how exotic it was.

So, I started hanging out
at the store,

and I'm developing my rapport
with these bad guys.

Carroll: Dominick had
to dedicate himself

for a long time,

to do things that would
establish his credibility.

♪♪

Polifrone: I go in one day, and
I walk in with this suitcase,

and they go, "What's that?"

I said, "It's for people
in New York.

You don't want to know
about it."

And I knew they were gonna ask.

"Dom, what's in there?"

So, I go in the back room,
I open the attache case,

and inside, I have ten blocks
of plastic stolen explosives

from the military.

I have 10 high-standard
.22 caliber silencers

with no manufacturer
serial number.

They went berserk.

They said, "Man, listen,
we could use this."

I said, "Look, at another time,

but these are for people
from New York."

I knew word was gonna get out
that I could get anything.

[ Telephone rings ]

Kane: One day, September of '86,

the phone rings at the store
in Patterson.

And they say,
"The big guy wants to see you."

It was big Richie,
and he wanted to meet Dominick

at a local donut shop.

♪♪

Richard Kuklinski claimed
to have killed 100, 200 people.

We simply have no idea.

Schumacher:
It's been very difficult

for investigators
and journalists

and experts to track down
the actual evidence

to support
a lot of those claims.

Woman: Did you ever let anyone
go, for whatever reason?

Did you ever decide
to let someone go?

Richard: Yes.

But then I thought better of
the idea and shot him anyway.

[ Telephone rings ]

Polifrone:
After 18 months of undercover,

it was September 2nd, 1986,

when the call
came in at the store,

and that's when
I first met Kuklinski

at the Dunkin' Donuts
in Patterson, New Jersey.

[ Sirens wail ]

If you were gonna put this
on a scale of one to 10,

with 10 being the most
dangerous, it was an 11.

Dom's going to meet
a serial killer.

Carroll: We didn't know
what was gonna happen.

We don't know if Kuklinski

has already figured out
that we're onto him.

If Dominick said something
wrong, it could set him off,

and he had the capability
of killing very quickly.

Dominick had a lot of pressure.

The entire investigation hinged

on whether he could
at least entice Kuklinski

to participate
in something with him.

Dobyns: And just the added,
subliminal, hidden pressure

of knowing that the public's
safety rests in your hands.

What Dom did was gonna
depend on

if innocent civilians
lived or died.

Polifrone: He pulls up.

This son of a bitch --

he was like
the Jolly Green Giant.

He was a big guy.

He was about 6'4",
maybe 260, 265,

and he wore
these orange-tinged glasses.

We go into Dunkin' Donuts,
and we sit down,

and we're just
talking generalities.

Dobyns: Dom knew what the
reputation of Kuklinski was.

Kuklinski believed he knew
what Dom's reputation was.

There was no purpose in Dom

creating an intimidating
presence for Kuklinski.

He's trying to warm the guy up,
not drive him away.

But how do you do that and
still maintain your credibility

and not be a puppet
for this guy?

Heide: Richard was trying
to likely size Dominick up

and to see if he was someone
that could be trusted,

someone who was skilled.

Polifrone: He says,
"You do coke?"

I said, "No, I don't do coke."

He says, "No, no.

What do you get a kilo for?"

And so I said -- probably,
at that time,

it was about $30,000 a ki.

He says, "Well, I can get it
for $28,000."

And I said, "Well, then,
you should go with your guy."

He goes, "You know," he says,
"I know it's a good price,

but I don't know
if I can trust him."

I look at him.
I said, "You're a [Bleep] idiot.

You don't trust him?

You don't deal with somebody
you don't trust."

Dobyns: Dom makes a pretty bold
move in challenging Kuklinski.

He's calling out one of the most
dangerous men on the planet,

and he's basically saying,
"You're a fool.

You're crazy.

You're doing narcotics deals
with someone you don't trust?"

Well, let me tell you something,
for five seconds,

he looked at me like he was
grabbing my soul and saying,

"I'm gonna rip
your heart out.

Nobody talks to me that way."

And he's looking at me,
and I'm looking at him.

It was the longest five seconds
you can imagine.

He could send fear through
somebody's body

without saying a word,
just looking at him.

Polifrone:
I said, "This is the devil."

I'm telling you, I'm sitting
down with the devil.

He points his finger,
and he goes,

"You're right."

I said, "You're damn right
I'm right.

You don't deal with people
you don't trust."

Then he goes, "I hear you have
a lot of connections."

I said, "Yeah."

He said, "Can you get
pure cyanide?"

I could have fell off the chair.

Heide:
There is a sense of urgency.

The scale of danger
is off the charts.

It was like
the ultimate chess game.

You got to make a move
and hope it's not the wrong move

during this investigation.

Smith: When they heard
their husband and father's voice

explaining how to kill people
and how cold and calculated

he was,
their whole demeanor changed.

Through all of that time,
all of these murders, Barbara,

you didn't know
that anything was up?

You lived with this man
for 25 years, you knew nothing?

The multi-agency task force
launched to make a case

against Richard Kuklinski
was dubbed Operation Iceman.

The goal was to get Kuklinski
comfortable enough

with an undercover operative

that he would talk
about his crimes.

The agent, Dominick Polifrone,
would be wearing a wire,

a dangerous cat-and-mouse game

that could prove fatal
in part two of "The Iceman".

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

Thanks for watching.

Goodnight.

♪♪