Original subtitles

♪♪

Richard: There was a man who was begging and pleading,

and I told him he could have a half hour to pray to God,

and if God could come down and change the circumstances,

he'd have that time.

But God never showed up.

And that was that.

♪♪

♪♪

Welcome to "Very Scary People".

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

Mafia hitman and serial killer Richard Kuklinski

got away with murder for years.

He used guns, cyanide, even tire irons

to execute his victims,

then skillfully covered his trail,

but after he took out two of his crime ring cronies,

he was on investigators' radar.

Now, Kuklinski and an undercover agent were about to face off.

Could the investigator manipulate the notoriously

secretive killer to talk about his crimes?

Here is part two of "The Iceman".

♪♪

Richard: I beat a guy to death one time.

I had blood on my shoes -- his blood on my shoes.

Just goes on that way.

Had to throw all my clothes away.

His name was Richard Kuklinski, also known as The Iceman.

Richard Kuklinski allegedly killed for profit coldly

and without remorse.

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

see how long it would take him to die.

Kane: Richard Kuklinski was a Mafia contract killer...

[ Dog barks ]

...but he was also a freelance killer.

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,

and he was not gonna just rob them.

He was gonna kill them.

♪♪

Sanderson: In 1983, the authorities found a body

wrapped up in Orangetown, New York.

This turned out to be Louis Masgay.

Carroll: He was brought to the medical examiner's office

and examined.

He had the same clothes on

that he disappeared in two years prior.

Smith: Even more interesting is they found what they termed

as ice crystal artifacts.

Which indicated that he had in fact been frozen.

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

Carroll: That particular crime was the genesis of the name

"Iceman".

We knew we were looking for somebody

that had literally frozen a person.

Sanderson: Kuklinski was also working with a small crime ring.

Kuklinski knew that they posed a real threat to him.

And he got rid of them, one by one.

Kuklinski had mixed cyanide in the ketchup

that was then brought on a hamburger.

Man: At least five killings between 1980 and 1983,

with handguns and cyanide.

Smith: Richard Kuklinski was a very low-key individual.

He was secretive.

He looked to be living a normal suburban life.

He married Barbara, and they had three children --

two girls and a boy.

His wife, Barbara, told me she really didn't know too much

about what he did.

Roberts: You have said of Richard,

"There were two Richards.

I never knew who'd be walking in the door.

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

Tell us more about that.

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.

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?

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

but they realized that if they tried to do it

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

♪♪

Polifrone: This guy was a walking time bomb.

You don't listen to him, you die.

He feels you betrayed him, you die.

You say anything bad about the family, you die.

That's his world.

Carroll: Richard Kuklinski claimed to have killed

100, 200 people.

We simply have no idea.

Carlo: He was the toughest guy on the block.

He was the most dangerous animal in the jungle.

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.

The idea that was suggested was

we could have an undercover pose as another criminal.

I used the name of Dominic Michael Provenzano.

After 18 months in there, I first met Kuklinski.

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

Can you get pure cyanide?"

♪♪

♪♪

Everybody's sitting at this long table,

and my pager goes off.

Dobyns: This untouchable serial murderer

was now seeking Dominick out.

Dom was no longer hunting Kuklinski.

Kuklinski was hunting Dom.

Everyone is excited for Dom to call back.

Polifrone: One guy says, "Get a tape.

I want it recorded.

I want this done now," and I said, "I'm not doing that.

I'm gonna tell you why.

Everybody that he dealt with jumped.

I'm not jumping for him.

He came to me.

He reached out to me."

Dobyns: Gangsters are not prompt.

One of the simplest ways to identify an undercover cop,

if he's always prompt,

if he's always on time, you know who does that?

Cops do that.

Polifrone: I waited a day to give him a call back.

So, what happened is the following day,

we started talking. [ Telephone rings ]

They began talking about doing crimes together,

and they began talking about different things.

Richard: [ Laughs ]

Dobyns: So, during the conversation,

when Dom references his use of iron,

he opens the door for Kuklinski to brag on his technique.

Dominick Polifrone told Kuklinski

that he was interested in purchasing weapons,

and in fact, he was looking for a hit kit.

Hit kit is a .22 with a silencer on it.

Kuklinski told him, "Yes, I can deliver that to you,

but I'm looking for cyanide."

I said, "You're gonna give me an assassination kit,

and I'm gonna pay you $1,100.

After you do that, you come and see me.

Now we'll talk business for your pure cyanide."

Kane: It was like the ultimate chess game.

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

♪♪

♪♪

Woman: Did you ever murder anyone you liked?

All my friends are dead.

At one point in time, I'm sure I liked them.

Kane: In the 1980s,

Richard Kuklinski met a fellow named Robert Prongay.

He was also a hitman, it appears,

and so they had a lot in common.

Prongay was a self-taught chemist,

and he had an adjacent garage to Kuklinski's.

Where Richard Kuklinski killed several individuals.

Sanderson: Interestingly, to me, Prongay ran a Mr. Softee truck,

and Kuklinski used to call him

Mr. Softee.

Richard: He sold ice cream to the kids in the neighborhood.

He'd go into these neighborhoods and sell ice cream to the kids

and maybe kill one of their fathers.

Robert Prongay killed in different ways.

I heard a story once where he liked explosions,

and he developed a method to put it in a remote control car,

and he drove that under another car of a target...

[ Explosion, glass shatters ]

...and he exploded it.

Heide: Now, Robert taught Richard some "sophisticated"

ways of killing, including cyanide.

Smith: He showed him how he could put it in a liquid

and put it in a drink.

He taught him how he could put it on gravy.

He could also put it in a spray mist.

Sanderson: And Mr. Softee helped him obtain

some of the cyanide he needed for his homicides.

Schumacher: The relationship between Kuklinski and Prongay

went swimmingly for a while,

but before long, they had a falling out.

Smith: Apparently, Kuklinski realized that this guy

could be a liability, and "I don't need him anymore.

He's taught me everything he needed to.

He's got to go."

And he killed him.

[ Gunshots ]

On August 8th, 1984, Robert Prongay's body

was found shot to death in his Mr. Softee truck.

Kane: Poor Bobby Prongay.

Five in the chest.

Schumacher: But one negative side effect

of Prongay being dead

is that Kuklinski no longer has a source for his cyanide,

which has become his new passion as a way to kill people.

So, now he's looking for other ways of acquiring cyanide.

And so, I was his man. I was his connection.

♪♪

Sanderson: After they first met,

Dominick Polifrone and Richard Kuklinski

had a bunch of different meet-ups and discussions

together about how to carry out their crimes.

Dominick wore something called a Nagra.

It was a little bulkier than the technology they use today,

but a Nagra was state-of-the-art at the time.

It is a reel-to-reel tape recorder,

about the size of a microwave dinner.

So, imagine yourself going to meet

an organized crime serial killer

with this duct-taped into the small of your back.

The margin of error for Dom was zero.

If Richard Kuklinski finds out that Dom is lying to him,

deceiving him, tricking him,

he's going to drag a straight razor across his throat.

In October, he calls.

He says, "I have your assassination kit for you."

We meet at the Vince Lombardi Service Station

that he suggests.

Inside the trunk, a beautiful,

high-standard .22 caliber silencer

affixed to the weapon.

So, I take the gun, and I give him $1,100.

Dobyns: It was a clean criminal deal

that just further enhanced Dom's credibility

in the eyes of Kuklinski.

Polifrone: He goes, "I can't stay that long."

He says, "But you have your source for the pure cyanide?"

I said, "Absolutely."

He says, "Okay, let's stay in touch."

♪♪

Smith: As the investigation proceeded, we decided to come up

with a plan to lure Kuklinski in to kill somebody.

We knew he needed money and he needed cyanide,

so it was our idea to join him in a murder plot,

and of course, it wasn't really a murder plot.

Smith: Dominick proposed to Kuklinski

that he had this rich kid that was wealthy

and always had a lot of money on him

that he was dealing drugs with and he wanted to get rid of.

Dobyns: When Dom talks to Kuklinski about the fake murder,

what he's doing is opening the door

for Kuklinski to talk about his own assassinations and murders.

Heide: Over time, as he began to trust Dom,

he then made some very incriminating statements.

Polifrone: He told me how he killed people

with firearms and with knives

and sometimes with chainsaws.

He had to cut the limbs to get them into the barrel.

Smith: One of the conversations --

Kuklinski went into detail

on how you can throw law enforcement off

by killing somebody, freezing the body,

and them disposing of it a couple years later.

♪♪

Polifrone: He told me that he murdered an individual,

that he throws the body for two years,

and he made the cops looks like jerks.

I said, "What do you mean?"

♪♪

Kuklinski is now bragging on the murders he's done.

He's letting his guard down.

Polifrone: He said, "When you do something like this,

use Glad bags."

He said, "They last a couple of years."

This is his sense of humor.

♪♪

He talked about slipping cyanide into someone's hamburgers.

Not only is he not shying away from it, he's bragging on it.

Polifrone: Richie's telling me -- he says,

"We're laughing at him. Get one of the lamp cords,

strangle him,

and then we throw him under the bed.

And then we leave him there, and off we go."

♪♪

Dobyns: Each time he offers a detail,

it's back-checked against the real murder,

and all of them dovetail.

♪♪

Kane: At a certain point in time,

it was believed that Richard Kuklinski

could tell Dominick

just about anything he wanted

because he had plans to kill him and take all the money.

I always kept that in my mind.

"He who hesitates, lost."

I got it right at the top of my head.

♪♪

Man: Did you think of yourself as an assassin?

Assassin.

Sounds so exotic.

[ Laughs ]

I was just a murderer.

Dominick Polifrone was undercover for months.

Four months that I was able to extract the information.

All of his conversations -- they're on tape.

Schumacher: So, after Polifrone had established

with his audio recordings that showed Kuklinski

admitting to committing murders, he helps set up the fake hit,

and this would be the final proof

that was needed to put Kuklinski behind bars.

They were fully engaged in Dom's plan to murder

the rich kid under the ruse of a cocaine deal.

Polifrone: A rich kid comes with cash, and I give him cocaine.

We were gonna get him into the van,

and Rich was gonna give him the egg sandwiches.

♪♪

They were gonna put cyanide on the one sandwich

that the kid was supposed to eat.

Polifrone: And he's gonna chop the body

and put it into the barrel,

and he would dump it somewhere,

and we'd each make $40,000 a piece.

Dom certainly didn't want to give Kuklinski cyanide

as an ATF agent who's undercover.

Polifrone: We had a simulated cyanide

that smelled like cyanide,

that looked like cyanide, that was made up from the lab.

Dom, instead of cyanide, gave quinine.

Now, the reason to do that --

quinine, if that's administered to somebody,

you can then detect that,

which would then show that it was given,

and that they attempted to murder somebody.

So, it was really quite brilliant.

♪♪

Kuklinski and Dominic met up on December 17th, 1986,

at the Vince Lombardi Rest Area.

Dom gives Kuklinski the egg sandwiches

and what is allegedly a vial of cyanide.

Polifrone: He brought tape with him

and rubber gloves that he had,

so he was ready for this.

Kuklinski then says,

"Listen, my wife wasn't feeling that good,

but I'm gonna head home, but I'll be back."

Kane: Now, what happened was Kuklinski didn't come back

right away.

Surveillance indicated he was at his house,

and the decision was made then by the upper echelon,

"Just take him down."

And they did.

Smith: He was extremely animated.

Screaming, cursing.

"I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna kill your families."

I mean, he was off the wall.

[ Car door shuts ] This is unwarranted.

Unnecessary. [ Car door shuts ]

These guys watch too many movies.

Never showed their badge, never read me my rights, nothing.

They think they're gangbusters.

37 guys to pick up one little guy.

That's ridiculous.

Kuklinski was charged with five murders --

Paul Hoffman, Louis Masgay,

Daniel Deppner, Gary Smith, and George Malliband.

Smith: At the time of the arrest,

the car was searched for any evidence,

and in the trunk was found the egg sandwiches,

and on the egg sandwiches,

two of them had the fake cyanide on them.

So, in fact, not only was the rich kid gonna die,

but Dominick was gonna die.

Rich, in your spirit, he who hesitates is lost.

♪♪

♪♪

Welcome back to "Very Scary People".

When investigators finally arrested

Richard Kuklinski in 1986,

it seemed like the end of the road,

but the twists and turns of The Iceman's evil legacy

were far from over.

A search of the home turned up shocking information

about one of his killings, and a late-in-life confession

uncovers what could yet be another.

Law enforcement authorities have arrested one of

the most notorious contract killers in state history.

A self-employed Bergen County man is behind bars,

charged with five murders,

and prosecutors are investigating his involvement

in dozens more.

On the day of his arrest, his home was searched.

And they found a knife, and it had eight notches

carved into the handle on one side,

and I believe three on the other side,

indicating that he killed 11 people with that knife.

We also talked to an individual

by the name of Richard Patterson.

Patterson was engaged to one of Richard's daughters, Merrick.

Richard Patterson opened up another whole door for us

in regards to what Richard Kuklinski had done.

One day, Patterson had been sleeping over,

and Kuklinski got him up early in the morning and said,

"Listen, I need you to help me move this package, this thing."

Carroll: And they get in the car and they go,

and he says to Richard, you know,

"Jump behind the wheel."

He gets out of the car, and he goes around the back.

He opens the trunk, and Richard looks in the mirror,

and he sees him taking a body out of the trunk,

walking into the woods, and he dumps the body,

and he gets in and he tells Richard,

"What you saw here, you'll never repeat to anyone."

It was ultimately determined that the body was Danny Deppner,

who was in Richard's circle of criminal friends.

Kuklinski decided Deppner would possibly talk and give him up.

He had brought Deppner baked beans and some other food,

and Danny Deppner ate the baked beans,

and they were loaded with cyanide.

He was wrapped in plastic garbage bags,

and he was taken up to West Milford,

where the body was dumped in the woods.

His body was not found until approximately five months later,

and an autopsy showed that he had an undigested amount

of baked beans in his stomach.

They found these baked beans that were so intact,

they could tell they were even burned a little bit.

That indicated that the person was eating when they had died.

♪♪

Heide: The path that led to Kuklinski

becoming a killer likely began in his childhood.

Richard had a very difficult upbringing.

His father, according to Richard,

was physically abusive --

beat him, beat other members of the family.

When you have violence in the home,

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

Carlo: By the time he was 10 years old,

he had a host of personality problems.

He turned his rage on animals early on,

started beating dogs to death, setting cats on fire.

Carroll: Richard Kuklinski was raised

in a hardscrabble section of Jersey City.

He was of mixed ethnic decent.

He was part-Polish, part-Irish,

and because of that, he later said

that he was often picked on and taken advantage of.

Ultimately, he says leading to the murder

of a neighborhood bully when he was a teenager.

Kane: Richard was about 13 years of age,

and he got sick and tired of being bullied.

He picked out the big bully.

His name was Charlie Lane.

Polifrone: Finally, he's not taking shit no more

from the guy, and did what he had to do.

And he went into one of the closets in his apartment,

and he took all the clothes off the rod.

And he says he waited outside for the boy to come by.

Kane: And then he beat him to death with that rod.

Heide: After he killed Charlie Lane,

Richard was worried that he would get caught.

When he didn't, he learned that he might be able

to get away with other acts of violence.

After that, if he was humiliated,

he would respond with savage violence.

Heide: He learned clearly then that violence was the solution

to his problem.

I was no longer taking the beating.

I was giving it.

And that's when I learned that it was better

to give than to receive.

♪♪

♪♪

They ripped me apart like I'm some sort of fool.

Never resisted.

Smith: The first time that Kuklinski was brought

into the courtroom,

he had an aura about him, a threatening aura.

Polifrone: He had them damn orange-tinged glasses on,

and I was saying, "Jesus, how can they let

this guy have these glasses, you know?

Get him a different pair."

Kuklinski's trial started on January 25th, 1988.

Smith: The prosecution began with the murders

of Gary Smith and Danny Deppner.

They were the two best cases we had out of all five.

We had so much.

We tried the Smith and Deppner cases over several weeks.

There was a lot of physical evidence,

a lot of testimony from medical examiners

about how these people had died.

One of the witnesses was Gary Smith's wife.

She testified that her husband left the hotel

where Richard was having them stay.

♪♪

Carroll: When Gary came home, she said, "Don't go back,"

you know, "Don't go back,"

and he said, "I have to.

He'll kill the whole family if I don't."

He goes back, and Richie kills him.

Carroll: In court, Kuklinski himself

continued with his continence of intimidation,

would yell out every now and then at people on the stand.

Smith: When witnesses testified against him, he would mouth,

"You're dead",

or he would go like this to scratch his head,

and he'd go like this with it

and make it like a gun pointing at them.

Sanderson: I think that the key evidence

was Dominick Polifrone's testimony.

It laid out who Kuklinski was.

It laid out what he did.

It laid out the way he carried out his crimes.

The chief attorney's asking me questions,

and then they played a tape.

You could hear a pin drop, and then I can see

some of the faces were like, "This is hard to believe.

Is this reality?"

There's a talk about cyanide and how to kill with cyanide.

Must've sent chills through some of the people on the jury.

The tapes killed him.

The tapes were devastating.

Devastating.

It gave the jurors a very clear picture

of what kind of guy he was.

Carroll: All up until the time that Dominick took the sand,

Kuklinski's wife and his daughters were in court.

You could see his wife and his daughters were disbelieving.

They just couldn't believe that he had done

these type of things.

Smith: But when they heard their husband and father's voice

explaining how to kill people

and how cold and calculated he was,

I think that really hit home with them,

and their whole demeanor changed.

Carroll: We played one of the most explosive tapes early on,

and we took a break after that,

and I looked over at Barbara and the daughters,

and they were all crying, and she said, "We didn't know.

We didn't know."

Through all of that time, all of these dozens and dozens

and maybe as many as 200 murders, Barbara,

you didn't know that anything was up?

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

Barbara: No.

First of all, you never questioned Richard.

You have said in the past that he would sometimes get up

at two o'clock in the morning, leave the house --

Or in the middle of dinner and leave the house,

and you'd never ask him why.

Carlo: Barbara was battered beaten by him.

She was not in a position to ever question him

about where he was going and whether he was coming back,

and he was extremely macho,

so she was really put-upon actually, as were her children.

Barbara, do you think he could have killed 200 people?

I think he was capable of anything.

To the jury, it was overwhelming evidence.

And Richard Kuklinski was convicted

of the murder of Gary T. Smith and Daniel Deppner.

Sanderson: This was what the judge said.

He said, "Words are inadequate to describe

the depths of depravity reached this defendant.

The lives of others have no meaning to this man.

No remorse, no conscience, no regrets.

Cold, calculated, pre-meditated murders."

After being convicted of two murders,

he confessed to two others in court today.

Polifrone: Richard Kuklinski later pled guilty

to the Malliband and Masgay murders.

I shot George Malliband five times.

The judge says to Kuklinski, "Can you tell me why?"

And he says -- It was due to business.

Sanderson: When they got him on the other murders, that was it.

They had effectively thrown away the key.

He received four consecutive life sentences.

He was going away for a long, long time.

He wasn't getting out.

Reporter: And so, it seemed to bring to an end

the long pursuit of the so-called Iceman.

Smith: Richard had an unusual reaction to Dominick.

He, I think in his own sick way, respected Dominick

because Dominick was able to get over on him,

just like he got over on so many other people.

Reporter: Today in court, The Iceman greeted the agent

with a smiling, "Hello, Dominick."

Hello.

Reporter: He seemed to be quite cheery about hello to you.

Well, I reciprocated.

The only thing is, I'm going home,

and he's going to a different environment at the present time.

♪♪

After Kuklinski was sentenced to New Jersey State Prison,

we got a Christmas card from him,

which was a very sick,

odd number of drawings with Jesus

and the devil and skulls, and it was just bizarre.

And that was Kuklinski, sending us a message --

"Merry Christmas."

♪♪

♪♪

Schumacher: After Kuklinski was convicted and received life

without parole sentences for all of those murders,

there was no chance he was ever getting out of prison,

and he agreed to sit down for a series of interviews with HBO.

Woman: You tended to shoot people up close and personal.

Definitely.

I wanted to tell them just before they left.

I wanted to say goodbye.

Did you like to look them in the eye?

I wanted them looking straight at me.

He spoke about his life.

He talked about the murders that he committed.

He talked about his mindset when he committed these murders.

What did you want them to think as they died?

Just see my pretty face.

I'll take it to them.

The last thing they ever saw was me,

and if they carry that glimpse to eternity, infinity,

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

The career hitman's confessions are a stunner.

The Iceman saying one of his many victims

was a New York City police detective.

Schumacher: One of the killings that Kuklinski claimed

to have committed was that of a New York City detective

named Peter Calabro in 1980.

Kane: There was a snowstorm on that day.

Calabro was coming down a road in Saddle River, New Jersey,

and Kuklinski knew the route he was gonna take,

and he blocked the road off with a van

so Calabro would have to slow down

and go slowly around the van.

And I go to the back of the van, and I go out the back door.

I take the shotgun with me.

And as he's going by the van,

I fired.

[ Glass shatters ]

Kane: Kuklinski stepped out with a shotgun

and shotgunned him to death.

The so-called Iceman has nothing to lose.

Today, more than 20 years after the crime,

he pled guilty to the cold-blooded murder

of a New York City police officer.

Man: Did you cause his death? Yes.

And how did you do that?

Prosecutors are asking for another 30-year prison sentence

in the Calabro case.

The Iceman is 67 years old now.

He actually laughed out loud when the judge said

there would be no need to set bail.

♪♪

When the police came to interview him

about his statement that he was involved

in the killing of Peter Calabro,

Richard said he was hired by "Sammy the Bull" Gravano,

who was associated with the Gambino family.

Schumacher: Now, it's not clear whether Sammy the Bull

was involved, he has denied it.

There are other theories about

what exactly happened there

and who was responsible, but it led to Gravano being indicted.

Kane: And Kuklinski was ready to testify against him.

But then Kuklinski dies all of a sudden.

Amazing.

♪♪

Richard Kuklinski died March 5th in 2006 of a heart attack.

♪♪

Allegations are maybe he was poisoned.

Well, payback's a bitch if he was.

So, without his testimony,

the state does not have a good case against him,

and the charges against Sammy were dropped.

Smith: I don't believe that Richard Kuklinski was involved

in the killing of Peter Calabro.

Bullshit.

There might have been other agendas

that Kuklinski was serving at the time,

because the person he said he committed the crime with

was then a major witness in a federal case,

and if Kuklinski had been believed,

then that would have affected his credibility.

Smith: We know that for sure,

he killed five people.

We also assume that he was involved

in numerous other homicides.

Polifrone: Was it possible it could have happened?

Absolutely.

He's capable of doing things like that.

♪♪

Kane: What a vicious, bloodthirsty,

non-caring, apathetic person he was.

Cold-blooded killer.

Richard Kuklinski was an evil person.

Evil to the core.

He did what he wanted... [ Gunshots ]

...when he wanted to whomever he wanted.

Period. End of story.

He met his maker, and I hope it's the devil.

Man: Is that all you've got left, is hate?

It's all I've got left.

Everything that I ever cared for is gone.

Everything I ever liked is gone.

Everything that meant anything to me is gone.

So, hate.

That's all you started with, too.

Then I've come full circle.

It's time for me to die.

♪♪

Richard Kuklinski made many dubious claims

to famous mob-related killings,

including the death of Jimmy Hoffa.

But without definitive proof, we may never know.

Kuklinski's wife, Barbara,

said that neither his imprisonment nor his death

relieve the ongoing terror she felt

as a result of being married to him,

saying he still haunted her in her dreams.

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

Thanks for watching.

Good night.