[tense music] NARRATOR: On December the
17th, 1986, 51-year-old Richard Kuklinski left his home in
the upmarket neighborhood of Dumont, New Jersey. He placed a package of
cyanide-laced sandwiches in the boot of his car
and an automatic pistol under the driver's seat. It was to be a normal
day at the office for this seasoned killer. He had a family. He had children. And yet he was able
to go out and kill somebody and then come home
and wrap Christmas presents. NARRATOR: Over a
30-year career, Richard Kuklinski had perfected the
art of murder by any means necessary. Methodical, very cunning,
and, frankly, frighteningly efficient in the way he killed. He really liked to make sure
he was ready for anything. NARRATOR: Detectives
investigating Kuklinski knew they needed cold
hard evidence to put a stop to his reign of terror. DOMINICK POLIFRONE: He figured
he'd never get caught out. He controlled everything. And he controlled
you if he could. NARRATOR: Richard Kuklinski,
known as The Iceman, was about to be unmasked
as one of the world's most evil killers. [theme music] Richard Kuklinski is
believed to have been one of the United States
most prolific contract killers of the 20th century. Working for New York
and New Jersey's infamous crime families,
he claimed responsibility for over 100 murders. Robert Carroll was
part of the task force that helped bring
Kuklinski to justice. No remorse, no
conscience in killing. And that's the most dangerous
criminal you can get. NARRATOR: Kuklinski
cut down associates who dared to cross
him as well as wealthy customers who
came to him for drugs, weapons, and pornography. Detective Dominick Polifrone
infiltrated Kuklinski's crime underworld and
eventually got the killer to confess in a series
of secret recordings. DOMINICK POLIFRONE:
He was just brutal. He was explaining to me how he
murdered people, and the joy, like, on his face-- NARRATOR: This
killer's story begins in Jersey City, New Jersey. Richard Leonard Kuklinski was
born on April the 11th, 1935. The second of four children of
Polish and Irish immigrants, he grew up in a home that
was violent and chaotic. He took beatings from
his mother and father, sometimes for no
reason whatsoever. NARRATOR: Criminologist
and author Jennifer Sutton has researched
Kuklinski's life story. JENNIFER SUTTON:
His father, Stanley, he was very aggressive. He would come home drunk,
attack their mother. His mother was an orphan. She never really
experienced a loving family. And I think that was
detrimental to the way she was able to be a mother to him. NARRATOR: In February
1941, when Kuklinski was just five years old, his
older brother Florian died. The official story was that he'd
met with a terrible accident. But Kuklinski would later
claim this had been a cover up. He believed that
Stanley Kuklinski had beaten his
seven-year-old son to death. If you imagine
being a five-year-old and you're subject to
that kind of violence, you are utterly powerless. You don't have the
physicality or the resources to be able to escape from that. You have to survive it. NARRATOR: In his
early teens, Kuklinski began to drift into crime. JENNIFER SUTTON:
One day, he decided that he was going to
steal some wine because he wanted to get a bit of money. And then he went
home and absolutely panicked, thought
that the police were going to come for him. And then when nothing
happened, no one came for him, that was the
turning point for Richard. That was when he
realized, you know what? It really doesn't matter. If I do anything good or if I
do anything bad, nobody notices. NARRATOR: According
to his own testimony, at around the age
of 13, Kuklinski decided it was time to start
facing his problems head on. Although Richard Kuklinski was
to grow into a very large man, as a child, he was
comparatively puny. And he was bullied
relentlessly by a local gang. DOMINICK POLIFRONE: The
kids around the block would take advantage of him. Until one day, he
started ruling himself and wound up beating up people
and showed that, you know, he's the man. And he decided
to take his revenge on this particular gang leader. DOMINICK POLIFRONE: He got
tired of being abused from him. He beat him to death and
felt good about it too. NARRATOR: This was
what Richard Kuklinski later claimed,
though prosecutors were never able to prove it. The earlier a
criminal career starts, especially something like
that, the less likely it is that it's
ever going to end. NARRATOR: Now, fully invested
in a life outside of the law, by his early 20s, Richard
Kuklinski had developed a range of moneymaking rackets. He formed his own crew. He had several people
that were working for him. JENNIFER SUTTON: They
formed a gang where they would rob cars to order. They had a place where they
could offload the goods that they stole to
be sold quickly, bit of money laundering, you
know, a bit of extortion. So he started setting
up some companies, illegitimate companies,
which he then used to launder money through. NARRATOR: Richard Kuklinski
had the perfect physique for the line of work he'd chosen. PAUL SMITH: He was huge. He was about 6' 4" or about
close to 300 pounds, big man, scary-looking guy. NARRATOR: Kuklinski married
young and had two sons, but the marriage was
not destined to last. Spooked by a minor
theft charge in 1958, Kuklinski found a job
with a trucking company in North Bergen, New Jersey. And it was here, two
years later, that he met 19-year-old Barbara Pedrici. Barbara was a
receptionist at the time. And he thought she was
absolutely beautiful. So he spent as much of his time
as he could trying to woo her. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
They began an affair. But Barbara wasn't
entirely convinced that this man, who
appeared on the surface to be courteous and kind, was
actually that in reality, not just the fact that
he was married and had two children
already, but also the fact that he had this incredibly
violent streak, which would sometimes come to the surface. NARRATOR: This
violent streak emerged just a few months
into the affair when Barbara tried
to leave Kuklinski. When Barbara told
him that perhaps they weren't made for each
other, he lost his temper. He grabbed her and
told her very sternly that if she left him, he would
have to kill her and her family because he was the
only one for her. He stabbed her in
the back with the tip of a hunting knife. And he would have killed
her If she tried to leave. There is absolutely
not a doubt in my mind that he would have done. NARRATOR: Kuklinski left
his first wife for Barbara. Then something happened
that made it even harder for the young
woman to leave him. Barbara discovered
she was pregnant. It is quite possible
that he forced her to be pregnant
because it ties her to him for the rest of her life. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Barbara
reluctantly agrees to marry Richard Kuklinski. The marriage takes
place in early 1962. She is several months pregnant. And then perhaps, inevitably,
tragically, Kuklinski sets about her and beats
her very badly, so badly, in fact, that she miscarries. NARRATOR: Terrified of the
consequences if she left, Barbara stayed. She became pregnant again. And again, her
husband's violence caused her to lose the baby. But in 1964, they had a
healthy child together, and Richard Kuklinski
set about creating the image of a wholesome
New Jersey family. DOMINICK POLIFRONE:
They had three children. Then he moved to
Dumont, New Jersey. Far as their neighbors
were concerned in New Jersey, they were an upright family. JENNIFER SUTTON: His children
went to nice schools. His wife was always
dressed beautifully. They had holidays. On the outside, he looked like
this wonderful, dutiful husband and family man. NARRATOR: This persona could not
have been further from reality. Violence was now a way of
life for Richard Kuklinski. By the 1960s, when he
was in his early 30s, Kuklinski had begun running
a video piracy operation, something that drew him deeper
and deeper into the world of serious organized crime. He had a little business
called Sunset Studio, pirating tapes. But quickly, he got
into pornography. And that was pretty
lucrative for him. The interesting part
of that, of course, is pornography involves the mob. DOMINICK POLIFRONE:
These tapes were going out to different
organized crime people. And a fellow by the name of
Roy DeMeo, who was a ruthless individual, had his
own crew in New York, got wind of
Kuklinski's activities. NARRATOR: Also heavily involved
in the making and distribution of adult movies,
by the late 1960s, Roy DeMeo had become unhappy
with Richard Kuklinski encroaching upon his business. Hearing about Kuklinski's
willingness to employ violence, DeMeo came up with a way that
this rival pornographer could pay his dues to the family. He could take care
of their enemies. Roy DeMeo was known
in organized crime circles as a vicious,
vicious killer himself and also an enforcer. DeMeo immediately
recognized that Kuklinski was evil, that he was
absolutely heartless. They asked him to kill
a homeless person just to prove that he would be able
to do it, which he obliged, shot in broad daylight,
got back into the car. NARRATOR: According to
Kuklinski's own claims, this murder marked the
beginning of his relationship with some of New
York and New Jersey's most infamous crime families. New Jersey prosecutor
Robert Carroll would later try to follow the
trail of destruction Kuklinski had left
as a killer for hire. As we sampled these
things, unsolved murders, we would check the
travel records. And you'd see Kuklinski
was there for a day, and then something would happen. He would go to Switzerland,
stay for a day. Somebody would be
killed, unsolved murder. He went to Hawaii. He went to Maui. There was a man thrown out of a
third floor balcony on a hotel. He died that night. Kuklinski left the next day. JANE MONCKTON-SMITH:
This was a man, probably with antisocial
personality disorder, had never experienced
empathy maybe in his life. So yeah, it was all
business to him. None of it was personal to him. NARRATOR: Until Richard
Kuklinski was arrested, the extent of his contract
killings was not known. In fact, until the early 1980s,
he was not yet on the radar of homicide detectives. But in 1985, a newly
formed organized crime and racketeering
task force was handed an interesting case file. We were brought together as a
group of experienced detectives from different
areas in New Jersey and outside of New Jersey-- Pennsylvania, New
York-- to focus on La Cosa Nostra, which is the mob. We were assigned to handle
complex and sensitive cases around the state of New Jersey. And there was a series
of burglaries, car thefts and things that were
occurring in the northern part of the state. NARRATOR: As officers
in the early '80s had investigated the
crimes and had begun to chase up their
prime suspects, they noticed a sinister pattern. Persons who were
involved with those crimes started showing up dead. NARRATOR: No killer
had ever been caught. But in 1985, the
organized crime task force began to painstakingly
reinvestigate the murders in the hopes of
proving a link between them. On February the 5th,
1980, the mutilated body of 42-year-old
George Maliband had been discovered in Jersey City. He had last been seen
on January the 30th, carrying $27,000 in cash. He told his family the
money was going to be used to buy a batch of tapes. ROBERT CARROLL: Mr. Maliband
was found with his body hanging out of a 55-gallon drum. He was a big man. He was about 6' 3" and
280, you know, 285 pounds. In order to get
him into the drum, his tendons and so
forth had been sliced. Then the drum had
been thrown off a ledge area in Jersey City. And as it rolled down a
hill, it reached the bottom and apparently broke open. And then someone
noticed the body. NARRATOR: The businessman
from Pennsylvania had been shot five times. This was the first in the
series of unsolved murders that would, in 1985, land on
the desk of the task force. The only clue that
we had at that point was that Mr. Maliband may be
meeting a subject by the name of Richie or Big Richie. That's all we had. That case remained unsolved. NARRATOR: 17 months after the
murder of George Maliband, another Pennsylvania businessman
had disappeared on his way to a meeting. In approximately July
of 1981, the subject by the name of Louis Masgay
traveled to New Jersey to buy some videotapes. JENNIFER SUTTON: He
was a family man. He run a business with his son. He had a convenience store. And his plan was to buy
a load of blank tapes for recording for people to
buy for their VCRs at home. ROBERT CARROLL: When he
arrived in New Jersey, he went to a diner. And later on, he
just disappeared. The van that he was driving
was found shortly thereafter on a highway in New Jersey. But he was gone. There was no evidence,
nothing indicating foul play at that point. But again, that was a cold case. It had not been solved. But by talking to his family,
we learned that he had been carrying a large sum of money. NARRATOR: The
50-year-old Louis Masgay had been carrying $45,000
in cash when he disappeared. His family also gave
investigators another piece of tantalizing information. He too was supposed
to be meeting a subject by the name of Richie. NARRATOR: 17 months after
Louis Masgay's disappearance, in December 1982, an employee at
the York Motel in North Bergen, New Jersey began getting
complaints from customers. ROBERT CARROLL: There
was a room 31 that had a terrible smell in it. And when they
finally investigated, they found a body under
the bed, and it was secured in a box-like structure. The body was of an individual
by the name of Gary Smith. Gary Smith had been in
that room for several days and was pretty far along
in terms of decomposition. NARRATOR: 37-year-old
Smith was from Vernon, in the northeast of the state. At the time of his death,
there was a warrant out for his arrest on the charges
of stealing and cashing checks. An autopsy revealed
ligature marks on his neck. He'd been strangled. Smith's skin also had
another unexpected feature. ROBERT CARROLL: Cyanosis,
the pink lividity that it was depicted on
the body at the time. There's only two things
that would cause that. And one is carbon monoxide, and
the other is cyanide poisoning. NARRATOR: Officers who
initially investigated Smith's murder didn't
know what to make of this unusual discovery. But just a few months later,
in May 1983, a cyclist riding through a wooded
area in West Milford, New Jersey noticed a large
turkey buzzard hovering over something on the ground. 34-year-old Daniel
Deppner, a known car thief, had disappeared
three months earlier. Again, the autopsy
results were intriguing. There are
suggestions that there might have been
cyanide poisoning involved in his death. ROBERT CARROLL: We found
undigested food in his stomach. What that conveyed to
the medical examiner was that whatever had
been eaten, you know, was fatal because the
stomach died right away. And there was no other
indications of trauma to the body. NARRATOR: If the
victims had really been killed with
cyanide, it was a truly unusual method of murder. PAUL SMITH: Cyanide
is not easy to get. If you're in the jewelry
business, they use it. But it's not easily-- you can't buy it
in a drug store. You gotta have people
who know how to do this. NARRATOR: As the task
force re-examined the murders of Smith and Deppner
in 1985, the same name came up. PAUL SMITH: They were connected
to him just by a name, Big Richie, or a phone number. Somebody's wife would call
up and say that my husband went to meet somebody. His name was Richie,
and he never came home. NARRATOR: Investigators
realized there was only one Richie that Gary Smith
and Daniel Deppner could have been meeting. Both men were
known to be members of Richard Kuklinski's crew. Four months after Daniel
Deppner was found dead, the body of missing
man Louis Masgay turned up in a park near the
New York-New Jersey border with a single gunshot wound
to the back of the head. When they found
the body, it looked like it was only
dead a week, two weeks maybe because the
body didn't decompose. It had the same clothes on
from when he disappeared. ROBERT CARROLL: His body
had been methodically wrapped in plastic bags. When the medical examiner
examined the body, it was very well preserved. And it actually had
what's called ice crystal artifacts present in the body. NARRATOR: Louis Masgay's family
had been searching for him for over two years since
he'd vanished in July 1981 on his way to meet Richie. DOMINICK POLIFRONE: They find
out that this person allegedly was meeting with Kuklinski. And he wasn't dead
for a week or two. He was frozen in a
freezer for two years. NARRATOR: This unusual
tactic to cover the tracks of his
killings earned Kuklinski the nickname The Iceman. Now linked to a fourth murder,
the organized crime task force knew that Kuklinski
had to be stopped. It just seemed that wherever
this guy Kuklinski went, people were turning up dead. It was time sensitive
because we knew there were other criminal affiliates. So we knew that while the
investigation was occurring, it's a possibility other
persons could be killed. NARRATOR: By early 1985,
50-year-old Richard Kuklinski had been linked with
four brutal murders. The victims were all
known associates of his or men who wanted to
do business with him. But with only
circumstantial evidence, it wasn't enough
for the New Jersey organized crime and racketeering
task force to bring him in. We did not have
evidence that we could charge him with at that time. NARRATOR: In the spring of 1985,
Robert Carroll and his team launched Operation Iceman. We decided that we would
introduce an undercover agent into the operation. And the undercover
agent, though, had a very difficult task. I get a call from my buddies
at the prosecutor's office. They're saying, Dom, we have
an individual that's here in Bergen County area,
and he's been murdering people with pure cyanide. NARRATOR: Agent Dominick
Polifrone, who'd previously gone undercover to get
information on New York's most ruthless crime families,
was the obvious choice for the high-risk sting. Dominick, in my opinion,
was probably the best undercover in the country. He just fit the profile
He talked the talk. He walked the walk. He was able to make people
feel comfortable in that world that he was part of that world. NARRATOR: Though detectives
suspected Kuklinski used cyanide in some of
his murders, they had no direct proof
of this highly unusual method of killing. DOMINICK POLIFRONE: They
needed direct evidence. And that's-- was my
mission, to meet with him, to find out how he
murdered these people, and get that direct evidence. NARRATOR: Getting
what they needed would be dangerous, even for
such an experienced agent. The risks were very
high for Dominick. Richard Kuklinski was-- was an
evil, very capable murderer. NARRATOR: As they prepared
to send Dominick Polifrone into the lion's den,
the team dug deeper into the disappearance
of a fifth man who was now believed
to have done business with their target. On the 29th of April
in 1981, a pharmacist called Paul Hoffman was invited
to a meeting with Kuklinski. Hoffman thought
that Kuklinski could supply him with prescription
drugs at a cut rate. He was looking
for this Tagamet that he was buying
for his pharmacy. NARRATOR: When he left to
meet Richard Kuklinski, 51-year-old Hoffman was
carrying $25,000 in cash. He was never seen again. The cold case gave
investigators another insight into what appeared to be one of
Kuklinski's favorite schemes. He would look for
opportunistic businessmen, businessmen who were looking
for a deal, businessmen who were financially were on
the rocks and needed some help. ROBERT CARROLL:
What Kuklinski would do is would put the
word out, find out what you were interested in, OK? If you were interested
in video tapes, cheap, but you had cash money,
he would hear about that through his criminal network. He would build up a
desire, an expectation that this was a good deal. And eventually, once he was sure
that you would come with cash money, he would do his thing. He would invite people
to a secret meeting. He would kill them, and he
would steal their money. NARRATOR: This was what
detectives believed to have happened to Paul
Hoffman along with George Maliband and Louis Masgay. Now they needed agent Dominick
Polifrone to get the proof. Kuklinski and his
crew were known to base themselves in the
city of Paterson, New Jersey. There was a location
on McBride Avenue they called "the store." They had a burglary
ring where they would go to different
locations, rob them, all these different homes
in Bergen County area, and bring it back to the store. And they'd see what they have. And guys would be hanging
out, just like "Goodfellas." PAUL SMITH: And there
was also gambling and then a bunch of other
illegal activities going on in there. And Dominick was able to
get into that location. And become friendly with
a couple of the guys. NARRATOR: Needing a backstory
that would convince the thieves and gangsters who
frequented the store, the task force created a fake
name, a rap sheet, and mug shots for Agent Polifrone. I was using the name of
Dominick Michael Provenzano. Anthony Provenzano was the
head of the union, big time union, big mafioso man. And they assumed that I
was in blood relationship with Anthony Provenzano. And I had carte blanche. Dom put the word out that
he had access to guns, drugs, everything that a criminal
would advertise for. NARRATOR: One day, he
walked into the store with a mysterious black case. DOMINICK POLIFRONE: I
opened up the attache, and inside is 10 high-standard
.22-caliber silencers, no manufacturer's serial number,
where it can come back to you. In addition to that, stolen
military plastic explosives with the lot and block
numbers still on them. When they saw that,
they went berserk. They said, holy! Now word is out at the
store that Dominick Michael Provenzano can
wind up getting everything. NARRATOR: With stunts
like this, Dominick built relationships
with associates of Richard Kuklinski. He got the reputation
of a man who could get his hands on anything,
no matter how nefarious. But more than a year went
by without the target showing his face at the store. DOMINICK POLIFRONE:
Richie was avoiding the place because it was
kind of hot with the cops and everything. Because he met people
there, and they disappeared. So he was keeping his distance. NARRATOR: Then, one day in late
summer 1986, out of the blue, a bite from The Iceman. DOMINICK POLIFRONE:
Phone rings and said, the big guy wants
to know if he can meet with you at the donut
shop, which is around the block. I said, when? He says, in about a half hour. That was the make-- make or break meeting between
Dominick and Kuklinski. DOMINICK POLIFRONE: I
pulled up in my Lincoln. He pulls up in his Camaro. And here comes the Jolly Green
Giant man, big, big dude. He gets out of the car. I get out of the car. And I'm looking at him grow. Man, he's just growing. He looked at me with these
orange-tinted glasses. I tell you, he was taking my
soul out, but I didn't budge. He looked, and it was
the longest, like, five seconds you can think of. PAUL SMITH:
Kuklinski tested him, and Dominick tested
him right back and turned out that he wanted
to do business with him. Then he says-- I could have fell off the chair. He goes, can you
get pure cyanide? I said, yeah, I can get it. NARRATOR: The task force had
their first solid evidence tying Kuklinski to
the use of cyanide, the suspected cause
of death in the cases of Gary Smith and
Daniel Deppner. It was the breakthrough
they'd been waiting for. But they needed more. They needed to hear
Richard Kuklinski admitting killing all five victims-- Maliband, Masgay, Hoffman,
Smith, and Deppner. Dominick began wearing
a secret recording device for every meeting. Dominick used the
lure of obtaining cyanide for Kuklinski. And during that time, he
was also talking to him and trying to get
him to talk about how he would kill somebody. We had a huge number
of surveillance teams that were always
in place, and we had a quick response team in the
event something would happen. NARRATOR: The fear of
something happening to Dominick was uppermost in the
minds of his handlers. The fact that he was
skilled at using cyanide created a high risk, the
highest risk situation you can have in an
undercover operation because he was capable of
killing in a matter of seconds. DOMINICK POLIFRONE: He loved to
use a nasal spray that he said he used, put in cyanide,
pure cyanide and squeeze it and then watch you die. You know, if he caught you
off guard, you're history. I always had my
leather jacket, and I always had a .380 pistol in my
pocket, always pointed at him. I said, if he pulled out
a spray, I'm killing him. I'm telling you right now. NARRATOR: Prepared for
anything, by September 1986, Agent Polifrone had
his fish on the hook. Over the next four
months, he secretly taped his meetings with Kuklinski. Dominick himself was
posing as a murderer, that he was a hitman, and
he had ways of killing. So they were, at least
in Kuklinski's mind, a murderer talking
to a murderer. NARRATOR: The two men would
meet at a service area off a busy intersection,
where Dominic would turn the conversation
on to methods of killing. When he got to the
topic of cyanide, Dominic was able to say,
well, how do you use that? I never used cyanide. I'm a gun and steel guy, is
the way Dom used to put it. He goes, listen, my friend,
it's nice and easy, simple. Used to say, a little
boost, a little squirt, you watch him keel
over, looks like they died of a heart attack. NARRATOR: Wearing a
hidden recording device, Agent Polifrone got
the killer on tape explaining exactly
how to lace a victim's food with cyanide powder. NARRATOR: Over the next four
months through the autumn and early winter of
1986, Richard Kuklinski described to Dominic
in graphic detail how his victims had
met their deaths. Under the guise of looking for
tips on killing his enemies, Agent Polifrone
encouraged his target to boast about poisoning his
victims with deadly cyanide. NARRATOR: With the help of
crew member Daniel Deppner, Kuklinski had used
cyanide to murder their colleague Gary Smith
at the hotel in North Bergen. Gary and Danny were being
hidden out because the police were looking for them, and
Kuklinski was basically hiding them in different hotels. Now we know now
that he was doing that eventually to kill them. In Gary's case, he
brought food in, and he brought a hamburger
in with cyanide on it. He didn't die
completely right away. So Kuklinski ripped
a light cord off and then wrapped
it around his neck and finished it
by garroting him. He had Danny do that. So then they put the body under
the bed, and then they left. NARRATOR: Dominick Polifrone
had hit the jackpot. It was the next crucial step
in building a watertight case against their killer. To silence Daniel Depner,
Kuklinski went after him too. Danny Depner then
was-- one night, was brought food by Kuklinski. We believe it was-- it
was beans because that's what was found in his stomach. He ingested the beans and
then died from cyanide. NARRATOR: During one
of their meetings, Kuklinski boasted to
Agent Polifrone about why the body of Louis Masgay
had been discovered so well preserved in 1983, more than
two years after he'd vanished. NARRATOR: The
recordings revealed to detectives Kuklinski's
willingness to use a range of methods to kill his victims. Wasn't just
limited to cyanide, he also killed by shooting
people and stabbing people. NARRATOR: He
admitted to shooting George Maliband, who'd
been found in a barrel in Jersey City in 1980. The motive, Kuklinski
admitted, was the $45,000 he'd brought with him to buy tapes. In my opinion,
why Richard killed all these people, for monies. He didn't do it just at random. He would really set
them up perfectly. And they'd bring him
large sums of money, and they would disappear. NARRATOR: Greed was not
his only motivation. DOMINICK POLIFRONE:
Kuklinski loved killing. He says, cause I owned them. He was absolutely a sadist,
brutal son of a gun. JANE MONCKTON-SMITH: I think we
need to remember that Kuklinski started life with zero
power and was routinely beaten and humiliated. And I don't think he was
ever, ever going to be in that position ever again. He was going to
have all the power. He was going to control
absolutely everything in his life and everyone in it. NARRATOR: Having collected
admissions on tape of all five of the murders, the final
stage of the task force's plan was to catch Richard
Kuklinski in the act. Bobby Carroll came up
with an idea about having someone set up to be killed. We would tell Kuklinski
that there was a kid. We called him the "rich kid." He was coming up from
Florida with a lot of money to buy drugs. The kid would bring the money. They'd set up the meet. And the kid would be killed,
and the money would be taken. NARRATOR: Detective Paul Smith
would pose as the target. Agent Polifrone put
the idea to Kuklinski at one of their service
station meetings. NARRATOR: Dominick
Polifrone assured Kuklinski that the cyanide he'd long
been promising to supply would finally be in the
killer's hands, just in time to take out the
so-called "rich kid." So we had the state police
lab rig up a fake cyanide. And the idea was that he
would put it on one sandwich, and the rich kid
would eat it, just like Gary Smith was killed. NARRATOR: On the morning of
the 17th of December 1986, Undercover Agent
Dominick Polifrone waited at the Vince
Lombardi Service Station in Ridgefield, New Jersey. Kuklinski meets that morning. I give him the cyanide and
the three egg sandwiches. NARRATOR: The plan was that
once the rich kid arrived, Dominick would distract him
while Kuklinski doctored one of the sandwiches with what
he believed to be real cyanide. ROBERT CARROLL: The
rich kid would bite it, and then we would go into
the room and arrest him. The problem with
it is, Dominick, what happens if he pulls out
a gun and shoots you both or shoots the rich kid? NARRATOR: Fearing the sting
could get out of hand and end with a bloody shootout,
the task force took advantage of a change
in Kuklinski's plans. As he was leaving to
lace the sandwiches, he told the undercover
detectives to wait because he'd be a little while. When he got home, he
had to take his wife to a doctor's appointment. NARRATOR: Kuklinski then
drove the 9 miles to his home in Dumont, New Jersey. Two hours later, he and his
wife emerged from the house and got into their car. And awaiting tactical
team took their chance. We sprung, and we executed
the arrest and search warrants. And at the time, he
tried to get away. He started to drive. He went up a grassy
area, jumped a curb, realized he was surrounded. PAUL SMITH: Once we
had him handcuffed, his wife started screaming. And he had-- it was about
six of us on top of him. He just went berserk, and he
actually pushed us right off. ROBERT CARROLL: He's mad
because he was caught. We found a loaded
gun under his seat. So that basically was the
end of Richard Kuklinski. NARRATOR: And when officers
examined the sandwiches Kuklinski had put in the
boot, they found fake cyanide not just on the sandwich
intended for the rich kid, but also on the one
Dominick would have eaten. ROBERT CARROLL: He was
going to kill Dominick. So the witness was
going to be murdered. NARRATOR: Agent Polifrone
heard a different version of how Kuklinski was
planning to kill him. He said, just make sure that
when I bring Dom to a location that his hands are on the
steering wheel, so I can blow his [muted] brains out. NARRATOR: 51-year-old
Richard Kuklinski was charged with five murders,
one count of attempted murder, and a number of weapons charges. NARRATOR: In February 1987,
District Attorney Robert Carroll confirmed the
severity of Richard Kuklinski's alleged
crimes at a bail hearing before Judge Ciolino. NARRATOR: Bail was
set at $2 million, and Kuklinski was detained
at Bergen County Jail to await trial. On January 25, 1988,
52-year-old Richard Kuklinski stood trial at the
Bergen County Courthouse for the murders of Gary
Smith and Daniel Deppner. He pled not guilty. It was loaded with press. I mean, you couldn't even
walk in the courtroom. It was so packed. It was mind boggling. NARRATOR: Agent
Dominick Polifrone testified in court about the
audacious undercover sting. But it was his covert tape
recordings that provided the most shocking testimony. The tapes conveyed a story
of a cold-hearted murderer that was in the prime
of his murderous career and was highly skilled
with many methods of killing. NARRATOR: Kuklinski's
trial was attended by his victims' relatives. JANE MONCKTON-SMITH: For
the families left behind, it's devastating,
absolutely devastating. You've got some of those details
coming straight from the mouth of the person who
did it on a tape, and they're a person
given to bragging. I can't imagine what that
would do to a family. NARRATOR: After only four
hours of deliberation on March the 16th, 1988, 52-year-old
Richard Kuklinski was convicted of the murders of
Gary Smith and Daniel Deppner. He later pled guilty
to killing George Maliband and Louis Masgay. And as part of the
deal, he finally admitted what had happened
to pharmacist Paul Hoffman. He invited him to
a garage and then proceeded to try and shoot him. But the gun jammed. So Kuklinski, without
a moment's hesitation, beat him to death
with a tire iron. His body was then cut up
and put into a 55-gallon drum. And he put a small
layer of concrete on it, on the top to seal it up. He took the 55-gallon
drum, and he dropped it off at a roadside coffee shop. That oil drum with Hoffman
inside it disappeared. Hoffman's body has
never been found. PAUL SMITH: So there's
really no closure. And that's a very tough thing
for-- to tell a family member. NARRATOR: On April the 22nd,
1988, Richard Kuklinski was given two life
sentences for the murders of Gary Smith and Daniel
Deppner with a minimum term of 30 years. He later received the same
sentences for killing George Maliband and Louis Masgay. He was sent to
Trenton State Prison in New Jersey, where he remained
until his death in March 2006. Press interest in The
Iceman serial killer continued for decades
after his trial, fueled by Kuklinski's claims
that during his lifetime he had killed over 100 people. There were no
barriers for him. Violence was violence,
and he was quite happy for the violence to be extreme. ROBERT CARROLL: That's what
makes Kuklinski so dangerous. He wasn't driven by sex. He wasn't driven by
uncontrollable urges. He was driven solely
by greed and evil. I call him the devil
himself that was actually the devil walking on Earth. NARRATOR: Richard
Kuklinski claims to have killed his first
victim at just 13 years old. Throughout his
life, he continued to demonstrate
that life was cheap and that almost everyone
who crossed his path was nothing more than
a potential victim. After a killing spree
that, by his own testimony, lasted at least 30
years, Richard Kuklinski will be remembered as one of
the world's most evil killers. [theme music]
