“The Iceman” Richard Kuklinski Pt. 2
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Hi, Conspiracy Theories fans. This is our second and final episode on one of the most infamous serial killers of all time. Today, I'm co-hosting this episode with Vanessa Richardson, host of Serial Killers. Due to the graphic nature of this episode, listener discretion is advised.

This episode includes discussions of murder, assault, and domestic violence. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. To get help on domestic violence, visit spotify.com slash resources.

It was a hot summer's day in 1986. Detectives Patrick Kane and Ernest Volkman were sitting on the couch in Richard Kuklinski's living room. Richard offered the detectives iced tea, which they both declined for fear they'd be poisoned. He sat down in the easy chair across from them, right below a giant oil portrait of himself and his wife, Barbara. His eyes were hidden under dark sunglasses.

Detective Kane told him they were investigating a number of murders. Louis Mazgay, George Malaband, Paul Hoffman, Danny Deppner, and Gary Smith. Richard coolly denied knowing any of those people. Then Kane asked, did he know a Robert Prongay or Roy DeMeo? Richard stared at him for a long moment, then said, sure, I know DeMeo. You guys know I knew him.

"Why don't you like me, Mr. Kane?" Kane replied, "Who said I don't like you?" Richard answered, "I can see that. It's in your eyes." Kane insisted he didn't take his work personally, but it was a waste of breath. By the time he and Volkman had gotten back into their car, Richard had made up his mind. He was going to kill Detective Pat Kane.

Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. I'm Carter Roy. You can find us here every Wednesday. I'm here with my friend Vanessa Richardson, who just so happens to be the host of another Spotify podcast, Serial Killers. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at TheConspiracyPod. And we would love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts. Stay with us.

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Richard Kuklinski's criminal career began in 1949, when at just 13 years old, he beat a neighborhood bully to death. For the next few decades, he made his living through hijacking, piracy, and pornography distribution until the mid-70s, when, under the guidance of mafia executioner Roy DeMeo, he learned to channel his aggression in a more profitable direction, contract killing.

Through it all, he flew completely under the radar of law enforcement. To his neighbors in suburban New Jersey, he was nothing more than a friendly family man with a successful, but mysterious, film production business. Even his own family had no idea what he really did for a living. And because he kept his crimes and his personal life completely separate, he'd never been linked back to any of the hundred or more murders he'd committed.

But in 1980, Richard broke his own cardinal rule. He killed someone he could be tied back to, his old friend, George Maliband.

Georgie Boy, as Richard called him, was a sweet man and a long-time family friend, but his obsessive gambling had gotten him into trouble. He owed a lot of money to a lot of people, including Roy DeMayo. Richard did what he could to smooth things over between them, but he could only do so much.

When George's final notice came in early February of 1980, he made a desperate visit to Richard. They were driving along in Richard's van when George made a fatal mistake. He told Richard, "I don't think you'd ever let DeMayo hurt me. I know where you live, where your family lives."

Threats against his family were the one thing Richard couldn't abide. He immediately pulled over, grabbed his pistol, and shot Georgie boy five times. Richard disposed of the body the same way he usually did. He stuffed him into a steel barrel drum and threw it into the reservoir. But he didn't stick around to see that the drum hit a rock on the way down, causing the lid to burst open.

The body was found and identified just days later. Richard was actually questioned about George Malaban's murder. George had apparently told his brother that he was going to meet Richard on the day he was last seen alive. But Richard told the police he didn't know anything. And since he'd never been connected to a homicide case before that, the matter was dropped. This brush with law enforcement should have been a warning.

He needed to be more careful and keep his circle of associates as small as possible. But the truth was, with Maliban gone, Richard was only longing for more friends.

He was perpetually shut out of the mafia since he wasn't Italian. He wanted to be a part of something, to have his own crime family instead of always being the lone wolf. So around 1981, Richard rounded up a few guys he'd met at Phil Soleimani's store and organized them into a little breaking and entering crew. The second in command of the group was Percy House, Phil Soleimani's brother-in-law.

Then there was Danny Deppner, a perpetually unkept man whose wife had recently left him to shack up with Percy. There was Al Rink, a scrawny little guy. And Gary Smith, a tall, bespectacled man with a beard that made him look like Abe Lincoln. They were hardly America's most wanted, but they could follow Richard's orders. Throughout 1981, they broke into dozens of houses around New Jersey, stealing valuables and selling them at Phil's store.

Meanwhile, Richard and Phil were still running their old side scheme of luring customers into the store for phony sales, then killing them and taking their cash. Since the entire setup was predicated on buying stolen goods, the victims didn't tell anyone where they were going before they disappeared, so the murders were never linked back to Phil and Richard.

That is, until one day in July 1981, when their mark, Louis Masquet, mentioned that he'd told his family he was heading out to Phil's store. If he disappeared that night, Phil would be the first one questioned.

Unfortunately, Richard stormed in and shot Maskay in the head before Phil had a chance to pass along that information. Thinking on his feet, Richard decided to pull out the old trick he'd done once before. He and Phil lowered Maskay's body into an old well full of ice-cold water, hoping the body would freeze well enough to throw off the time of death.

Whenever they decided to take the body out, it would look like Louis Masquet had died long after his visit to Phil's store. But a few weeks later, Phil got into an argument with Percy House, the foreman of Richard's breaking and entering crew.

He offhandedly threatened him by mentioning that Richard had killed Louis Masquet and George Malaban, too. The cat was out of the bag now. Percy told the rest of the gang, who told their wives, who told their friends, and then eventually, everybody knew. Richard didn't like having his name directly linked to two of his murders. He only hoped that as long as his crew stayed out of trouble, there would be no reason for anyone to rat him out.

That hope was misplaced. In late 1981, Detective Patrick Kane was called into his supervisor's office to meet a burglar, one Al Rink, who had just been caught breaking into a house and was ready to cut a deal for a lighter sentence. Rink claimed his gang was responsible for dozens of unsolved burglaries across the state.

No one could tell whether he was being honest, so Detective Kane was tasked with driving Rink all around New Jersey for two days, as he pointed out every single house the gang had robbed over the past year. Rink also named all of his accomplices, Percy House, Danny Deppner, Gary Smith, and one man he knew only as Big Rich.

Kane set to work cross-referencing Rink's testimony with their map of reported burglaries. It would take some time to put together an indictment, but it all seemed straightforward. There was only one missing piece of the puzzle. Who was Big Rich?

Big Rich was, by early 1982, too busy to pay much thought to Al Rink. He was still doing contract work for the Mafia with his pal Robert Prange, aka Mr. Softee. He was making frequent trips to LA, where his porn distribution business now had a West Coast headquarters, and his oldest daughter Merrick was about to graduate high school.

Richard always tried to make time for his family. He went to all of his son Dwayne's middle school wrestling matches, the one activity the two could bond over. Father-son bonding was a foreign concept to Richard. He tried his best to reach out, but Dwayne had never really taken to the BB guns, swords, and knives Richard gifted him with.

For the rest of the Kuklinski family, Richard's good moods were still overshadowed by his violent rages. He beat Barbara mercilessly, and though he never laid a finger on the children, just witnessing his outbursts terrified them. Recently, Barbara and their teenage daughter Chris had hatched a plan to poison him, the only way to get him out of their lives for good.

They were too scared to ever go through with it, so Richard remained completely oblivious to exactly how much his own family hated him. He often dreamed of saving up enough money to get out of the business before it was too late. He knew no one made it out of this line of work except in handcuffs or in a casket. He only hoped he would never be arrested in front of his family. He couldn't stand to see their humiliation and judgment.

But retirement was a far-off dream. Richard still had places to go and people to kill. In April of 1982, Richard began having problems with his cyanide supplier, Paul Hoffman. Hoffman didn't do anything specifically wrong. Richard just thought he was greedy and annoying. As usual, Richard solved that problem by luring Hoffman to his warehouse for a phony business deal.

beating him to death with a tire iron and stealing the $25,000 in cash he had brought along with him. He left Hoffman's body in a steel barrel drum outside a nearby diner, hidden in plain sight. He thought he was in the clear. Until the police came around. Apparently, on the day Hoffman disappeared, he had told a friend that he was going to see Richard Kuklinski.

Richard kept cool. He told the investigators he didn't even know Paul Hoffman. They must have the wrong guy. These detectives were from a different precinct than the ones who'd investigated George Malaban's murder two years earlier, so they had no idea Richard had been questioned in that previous case. They let him go.

But Richard's real problems were only just beginning. By October 1982, Detective Kane had a 152-count indictment against New Jersey's premier burglary crew, Percy House, Danny Deppner, and Gary Smith. Their elusive leader, Big Rich, remained to be seen. On December 17th, 1982, the police swooped in and made their first arrest, Percy House.

But when they moved to apprehend the rest of the gang, they were nowhere to be found. Danny Deppner and Gary Smith had suddenly vanished. Unbeknownst to the police, when Richard got wind that Percy had been arrested, he immediately took Danny and Gary to the York Motel in North Bergen, New Jersey. He thought he could trust Percy to keep his mouth shut, but he wasn't taking any chances with all three of them behind bars.

Richard told Danny and Gary, very calmly, to stay in the motel room and not to leave under any circumstances. They were terrified of Richard, even more than they were scared of going to prison, so they didn't argue. But it was the week before Christmas, and they had families at home. After a few days of holing up in the small room, they were getting restless. On December 20th,

Gary Smith snuck out of the motel and hitchhiked back home to see his five-year-old daughter. He made it there and back to the motel without running into the police.

A few days later, on Christmas Eve, Richard came to visit, bearing burgers and fries from a nearby diner. He passed out the burgers, two with pickles for himself and Danny and one without for Gary. He was in a great mood, full of holiday spirit. Despite the circumstances, it was an almost jovial meal. Three friends sticking together through thick and thin. What better way to spend Christmas Eve? About halfway into his burger...

Gary suddenly fell over in a spasm, his face turning blue. Richard had found out, somehow, about Gary's voyage home. He'd laced his burger with cyanide. Richard watched, stone-faced, as Gary choked and spasmed. But he didn't die. Impatient, Richard pulled a wire out of the bedside lamp and told Danny to strangle him with it. Danny did as he was told.

When Gary finally stopped breathing, they stowed his body under the mattress. Richard would later admit this was a bad idea, but at the time it seemed even more risky to take his body out of the room in view of potential witnesses. Either way, it didn't matter if the body was found. Danny was the only person who could link Gary's death back to Richard. And Danny wouldn't be around for long.

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After Richard Kuklinski killed his associate, Gary Smith, on Christmas Eve of 1982, he went back home to enjoy the rest of the holidays with his family. He trusted Danny Deppner to keep quiet. After all, Danny had participated in Gary's murder. He couldn't possibly be dumb enough to talk about a murder he himself had committed.

Four days later, on December 27th, Gary Smith's rotting body was found under a mattress at the York Motel. The once thin, pale-skinned Gary was so bloated and decomposed that police identified the body as an overweight black male. They initially had no leads.

Until a few days later, on January 3rd, when Barbara Deppner, Danny's ex-wife, arrived at Detective Pat Kane's office. Danny had called and told her what happened to Gary. She was in a panic, pleading with Kane to stop Richard Kuklinski before he did the same to Danny. She kept calling Richard the devil, a killer, a professional killer.

Cain was quick to put it together. This must be the elusive Big Rich. Cain searched through the state records and quickly found this Richard Kuklinski. He lived in DuMont, just a couple towns over, with his wife and three kids. He had, on two separate occasions, punched through car windows in road rage incidents, and he was once briefly brought in for writing a bad check.

But there was nothing on the record to tie Richard to Gary, Danny, or any murders at all.

The next week, Richard found out Danny had told his ex-wife what happened. He promptly killed him, wrapped his body in trash bags, and dumped him into the reservoir. He didn't bother to hide the body very well. Richard was getting old, and he was getting tired. He didn't have it in him to dismember and bury corpses the way he used to. And with Gary and Danny dead, Richard thought he was safe, as long as Percy didn't turn on him.

It was now early January 1983, and Percy had been in jail for a month, all the while being pressed for information by Detective Kane. Kane told him all he wanted was Richard Kuklinski. If he gave him Kuklinski, Kane would cut Percy a nice plea deal.

Percy quickly figured out that Richard killed Gary and Danny, and he didn't want to go out the same way. But with every day he spent behind bars, the prospect of a plea deal became more tempting. Eventually, he decided he'd rather take his chances on the streets than spend another night in jail.

Percy truly didn't know anything about Gary and Danny's murders, but he did tell Kane about three other murders he'd heard Richard was responsible for. George Malaband, Louis Masquet, and Paul Hoffman.

Cain called up the other precincts and realized that Richard had been questioned in all three cases. But each time, he'd told the police he didn't even know the victim. And with no hard evidence to the contrary, it ended right there. Since the murders and disappearances all happened in different jurisdictions, no one had linked them together. But Malaband, Maskey, and Hoffman all had one thing in common with Gary Smith and Danny Deppner —

They'd all spent their last days with Richard Kuklinski. The only thing missing was physical evidence.

On May 14th, 1983, four months after his death, Danny Deppner's body was finally found near the West Milford Reservoir, being picked apart by turkey vultures. He still had his wallet in his pocket, and he was quickly identified. To Detective Kane, the prime suspect was obvious, Richard Kuklinski. But with no evidence except Barbara Deppner's accusations, he couldn't make an arrest.

A few months later, in September 1983, Richard decided it was finally time to get rid of Louis Masquet's frozen body. The trick worked.

When he pulled Maskey's body from the well, it looked like he'd only been dead for a few days, not two years. But it worked a bit too well. The body was found just a few days later, before it had time to fully defrost. The autopsy revealed that Maskey's organs were still filled with ice. The investigators easily pieced together what had happened.

Maskey must have been killed shortly after his disappearance, then frozen to throw off the time of death. Suspicion fell back to the last man known to have seen Maskey alive two years earlier, the same man Percy House had accused of the murder, Richard Kuklinski.

Cain put together everything he could find on Richard and his alleged victims and brought it to the NYPD Organized Crime Division, hoping they could help find some missing links. The NYPD gave Richard's mugshot to a mafia informant who recognized the man in the photo as the Polack, a hitman who'd worked with Roy DeMeo. Maybe there was something to Barbara Deppner's claims that Richard was a professional killer.

It was early 1984, more than two years after Richard first came to Kane's attention, and the pieces were finally falling into place. But aside from all the rumors, there was still no actionable proof Richard had committed any crimes at all. Richard was definitely getting sloppy, but he was still too careful to leave physical evidence linking him to his crimes.

The only way to catch him would be by getting someone close to him, someone he trusted. But there were precious few people Richard trusted, and nearly all of them were already dead. Unbeknownst to the police, Richard was already planning to tie up his last loose end, Robert Prongay, the Mr. Softy truck driver from hell. Prongay had always been a little off, but lately he'd been acting completely senseless and

He had even asked Richard to kill his ex-wife and son, an innocent woman and child. If they weren't friends, Richard would have killed him on the spot for even asking. Then, in 1984, Prange pitched the idea of poisoning an entire town's water supply for the sake of killing one family he'd been given a contract to murder. This was the last straw for Richard. Prange needed to go.

In early August 1984, Prange was in his garage cleaning up inside his ice cream truck. He didn't hear Richard sneaking in. He barely had time to react before Richard shot him. A few days later, the police found Prange hanging out the driver's side door of his ice cream truck with two bullets in his chest. They had no leads on who might have done it.

In the end, it wasn't Prongay Richard needed to worry about. His downfall would be at the hands of the only friend he never killed, Phil Solomene. In early 1985, a new customer began hanging around Phil's store, Dom Provenzano, an old friend of Phil's who traded in weapons.

In reality, his name was Dominic Polifrone, and he was an undercover ATF agent. Dominic had infiltrated so many mob circles over the years, he was indistinguishable from a real gangster, even when he wasn't on the job. When Detective Kane told him about Richard Kuklinski's suspected crimes, Dom lost his temper and sensed that a murderer was still walking the streets.

Cain knew Phil Solomone was one of the few people Richard trusted. And Phil, it turned out, was more afraid of going to jail than he was of Richard Kuklinski. When Detective Cain and Dominic showed up at his store, it wasn't too hard to twist his arm into helping them out. At Cain's instruction, Phil called Richard and told him his old buddy Dom was in town and if he needed any weapons, he should stop by.

The plan was for Dom to hang around the store, ingratiating himself with the regulars, so that when Richard eventually showed up, he would look like a trustworthy guy. Dom hung around all day playing cards, chatting it up with the local criminals, but Richard never showed. Days passed. Then weeks. Phil called Richard a few more times, but he didn't answer. Cain started to wonder if they'd blown their cover already.

What they didn't know was that Richard wasn't even in the country. He'd recently been recruited into an international money laundering scheme, and he was on a trip to Switzerland to pick up a check. Richard's job was to pick up checks in Zurich, Switzerland, fly back to America, and cash them in a bank account he'd set up in Georgia. For his trouble, he got 25% of each six-figure check.

Over the next few months, Richard popped by Phil's store a few times between his trips to Switzerland, but it was always at the rare moment when Dom wasn't there. It went on like that for over a year with no progress. In the summer of 1986, Detective Kane decided they'd have to kick the hornet's nest. Richard had just gotten home from another trip to Zurich when he received a visit from Detective Kane and another detective, Ernest Volkmann.

They asked him if he knew anything about the murders of Louis Masquet, George Malaband, Paul Hoffman, Danny Deppner, Gary Smith, Robert Prongay, or Roy DeMeo, who, incidentally, had been killed a few years earlier. Richard flatly denied even knowing the first six people. He conceded that he knew DeMeo, but didn't know anything about his murder.

Kane mentioned that they had phone records proving Richard had called the York Motel in the days before Gary Smith's body was found there. Richard said he didn't know anything about that. He got up and led them to the door. The discussion was over.

If Detective Kane was showing up and asking vague questions about making an arrest, Richard assumed it meant he didn't have any real evidence. Then, if Richard killed Kane, maybe the whole thing would just go away. But if Kane turned up dead, Richard would obviously be the first suspect. It had to look like he died of natural causes. He needed cyanide.

Richard had killed his last two cyanide sources, Paul Hoffman and Robert Prange, and he was having trouble finding another supplier. On a whim, he called Phil Solomene and asked if his buddy Dom could get his hands on some laboratory-quality cyanide.

On the morning of September 2nd, 1986, undercover ATF agent Dominic Polifrone finally met Richard Kuklinski at a Dunkin' Donuts near Phil Solomone's store. Richard got right to the point. He wanted cyanide. Dom said he could do that. Richard was finally on the hook. The problem was, buying and selling cyanide wasn't illegal.

he had to bait Richard into doing something else, something incontrovertibly criminal. Thinking on his feet, he told Richard he had a friend in the IRA who was looking to buy some heavy weaponry. In return for the cyanide, could Richard help with that?

Richard said, "Sure, let me make a few calls." They traded phone numbers and parted ways. Richard had no reason to suspect Dom was up to anything. Phil had vouched for him, and he'd known Phil for 20 years. But this arms deal sounded like an unnecessary hassle. It might be easier to just kill Dom and his IRA friend and take both the cyanide and their cash.

Meanwhile, Dom, Kane, and the state's Deputy Attorney General Bob Carroll put together a task force for their new number one priority, Operation Iceman. Even though Louis Masquet was the only victim of Richards who was ever found frozen, the name stuck.

After all, Richard was undeniably cold as ice. Over the next few weeks, Dom worked to hammer out the details of the phony arms deal with Richard. He even spoke to Richard's arms dealer on the phone. It looked like it was all coming together. Little did they know, Richard was actually scamming them. The arms dealer he introduced Dom to was actually an associate of his from the money laundering business. There would be no weapons.

When Dom showed up with the cyanide, he would kill him on the spot.

Dom's supervisors told him he could not, under any circumstances, give cyanide to a serial killer. But Richard wasn't letting up. So they devised a new plan to use the situation to their advantage. They'd give Richard fake cyanide and lure him into trying to commit a murder with it. This way, they'd get him for attempted murder in addition to illegal firearms sales. Dom pitched the idea to Richard.

He wanted to use cyanide to poison a client of his who'd become a pain to deal with, a rich young cocaine addict. Dom had never used cyanide before, so he wanted Richard's help. They'd lure the client to a bogus cocaine sale, poison him with a cyanide-laced egg sandwich, and then split the cash the kid had brought.

Richard had no problem with this. The egg sandwich seemed a little bizarre, but the whole plan actually simplified things for him. Instead of waiting around for this arms deal to materialize, he could just kill Dom at the same time they killed the cocaine buyer and take all the cash himself. He told Dom he was all in. Over a year and a half into their sting operation, the police were finally closing in. But the day of the big arrest...

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On the morning of December 17th, 1986, the New Jersey police, ATF, and FBI surrounded a rest stop at the New Jersey Turnpike, armed and ready. Detective Kane was there, watching from a dark van with tinted windows. He'd been waiting for this day for years. He'd been given assurance that he could personally be the one to put the cuffs on Richard.

When Richard arrived at the turnpike, Dom was already waiting with a white paper bag of egg sandwiches. He passed it to Richard along with a small vial of white powder.

Dom said, loud and clear into his hidden microphone, "Here's the cyanide." He then clarified that it was enough cyanide to kill a lot of people. Richard didn't notice. He was too focused on the black van with the tinted windows parked across the lot. Richard walked straight towards the van, Dom trailing after him. Inside, Kane and the other detectives ducked down, careful not to make a move.

Richard squinted into all the van's windows, but he couldn't see anything. He let it go. He told Dom he was going to go get his van, which was parked at his nearby warehouse. As they'd planned, Dom would go pick up the cocaine buyer and meet Richard back at the turnpike in half an hour. Richard drove a bit down the road, then pulled over and stopped to take a closer look at the cyanide. It didn't look quite right.

He opened the vial and took a very careful whiff. Didn't smell right either. He got out of his car and fed a taste of the powder to a stray dog on the side of the road. The dog waddled off, wagging its tail completely fine. This wasn't cyanide. Dom had scammed him. Richard didn't know exactly what Dom's game was, but he didn't feel like sticking around to find out.

He drove to a phone booth, called Barbara, and asked her if she wanted to go out for breakfast. While the strike force kept their eyes locked on the empty Turnpike parking lot, Richard drove back to Dumont, stopped to pick up some groceries, and went home. Luckily for the police force, they'd assigned two detectives to circle around Richard's neighborhood, keeping an eye out.

When they looped around at about 10, they were surprised to see Richard in his driveway carrying in groceries instead of the turnpike where the sting was supposed to be going down. They called the strike force with the news.

All at once, 15 unmarked law enforcement vehicles screeched out of the rest stop parking lot, speeding over to Dumont, sirens wailing. They weren't going to catch Richard poisoning a man red-handed, but they did have enough to arrest him for conspiracy to commit murder. Back home, Richard took his time putting away the groceries while Barbara got dressed. Despite the strange morning, Richard was in a pretty good mood.

Barbara was feeling a little under the weather, and Richard insisted he take her to the doctor after they went out for some bacon and eggs. He helped her zip up her jacket and open the door for her as they headed outside. As they started down the block and made their way down the street, Richard noticed the long line of cars gathered at the end of the road. Strange, but he didn't think much of it.

until the vehicle surged forward in unison. Richard swerved, running into the curb. A swarm of police and federal agents jumped out and surrounded Richard's car. One of them jumped onto the hood of the car, pointing a gun right at Richard through the windshield. Detective Kane ripped open the driver's side door and pulled Richard out. Eight strike team members piled on top of him, subduing him while Kane tried to wrestle cuffs onto his massive wrists.

The deputy police chief grabbed Barbara and pushed her to the ground, keeping a boot on her back while he cuffed her.

This threw Richard into a rage. He would have gone quietly, but they had no right to hurt Barbara. It took the force of four men to slam Richard onto the hood of the car and wrestle his arms behind his back. His wrists were too thick for handcuffs. Detective Kane had to shackle his arms together with leg irons. The whole time, Richard kept struggling and screaming, "'There's no reason to involve her. She's innocent.'"

But Richard knew it was over. He'd always wanted to go out in a blaze of glory shootout. He'd rather die than live to see the shame and embarrassment his family would face once his crimes were exposed. But it was too late for that. His wife and children were about to find out who he really was.

It didn't matter what happened at the trial, whether he was given life in prison or the death penalty. Humiliating his family was already a fate worse than death.

On December 18th, 1986, Richard Kuklinski was officially charged with 16 counts, including weapons charges, robbery, attempted murder, and the murders of Gary Smith, Danny Deppner, Louis Maske, George Malaband, and Paul Hoffman.

When Barbara heard the list of charges against her husband, she was shocked. She knew Richard was violent, but she had no idea how violent. For a while, she thought he was being framed for the whole thing. But as she sat in the courtroom, listening to Richard freely discuss murder on the tapes Dom Polifrone had recorded, she slowly realized exactly who she'd been married to for the past 25 years.

The Kuklinski children, on the other hand, were not surprised at all. They'd always suspected their father was capable of murder. Merrick had gotten married and had a baby while Richard was in jail awaiting trial. She came to the trial with her baby in her arms, on Richard's attorney's advice that it might make the jury more sympathetic. But Richard knew he didn't have a chance. He told his lawyers not to bother putting up a defense.

He just wanted it all to be over as quickly as possible. After four weeks of testimony, the jury found Richard guilty on all counts. He would spend the rest of his life in a cell at Trenton State Prison. After years of killing at the behest of the mob, the murders that finally got Richard locked up were the ones he committed of his own initiative. If he hadn't begun killing people he had a personal connection to...

It's possible he never would have been caught. His sloppiness and careless mistakes ultimately led to his downfall.

In the years after his arrest, Richard adjusted surprisingly well to prison. He kept a positive attitude, because if he let prison break his spirit, that meant the police had won. He was given medication for depression and anxiety, which finally helped him bring his mercurial temper under control. He and Barbara divorced, but he still wrote her letters almost every day. She rarely responded.

Outside of the prison's walls, the prolific hitman dubbed the Iceman was becoming a media sensation. The public was desperate to understand how such a cold-blooded killer could live undetected for decades in a quiet suburb. Throughout the 90s and early 2000s, Richard gave a series of interviews to writers, documentary filmmakers, and psychiatrists where he spoke with increasing candor about his life and career.

In one of these videotaped interviews, in 2001, he spoke for the first time about his work for the mafia, which the police were already aware of but didn't have enough evidence for a conviction. During the course of the interview, he confessed to the murder of an NYPD detective named Peter Calabro at the behest of the mafia.

After the documentary aired, two detectives from the state attorney general's office showed up at Trenton State Prison, wondering who'd ordered the hit on Calabro. Richard told them he'd talk about the hit as long as they promised him he wouldn't get the death penalty for it. They agreed. He told them all about how he was hired to kill Detective Calabro by Sammy the Bull Gravano, a Gambino family underboss.

In his defense, he swore he didn't know Calabro was a cop until after the fact, but admitted that even if he did know, he probably would have done it anyway. Richard formed an unexpected rapport with the two detectives, and he decided to help them out by confessing to 12 other murders he'd committed over the years, including Robert Prongay,

The details were cross-checked, and the New Jersey police were finally able to close the books on a dozen long-unsolved cold cases. In 2003, Richard officially pled guilty to the murder of Peter Calabro. As the detectives promised, this charge added just another 30 years onto his two existing life sentences. But even though the detectives held up their bargain...

Richard still may have earned himself a death sentence. After Richard's guilty plea, Sammy Gravano was arrested for his role in Calabro's murder with a trial set for the summer of 2006. Richard was supposed to be the key witness. But he wouldn't make it to court.

In October 2005, Richard's health began to fail. His blood pressure dropped, he developed memory loss, dementia, and slurred speech, and his lungs and kidneys began to fail. Doctors could find no explanation, no signs of a stroke or cancer. They eventually gave him the odd diagnosis of Kawasaki disease, a condition that usually affects children.

Richard told his family he was afraid he was being poisoned, and if he didn't make it out of the prison hospital, it was because he was murdered. His family and doctors dismissed this as delusional, but some undisclosed sources told author Anthony Bruno, who wrote a biography on Richard, that Sammy Gravano had put out a contract to have him killed before he could testify in the Calabro case.

The last time Barbara visited Richard at St. Vincent's Hospital, he told her, You're such a good person. You were always such a good person. She left the room without responding. On her way out of the hospital, she signed a do-not-resuscitate order. Days later, Richard's health took a turn for the worse. The hospital called Barbara to ask if she wanted to rescind the order. She said no.

Richard Kuklinski died on March 5th, 2006, at the age of 70. The autopsy revealed traces of cadmium, a toxic substance that can cause lung and kidney failure. Regardless, the forensic examiner concluded that he had died of natural causes. The day after Richard's death, the charges against Sammy Gravano for commissioning the murder of Detective Peter Calabro were dropped.

When Richard Kuklinski was asked how many people he'd killed over his nearly four-decade career, he put the number at definitely over 100, possibly as high as 250. At the time of his death, only 19 of those murders had been definitively linked to him, and he had only been officially convicted of six. The rest of those homicides will remain forever unsolved.

Some of Richard's victims were dangerous criminals or even killers themselves, but many of them were innocent men who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. When he wasn't working on assignment, Richard's violence was utterly senseless. Perhaps the most tragic victims were the ones Richard never killed: his wife and children, who lived in constant fear of his uncontrollable temper for decades.

Though Richard was ultimately the only one responsible for his abuse and crimes, we have to remember that criminals are not created in a vacuum. When asked by author Philip Carlow how he wanted to close his story, Richard said, "I was made. I didn't create myself. I never chose to be this way, to be in this place.

Yeah, I for sure wish my life took another turn, that I had an education and a good job, but none of that was in the cards for me. I am what I am. Thank you for listening to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast.

We're here with a new episode every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at The Conspiracy Pod. If you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts. Or email us at conspiracystories at spotify.com. Until next time, remember, the truth isn't always the best story. And the official story isn't always the truth.

This episode was written by Kate Gallagher and sound designed by Kelly Geary. Our head of programming is Julian Boirot. Our head of production is Nick Johnson. And Spencer Howard is our post-production supervisor. This episode was hosted by Vanessa Richardson and me, Carter Roy.

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