Unlike more well-known murderers such as Ted Bundy and “Son of Sam” killer David Berkowitz, Richard Kuklinski is not a serial killer.  He derived no psycho-sexual thrill from killing, and as far as the police know, he never murdered a woman.  Serial killers usually target a specific type of victim—Bundy preferred young brunettes who parted their hair down the middle; Berkowitz hunted young lovers parked in cars.  Kuklinski is more complex than that.  His victims fell under several categories: men he could lure into bogus business deals that resulted in large cash payments for non-existent goods; criminal associates who threatened his security; contract hits for the mob; and people who just ticked him off.

George Malliband, for example, fell under two victim categories: he had crossed the mob and he had done the one thing that was guaranteed to enrage Kuklinski.  Malliband had made the mistake of showing up at Kuklinski’s home uninvited. Kuklinski’s house in Dumont was sacred territory.  He didn’t want his family to have anything to do with his business associates.  The day Malliband showed up Kuklinski was hosting a family barbecue, and his mother-in-law was the first to notice the 300-pound man walking across the lawn to the rear of the house.   Stepping onto Kuklinski’s property was Malliband’s first infraction, but threatening Kuklinski on a later occasion by saying “I know where you live” was strike two.  Strike three was falling behind in his loan payments to Roy DeMeo.

DeMeo was a capo in the Gambino crime family.  A butcher by trade, DeMeo had a nearly psychopathic temper and a bloodthirsty reputation.   The members of his Brooklyn crew were young and vicious, and had a taste for the ghoulish.  They did their dirty work in an apartment rented by DeMeo’s cousin, a man nicknamed “Dracula.”  DeMeo and his crew would make people “disappear” here.  Their routine could vary, but it always involved stabbing the victim’s heart repeatedly to stop the gushing blood, hanging the body over the tub to drain it, carving it up into small manageable pieces, wrapping them tight, then distributing them around the city—a Dumpster here, a garbage can there.  DeMeo was the Iceman’s mentor in murder. 

Though Kuklinski had committed murders before he met DeMeo—Kuklinski had taken his first life when he was fourteen years old—the mobster refined the Iceman’s method and showed him how to dispose of bodies more effectively.  The student became so proficient the teacher commissioned him to do “work” for the Gambino family.  George Malliband had borrowed money from DeMeo, but he wasn’t making his payments.  DeMeo had learned that Malliband also owed money to several other loan sharks.  He was in way over his head.  Since Kuklinski had introduced Malliband to DeMeo, the mobster made it clear to Kuklinski that he was responsible for the deadbeat.    Mindful of DeMeo’s insane temper and still simmering over Malliband’s threat to disrupt his family life, Kuklinski took it upon himself to rectify the situation.  One night while driving Malliband back to New Jersey from Brooklyn, Kuklinski pulled his van over to the side of the road and shot Malliband five times.  Kuklinski then drove to a secluded spot in Jersey City and stuffed the body into a fifty-five gallon steel drum.  Malliband didn’t quite fit, so Kuklinski severed the tendons in the corpse’s leg to bend it back and force it in.  Kuklinski pounded the lid on and pushed the barrel over a cliff into the back lot of a chemical factory.  The lid popped off in the fall, and the owner of the factory discovered the body the next morning.  That evening Kuklinski returned to Brooklyn and paid off Malliband’s debt out of his own pocket.

Kuklinski half-smiles, as he remembers a particular murder

I knew all about this murder and many more when I entered Trenton State Prison to meet Kuklinski face to face.  I had seen horrifying photos of crime scenes and autopsies.  I had read the transcripts of his trial.  If one could have earned a doctorate in the Iceman, I would be the first to hold such a degree.  I thought I knew him backwards and forwards.  But I didn’t know everything.