Murder In America - EP. 31 NEW YORK - The ICEMAN, Richard Kuklinski, America's Most Prolific Serial Killer?

Episode Date: September 5, 2021

In the 1980's in New York City, people were dying. Bodies were turning up across the city, and nobody knew who was responsible for the killings. However, there was one man out there who may have been contributing more bodies to the cities death toll than authorities initially suspected. According to Richard Kuklinski, AKA The Ice Man, he may have killed up to 200 or more people during his blood soaked killing spree. Guns, knives, cyanide... he killed his victims in almost every way possible. And some of his stories, will SHOCK YOU. This, is the story of Richard Kuklinski, the Ice Man, told from his mind and mouth. And you're listening, to MURDER IN AMERICA. - - Download VODACAST today to view EXCLUSIVE VERSIONS of episodes of our show, complete with crime scene photos and other media that relates to our stories!! https://www.vodacast.com - - Download JUNE'S JOURNEY on Google Play for FREE: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.wooga.junes_journey_hidden_object_mystery_game&hl=en_US&gl=US - Download JUNE'S JOURNEY on the Apple App Store for FREE: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/junes-journey-hidden-objects/id1200391796 - - Sign up for BetterHELP and take charge of your mental health with Colin and Courtney at the link below!: https://betterhelp.com/mia Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Proximate will go more than 100. How do you feel about killing? I don't. It doesn't bother me. It doesn't bother me at home. I don't have a feeling on my area. The 1980s in New York was a completely different time. America was in the midst of a cold war.

Motley crew was all the rage, and the crime rates in New York City were rising sharply. There were lots of burglaries, lots of fights, and above all, an increasing amount of murders occurring in the city. And one man that made a significant contribution to the body count was none other than the Iceman himself. Richard Keklinski.

Although he was only officially tried and convicted for five murders, Richard would go on to claim to reporters and authorities that he had not only killed those five victims, but possibly up to 200 in total. That's right, Richard himself claimed that he may have killed up to 200 victims. Some in the past have doubted his claims, but at the end of the day, Richard Kikklinsky still has a high body count,

and his side of the story is compelling, shocking, and unnerving. This is the story from his eyes of Richard Kiklinski, the Iceman. I'm Colin Brown, and you're listening to Murder in America. The 1980s were not the safest decade to be living in New York City. In fact, during the 1980s, New York City had a nickname, Fear City. Crime rates had risen significantly during the decade, and the police force in the city was overwhelmed. Bodies were turning up everywhere, in apartments, in rivers, in parks, in the streets, and there simply wasn't enough manpower to deal with it.

A lot of murders went unsolved in New York City in the 1980s, murders that still remain cold cases to this day. The shadows in the city were even darker at night during those years, and Fear City had definitely earned its nickname. Lurking under the shadows, however, was a different type of fear. New York at the time was home to a number of serial killers. But one specific killer was especially meticulous. He was good at his kills.

The victims who he claimed simply vanished, almost as if into thin air. And this killer had a name, and a loving wife and a completely oblivious family. His name was Richard Kuclinski. Richard Kiklinski was born April 11, 1935, in Jersey City, New Jersey, inside of his family's apartment

to father Stanislaw Stanley Kiklinski, a Polish immigrant and railroad, worker and mother Anna McNally, a devout Catholic who worked in a meatpacking plant. The family lived in a low-income part of the city that some people would refer to as the projects. It was an area filled with crime and most people in the area lived below the poverty line. From the very beginning, Richard had a tough life. According to Richard himself, his father was a raging alcoholic who physically abused him regularly. Richard was allegedly beaten, slapped, punched, or otherwise physically assaulted almost every day of his life.

And his mother was no angel either. Allegedly, she would also occasionally join in on the beatings. At one point, Richard's mother Anna beat him so hard with a broom handle that the entire handle shattered in her hands during the assault. When he was very young, Richard's father abandoned the family, but on occasion he would return. And his returns were almost always coupled. with physical beatings. So HBO did an absolutely fantastic series of documentaries focused on Richard Kiklinski, titled The Iceman Tapes, Conversations with the Killer, The Iceman Confesses, Secrets of a Mafia Hitman, and the Iceman and the Psychiatrist.

And the bulk of each documentary is simply an interview with Richard himself. We're going to include a lot of clips from these interviews in this episode, because it's hard to get the details of these crimes across, quite like Richard himself does. Here's Richard on his childhood. What's the worst beating you ever took from your old man? I don't think there's much difference than any. They were all pretty bad. He left his mark on me pretty much.

And he did most of that before you were, what, 11? Yes, I was young. And was that worse when he was drinking? With Stanley, it didn't really matter whether he was drinking or he wasn't drinking. He was a nasty son of a bitch, and he always will be. To the day he died, and even when he died, he was a nasty son. son of a gun. Did you go to his funeral? No, I didn't. Was there one? Yes. I didn't like him in life. Why would I want to go see him in death? I was glad he was dead. I hated my father. Could have. I probably would have killed him. Probably would have felt good about it, too. My father would beat me just if I looked at him. I didn't like my phone. He would beat me just because he felt like to get my attention, I guess. He would think nothing of coming in and smacking you.

He just came in and give you a weapon for another reason whatsoever. And my mother was cancer. She would destroy everybody. She thought I took too long to do something. She didn't hesitate to give me a swat here and there. And she didn't just use a hand. She would hit me with a broomstick or something like that. It would be it hurts.

As a matter of fact, she broke the broom on me more than once. According to author Philip Carlo in his 2006 book titled The Iceman, Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer, Richard wasn't the only focus of these beatings. His father and mother also took out their anger towards Richard's siblings. And in the year 1941, Richard watched in horror as his drunken father beat his brother Florian so severely that he would succumb to his injuries. Yes, Richard watched his own dad beat his own brother to death, and his brother was only seven years old at the time. After Florian died, allegedly, Richard's parents told authorities that he had taken a bad tumble down the stairs and that they had buried him. It was one big, tragic accident, but not in Richard's eyes. He knew the truth. There was a stabbing between your parents, wasn't there?

Yes, it was. What room was that in? I don't remember. What happened? I don't remember. I don't know. Stanley stabbed Anna, which why I don't recall. I don't remember what it was all about, but I remember it did happen.

Stabbed her in the back? My, yeah. Since there's no love in my life, I must have something to replace it, so I replace it with hate. constant hate, constant reminded, too hate. As Richard began to grow older, he really began to question the Catholic faith that his mother had brought him up in. Anna, his mother, was a devout Catholic and believed she needed to rule her household and her children with an iron fist. Richard, interestingly enough, was actually an altar boy at one point in his life. It's strange how someone can be raised

in the church, yet eventually learned to embrace such darkness later in life. I was raised Catholic. She was strict as far as the religion goes. I went to my mother. My mother, we went to Catholic grammar school. We were raised with the Catholic belief. I was even an altar boy. During the course of my life, I don't really believe it.

It's just the way it happened. It was around this time, according to Richard, that he began to embrace the violence and anger that he felt inside. But at the beginning, he didn't take it out on humans. He took this rage out on animals. Here's Richard talking about the absolutely horrific things that he did to poor innocent creatures. How were you with animals at that age? Deadly.

Cats, dogs. Cats, dogs. I used to tie two cat's tails together. I drove over a clothesline, watched them rip each other apart. How long does it take? Not long. What else would you do with cats? We had the incinerator in the project said.

So I drew a cat in the incinerator. Then I drew a book of matches in there. When I threw the door, I watched the fire get bigger and bigger and his cat was running around, trying to get away. Eventually, the fire got too big for him, and he didn't run anymore. He only did one cat. No. That was a pastime. One almost got out the door.

He almost jumped back up, came out the door, I threw him in, because that's where I was looking, and he almost came back out. How about dogs? I'd get them off the roof, tied him to a back of a bus. Then they'd just be dragged once they got tired. I never saw the end of those things. I just did it. Richard's anger and violent tendencies developed at a young age. Having been raised in a household surrounded by domestic violence,

Richard began associating violence with power when he was very young. Allegedly, his first murder occurred in the year 1948 when he was just 13 years old. Richard had been bullied by a small neighborhood gang for years. A gang ran by another. teenager named Charlie Lane. This gang was brutal towards Richard. They punched and kicked him while he was on his way to school regularly and constantly robbed him and called him offensive names and slurs. Coupled with the intense living conditions he was under at home and the abuse he was taken from the kids in the neighborhood. Richard reached his breaking point in 1948.

He had had enough. This gang was done messing with Richard Kikklinsky. It, on this specific day, was a cold Friday evening. At his home, Richard quietly removed the closet pole, a two-foot-long, thick wooden dolly from the hall closet, and he snuck out of the house. That night would be the night that Charlie Lane, the leader of the gang, would pay. It wasn't long before Richard encountered Charlie walking in the area

near where the two of them lived. It was a dark, cold, windy night, and Richard emerged from the shadows. surprised Charlie accosted Richard calling him a slur, and it was then when things went south. Richard began beating Charlie over and over again with a pole from the closet. He had set out that night to teach Charlie a lesson, not to kill him. But as he repeatedly delivered blows to Charlie's body with the wooden rod, Richard believed that he couldn't stop.

And before long, he looked down at Charlie's body and noticed that he was, wasn't moving. And when he looked even closer, he realized he was dead. At 13 years old, Richard had committed his first murder. In being an avid reader of true crime magazines, Richard knew what he needed to do next. Get rid of the body. Near the area where he had beaten Charlie to death sat a car that Richard had recently stolen, a dark blue Pontiac. Thinking quick, he dragged Charlie's body over to the car, loaded the corpse in the trunk, and began to drive. He didn't know where he was going specifically, but he needed it to be dark and out of the way. After a couple hours of driving the speed limit, Richard reached South Jersey and pulled over on a small desolate bridge in the woods

over a frozen pond. Using knowledge he attained from true crime magazines, Richard then headed to the trunk, removed all the teeth from Charlie's mouth using an axe hammer that he had found in the car, knocking them out one by one using the hammer side, and then proceeded. to cut off all of Charlie's fingertips using the axe. Finally, he dumped the bloody corpse over the side of the bridge. This was allegedly Richard's first kill, but it was far from his last. Hey, everyone, have you ever been listening to our podcast and wish that you could see pictures of the victims, killers, murder weapons?

See pictures of all of that while you're listening to our show? By the way, guys, thank you so much for listening to our podcast, Murder in America. But before you go any further, we have to stop. Go download the app Vodacast. Now, you won't regret it. Vodicast is an amazing new, immersive podcast app that allows you to experience the podcast and others in a way that you haven't been able to until now. Vodicast will provide you a deeper version of the show and allow you to view photos of the

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So try Vodacast out today. Click the link in our show notes to learn more about Vodicast or download the app today in the app store and change the way you experience podcasts forever. That's Vodacast. Vodacast. Now, back to our story. After murdering Charlie,

Richard hunted down the other members of the gang that he belonged to, one by one and savagely beat them. In Richard's mind, now they knew who not to mess with. Richard Keklinski. Here's Richard's description of these beatings. When I was a young man, I found out that if you hurt somebody, they'll leave you alone. Good guys do finish last. When I tried to leave everybody alone just do my own thing, everybody just wanted to hurt me.

Until one day, I just decided, well, I've had enough of this picking. And I went upstairs and I took a bar, which the clothes used to hang on in the closet. And I went back downstairs, and there were like six young men still figuring they were going to mess with my head. And he went to war. To their surprise, 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. As he grew older, Richard realized that he loved the power that came with violence, the control.

And as the years passed, those homicidal tendencies only seemed to grow. As he matured, Richard started to attend school less and less frequently, and instead opted to hang out in the pool halls, where he developed a great talent of playing pool. In fact, within those pool halls, Richard became known as the Pool Shark, A man who didn't seem like he had the chops, but secretly was a master at the game. And it was at these pool halls when Richard was only 18, where a few of Richard's next murders would take place. According to author Philip Carlo, once again in his 2006 book titled The Iceman,

Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer, Richard's second victim would be a pool hall local named Doyle. Doyle was a loud, verbally abusive drunk who liked to drink himself silly at the bars, make a scene and then stumble home. Richard interacted with Doyle frequently, even though these interactions weren't ever particularly nice. And on one specific night, Richard was playing games of pool with Doyle. Of course, being very talented at the game,

Richard was winning game after game, but Doyle didn't like this. He began calling Richard slurs, announcing to the rest of the pool hall patrons that Richard was a cheater, and he was being very rude. And this was the snapping point for Richard. After Doyle left the pool hall that night,

Richard waited. He watched as Doyle entered his car, lit up a cigarette, and sat parked on the street. After a while, Richard approached Doyle's car and noticed that he was asleep with the windows down. And that was his opportunity. Richard quickly headed to a gas station, purchased some gasoline in a bottle, returned to Doyle's car, and lit the man on fire, killing him right there where he lay. Here is Richard's account of that word. I come out of this bar and I see him sleeping in his car. I said, I got you a little sucker now. I got you.

I'm going to light you a fire. And I did. I got myself a bottle, some gasoline, and I threw it in a car with him. And he was screaming and yelling. I could smell him, walk down the block, and I could hear him as I turned the corner. He was still yelling. This was a personal thing, yes. See, this was a guy I disliked.

He made me mad. Short while later, Richard would kill again. It was when he was around the same age, Richard claimed, when he got into a verbal altercation with a man at a pool hall. This argument escalated into a physical fight, and Richard ended up beating the man with a pool cue. At the end of the fight, when Richard looked down at the man's body, he realized that he was no longer moving.

In taking his anger out, Richard had killed the man. Here's his description of that murder. I've been known to hurt people for... No reason if you check out my background as I came up. I could be anywhere and if somebody humiliated me, I would think nothing of hitting them with a cue stick. And the only thing they might have done was made me feel bad or challenged my authority at the time.

I got into a fight in a bar. We got into an argument to fight, and I hit him with a cue stick a few too many times. And he died. How'd you feel after when you found out he died? I had felt very bad. Very, very bad. I was upset. I didn't mean to do it, actually. But surprisingly, I felt sadness, and after a while I felt something else.

I didn't feel sad. It was sad along with some sort of a rush that I had control. And if you mess with me, I guess if you mess with me, I'll hurt you. Now, Richard is living in Hoboken, New Jersey. He's a pole hall hustler and a petty crue. criminal, and he's slowly beginning to involve himself in the world of organized crime. Richard had a group of guys that he ran around with, and they committed a number of crimes within their neighborhoods. They nicknamed themselves, coming up Rose's gang, and Richard was their leader. The group committed a number of crimes, including burglarizing affluent homes, or holding up liquor stores at gunpoint.

Richard really enjoyed this lifestyle. The money. He came fast and he spent it quickly. The coming up Rose's gang that he played a major role in was a violent group. They frequently got into bar brawls and Richard began to drink heavily. He began to realize while he was drinking that he was an angry, aggressive drunk like his own father. But regardless of the amount of alcohol he drank, Richard couldn't control his anger. And at this point in his life, Richard was fully grown. He was somewhat lanky, six foot five inches tall, and an imposing man with deep anger management issues. Having come into some money for the first time in his life through the crimes he committed, Richard bought himself some very colorful suits.

He was often seen around town dressed from head to toe in pastel pinks and yellows. He cared about the way he looked, and he wanted people to know who he was. If someone questioned Richard or made fun of the way he dressed, he was quick to react with violence, unafraid to pull out a knife or beat an unruly pull-hall patron with his fists. And this life of crime quickly led Richard down the wrong path. It wasn't long until the infamous Decavalcante crime family noticed the coming-up Roses gang. One member of the Decavalcante family named Carmen Genevice invited members of the group to his home one day for a meal. And from that point on, the two crime syndicates began committing crimes together. At this meal, Carmen asked the group if they would be interested in killing a man for

him. They all agreed, and one of the gang members, a man named John Wheeler, decided to be the gunman. On the night that the hit was supposed to go down, the group drove to nearby Lincoln Park, the area near where the person they were supposed to kill lived, and when they arrived, the group witnessed the man that they were targeting that night getting into his car. When it was time to execute the hit, John, the man who volunteered to carry out the killing, became nervous and froze up. Using his opportunity, Richard immediately grabbed the gun and shot the man in the head. The group then drove away into the night as if nothing had happened. After the group reported their success to Carmen, he began to give them more and more work,

and Richard began to consider his future as a hitman. Now, the timeline gets a little confusing between the HBO documentaries, Richard's interviews, his testimonies in court, and the books that have been written about him. But here's an account from Richard himself about one of his first paid mafia hits. He gave me a picture of him and a description of what he does and what he generally does and where he goes, places he goes. And so I went to the area where they said he might be and I saw somebody who looked like him similar to him. He had a knack for smoking and they told me he smoked big cigars, Churchill cigars or something. So I pulled up alongside of him at the time I was riding a motorcycle.

And I just said, Cuban? Are they Cuban? Looks like a good cigar. And he wasn't a happy camper because he said, fuck you. And when he said, fuck you, he looked my way and I got a clear shot of his face. It was a picture I had of the man they wanted. And I said, nah, don't fuck me, fuck you. And I just took this weapon out and blew his head off.

Just disintegrated is. I can see a pump can get hit with a shotgun or something. They just spread out. And that's what happened. And I light turned green about the time I shot him and I left. It helped you adapt and cope not to care. Definitely. Not to care is much better.

Because it's a weakness to care. That's right. It is. Then you have baggage. When you care, you can't just move. You have to worry. And you got something to lose. That's right.

The most profitable crime, however, that Richard and his crew committed with the help of Carmen was not a murder, but was in fact the act of robbing an armored truck company. Carmen had gotten a hold of the combinations to disarm the alarms and locking system of the armored truck company's warehouse, and seeing the opportunity, Richard and his crew embraced it. They entered the warehouse without any trouble. They loaded up one of the trucks with gold, cash, and coins from the company's safe. However, when the group was pulling out of the warehouse in the armored truck, they reached

realized that they had loaded it with too much material, and the moment that they pulled the truck out and hit the outside curb, all four of the rear tires exploded. The group tried to drive the truck to a warehouse that they had rented nearby, but it was impossible with the heavy weight load and the busted tires. So thinking quickly, the group went back, stole two more of the armored trucks, and loaded the goods from the first truck into the other two. And they did all of this right on the side of the turnpike, in public, where anybody could see them. It's lucky that they weren't caught in the act. It was almost an act of God. And feeling lucky, the crew decided to continue pulling off high-profile crimes.

In the midst of committing these robberies and murders, Richard had met a woman named Linda. Eventually, the two moved in together and Linda got pregnant. Even though Linda was 25 years old and much older than Richard, he was only a teenager at this point. He agreed to marry her, and eventually the two tied the knot at City Hall. The couple eventually had two children together named Richard Jr. and David, but the marriage was doomed from the get-go. You see, going back to his violent ways, Richard had at one point began to beat Linda, and she, in turn, began to fear him. During this time, Richard's mafia friend Carmen from the Decavalcante crime family, allegedly began to give his group more work as hitmen. They were slaughtering members from other crime families, one by one, and making a lot of money doing it.

At one point, a man named Albert Parenti, a friend of Carmen's, approached Richard and told him that two men from Richard's own coming up Rose's gang had held up at gunpoint, a carter. game put on by members of the mafia and that those two men had to die. Although these two men named John Wheeler and Jack Debrosey were good friends and associates of Richards, he knew what he had to do and he cold-bloodedly killed them. Ever murder anyone you liked? All my friends did. At one point in time, I'm sure I liked them. Not at the moment of killing them. I might have even liked them then. Honor among thieves, there's no such thing. You see, because I was put in prison by a man I knew 30 years and I liked them. Big mistake. I had one friend too many. I'm now serving multi-life sentences because of my one friend.

In the midst of committing all of these crimes, Richard began to realize that he wasn't just comfortable with killing. He enjoyed it. One day after traveling to nearby New York to case out the city for potential future money-making opportunities, he was walking alone along the riverfront of the city, and he came across a homeless man. The man demanded that Richard give him some money, but Richard kept walking. Angry, the homeless man closely followed Richard, calling him names and demanding that he give him cash. And this pushed Richard to his breaking point, smiling, he pulled out the knife that he kept on him and plunged it into the homeless man twice, fatally wounding him. Richard stood over.

the man and watched him die and it was at that point he realized he loved killing and he loved killing up close later that day as he traveled back home to new jersey he passed the corpse of the man he had killed nobody had noticed the dead man yet and there he sat alone lifeless in the dark night and seeing this richard smiled 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. What did you want him to think as they died? Just see my pretty face. What the last thing they ever saw was me. And if they carry that glimpse to eternity, infinity, or whatever it is, I'm going to be thinking of me all that time. Murder had become a sport to Richard.

Over the next few months, Richard would periodically return to New York City and During most of these trips, he would kill. It didn't matter who he would kill, allegedly. He just wanted to take a life. It made him feel powerful and control. And according to Richard, he killed victims in a number of different ways. There was bludgeoning, stabbing, shooting. It didn't matter.

Richard, in a way, turned the west side of Manhattan, where he committed these killings, into a personal murder research lab, a school, he claimed later on. Through these random murders, he learned how and where to plunge a knife into the human body to achieve the deadliest effect. In the back of the head, an up into the brain was one of his preferred locations, or an inverted slice across the throat, which at the same time severed the victim's carotid arteries and windpipe. Directly into the heart, Richard found was also very effective.

The police in New York at the time believed that the homeless were killing each other, getting into fights in the streets that escalated into violence and murder. They had no idea that a serial killer was coming over from New Jersey to kill the citizens of their own city, then retreating back into the night where he would wait to do it again. At one point, Carmen from the Descalvocante crime family, the man who started Richard's mafia hitman career, was released from prison. He soon found work for Richard, and Carmen was getting Richard lots of work. Richard was killing a lot of people for a lot of money.

Richard, what did you charge for a... If I hit somebody, I wouldn't hit it for peanuts. I'd like to have some money. I say if I were to do somebody, I want at least five figures, and at least up in the half, not the lower half of the five figures. At one point, however, Carmen Genevieve, was shot and killed. Carmen's murder remained unsolved, and at this point, Richard was left to fend for himself. Richard was now in his mid-20s and married with two kids. Getting no work as a hitman, he took on a job at a trucking company warehouse, where he met a woman named Barbara Padrechi, the company's secretary. She was 18 at the time, and Richard was 26. It's important to note also

that by Richard's own account, he had killed around 65 men at this point in his life. Even though Richard was married to Linda at the time, he quickly fell in love with Barbara. It wasn't long until Richard and Linda divorced. Barbara became pregnant and Barbara and Richard got married. He was absolutely flowers at the door every day and considerate and romantic and all of the things that anybody could hope for, dream for. He bought me beautiful things. We went fun places. He was happiest when we were together. He was happiest when just he and I were together. Now that Richard had a family, he needed more money.

But since he was on a hiatus from killing, he decided to consciously attempt to distance himself from his previous life of crime. Barbara's uncle at the time gave Richard a job in a film lab. I didn't have the capability of getting a better paying job. I was going to push a yarn truck the rest of my life? make menial amount of money. I couldn't have afforded one child, let alone three.

While working at this film lab, Richard noticed that the company was developing pornographic films, and after seeing this, he came up with a plan. With the help of two men he had met while working at the film lab named Anthony Agrilla and Paul Rothenberg, two known associates of the Gambino crime family, Richard began pirating these pornographic films and selling them to the mafia. At one point during this scheme, Richard was deep in debt, and he owed his two mafia associates a lot of money, and these two were angry. Wanting to collect their money, the two allegedly called up their boss infamous New York mobster Roy DeMayo, and Roy approached

Richard one day with his kill team looking to collect their money. The team beat Richard to a pulp, and even though Richard was armed with a pistol, he knew that if he fought back these men would kill him and his entire family, so he stood down and took the beating. Seeing this, Roy DeMayo interpreted Richard's actions as a sign of respect, and after all was said and done, he invited Richard out to dinner. The two talked for a while, and this was Richard's official re-entry into the world of contract killing. Since Richard was of Polish descent and had no Italian in his blood, he was never able to become a full-on-made man in any mafia family. But that didn't matter. To Richard, this was all business, and money was money. Roy DeMayo and his crew were known in town at the time as a killing machine,

and they operated their killing factory from the infamous Gemini Lounge in New York City. Seeing potential in Richard, Roy asked him if he was interested in carrying out hits for him in the city. Richard said he was interested, and on one fateful day, Roy decided to test Richard out to see if he was for real. Here's Richard's account of that day. He said, well, I would expect you to, if you came with me, I'd expect you to, if I told you to whack somebody, you'd whack him without any question. So I said, well, I could probably do that. He says, you probably could do it or could you do it? Did you think you could do it?

I said, yeah, I think I could do it. So he told Freddie to get the car, got the car. He and I got in the back seat, Freddie was driving. We drove someplace. I don't know where it was. There was someplace in New York. And we were sitting there for a while. We got to where we were going.

We were sitting there for a while, and a man came in the distance. He was walking his door. It looked like. She said, all right. take this guy down. I said, which guy we're talking about here? So he says, the man

walking the dog. So I got out of the car and I started walking towards the man. The man was walking his dog just like a regular guy. As he passed me, he could turn around and shout him. Lady and Roy pulled up in the car, I get in the car, and we drove away. And that is how

I got involved with Roy. We're doing things like that. After this, allegedly, Richard was in, and he began to carry out killings with Roy DeMayo's crew. In fact, Richard claimed during these interviews that he actually worked with Roy at the infamous killing factory, the Gemini Lounge. Hey guys, so I have to tell you about this really fun game that Colin and I have been playing on our phones for the last few weeks. It's called June's Journey, and you can download it for free on your mobile device. This game is addicting. Seriously, I love phone games and once I started playing June's journey, I literally couldn't stop. Who doesn't love a good mystery? I know that I do. In the game June's Journey, you play as June Parker,

an amateur sleuth trying to solve the mystery behind her own sister's mysterious death. Since this is a true crime podcast, you know that Colin and I love crime-related games. And seriously, once you start playing June's journey, you will be hooked. like we are. June's journey is honestly addictive as hell. Once I started playing, I was hooked. I've made it pretty far into the mystery, but the storyline itself is really what has me going. I've seriously got myself at like 1 a.m. telling myself that I have to stop playing and

just go to bed, but I can't. Gameplay itself is extremely fluid, it's gorgeously designed, and it's a super compelling experience all around. I myself feel like a detective while I'm playing, almost like I'm solving mysteries, not just reporting on them like we do in this podcast. If you want to join the 30 million users like us that are determined to solve the mystery, download June's Journey for free today on Apple App Store or Google Play. It was while he was working with Roy and his crew at the Gemini Lounge that Richard

committed some of the worst murders he was allegedly involved in. The Gemini Lounge had been described in the past as a full-on house of horrors. The club was the headquarters of Roy DeMeo, and it was also his slaughterhouse. The murders took place in an apartment located directly behind the lounge, and it was here, in this small space where the infamous Gemini Method was developed. Gemini Method, aka the way that these mobsters killed their victims at the Gemini Lounge, was very specific. The process of the Gemini Method, as revealed by multiple crew members and associates who became

government witnesses in the early 1980s was simple and to the point. A member of the mob would lure the selected victim through the side door of the Gemini lounge and into the apartment in the back of the building. It was immediately right then when one of the crew members, usually Roy DeMayo himself, would stealthily approach the target with a silenced pistol in one hand and a towel in the other. They would shoot the victim in the head and immediately wrap the towel around the wound like a turban to stop the blood flow. Almost immediately after the first shot in towel wrapping, another member of the crew would approach the victim and stab them in the heart to prevent more blood from pumping out of the gunshot wound in the head. At this point, the victim was already dead,

and then it was time for disposal. The body would then be stripped naked and dragged into the apartment's bathroom, where the blood was allowed to drain and dry. This step was meant to eliminate the messiness of the next step, and this is where it gets really dark. Roy's crew members would then drag the body out onto plastic sheets that were neatly laid out in the main room of the apartment, and they would proceed to dismember the corpse, cutting off the arms, legs, and head. Afterwards, the body parts would be placed into bags, shoved into cardboard boxes, and sent to the Fountain Avenue dump in Brooklyn. So many tons of garbage were dropped there every day at this specific dump that Roy and his crew figured that it would be nearly impossible for the corpses

to ever be found. And sadly, they were correct. Authorities still don't know how many people were killed and carved up at the Gemini Lounge, and they never will. But to get back to Richard, He allegedly worked there in that very apartment with Roy and his crew, carrying out kill after kill with brutal precision. Here are a few stories from Richard about the kills that he carried out while working with Roy at the Gemini Lounge. Most people paid their bills. Some didn't.

I remember one guy he was owed a lot of money. Well, I guess he thought he could hide behind the door. There's a nice door, an expensive door. Most people don't realize that when you come, to answer a door. If there's light in the background, a person on the outside can look through the peephole

and see the guy coming to the door. So he came to the door, I asked who it was, and he looked through the peephole, and he never saw what hit him. Do you ever use a king saw? To cut someone up? Yes.

I've done that. To dismember them, yes. Not to kill him, though. I've had a request where the guy wanted the guy's tongue cut out, and he also wanted his tongue put in his rear. So I'd believe it was a definite point he wanted to get across.

I have an experience that I don't know if I should tell you, that it might, it probably would offend a lot of people. It was a man. He was begging and pleading and praying, I guess. And he was pleased God and all over the place. So 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 he never changed the circumstances. That was that.

It wasn't too nice. That's one thing I shouldn't have done that one. I shouldn't have done it that way. Dismembering bodies, did that turn your stomach? I don't think so. I remember having pizza one day while we were doing something like that. Pizza in one and had chainsaw on the other? No, I didn't like chainsaws.

That's another fable that they've come up with, that I used chainsaws. See, chainsawing. Those are messy. Yeah. Well, you get as little, all over me, I have these little pieces of meat. Now, that's a pain in the neck if I use chainshaws. Now, would I want to ruin a good shirt with a chainsaw? That would be downright stupid.

Richard also allegedly carried out hits outside of the lounge for Roy DeMayo. Here's a story from one of those murders from Richard again. They wanted this guy taking care of, but he wanted to talk to him first. So when I got to the place, I asked the man for the money. So the guy says, he didn't have it. And Roy would just have to wait until he got the money to pay him. And that was that. He'd have to wait.

So I said to the man, I said, well, you have to then talk to him. He wants to talk to you. So I dial the phone number, and he got on the phone. And I said, he wants to talk to you. So he was talking to him. I guess they were acting like everything was alright because he got off the phone and he handed me the phone back. He says, hey, I told you, he'd wait. He's in the other frame of mind. Don't worry about it. He wants to talk to you now. So I picked up the phone and he said, kill him. So I shot him.

I got the phone and walked away. I would move heaven, hell, and anything in between to get to you. You wouldn't be safe anywhere if I was mad at you. And that's not bold. That's the truth. I've went up against people. You could pull a gun on me. If I'm mad at you, I'm coming forward. You'd have to shoot me to stop me. If you don't kill me, you're stupid. So the next time you see me, I will kill you. Remember, guys, throughout all of this, the chainsaws, the dismembering, the brutal murders, Richard was married to Barbara.

She claimed that she never really knew what Richard was doing when he left the house for work, and she preferred not to ask. Here's Barbara describing Richard's work. I never questioned him, and you just knew, don't do it. Don't ask. if he got up at 2 o'clock in the morning or during dinner and put on his shoes and walked out the door, you said, bye, you didn't say, where are you going or why are you going?

And it was just understood that that's the way it was. He was very private. You only knew what he wanted you to know. Throughout his marriage to Barbara, the couple had three children, two daughters named Merrick and Kristen, and a son named Dwayne. And Richard loved his kids. His wife Barbara recalled later on in an interview that shortly after she was born,

Merrick, Richard's daughter, became seriously ill. Seeing that his daughter needed help and was in danger, Richard stayed up all night, night after night, caring for her. He was a sweet man when it came to dealing with his kids, but he wasn't always sweet to Barbara. According to Barbara, there was, quote, good Richie and, quote, bad Richie. When he was being sweet, Richard would shower his wife in gifts. He was an affectionate lover and a bona fide family man.

But when bad Richie came out, the couple would get into heated arguments that sometimes turned physical. Richard, in fact, sometimes resorted to the same old violence that he had come to depend on and would beat his wife. In his interviews for the HBO special, if you watch Richard, you can really tell that when he describes his own, abusive behavior towards his wife, that this was one of the only behaviors that he truly regretted. I've never felt sorry for anything I've done other than hurting my family. The only thing I feel sorry for, I'm not looking for forgiveness and I'm not repenting. No, I'm wrong. My family took forgive me.

I can make this one. This would never be me. This would not be right. I feel for my family. But throughout all of these murders, these crimes, Richard still remained a devout family man. He frequently brought gifts for his kids, always made it home for dinner,

and he hated leaving the house to go to work. He made it a point to not mix his work life with his family life. In fact, nobody in Richard's family knew that he was a hitman. They had no way. idea that when their dad headed off to work, that he was sometimes heading out to take someone's life. Here's Barbara talking about her family life with Richard. We were perfect. My children were never in trouble. We were perfect. We were the all-American family. I mean, we had what seemed to be the perfect life. There were wonderful times. And time with his family was the only

thing that he was really concerned. If he never had to leave the house, he would have loved it. He hated to have to travel. He hated to go away. He came back as soon as he can. He wanted to be home all the time. He wanted to be with us all the time. And here's Richard discussing his own family. I enjoyed that way of life.

I felt I had achieved something. I very seldom left the house unless I had to because I felt secure in the house. I felt very secure. I tried to provide the business. best for them as I knew how might not have been a right way to go but it was for me the only way I tried to never let anything touch the house I brought nobody there my family was not exposed to anybody I wanted to show them the good side of life not the bad side and this leads us to one year on Christmas Eve when Richard's kids were young it was the

People had work off, and Richard and the family were relaxing at home, opening presents and spreading holiday cheer. But that night, Richard had to collect a debt. He wasn't actually off work. He just had to go get the money from the guy and come back home. But the night wouldn't end that way. We'll let Richard describe this murder to you guys himself. I told him I wasn't happy that he wasn't going to pay me. Hey, he had the attitude that nobody could hurt him.

I think he was wrong. Only way he never saw Christmas. What did you hear this, sir? A gun. Extremely loud inside of a car. Matter of fact, my ears were ringing for a long time. What did you do afterwards? I walked away.

Got in my car and went home. I put toys together for the kids for Christmas. I saw the broadcast while I was putting the toys together that came down, mob-related killing. I was the first time I knew I was mob-related. I was annoyed. I couldn't get the damn wagon together. Richard, at this time in his life, was surrounded by death.

He was carrying hits out left and right. And as his body count kept stacking up, Richard began to realize that he could make a lot of money knocking off criminals on his own. This leads us to the story of the first murder Richard would eventually be convicted of, the murder of George Malaband. On January 30th, 1980, George met Richard,

in order to purchase in bulk a bunch of blank videotapes. And I think you can guess what's going to happen next. I'm going to let Richard describe this murder to you guys himself. Georgie boy. I liked them. Actually, yeah, really liked them. One of the few people I ever really liked. We got into the band.

And I was George. You're really sincere with the fact that you had hurt my family and get back at me. And he said, that's the only way I could get you I could get over on you or get you to do

what I wanted you to do is to hurt your family I said but that's the stupid thing to say George I said knowing how badly how sincere I am about my family I said for you to say something like that you must realize you're going to make me mad

he said now you'll be mad he said because you'd be afraid that something would happen to your family I said well you're very wrong about that George That's because I'm going to put a stop to that. As a matter of fact, I'm going to put a stop to that right now. And I shot him five times.

I could see him entering because he was right here. You're sitting in a van. I'm in the driver's seat. George Boy was over here. And the next seat, which was, you know, just like that. And I went pop, pop, pop. And I can see the material moving on in his jacket. I see these things.

Actually, they made little marks on the thing. on the jacket, I guess they were burn marks. Kekwinski's favorite way of disposing of bodies was putting them in barrels, but with a six-foot, 300-pound George Malaband, it wasn't easy. So when I got him in, I had a problem with one leg. The next murder that Richard would be convicted for would be the murder of 51-year-old pharmacist Paul Hoffman. Paul had come into contact with Richard through a quote-unquote store that Richard was

involved with, which had a normal storefront up front and a back room out back with a multitude of stolen and illegal items for purchase. Paul, being a pharmacist, had an idea. He wanted to purchase the drug Tagamette, a popular drug used to treat ulcers from Richard in a bulk quantity so that he could sell it for cheap at his pharmacy. So, Paul set up a meeting with Richard in the year 1982 to purchase these drugs for cheap.

Paul showed up to the meeting that day with $22,000, and he was never seen again. Here's Richard's account of what happened. He took the bag, door opened it. Showed me a whole mess of money. He said, I got the money right here. And he came back. He says, what are we going to do?

What are we going to do? How am I going to get this merchandise? I put the gun under his chin, and I said, there is no merchandise. And I shot him. He didn't die. The gun jammed. He was gurgling. I had hit him.

It was, blood was pouring out of his mouth. and he was in a, I would imagine a lot, it looked like he was in a lot of pain. So there was a tire iron there, I took the tire iron and hit him with it, which knocked him out. And he died. I then took him and put him in a 50-gallon drum, put it on the side of a motel. It was behind Harry's corner. I listened to the people. I went in Harry's every morning.

The thing was there for a long time. I looked at it every day. It was there. I went in Harry's every day. One day it was just missing. Continued to go in Harry's to see if anything was said about it. Nothing was said. I don't know what happened to the drum.

Another hit that Richard claimed he was involved in was the killing of New York City police officer Peter Calabro. Peter was a crooked cop who had gotten on the bad side of the Gambino crime family. he had shared the information that he had with them, and thus he was of no further use to the family. It was March 14, 1980, and Peter was driving through New Jersey, through a brutal snowstorm. Unfortunately for Peter, though, the mafia knew exactly where he would be driving that night, when he would be driving through there, and the exact car that he was in, as he slowly drove through the snow, carefully avoiding the ice and snow banks.

Peter noticed a vehicle parked on the side of the dark, desolate road. And as he passed the vehicle, he saw a flash of light. And then, nothing. Because Peter was dead. Richard was the one who allegedly pulled the trigger that night. And here is Richard's account of the murder. I get a call that they're on their way. So now they're coming.

And it's snowing. The roads are very bad. a lot of snow slipping and sliding and I was in a van so what I figured is at the last moment I had a different plan with it at the last moment I decided well I'm gonna

devil park this thing this will give me the edge because this will make him have only one way to come by and that's he has to come right by this van and I go to the back of the van and I go out the back door I take the shotgun with me

of course so I know kneeled down and I look under the van so I can see where he's approximately at. So I watch him come up to where he's almost in the front of the van and I stood up and as he's going by the van, I fired. I never knew the man, you know, what he looked like or what his job was. Then I found out the next day that he was a police. I knew he was a police. I most likely would have done it anyway. It was around this time when Richard shifted for more physical means of murder to the the more untraceable. He had discovered cyanide.

How many times did you kid? You could put it in liquid form. You could, a person could say, for instance, a person could be in a bar. You bunk into them, possibly by mistake, or say you were intoxicated, spill a drink on them, and leave. Everybody just looks around and thinks you were drunk or that she just had an accident or something. And meanwhile, it's soaking to their clothes into their poor. and into the system. And eventually, he'll die.

I've been in a restaurant where, and the guy went to the badroom. And when I was in the bad room, we put a little boost in his rush to the hospital after that. He died, and they buried him. I'm not exactly sure what they put out, what they attributed to his debt to. But, you know, it wasn't homicide.

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Just visit BetterHelp.com slash MIA. That's BetterH-E-L-P and start chatting with a licensed therapist today. To find folks at BetterHelp are extending a special offer for you wonderful Murder in America listeners as well, guys. You can get 10% off your first month at BetterHelp.com slash MIA. Once again, that's betterhelp.com slash. M-I-A. Anyways, let's get back to our story. Another murder that Richard would be convicted for was that of Gary Smith, and this was a famous turning point for Richard. Gary Smith was actually a friend of Richards and a person he committed crimes with frequently. It was around this time when

another member of Richard's crew, a man named Percy House, was arrested, and while under arrest, Percy agreed to inform the police about Richard's criminal behavior, and he was placed under protective custody. Arrest warrants were then issued for two other members. of Richard's crew, men named Daniel Devner and, yes, Gary Smith. Richard purchased a motel room to house Daniel and Gary, but at one point, Gary left the room to go see his daughter. Fearing that Gary would become an informant, Richard fed him a hamburger laced with cyanide, and immediately afterwards, Daniel strangled him to death with a lamp cord. The two men then left Gary's body underneath the bedframe in the motel room, where it went

undiscovered for a number of days. But this murder would prove to be one of Richard's biggest mistakes. Here's Michael M. Baden, a New York City medical examiner, discussing why this murder was sloppy. Gary Smith was found under a motel bed in New Jersey. As I recall, we were some 20 people had used the room in five days, and nobody had realized it was a rotting body underneath it. The body was found in a decomposed state. It was very hot weather. Smith would have not been identified as a murder victim if he had died only of the

If the cyanide had worked and he had died and he didn't need to be strangled, that ligature mark around the neck wouldn't have been seen and he would have been possibly a drug addict overdose or lots of other things of a non-homacidal nature would have to be considered. Remember, Richard was a killer. He wasn't just a mafia hitman. According to him, he was a bona fide serial killer who found great pleasure in murdering people. Here's a story that he told to an interviewer on HBO. about a hobby that he had while operating in New York.

I used to have a thing where I would take somebody into a cavern or cave, whatever you want to call it. And I would tie them up or tape them, their hands and their feet together. And then I would leave them there. And I'd leave a camera on. Rats used to eat them. Rats used to kill these people. It was a very painful death of these people,

Because rats would eventually smell them or come near them and start nibbling away at them. The people would definitely scream and yell and holler and try to get away. And eventually more rats would come. And they would consume these people. But there was a lot of screaming and yell on in between. When I did that and I watched it out, the devil was that. It was a super rat, I think it was. I found it distasteful and it used to make me nervous for some reason.

I said that was some type of a feeling, which I wasn't too keen on having. But I did it because it gave me a feeling of some kind, and if I was trying to find out what it was that was giving me some type of feeling, but it was the horror or what was going on, or the screaming that was happening, or just the nastiness of it. But I never figured it out. But I did that quite a few times, too, maybe too many times. Another infamous story that Richard once recalled in an interview

was the killing of a random pedestrian with, get this, a crossbow. Yes, a crossbow. And this killing wasn't a hit. It was completely random. Here is Richard explaining this murder. Crossbow had just popped a guy in the forehead with it. Actually, it was just seeing if it would work. What was he doing at the time?

Looking at me. Well, was he sitting down, or were you standing over him? No, he actually bent down and looked in a car window. Like, I was asking him directions. I didn't know what I mean. Was this a contract murder, or was it something out of anger? Or was it a personal thing? I just wanted to see if this thing would work.

Soon after the murder of Gary Smith, which Richard committed with Daniel Deppner, when Richard would also kill Daniel. Daniel's decomposing corpse was discovered on May 14, 1983, after a bicyclist riding Clinton Road in a wooded area of West Milford, New Jersey, spotted the corpse surrounded by vultures. The police determined that he had died right after eating a meal as his stomach was full and that he had also been strangled. They thought at the time that Daniel had been fed cyanide, choked to death, and was then dumped. Daniel's corpse was found wrapped in green garbage bags. What is it to dispose of something? You throw it away. You throw it anywhere.

It all depends. If you don't want it found or if you want it found, if you want it found, if you want it found, it doesn't matter. You just leave it there. If you don't want it found, you could take it somewhere. You could bury it. You could put it in a big drum. You'd leave it in town. You put it on a park bench.

I mean, you know, you could put it anywhere you want. They found a few people sitting on park benches, I'm sure. As a matter of fact, I know they have. The murder of Lewis Mazgay would be the murder that earned Richard the nickname, The Ice Man. On September 25, 1983, Lewis's body would be discovered near a town park in New York, with a large bullet hole in the back of his head. Lewis had disappeared two years prior to his discovery on July 1, 1981. On the day that he had disappeared, Lewis had arranged a meeting with Richard at a diner

to purchase a large quantity of blank VHS cassette tapes. and come that day ready for the purchase with $95,000 in his van. But after this meeting, he disappeared without a trace. When the police discovered Lewis's body, the examiner noticed that there was ice inside of the corpse. Richard hadn't allowed the body to thaw for long enough, and thus they were able to determine that the corpse had been killed longer ago than they had initially assumed.

Here's Michael M. Baden, medical examiner, again, talking about Richard's mistake. He did too good a job in that body because he left that body in the freezer for two years, then took the body out and dumped it in Rockland County, and the body was found before it had fully thawed out. So the doctor doing the autopsy, the medical examiner in Rockland County, when he opened the body up, saw ice inside the body in the summer's day

and said, there's something wrong here. This guy could not have died two days ago the way he looks like from the outside. At this point, Richard was getting sloppy. He was getting older and was beginning to make mistakes. The New York City Police Department already suspected that Richard was behind some of the murders. But they didn't have any direct evidence to tie it to him. So they couldn't make an arrest. It was then, in the year 1985, when B-A-T-F-E special agent Dominic Polifrone went undercover to get close to Richard and to eventually bust him.

Dominic went undercover as a mafia-connected criminal named Dominic Provisano. While undercover, Polofron purchased a handgun muffler combination from Richard and began recording their conversations using a wire. Although Dominic was confident that he knew how to deal with Richard, he was always on edge. He knew there was something off about the man. He knew that he was playing with fire. Oftentimes, Dominic would sit and listen to Richard speak, in awe of the darkness that would come pouring from his mouth.

Richard frequently talked about his preferred murder methods, and he talked about some of his victims, too. At one point, it seemed like the right time to finally apprehend Richard. So Dominic wore a wire to their meeting, and it was then when he captured on tape a confession. You want to... messy. It's not as noisy. It's not...

you know yeah but how do you put it together like you know what i'm saying wait my friend got a few problems i want to yeah don't you use a fucking piece of wine they get rid these fucking people you use this fucking uh cyano i be messy you can do it nice and calm dominic himself described his time spent with richard in chilling detail here's dominic he says he had one guy he went and get a hamburger they come back and he put the cyanide on his hamburger and was sitting down and he's telling me he says you wouldn't believe it he says i'm waiting for this guy to kill over he says because once you eat cyanide usually would you'd roll over and that's it he says this guy had the constitution of a fucking bully he says you wouldn't believe it he says he wouldn't

die and we're both laughing about this and i'm saying the back of my mind i said holy god i said look at this i said what kind of person is this i said i said to myself right there i said he better cover your butt i said because you just don't know with this guy and he'd be kidding about it and i'd be laughing in the back of my mind, I'm saying, this is the devil. No question about it. This is the devil. On December 17, 1986, Richard met up with Dominic in order to purchase cyanide for a planned murder. After he was recorded on tape by Dominic confessing to a killing and purchasing the cyanide, Richard went for a walk and attempted to test the cyanide that Dominic had just sold him on a stray dog, using a hamburger as bait. However, after the dog ate the poison, Richard noticed that it didn't die.

In fact, it showed no symptoms of poisoning and so suspicious, Richard decided to not go through with the murder and instead headed back to his house. About two hours later, Richard was arrested at a roadblock after the police had received Dominic's recordings. Here's one of the officers that arrested Richard talking about the scene of the arrest. All road was blocked off with cops. Local police, state police, division of criminal justice investigators, county personnel. There was no place for him to go. So he stopped his car.

He was told to get out of the car, and he did not. So he was taken out of the car, and he was placed face down on the street in a position where we thought we were safe. And then I handcuffed them. That guy's big. I did everything I could to get one click on the handcuffs. And later on, I tried to put leg irons on them,

and there's no way they would go on. They just wouldn't go on. 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. It's not worrying. I'm not sorry. He's got to watch too many movies.

He is such a cold-blooded killer. They call him the Ice Man. After being convicted of two murders, he confessed to two others in court today. I shout to George Malvern. Louis Mazgay on July 1st, 1981. When the judge asked him why he had killed the two men, Kukkensky replied. Real quickly, everybody, I just want to give a shout out to our wonderful patrons that are out there on the Murder in America, Patreon. We are going to be uploading a lot of different true crime content on there in the near future.

We already have a bunch of bonus episodes that you guys can go listen to, so if you love the show, please consider becoming a patron, just type in Murder in America on Patreon to find that page. And if you like what we're doing, if you like this show, you love the podcast, please take a screenshot of your screen right now and upload it to Twitter, to Instagram, to Facebook, to any social media and tag us. Every bit of promotion helps. So if you really are enjoying our show, help us out. It's free. And just give us a shout out on some of your social media. It helps so much. Thank you to everybody that has already done that for us. And yeah, we got some exciting episodes coming up soon. Glad you guys are enjoying this and let's get back to the show. In March of 1988,

Richard was convicted of a total of five murders. The trial was relatively quick and there was no doubt in the minds of the jury that Richard was guilty. And interestingly enough, Richard seemed to show no remorse. He didn't feel bad about any of the murders. In fact, in court, he seemed to be almost proud of them. If Richard was going to head to prison, he wanted to be sent there with a well-known, bad reputation. It was after his arrest that Richard confessed to his true criminal history. He was never tried or convicted for most of the murders he claimed to have been involved with, yet at the same time, they've never been fully disproven. Obviously, you have to take some of Richard's stories with a grain of salt. Some of the stories don't have proof to back it up.

There are no names attached to the murders. Some vigilant true crime fans have matched up some potential names and faces to the aforementioned crimes. But still, a lot of these stories of homicide have not been confirmed. But if the stories are true, it would make him one of the most prolific serial killers, if not the most prolific in American history. And this is the end of Richard's story. October 2005, after nearly 18 years in prison, Richard was diagnosed with Kawasaki disease, an extremely rare disease that causes inflammation in the blood vessels.

Interestingly enough, the symptoms of this disease mirror the symptoms of mercury poisoning. Some people think that the mafia had had enough of Richard sharing his secrets with television reporters and ordered him to be finally put down. Other people believe he died a completely natural death. But I guess we'll never really know the truth. At the end of the day, though, no matter how much of his story is true, Richard was indeed a stone-cold killer. He showed no remorse, and he seemed to really enjoy retelling the stories of his murders. We're going to end this podcast with some words from the Iceman, Richard Keklinski, himself.

Words that you committed that haunt you, that you just sort of you feel and you do. Nothing haunts me. No murders hound me. I don't think about it. That's why it's hard for me to tell you. But in honor for me to be able to tell you when something I'd have to think about when. If I think about it, it would wind up hurting me. So I doubt.

If I had a choice, of course you, you have already said to me, we all have choices. Maybe we do. At the time, I didn't seem to have one. But if I could have, I would like to be different than what I am. I would have liked to be different than what I was, yes. It would have been better for me. I would have liked to have a better outlook on life. But I can't change yesterday.

Hey, everybody. It's Colin here. And Courtney. Thank you for listening to another brand new episode of Murder in America. We're so glad you guys could join us for this one. Courtney, I wrote this episode. What did you think of this case? I was, I had never heard this case before, honestly, and I was surprised at how just evil this guy was. Yeah, Richard was not the best guy.

If you guys want to listen to more bonus episodes of the podcast, you can go sign up to become a patron on our Patreon. We just posted one that was over 30 minutes long on the Patreon this week. We've got another one coming. Courtney's writing next week's episode, which is going to be one of our biggest of all time. You guys better be ready for next week's episode. It is going to be heart-wrenching, to say the least. And this is a story that also makes you wonder. In that kill room around the city of New York, are there victims that were never found?

I guess that's something we'll never know. It makes you wonder, though, the dead don't talk. Or do they? See on the next one, everybody. And thanks for listening.