Richard Kuklinski A Deeper Look At The Man Behind The Killer

The Making Of "The Iceman"

After dropping out of school Richard went on to form a gang called "The Coming Up Roses"  The gang consisted of three polish boys (including Richard), an Irish boy and an Italian boy, but none nastier and more conniving than Richard. The boys were selfish and constantly committed crimes for themselves. Richard became a notorious pool shark and began making money fast, always dressing in suits Richard began making a name for himself and soon the Coming up Roses gang caught the eye of Carmine Genovese, of the De Cavalcante family and they started working for the mob family when Richard was only eighteen years old. They soon aided the family in mob hits and hijackings. But soon things went downhill, two members of the Coming up Roses, John and Jack held up a card game sponsored by the De Cavalcante family which was a bad idea. Richard knew that John and Jack had messed up big-time and had gone against the basic tenets of the street, and his strict rule of never taking off any mob guys. Richard had to kill them after being recognized as a cold criminal with no remorse by a notorious crime soldier named Albert Parente. This only opened up a life of crime for Richard. An already established criminal now part of the De Cavalcante family Richards power only grew. Killing became second nature to him. Richard would kill people for almost anything, simply offending or giving him the slightest cold look and hed kill them without hesitation. being a large man did not alter his speed and Richard would attack fast and relentlessly almost always having the element of surprise. He was an unpredictable man with a short fuse alongside his need to carry a .38 revolver and a blade he was a very dangerous person and was feared by all. Many homeless and bar drunks were killed by Richard for simply annoying him. When ordered to kill other criminals from varying mob families he did so without hesitation and used scrapyards and caves to dispose of them. He would hide bodies in trunks and have the cars crushed or would take them down to caves in the woods and have rats eat the bodies. On one occasion  Carmine had asked him to kill and inflict extreme pain on a salesman which Richard acted as a potential client before knocking the man out taking him to the woods tying him to a tree, he then with a hatchet and shovel smashed his ankles and knees then chopped off his fingers one at a time. This was not satisfactory to Richard so he cut the mans head off and returned to Carmine with the head in a plastic bag. This impressed the family and Richard showed them great potential as a contract killer.

Richard had killed nearly sixty-five men by the 1960s Richard had thought his life in murder and crime would thrive however that was not the case, contract killing became slow and truck hijacks were no longer as frequent as they had once been. Richard had also begun gambling away all of his money from killings; which was around 20,000 a kill. Richard was at the realization he was about to hit rock bottom. This was around the time his boss Carmine was taken out in a mob hit in his own kitchen. Leading Richard to cut ties from contract killing and took a job at a trucking company. It was around this time he met Barbara.