If you are interested in true crime documentaries, you must have heard about Richard Kuklinski and his last words. His life and violent exploits have been the subject of several documentaries.
Curiously, he was also a family man with a wife and kids. Dwayne Kuklinski, one of his kids, was in his late teens when his dad was captured and sent to jail.
Richard Kuklinski, alias “The Polack” and “The Iceman,” worked as a mob assassin for the six most potent East Coast crime families in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
He murdered the Bonannos, Colombos, Genoveses, Colombi, and the Gambino and DeCavalcante crime families. He killed about 200 people throughout his career, including every friend he’d ever had except the one who betrayed him.
After nearly 30 years of murder and mayhem, Kuklinski was apprehended by an undercover detective and condemned to prison in 1988.
Richard Kuklinski Family And Poverty
In 1935, Kuklinski was born and found only poverty and abuse. Stanley, Richard’s dad, was abusive to his wife and kids. Just five years old, Richard watched as his father fatally beat their older brother.
Every time Stanley got drunk or frustrated, he would lash out at the little kid by striking him in the head. They told the police that Florian had fallen down the stairs as a cover story.
For Richard, this is likely one of his first and most traumatic recollections of his father. His mother was a broken woman who would also abuse him, and he had no affection for her. The word “cancer” eventually becomes his shorthand for her.
As a child, Richard was the target of bullying at home, in the classroom, and on the playground. The culmination of this was his killing the bully from his youth.
Richard’s first goal was to get the boy off his back, but once he started, he couldn’t stop punching the kid. Charley Lane had stopped moving by the time he arrived.
He ripped out his teeth and severed the fingers to prevent the body from being traced. Even though he was just 13, Richard’s notions about criminality came from reading actual crime publications.
Although he claimed that killing the bully wasn’t his original intent, he proceeded on a killing spree against the rest of Lane’s gang.
He earned a reputation as a dangerous adversary. Richard finally felt like he had some control over his life.
Three years later, at 16, he committed his first premeditated murder of a police officer named Officer Doyle, who had made fun of him during a game of pool. Kuklinski accomplished this by lighting the victim on fire and standing back to watch him smoulder.
Why did He enjoy killing homeless people?
When he was younger, he strolled around Manhattan’s Upper East Side and picked fights with random strangers. An aggressive beggar on the street inspired him to start killing for fun.
After Richard stabbed him, he collapsed into the gutter. Seeing the body on his way home gave him a perverse sense of satisfaction.
Before becoming a contract killer, he was already a serial killer. Richard estimated that he had killed roughly 50 men at random during this time. His body count eventually reached 200 people.
How Richard Kuklinski died?
Kawasaki sickness, the fatal condition that took Richard’s life, is highly uncommon and often exclusively affects Japanese youngsters. He died Sunday at the Trenton, New Jersey, facility’s prison ward. He was 70.
Interestingly enough, it’s very similar to the signs of mercury poisoning. Consider that this occurred after he had already given multiple interviews in which he revealed mafia techniques. The consensus is that he was poisoned.
Before his death, Richard had told his loved ones that he believed he was being poisoned because of the testimony he was about to give against another mobster, Sammy “The Bull” Gravano.
The lack of evidence led to the dismissal of the charges against Gravano for the hit.
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Richard Kkuklinski Siblings
Joey Kuklinski, the younger brother of Kuklinski, was 25 when he raped a 12-year-old girl and threw her and her dog from the fifth floor of a building.
The barking of the dog called the police. Joey instantly confessed to the crime after his arrest. He will spend the next 33 years in Trenton State Prison.
Richard remarked that he wasn’t surprised by his brother’s behaviour because they shared a father. Over 20 years later, when Richard was sent to prison, the two would share a cell block, although they bore no resemblance to brothers.
Richard Kuklinski’s Wife As His Victim
She may have been his wife, but Richard considers her his unluckiest companion. He figuratively stabbed her in the back when she decided to end their relationship.
She became pregnant, and her family, fearing for her reputation, pushed her to marry Kuklinski.
They even footed the bill for his divorce from Linda, the first wife he brutalized and eventually alienated. The first family he abandoned, which included two children, would be the fortunate ones.
After they were wed, he beat Barbara so severely that she had three miscarriages and a partial delivery before they finally produced a kid.
The baby’s leg was breached when she was taken to the hospital. She was carrying a son and was five months along.
Understandably, Barbara was unable to comfort anyone. It would be the case for her until Richard’s imprisonment in 1988.
Though she recognized his monstrous nature, she denied knowing anything about his undercover work for the mafia.
Richard Kuklinski Children
He warned his children that he would have to kill them if he ever killed their mother by beating her.
There were three children born to Richard and Barbara. Despite their comfortable middle-class lifestyle and frequent trips to DisneyWorld—Richard’s alleged happy place—Kukinski was not a role model as a parent.
Although he made considerable efforts to prevent physical abuse of his children, mental abuse was prevalent. In his final hours, only Merrick, his favourite daughter, told him she loved him.
He confided in her about his horrible past because she was the only one who loved him back.
The children were always prepared to evacuate if Richard killed their mother by keeping “go bags” ready.
In 2012’s The Iceman, starring Michael Shannon and Winona Ryder, Merrick was offended by her father’s portrayal.
After the show, she told Ryder, who played Barbara, “If the character you played had been my mother, my life would have been very different.” Richard was a family man in the picture.
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