Kuklinksi did not always use a pistol with a silencer as pictured above and he later remarked that the sound of a pistol or shotgun being fired inside a car when he was eliminating someone was very loud and disorientating, but he still got on with it.

Kuklinski was however nicknamed "The Iceman" by the FBI as he disguised the time of death of his victims by freezing their corpses in an industrial freezer.  Kuklinski later stated that he got the idea from fellow hitman Robert Pronge, a military trained demolitions expert turned hit man,  nicknamed "Mister Softee" who drove a Mister Softee ice cream van  to help hide his auspicious activities.

 It was Pronge who actually taught Kuklinski how to use cyanide to kill his victims. Kuklinski also claimed to have purchased remotely detonated hand grenades from Pronge. 

It is thought that maybe Pronge knew too much about Kuklinski and that he may have made some threats towards him, this would have been enough reason for Kuklinksi to kill him.  In 1984 Pronge was targeted for the hit and  was found slumped over in his ice cream van with multiple gunshot wounds to the head. The image below shows Pronge dead in his van.

Kuklinski's method of freezing corpses as trained by Pronge was uncovered by the authorities when he failed to let one of his victims thaw our properly before dumping the body in a local park.   On a warm summer's night the body was discovered and the coroner upon examination found ice in the centre of  the corpse which suggested the body had been frozen...in this case over two years previously.

When the authorities finally arrested Kuklinski in 1986, their case was based almost entirely on the testimony of  undercover agent Dominick Polifrone.  New Jersey State Police detective Pat Kane had been on  Kuklinski's case for six years, the investigation involved a joint operation with the New Jersey Attorney General's office and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms a branch of the FBI

Special Agent Dominick Polifrone had specialist undercover experience dealing with the Mafiosi and with the New Jersey State Police and the Bureau, he began joint operations with them.  Detective Kane recruited Phil Solimene, a close friend of Kuklinski, who introduced undercover agent Polifrone to the killer.

FBI agent Polifrone who was microphone wired, pretended that he wanted to contract Kuklinski out for a hit, and recorded him speaking in detail about how he would go about it.  Polifrone later stated that  whilst talking to him he thought he was talking to the devil, and he could feel the pure evil from him.  Polifrone asked if he could do a nice quiet hit and, Kuklinski replied in a business like manner " ...where there's a will there's a way my friend...don't worry about it"

Hitmen like Kuklinksi did not  go around putting on airs and graces and acting the part of the big mean killer, instead they were quiet, calm, determined and collected individuals that kept a low profile.  They could approach their victim with a smile and a handshake, they could take the prospective victim out for lunch, or sit and chat for hours and then when the right opportunity arose...kill them.

Almost every time, the victim did not know he was about to die, it was never advertised to them before hand.  Kuklinski would walk up to his victim, quickly pull out his gun and shoot him in the head straight away, no chat, no messing, no fumbling about, job done.

 When state police and federal agents went to arrest Kuklinski they blocked off his entire street and agents went in and arrested  him.  His wife was also arrested and she was charged with gun possession because the family car was registered under her name.  When she was arrested, a police officer apparently put his boot on her back while she lay on the ground being handcuffed. This enraged Kuklinski and he broke out into a fight with the officers and it took between six and eight of them to hold him down.

During his incarceration, Kuklinski  allowed  interviews with prosecutors, psychiatrists, criminologists, writers, and television producers and openly discussed his criminal career, upbringing, and personal life.  Two documentaries, featuring interviews of Kuklinski by Dr. Park Dietz  were aired on HBO after interviews in 1991 and 2001.  Philip Carlo also wrote a best selling book in 2006, simply entitled The Ice Man.

Below I present a youtube video that is part one of twelve, taken whilst Kuklinski was in prison of him talking about his life as a Mafiosi hitman.

Kuklinski told an HBO interviewer that he once he wanted to use a small crossbow to carry out a hit but wanted to test its lethality first.  So he got into his car and drove a while, eventually stopping with the pretence of asking for directions from a pedestrian, as the man bent down to peer into the side window, Kuklinski immediately shot him in the forehead "...it went half way into his head,"  when later asked if it did indeed kill him, Kuklinski casually replied " it sure did ! "

He confessed that he only had one regret whilst being a mafia hitman and that was the way he went about a particular hit, he was about to shoot a man that he had captured and the man began praying for his life.  Kuklinski said to the man "I will give God half an hour to change the circumstances but if there's no change, I'll kill you"  then Kuklinski continued... "The circumstances didn't alter, so after the 30 minutes was up, I killed him."

Kuklinski stated "I would move heaven, hell and anything in between to get you, You wouldn’t be safe anywhere..." and that once he was contracted to kill someone that he never ever failed.  He guaranteed his work, once he was contracted to kill you, you were a dead man, regardless of where you were, what you were doing or who you were with, there was no escape.  His reputation preceded him, his record was impeccable, he was highly recommended as one of the best "Enforcers" and Kuklinski prided himself on all of this.

Although never proven, John Gotti the Gambino  Mafia boss as seen below would have used Kuklinski at some time to "whack" ( kill ) someone.  These guys live in a different world to the rest of us where they believed they could just kill anyone for any reason at any time...and often did.  If they were caught, then they often became a "stool pigeon" and ratted on the whole crew.  The old and quite truthful saying goes There is no honor amongst thieves and when in a jam its normally every man for himself.

Kuklinski's fee for a hit was upwards of  $20,000 including expenses, he never turned down a job, but as a small saving grace, he refused to kill women or children.  He claimed that apart from that, all of his assigned hits were carried out and that he never let anyone get away.  He did state that he once toyed with the idea of letting a man go free but he changed his mind and shot him dead anyway.

 At 1:15 a.m on March 5th, 2006, the 70 year old Richard " The Iceman" Kuklinski, died.  He was held in a high security wing at St. Francis Medical Center in Trenton, New Jersey due to illness.  Coincidentally at the time of his death, Kuklinski was to testify against former Gambino Mafia underboss Sammy "The Bull " Gravano, (pictured below) who had contracted him to kill N.Y.P.D Detective Peter Calabro.

It was on the night of March 14th, 1980, that Kuklinski was ready to carry out the hit.  He had waited patiently for several hours for Calabro to drive from Queens in New York to Saddle River in New Jersey.  Kuklinski hid behind a van that he had previously double parked on the street, as Calabro slowed to drive around the van, he stepped out and shot him in the head at close range with a sawn off shotgun.    Kuklinski later denied knowing that Peter Calabro ( pictured below )was a serving police officer, but said it would have made no difference as he always carried out a hit and would have killed him regardless.

At the time, Gravano was already imprisoned, serving a 19 year stretch for operating an ecstasy drug ring in Arizona.  Kuklinski stated that he believed the Gambino family were slowly poisoning him, a  few days after his death, prosecutors were forced to drop all charges against Gravano, as there was no case without Kuklinski's testimony.  Kuklinski's body underwent an autopsy at the behest of his surviving family, carried out by the excellent forensic pathologist Michael Baden.  The autopsy was to determine if he had indeed been poisoned but the final conclusion was that he had died of natural causes.

This may be ironic because if Kuklinski had been poisoned with cyanide then it would have looked like death by natural causes.  As stated earlier, a small but lethal dose of cyanide is extremely difficult to detect in the system, Kuklinski may have been killed by his own favorite method.