Richard Kuklisnki, known as the ‘Iceman’ for his method of freezing victims to mask the time of death, claimed to have killed up to 100 in a criminal career spanning three decades. Kuklinski worked as a hitman for the mafia whilst at the same time living a normal family existence with a wife and children who were apparently oblivious to his devious double life. Born into a household plagued by violence, Kuklinski, according to his own testimony, was beaten on a daily basis by his Irish mother and alcoholic Polish father. How much of Kuklisnki’s psychopathic personality was passed on by his parents? And how much of his traumatic upbringing was invented by Kuklinski as a way of rationalising his crimes? MacIntyre and criminologist Dr Elizabeth Yardley explore the force of destruction that was Richard Kuklinski.
