The Iceman – Confessions of a Mafia Hitman

I recently watched this documentary as some background listening while me and Christine were eating our dinner. I didn’t really know anything about Richard Kuklinski or his crimes up until now, but this dude is one scary guy.

One of his preferred methods of killing was using cyanide to poison people without them even knowing they were being targeted. Furthermore, as I understand it, unless you are specifically looking for cyanide you would not find it. So it seems that many of his murders appeared to be death of natural causes. They don’t even know all the people that he actually killed.

I think that this guy is one of those people who kills without even feeling anything. As you watch him speak, you can see him draw breath and click his teeth often. It is actually intimidating, like watching a wolf salivating. You can’t help but wonder what is truly going on in this guy’s head? Is he sitting there fantasizing about killing the interviewer? Does he actually remember the killings he committed and feel any remorse or regret? Do they torment his waking moments?

According to him he only regrets one murder and that’s because he tormented the guy by saying “I will give you a half hour to pray and see if God comes and changes your circumstances.” God did not come and the circumstances were not changed. So he killed the guy. During the interview he says “I should not have done that.”

It seems that the only thing he truly regrets is hurting his family. He said that he wishes that he didn’t have to do these killings or feel the way he does, which is to feel nothing at all. I wonder if he truly feels no remorse or if he’s just lying to look like he’s really hard? When directly asked what he thought about his crimes he said “I don’t, I don’t think about them because they’ll make me feel bad. I don’t think about them, it was just something I did.”

I think this guy truly earns the title of sociopath and I believe this is the scariest kind of criminal because they simply don’t feel anything about murder. A person who is incapable of empathy, sympathy or understanding the pain that they cause by taking a life is truly a scary person indeed. I am glad that this man made the few mistakes he made to get himself caught and taken off the streets. The world is a much safer place with this man behind bars.

I’ve seen interviews with some people who say they are sociopaths. But those folks have founds ways to exist in society and “act” the way they are supposed to in “polite society.” Some of them seemed to be like Kuklinski or worse in terms of how they feel nothing. But they are self aware and don’t commit heinous crimes. So one can’t help but wonder, could Kuklinski have done the same thing? Could he have been a normal person and not a horrible, scary killer?