March 8, 2006
Richard "The Iceman" Kuklinski, a Dumont hit man who turned raging psychosis into a string of lucrative killings, died Monday in the prison wing of a Trenton hospital.
Following him to the grave is a murder charge against Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, a former Gambino crime family underboss charged with hiring Kuklinski 26 years ago to kill a New York City detective in Upper Saddle River.
But an associate of the hit man's family said Monday that a new mystery has arisen: What killed the 70-year-old Kuklinski?
"He was healthy and robust and he got sick all of a sudden," said Philip Carlo, a New York author who is about to release an extensive Kuklinski biography and had been in constant contact with him the past two years. "Family members believe he was poisoned."
Four months ago, Kuklinski suddenly developed heart, lung and kidney problems, the author said. He also suffered from dementia and could not even remember his wife's phone number or the names of his three children, Carlo said.
Deirdre Fedkenheuer, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Corrections, confirmed that Kuklinski died at St. Francis Medical Center in Trenton, where he was being treated for an undisclosed medical problem.
Fedkenheuer said federal law prevents her from releasing a cause of death. She said only that Kuklinski died of natural causes in the hospital's prison wing.
Kuklinski had recently been moved from New Jersey State Prison to the hospital. Sources said he had been in declining health for some time.
With the demise of their star witness, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said Monday that authorities were dropping the case against Gravano.
"I cannot proceed with this particular matter at this juncture and will be requesting that the court dismiss [it]," he said, following a daylong review of Gravano's file.
At 6 feet 5 inches tall and weighing nearly 300 pounds, the heavily bearded and tattooed Kuklinski became a horror-movie-type villain not just in New Jersey but nationally. In a pair of HBO television specials, Kuklinski detailed the gruesome fates of what he said were 100 victims.
For Kuklinski, killing was a business tactic used to cover up numerous robberies and thefts. Kuklinski shot, stabbed, strangled and poisoned his way into the upper echelon of mass murderers. As a Gambino family enforcer, he was known for killing with such ease that even "wiseguys" became timid around him.
He claimed to have blown up one man with a grenade, stuffed another into a barrel of quick-drying cement and killed another by poisoning his hamburger and stuffing him under a North Bergen motel bed.
He said he also killed Robert Prongay, a Mister Softee ice cream truck driver whose bullet-riddled body was found hanging inside a garage on Tonnelle Avenue in North Bergen.
Kuklinski was arrested by New Jersey authorities in 1986 and charged with five murders. He was convicted in 1988 and sentenced to consecutive life terms for killing Gary T. Smith in 1982 and Daniel E. Deppner in 1983. The two Vernon men had worked under Kuklinski in a robbery and theft ring.
At the trial, Kuklinski was accused of strangling the men after poisoning both with cyanide.
He also pleaded guilty in 1988 to the robbery and shooting deaths of two Pennsylvania businessmen. He froze one of the bodies for months to confuse investigators about the time of death, thus earning him his "Iceman" nickname.
New Jersey State Police captured Kuklinski with the help of Dominick Polifrone of Hackensack, at the time a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent who, posing as a mobster, taped Kuklinski admitting to several killings. It was only after Kuklinski was arrested that Polifrone learned that he was next on the hit man's list.
"The problem was that I was one step ahead of him," the now-retired Polifrone said Monday.
"[Expletive] him," Polifrone added. "He is lucky he had this long life he had in prison. He should have died a long time ago."
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