Of Kuklinski's known murder victims, two (Gary Smith and Daniel Deppner) had been members of his burglary gang, whom he killed to protect himself when law enforcement began to close in on them. Jerry Capeci, author of Murder Machine, and former Colombo capo Michael Franzese have also disputed Kuklinski's involvement with DeMeo.
However, several of the DeMeo crew later became FBI informants, and none of them mentioned Kuklinski. He claimed to have been the favorite hitman of notorious Mafia murderer Roy DeMeo, and that he later killed DeMeo himself. He bragged of killing up to 250 men, although the details of most of these murders are sketchy. Some of his claims - that he killed former Teamsters union leader Jimmy Hoffa and that he gunned down two New York Mafia bosses - were obviously untrue. It is known that he also dealt in pirated pornography, carried out robberies and ran a burglary gang. He undoubtedly killed people (the exact number is unknown). He was a lifelong criminal who had few legitimate jobs in his life, but earned enough money from his activities to give his family a comfortable lifestyle. After his incarceration he often spoke about his crimes, sometimes truthfully, sometimes less so. It is difficult to separate fact from fiction in Richard Kuklinski's criminal career. They weren't informed of his criminal activities until after he was caught, but were instead led to believe that he was a businessman.īecoming a Hitman, Arrest, Incarceration, and Death They later married and had three children, two daughters and a son, together. In 1960, he met a woman named Barbara Pedrici. He dropped out of school in the eighth grade. He then attacked the six other gang members, almost killing all of them. At the age of 14, he committed his first known murder, beating Charley Chase, the leader of a teenage gang, to death, throwing him off of a bridge and removing his teeth and fingertips to prevent identification. He was known to tie cats together by their tails, throw them over clothing lines and watch them tear each other apart. At the age of 10, Richard started torturing animals and would fantasize about killing his father. The younger, Joseph, was convicted of raping and killing a 12-year-old girl as an adult and died in 2003 after spending almost 30 years in prison. The oldest, Florian, was beaten to death in 1940 by Stanley, who made the rest of the family cover it up as an accident and say he had fallen down the stairs. He had two brothers, one older and one younger. His mother, Anna, was also abusive, beating their children with broomsticks. His father, Stanley Kuklinski, was an abusive alcoholic who beat everyone in the family. Kuklinski was born in a housing project in Jersey City, New Jersey on April 11, 1935. 2 Becoming a Hitman, Arrest, Incarceration, and Death.