Richard Leonard Kuklinski was born on April 11, 1935, in Jersey City, New Jersey. He came from a troubled family. His father, Stanley Kuklinski, was a Polish immigrant and worked as a railroad brakeman. His mother, Anna Cecilia McNally, was an Irish American who worked in a meat-packing plant and was very strict about their Catholic upbringing. Richard was the second of four children in the family.

From a young age, Kuklinski faced severe hardships. His father was an alcoholic who frequently abused his family. Stanley abandoned them when Richard was still a child but would return drunk and violent. Tragically, Richard's older brother, Florian, died at the age of seven due to Stanley's beatings. The family covered up the true cause of Florian's death, claiming he fell down stairs. Richard's younger brother, Joseph, later became a criminal, convicted of serious crimes.

Kuklinski's mother was also abusive. She often hit Richard with broom handles and other objects. Once, he witnessed her trying to stab their father. Despite this harsh environment, Richard was raised in the Roman Catholic Church and even served as an altar boy. However, he later rejected Catholicism, thinking of his mother as destructive.

Kuklinski got married for the first time to Linda, who was nine years older than him. They had two sons named Richard Jr. and David. Richard later divorced Linda and married Barbara Pedrici in September 1961. Together, they had two daughters, Merrick and Christin, and a son, Dwayne.

By the time he married Barbara, Kuklinski had built a reputation in their community as a successful businessman. His family and neighbors in Dumont did not know about his criminal background. Barbara believed he was a wholesale distributor, though she suspected some of their money came from illegal activities. Despite her concerns, she chose not to question him.

Throughout his life, Richard exhibited a dual personality. He could be a caring family man, but he also had periods of extreme anger. During these angry episodes, he was physically and emotionally abusive to his family. He was known to have broken Barbara's nose multiple times and even threatened her with a knife when she considered leaving him.

Richard Kuklinski’s known series of murders began in 1980, when he arranged to meet George Malliband, who planned to buy pirated videotapes. During their meeting, Kuklinski shot Malliband five times and stuffed his body into a barrel near a chemical plant. The following year, he murdered Louis Masgay after luring him to a deal for blank videocassettes. In a hallmark of his calculated approach, Kuklinski froze Masgay’s body to obscure the time of death before dumping it over a year later. This technique earned him the nickname “The Iceman.”

In April 1982, Kuklinski killed Paul Hoffman, a pharmacist seeking to buy stolen Tagamet. When his gun jammed, Kuklinski bludgeoned Hoffman to death with a tire iron and disposed of the body in a drum that vanished before it could be recovered.

His violent operations escalated in late 1982 when he grew concerned that members of his burglary crew might turn informant. He lured Gary Smith to a motel room, fed him a cyanide-laced hamburger, and when the poison failed to kill quickly enough, had an associate strangle him. The body was hidden between a mattress and box spring and discovered four days later by a motel manager investigating complaints about the smell.

A few months later, Kuklinski killed Daniel Deppner, another associate, believing he, too, posed a risk. The body was dumped near Clinton Road in New Jersey, partially wrapped in plastic. Investigators later noted cyanide traces and strangulation marks, suggesting he was incapacitated before death.

By 1985, law enforcement suspected Kuklinski’s role in at least five homicides. ATF Special Agent Dominick Polifrone went undercover to build the case, posing as a mob-connected buyer seeking cyanide and contract killings. Over months of recorded conversations, Kuklinski described how he murdered victims calmly with cyanide, firearms, and other methods. In December 1986, Kuklinski was arrested after testing fake cyanide on a stray dog, confirming his suspicions he was being set up.

At trial in 1988, he was convicted of the murders of Smith and Deppner. He later pled guilty to killing Masgay and Malliband, receiving additional life sentences. In 2003, he received another 30-year sentence after confessing to the murder of NYPD detective Peter Calabro—though many authorities doubted the truth of that confession.

While imprisoned, Kuklinski claimed he had killed up to 200 people and worked for multiple Mafia families, including high-profile hits. However, organized crime experts widely regarded these claims as fabrications designed to embellish his reputation. He became the subject of three HBO documentaries, several biographies, and the 2012 film The Iceman. After nearly two decades in prison, Kuklinski died of cardiac arrest on March 5, 2006, at age 70.