Richard Kuklinski

Richard Kuklinski

Richard Leonard Kuklinski was an American serial criminal and hitman. In 1988, he was sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of killing two members of his burglary gang and two other associates. In 2003, he received an additional 30-year sentence after confessing to the murder of a mob-connected police officer. He claimed to have murdered anywhere from 100 to 250 men.

About Richard Kuklinski in brief

Summary Richard KuklinskiRichard Leonard Kuklinski was an American serial criminal and hitman. In 1988, he was sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of killing two members of his burglary gang and two other associates. In 2003, he received an additional 30-year sentence after confessing to the murder of a mob-connected police officer. He claimed to have murdered anywhere from 100 to 250 men, often in gruesome fashion. He also alleged that he worked as a hitman for the Mafia, and that he was a participant in several famous Mafia killings. These claims are considered dubious by law enforcement and mob experts. He was the subject of three HBO documentaries aired in 1992, 2001 and 2003; two biographies, a 2012 feature film starring Michael Shannon and Winona Ryder, and a play. His family stated that they were unaware of his crimes. His older brother Florian died at the age of seven from injuries inflicted by his father during a violent beating. The family lied to police, saying that Florian had accidentally fallen down a flight of steps. His first son, Roberta, was the second son, who was convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl and murdering her by throwing her off the top of a five-story building. While working for a trucking company, he met a woman named Barbara Pedric, with whom he had two sons aged nine and nine years old. He had a younger brother and a younger sister, Josepha. He would sometimes fantasize about murdering his father when he was torturing stray dogs he captured around his hometown neighborhood.

As a young boy, he would throw living cats into basement incinerators, watching through the thick glass oven doors as the terrified feline ran around until consumed by the fire. His mother was a zealous Catholic and believed that stern discipline should be accompanied by a strict religious upbringing, the same way she was raised. She raised her son in the Roman Catholic Church, where he became an altar boy, but he later rejected Catholicism. He said he regretted not killing his father, Stanley Kukliński. Stanley abandoned the family while Richard was still a child, but returned periodically, usually drunk, and his returns were often followed by more beatings for Richard. He recalled an incident during his pre-teen years when his mother attempted to kill Stanley with a kitchen knife, He was born in his family’s apartment on 4th Street in Jersey City, New Jersey, to Stanisław and Anna McNally. He lived with his wife and children in the New Jersey suburb of Dumont. His wife was also often abusive, She would beat Richard with broom handles and other household objects. He later married a woman nine years his senior named Linda Pedric and had a son named Roberta Pedric who was nine years older than he was. He died in a car crash in 2007. He is survived by his wife, Robert, Robert and his two sons Roberta and Roberta.