Serial Killer: Richard Kuklinski - Term Paper Example

 Serial Killer: Richard Kuklinski Introduction The term serial killer is used to define people who have murdered three or more people in the course of at least one month, with some down time in between murders. Although these murders are committed as distinctive events, they are not necessarily unrelated since they encompass certain similar and vital characteristics. The motivation of serial killers is typically based on their psychological gratification. One of the most notorious, self-confessed serial killers in American history is Richard Kuklinski. Kuklinski was a contract killer who confessed to over 200 murders over a criminal career that lasted approximately 30 years. Kuklinski, who was nicknamed “The Iceman” was born in April 11, 1935 and died on March 5, 2006 while in prison. He worked for numerous Italian-American crime families, including the Gambino family (Carlo, 2006). The purpose of this paper is to provide a succinct description of the life of Richard Kuklinski, an infamous serial killer, discussing his social history, the crimes he committed and the inherent psychological disorders that instigated his criminal behavior. Social History Kuklinski was born in the projects in Jersey City, New Jersey to Anna and Stanley Kuklinski of Polish heritage. Kuklinski was the second of four children. Stanley, who worked as a railroad brakeman, was an extremely abusive alcoholic who constantly battered his wife and children. Anna worked at a meat processing plant, and was an extremely strict and devout Catholic. However, Anna was also quite abusive to Kuklinski, at some instances, beating him with broom handles. Anna believed that stern discipline must be buttressed by a strict religious upbringing, and raised Kuklinski in the Catholic Church where he soon became an altar boy. Stanley’s beatings caused the death of Kuklinski’s older brother, Florian, in 1940. As soon as Stanley discovered that Florian was dead, he ordered his wife to call the hospital and claim that their son had fallen down a flight of steps. Soon after this incident, Stanley abandoned his family, leaving Kuklinski to fend for himself. By the time he was 10 years old; Kuklinski was already known for his explosive temper, as well as his willingness to kill. Kuklinski started acting out by torturing his neighbors’ pets for fun (Carlo, 2006). By the age of 14, Kuklinski had already committed his initial murder: he took a steel clothing rod from his closet and ambushed a Charlie Lane, a neighborhood bully and leader of a miniature gang, which had bullied him (Kuklinski). Kuklinski unintentionally beat Lane to death. He claimed to have felt remorse for Lane’s death for a brief period, but he soon saw the murder as a way to feel in control and extremely powerful (Carlo, 2006). Consequently, Kuklinski almost beat to death the other six members of Lane's gang. Kuklinski’s other brother; Joseph (1944-2003) was imprisoned for raping and murdering a 12-year old girl. When Kuklinski was questioned about Joseph’s crimes, he retorted that they came from the same father. Before his arrest, Kuklinski lived with his wife, Barbara Pedrici and three children in Durmont, New Jersey. Pedrici initially considered Kuklinski as a sweet and giving man who, but like his father, started beating and terrorizing his wife and children (Carlo, 2006). However, on the outside, Kuklinski’s family was admired by friends and neighbors as a happy and well adjusted family. Crimes Committed Before his early twenties, Kuklinski had gained the reputation of an extremely explosive tough street hustler who beat and murdered those who disliked or offended him. It was during his twenties that Kuklinski’s association with Roy DeMeo, a member of the Gambino crime family, started. Kuklinski started by raiding Hell’s Kitchen looking for victims. His killing career started when DeMeo took him to a random city street and demanded that Kuklinski kill a random man walking his dog. Without questioning the order, Kuklinski murdered the man with a single gunshot to the head (Carlo, 2006). Over the next three decades, Kuklinski killed people by gun, knife, poison, especially cyanide, or strangulation. His victims were mostly men, never women. These men consisted of people who rubbed Kuklinski the wrong way, for slight or imagined reasons. Kuklinski shot, stabbed and battered men to death, left some of his victims where they dropped and dumped some in the Hudson River. For Kuklinski, murder was a sport. From his personal statements, Kuklinski affirmed that he constantly hurt and murdered people for making him feel bad about something. However, his foremost pet peeve was loudmouthed individuals since they reminded him of his abusive father. Kuklinski preferred to kill people using cyanide because it killed instantaneously and was relatively difficult to detect during postmortem toxicology tests. Kuklinski also preferred cyanide to other murder methods since its administration was quite easy through a simple injection, putting it in people’s food, spilling it on the victims’ skins or through aerosol spray. With regard to his method of disposing of bodies, Kuklinski preferred to place the bodies in 55-gallon oil drums. He also used dismemberment, burial or placing the bodies in car trunks and having them crushed in junkyards. Kuklinski sometimes left bodies sitting on benches in parks. Kuklinski was initially nicknamed “The Polack” due to his Polish lineage, but he later earned the nickname “Iceman” following his experimentation with camouflaging his victims’ times of death by freezing their corpses in industrial freezers (Carlo, 2006). Kuklinski claimed to have utilized a Mister Softee ice cream truck to accomplish this purpose. Criminal Theory of Behavior Kuklinski’s criminal behavior can be explained by the psychological theory. Criminologists who concentrate on the psychological theory of criminal conduct or defiance consider criminal conduct as the result of a number of individual factors, which compel a person to act defiantly or through criminal conduct. This theory of criminal behavior argues that such conduct occurs as a direct consequence of adverse childhood experiences, as well as insufficient socialization (Hopkins, 2001). These factors have an adverse effect on people’s thinking patterns as well as their cognitive developments. Therefore, Kuklinski’s criminal behavior may have been instigated by his parents’ abusiveness towards him. In his biography, Kuklinski claimed to have killed people he thought had somewhat similar characteristics to those of his father, for instance, violent alcoholism and being loud mouthed. Kuklinski’s mother’s strictness and demands for Kuklinski to devout his life to the Catholic Church may also have denied Kuklinski the appropriate level of socialization he required to live a fruitful and crime-free life. The abuse meted on him during his childhood triggered a psychological appreciation for abuse, violence and a fierce temper. Therefore, when Kuklinski got the chance to vent his anger, he was unable to do so in a socially upright manner, for instance, by torturing and killing his neighbors’ pets. Kuklinski cognitive development was relatively incomplete compared to that of his peers who experienced sufficient socialization during childhood. The psychological motives for Kuklinski’s violent conduct can be attributed to the insult, trauma and overstimulation he experienced during his childhood (Hopkins, 2001). In addition, Kuklinski’s childhood conduct is similar to that of adolescents diagnosed with conduct disorder. This disorder is characterized by extreme antisocial behavior such as animal cruelty and torture. Conduct disorder during Kuklinski’s childhood served as a predictor of his psychopathy during adulthood. For Kuklinski, his desire for killing started with an introductory act in which he killed Charlie Lane. However, with time, the anticipation of the act of killing coupled with the sense of exhilaration and promise became somewhat addictive to Kuklinski, making his desire to kill even stronger. As prescribed under the psychological theory, once Kuklinski completed the act of killing, he experienced an elevated sense of self-satisfaction (Bartol, 2005). His exhilaration and satisfaction, which psychopathic individuals crave based on their physiology, reinforced Kuklinski’s antisocial tendencies. Kuklinski was not empathetic to his victims’ feelings of pain, thus he did not afford his victims any special rights. Psychological Disorders When psychiatrist Dr. Park Dietz interviewed Kuklinski after the latter’s capture at Trenton State Prison, the psychiatrist considered Kuklinski’s upbringing, family history, criminal history and other events in his past before making a diagnosis. In the interview, Kuklinski voiced his desire to discover what mental irregularities or events made him capable of performing the acts for which he was imprisoned. Dr. Dietz cited nature vs. nurture, arguing that his professional opinion was that both factors played a role in Kuklinski’s development into a serial killer who was functional in other areas of his life. The doctor poised that Kuklinski probably inherited antisocial personality disorder from his abusive parents, and as a consequence, the abuse he suffered from his father reinforced his abusive and violent tendencies that required a lack of conscience and love (Bartol, 2005). Dr. Dietz also argued that Kuklinski suffered from paranoid personality disorder. During his trial, no attempt was made to utilize these diagnoses to make a plea for insanity. I believe this is because the diagnoses were only conducted after the trial was complete and the offender was incarcerated. Perhaps if the diagnoses were made prior to the trial, Kuklinski’s attorneys would have used them to plead for insanity. Paranoid personality disorder, classification number 301.0 is listed under Cluster A of the list of personality disorders in DSM-V (APA, 2013). This category focuses on personality traits, as well as relationships of the disorder to mental disorder in which the behaviors occur. Paranoid personality disorder is inherently a mental disorder typified by paranoia, pervasive, generalized or long-standing mistrust of others. People with paranoid personality disorder are typically hypersensitive, easily feel insulted, and normally relate to the rest of the world through vigilant screening of the environment for clues that justify their biases or fears. On the other hand, antisocial personality disorder also appears on the same classification category as paranoid disorder. However, antisocial personality disorder, classification number 301.7 is a Cluster B personality disorder. The American Psychiatric Association (APA, 2013) defines antisocial personality disorder as a pervasive pattern of disrespect for, as well as violation of, the rights of other people. This disorder begins during childhood and progresses into adulthood. People suffering from antisocial personality disorder have a poor sense of morality and conscience and are prone to impulsive and extremely aggressive behavior. Notably, the antisocial personality disorder falls under the erratic/dramatic category of personality disorders (APA, 2013). The characteristics, which typify the disorders, were all evident in Kuklinski’s behaviors. Capture Law enforcement agents eventually caught up with Kuklinski in 1986, they centered their entire case on the testimony of Dominick Polifrone, an undercover agent to whom Kuklinski had boasted of his killings, as well as the evidence built by Pat Kane, a New Jersey State Police detective who had started the case against Kuklinski at least six years earlier. Kuklinski’s arrest occurred two hours after he met with an undercover federal agent to buy cyanide for a premeditated murder. A firearm was found in Kuklinski’s vehicle and his wife was arrested for attempting to deter Kuklinski’s arrest. Kuklinski was charged with five counts of murder, attempted murder, attempted robbery, robbery and six weapons violations. In 1988, a New Jersey found Kuklinski guilty of five murders and sentenced him to consecutive life sentences, making him eligible for parole after the age of 110 years. In 2003, Kuklinski also pleaded guilty to the murder of Peter Calabro, a New York Police Department detective, murdered in 1980. This added 30 years to Kuklinski’s sentence (Carlo, 2006). Prior to his death, Kuklinski was scheduled to testify against Sammy Gravano, the former Gambino crime family underboss who was considered to have ordered the killing of Calabro and was serving a 19-year sentence for an unrelated crime. Kuklinski believed that the crime family was poisoning him and several days after his death in a secure wing at the St. Francis Medical Center, a forensic pathologist termed Kuklinski’s cause of death as natural causes (Carlo, 2006). Conclusion Kuklinski is arguably one of the most notorious serial killers of his time. With at least 200 murders under his belt, Kuklinski was a highly disturbed individual who was diagnosed with two distinct personality disorders; paranoid personality disorder (DSM-V 301.0) and antisocial personality disorder (DSM-V 301.7) (APA, 2013). Kuklinski’s killing spree can be attributed to the psychological theory of criminal behavior, which speaks to Kuklinski’s personality and mental state during cognitive and mental different development stages of his life. References American Psychiatric Association (APA). (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM) (5th ed.). Virginia: American Psychiatric Publishing. Bartol, A. M. (2005). Criminal behavior: A psychosocial approach. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. Carlo, P.  (2006). The Iceman. New York: St. Martin's Griffin. Hopkins, B. R. (2001). An introduction to criminological theory. Criminal Justice Review, 377, 381. 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