On this day in 1935 one of the most talked about and controversial hitmen was born in New Jersey. His name was Richard Kuklinski, better known as The Iceman.

Kuklinski was said to have murdered over 200 people, committing his first murder at the age of 14. He got the nickname Iceman because he would freeze victims to obscure the time that they were killed. He died in prison, in 2006.

On this day in 1935, one of the most feared and controversial figures in organised crime history was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. His name was Richard Leonard Kuklinski, though the world would come to know him simply as The Iceman — a nickname that carried with it a chilling double meaning that perfectly encapsulated the man's cold-blooded nature.

Kuklinski grew up in a brutally abusive household in the poverty-stricken neighbourhoods of Jersey City, where violence was a daily reality long before he ever stepped foot into the criminal underworld. By his own admission, he committed his first murder at just 14 years old, beating a local bully named Charley Lane to death with a wooden dowel rod. Rather than flee from the act in horror, Kuklinski reportedly felt nothing — a psychological detachment that would define his career as a killer for decades to come.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Kuklinski found his way into the orbit of the DeCavalcante crime family and later developed significant ties to the Gambino family, carrying out contract killings on behalf of powerful figures within the New York mob world. He reportedly worked closely with Roy DeMeo, the notoriously brutal Gambino associate whose crew were responsible for dozens of murders during the same era. Kuklinski was valued precisely because he was an outsider — not a made man, but a freelance killer who could be used without leaving a direct trail back to the families themselves.

He earned his infamous nickname not through any particular fondness for cold weather, but through his practical method of freezing victims' bodies in industrial freezers before dumping them. This technique effectively confused forensic investigators by obscuring the precise time of death, making it extraordinarily difficult to establish alibis or timelines. He is believed to have used a staggering variety of methods to carry out killings, including poison, firearms, crossbows, and his bare hands, claiming over 200 murders across a career spanning several decades — though investigators have verified a significantly smaller number.

Kuklinski was eventually brought down through an undercover operation led by ATF and New Jersey State Police investigators, with detective Pat Kane playing a pivotal role in his capture. He was arrested in December 1986, convicted of multiple murders, and died in Trenton State Prison on 5th March 2006, aged 70.

His legacy endures through multiple documentary interviews he gave whilst incarcerated, offering a rare and deeply unsettling window into the mind of a professional killer, and cementing his place as one of the most talked-about criminal figures in American mob history.