Dennis Monokrousos
Criminal Profile Paper
Criminology

Every criminal has a different story. Some lived the good life and turned sour, some had a bad life and some have the criminal instinct in their blood. Quoting Jeremy Bentham, people act to increase positive result through their pursuit of pleasure, avoidance of pain. Most serious criminals want to get away from their own pain that they take it out on others, which makes them feel good about themselves.
Richard Kuklinski was born on April 11, 1935 to poor Polish parents in a low income housing project in Jersey City his father is Stanley worked as a brake men for the railroad and his mother Anna worked in a meat packing plant. Both his father, who was an alcoholic, and mother were very abusive toward Kuklinski which led him to grow up hating them. His mother sometimes even beat him and his siblings with a broom handle. He grew up going to a Catholic grammar school and worked as an altar boy in the church. His father eventually abandoned the family leaving Kuklinski to fend for himself. In 1940, Stanley’s beatings resulted in the death of Kuklinski is older brother Florian. Kuklinski’s parents hid that death from the police by saying he fell down a flight of stairs. His younger brother Joseph was convicted of raping and killing a 12 year old girl as an adult and died in 2003 after spending 30 years in jail. By age 10, Kuklinski was filled with anger and rage and began to act out. He would torture animals for fun and fantasize about killing his father. Kuklinski was known to tie cats together by their tails and throwing them over clotheslines and watching them tear each other apart. He would also put them in the apartment incinerator and watch as they burned alive. By age of 14 in 1949, he committed his first murder. He took a steel clothing rod from his closet and ambushed Charlie Lane, a bully and leader of a small gang that picked on him. Kuklinski unintentionally beat Lane to death. He felt remorse for Lane’s death for a short time but then saw it as a way to feel powerful and in control. He then went on and nearly beat to death the remaining six gang members. Barely out of his teenage years, Kuklinski had the reputation of being an “explosive tough street thug” who would beat or kill anyone he didn’t like or upset him. According to Kuklinski, during this time is when his connection with Roy DeMeo, the most feared hit man for the Gambino family and an associate for the Gambino family, was started. Soon he was doing hit jobs for the family and working with a gang that operated from the Gemini lounge in Brooklyn, NY. Kuklinski’s brutality allowed him to collect money from debtors who either paid in money or their lives. In the basement of the lounge, the bodies were hacked up and carried out wrapped in plastic to be disposed of. Due to the fear Kuklinski put on people most repaid their debts to the family. Brutality would often lead to death for a number of his targets. This included of inducing his victims to bleed and tying them up in rat infested locations. The rats who are lured to the smell of blood would gradually consumed the victims alive. He also enjoyed carving his victims alive with the power saw. He killed thirteen of his the victims after severing their lower spines with a screwdriver. They would be paralyzed and couldn’t move as they watched as he sliced their bodies apart. Whenever Kuklinski was asked why he did it that way, he said he did for the “physical exercise.” He was also a pro in using cyanide to poison his victims. He would get it in liquid form and place it in their beverage or just spilling it on them. He disposed his victims in lakes, roadsides, park benches and crushing them in cars at a junkyard. While being a hit man in, 1960 he met 19 year old Barbara Hendren. They married in 1961 and had three children, two girls and one boy. By the 1970s, Kuklinski had become well off from being a hit man. He and his