The Iceman Cometh
Without Prejudice
Like most human beings I am fascinated with deviance, crime and all things that are incomprehensible to "normal" human behaviour. I have just finished reading The Iceman, the story of Richard Kuklinksi, a mafia hit man. He had a talent for killing, in cold blood, and not even thinking twice about it. Its disconcerting to know that people like Kuklinsky live and survive in this world, that they walk amongst us and go largely unrecognised.
They seem so normal. Richard was able to live a double life, on the one hand a normal husband, father, church goer and on the other a stone cold killer with the nickname "Iceman". He could kill with no remorse, no feeling, no emotion. Sometimes he would just not kill for hire but for payback. If he felt slighted or humiliated or even just because someone annoyed him. A gun was impersonal, the garrote, the poison, the knife, more personal.
It's hard to imagine what it would be like to come across someone like that. A person with no impulse control, no morals and yet viewing his live interviews, there is something else there. Something dead, something unable to stop harming others and ultimately himself. It's so revealing for him to say he has hurt everything he has ever loved or meant something to him. That he just couldn't stop. He is the scorpion in the fable of the frog and the scorpion. A victim of his birth and upbringing but a man you could never turn your back on and ultimately a coward.
The psychologist Dietz asks him if he strangled from behind and his answer,
"Of course"
is the ultimate answer. If he shot from the back, strangled from the back, he was a coward, not allowing his victim a chance. So in the end even though he thought of himself as a stone cold murderer (Assassin , he said was too "exotic" a term, he was just a murderer) shows him to be a lazy and thoughtless man and a coward.
His deeds were cowardly, it was not as he thought in the beginning, his reaction to being bullied. He was born to a psychotically violent father and an even worse Mother. Both he and his brother served life sentences in the same jail, ultimately. But the most shocking was the fact that he could live a double life so well. How could you be a murderer and a loving father all at the same time.
That had to take rat like cunning and some sort of perversion. He never ever cheated on his wife either, nor she him, but he was violent to her and he regretted that very much. But the regret was not enough to stop him from being violent again. His wife told him he was never ever to hit the children or she would kill him. And he never did, so he had enough impulse control to not hit the kids but not enough to not kill strangers for money.
So he was affected by greed and power, and power being the ultimate aphrodisiac. I read of one other killer who orgasmed the first time he killed, and that was then his ultimate high. Great ! And these deviants walk amongst us, often undetected for years. How did Ian Huntley, the killer of 2 little girls in the UK, become a school caretaker in the first place.? He had a history of rape and violence perpetrated on young girls. He seemed like such a simple soul, didn't he, when first interviewed.?
He showed sympathy for the parents and even entered in to the search for the girls, but even so had the nerve to have his head on camera and so did his fiance, who had helped to give him an alibi. The one thing and the only thing I noticed about both Kuklinsky and Huntley was their eyes. Kuklinsky's eyes are dead, no feeling flickers through them, not one iota. Huntley's body language is feral, almost "Uriah Heap" in its servility.
I am no wiser for reading their stories about what motivates people like that. I know the experts can argue about genetic links and bad upbringings but I get a feeling that didn't really count with these men. They were just evil. Maybe they thought society had dealt them a bad blow. Maybe they thought they had more right to life than the victims and the victims family. Maybe a fierce jealousy and disgust and self loathing came over them in a rage.
I don't know, but I am sure they are better off dead than living with the results of what they have done. the chances of rehabilitation of these men is non existent, Kuklinski died in jail, anyway. No one cared not even his family, I am sure it brought some relief to the victims families. He murdered so many and think about all those families that no longer have that person in their lives. Think of Anders Breivik, who's father said after he killed so many Norwegians,
"He should have saved the last bullet for himself"
Its the father that has to go on living with what his son did, as do the parents of Huntley and Kuklinsky and all the stone cold cowardly murderers out there. I remember a woman in Belgium years ago, walking into a court room and facing the man that had raped and tortured her little 9 year old girl for hours. The Mother walked into the court room and shot that animal dead. And "Got Off". I am not advocating an eye for an eye or even a vigilante type behaviour but I am guessing I would have done the same.
Love Janette
They seem so normal. Richard was able to live a double life, on the one hand a normal husband, father, church goer and on the other a stone cold killer with the nickname "Iceman". He could kill with no remorse, no feeling, no emotion. Sometimes he would just not kill for hire but for payback. If he felt slighted or humiliated or even just because someone annoyed him. A gun was impersonal, the garrote, the poison, the knife, more personal.
It's hard to imagine what it would be like to come across someone like that. A person with no impulse control, no morals and yet viewing his live interviews, there is something else there. Something dead, something unable to stop harming others and ultimately himself. It's so revealing for him to say he has hurt everything he has ever loved or meant something to him. That he just couldn't stop. He is the scorpion in the fable of the frog and the scorpion. A victim of his birth and upbringing but a man you could never turn your back on and ultimately a coward.
The psychologist Dietz asks him if he strangled from behind and his answer,
"Of course"
is the ultimate answer. If he shot from the back, strangled from the back, he was a coward, not allowing his victim a chance. So in the end even though he thought of himself as a stone cold murderer (Assassin , he said was too "exotic" a term, he was just a murderer) shows him to be a lazy and thoughtless man and a coward.
His deeds were cowardly, it was not as he thought in the beginning, his reaction to being bullied. He was born to a psychotically violent father and an even worse Mother. Both he and his brother served life sentences in the same jail, ultimately. But the most shocking was the fact that he could live a double life so well. How could you be a murderer and a loving father all at the same time.
That had to take rat like cunning and some sort of perversion. He never ever cheated on his wife either, nor she him, but he was violent to her and he regretted that very much. But the regret was not enough to stop him from being violent again. His wife told him he was never ever to hit the children or she would kill him. And he never did, so he had enough impulse control to not hit the kids but not enough to not kill strangers for money.
So he was affected by greed and power, and power being the ultimate aphrodisiac. I read of one other killer who orgasmed the first time he killed, and that was then his ultimate high. Great ! And these deviants walk amongst us, often undetected for years. How did Ian Huntley, the killer of 2 little girls in the UK, become a school caretaker in the first place.? He had a history of rape and violence perpetrated on young girls. He seemed like such a simple soul, didn't he, when first interviewed.?
He showed sympathy for the parents and even entered in to the search for the girls, but even so had the nerve to have his head on camera and so did his fiance, who had helped to give him an alibi. The one thing and the only thing I noticed about both Kuklinsky and Huntley was their eyes. Kuklinsky's eyes are dead, no feeling flickers through them, not one iota. Huntley's body language is feral, almost "Uriah Heap" in its servility.
I am no wiser for reading their stories about what motivates people like that. I know the experts can argue about genetic links and bad upbringings but I get a feeling that didn't really count with these men. They were just evil. Maybe they thought society had dealt them a bad blow. Maybe they thought they had more right to life than the victims and the victims family. Maybe a fierce jealousy and disgust and self loathing came over them in a rage.
I don't know, but I am sure they are better off dead than living with the results of what they have done. the chances of rehabilitation of these men is non existent, Kuklinski died in jail, anyway. No one cared not even his family, I am sure it brought some relief to the victims families. He murdered so many and think about all those families that no longer have that person in their lives. Think of Anders Breivik, who's father said after he killed so many Norwegians,
"He should have saved the last bullet for himself"
Its the father that has to go on living with what his son did, as do the parents of Huntley and Kuklinsky and all the stone cold cowardly murderers out there. I remember a woman in Belgium years ago, walking into a court room and facing the man that had raped and tortured her little 9 year old girl for hours. The Mother walked into the court room and shot that animal dead. And "Got Off". I am not advocating an eye for an eye or even a vigilante type behaviour but I am guessing I would have done the same.
Love Janette
