THE ICEMAN Ep. 4 | “Mister Softee”

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Richard Kuklinski would later say that the two most dangerous men he ever met were Roy Demeo and Robert Prange, and Prange was by far the worst. They were at a Marriott hotel in Queens. Richard's reason for being there was the same as always he had a contract to fulfill. He'd been hired by the Di Cavalcante family to kill another mob guy.

Prange's reason for being at the hotel is more mysterious, but he was likely there for something similar to Richard. Prange was a contract killer who had a brilliant and darkly funny cover scheme, which will be revealed in a minute in The Marriott. They walked into the elevator, neither having any idea who the other was, though each might have suspected what the other was. Richard was a giant at 6 foot 5, 290 pounds, Robert was a small, somewhat bland looking man with dark hair and wandering eyes.

Richard's instincts instantly made him suspicious. Something was strange about the smaller man. Richard went to the hotel bathroom and was using the urinal when the stranger stepped up next to him. Richard was ready to reach for his gun. But they finished their business and went to the sinks to wash their hands.

Each was suspicious that the other was following him, though they went their separate ways without conflict. Richard continued his pursuit of the man he was supposed to kill, and it wasn't easy. The Marriott was supposed to be the best place to find and trap the victim, but the man was proving to be more elusive than expected. A few days after the run-in with the suspicious stranger, Richard was sitting in his van, continuing to wait and watch for his mark. And that was when one of the strangest moments of Richard's career happened. It was a hot day and the sun was beating down on Richard while he idled in his van.

He had run out of things to drink, and a cold beverage sounded nicer by the second. At about that time, he heard the distinctive jingle of a Mr. Softy ice cream truck driving down the street. The timing was fortunate, though Richard was about to find out that it wasn't entirely a coincidence. Richard waved the truck down so he could buy a drink.

When the truck stopped next to Richard's van, Richard looked at the driver. It was the guy from the hotel elevator and the restroom, the small, dark-haired, seemingly mild-mannered guy with the wandering eyes. He was Robert Prange, former special Forces soldier, part-time mad scientist, full-time killer who used a Mr. Softy ice cream truck to surveil his victims in broad daylight. Richard thought the cover scheme of the ice cream truck was genius. And he was about to learn a lot from the man he would later call extremely crazy.

From black barrel media, this is infamous America. I'm your host Chris Wimmer. And this season we're telling the story of one of the most prolific, notorious and terrifying mafia hitmen of all time The Iceman. This is episode 4, Mr. Softy.

Richard had discovered a love of poison as his new method of murder, and his supplier was a crooked pharmacist named Paul Hoffman. Hoffman taught Richard how to mix the right dosage so that the victim looked like he suffered a heart attack, rather than a fatal injection. Richard's next tutor, Robert Prange, would take poison to a whole new level. But for now, Richard had a new idea of his own. Richard was struggling to carry out the hit for the Dicavocante family.

The would-be victim knew he was a target and he was extra careful to guard his exposure. And because the family had made the request that the victim had to suffer before dying, Richard couldn't just shoot the guy in the Marriott parking lot and drive away. Then, one day, Richard was watching the popular old TV show Wild Kingdom, and he saw something that inspired him. It could make the process of setting up the victim to suffer much easier. On the show, Richard saw someone subdue a lion with a tranquilizer gun, and he thought that was the solution.

Richard asked Phil Solomene if he could get one with the darts and the tranquilizer. Solomene ran a store that sold stolen goods and he seemed to be able to get his hands on anything. Two days later, Richard had the gun, 35 darts and enough tranquilizer to put an entire zoo to sleep.

Richard drove to the Marriott Hotel in Queens and waited a little. After midnight. The Mark left the hotel and approached his car. Just as he reached it, Richard shot him in the butt with a tranquilizer dart. The Mark reached for his weapon but collapsed in a heap before he could get the gun out. Richard tossed him in his van like a rag doll, handcuffed his hands and feet together, put duct tape over his mouth and headed out to the caves in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Richard positioned the victim to be eaten by rats, and he set up his video camera to record the horror. Two days later, he retrieved the camera and took the video to Hoboken, New Jersey, to show the Decavalcante captain who'd hired him. Richard received a standing ovation. The captain stuffed $40,000 in Richard's pocket to show his appreciation. Another successful, gruesome contract had been fulfilled.

About a week later, Richard got a call from Robert Prange. When they had first talked next to Robert's Mr. Softee Truck. Richard had been intrigued Prange was a contract killer, just like Richard. And he used the ice cream truck to do surveillance in plain sight, and it was a working truck.

As Richard put it in an interview years later, Robert would.

After that meeting, Prange invited Richard to a garage where he stored the truck. Richard made the journey, but he kept one hand near his gun. He didn't have friends, and he was naturally suspicious of everyone, especially other killers. But Prange was too interesting to ignore. In a storage locker, Prange showed Richard grenades and boxes of ammunition.

Prange had books and magazines about explosives, poisons and booby traps. He showed Richard how to wire a hand grenade so it could be detonated by remote control. Richard thought he was a connoisseur of the dark arts, but he was nothing compared to Prange. And then, after Richard finished the Marriott hotel job and received a call from Prange, he witnessed the coolest trick he'd ever seen. Prange invited Richard to ride with him to Connecticut.

While Prange did a job, it was nighttime, and for a hit like this, he drove a regular car, not the Mr. Softy truck. They parked about a hundred feet from the target's house and waited for the man to return home. While they waited, Prange evaluated and approved of the weather conditions.

It was dark and there was no wind. He told Richard that he should never use the device that was about to be demonstrated if it was windy. Then the target pulled up to his house. Prange pulled out a pair of gloves and told his new friend that he'd be right back. By the time the target parked, Prange was at the driver's side door.

The moment the door opened, Prange sprayed the man in the face with a fine mist from a small container that looked like it could have been breath freshener. The man stumbled out of the car, took half a dozen steps and fell over dead. Prange walked back to his car and drove off, with Richard staring in disbelief from the passenger seat. Two little sprays and the man had been dead in seconds.

Robert Prange had developed a cyanide spray that essentially killed on contact. Richard loved it, but he would have to wait to use it himself.

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And through Solomene, he had also met the man who would be his next victim. George Malaband Malaband was a loud, overweight guy with a gambling problem. Richard and George did some business together and were occasional hunting partners, and George went to Richard for help. With his latest gambling situation, Malaband had borrowed money from loan sharks so that he could keep gambling. In the hope that he would win the money that he needed to pay everyone back, but he quickly lost the loan money.

Richard introduced Malaband to Roy Demeo, who loaned Malaband $35,000.

The loan allowed Malaband to pay off the loan Sharks and his debts in Las Vegas. But now, of course, he owed Roy Demeo $35,000 with interest. When Demeo asked about repayment. Malaband offered only excuses. Richard reminded Malaband of the consequences if Malaband continued to stall.

Malaband's response could best be characterized as ill-advised.

Richard and Malaband were driving in Richard's van when Malaband said, Big guy, I know too much about what you do. I don't think you'd ever let Demeo hurt me. Fact is, I know you won't remember Big guy. I know where you live, where your family lives.

You won't let anything happen to me. Richard became enraged. A threat to his family was crossing the line. Richard pulled over, took out a .38 and shot Malaband five times. Richard drove Malaband's body to his North Bergen, New Jersey, garage.

That doubled as a warehouse and a place to kill people. It wasn't far from the garage where Robert Prange kept his Mr. Softee truck. Malaband was too big to stuff into a 55-gallon barrel, so adjustments had to be made. Richard got a saw and cut off one of Malaband's legs.

He then sealed the black metal drum and despite it weighing nearly 350 pounds, Richard easily lifted it into his van. Now it was off to Jersey City. He knew of a big chemical plant called Chemtex, where out back people often dumped things. It was a frigid February day and snowing. Richard backed his van into the makeshift dumping area, pulled the 55-gallon drum out of the van and rolled it down a hill.

Then he got back in the van and left, never again thinking about George Malaband. He assumed the body would be missing forever, but he assumed wrong, unbeknownst to Richard. When he rolled the barrel down the embankment, it hit a rock near the bottom. The top of the barrel popped off. And moments later, the owner of the chemical plant stepped outside to smoke a cigarette. Something caught his eye.

It appeared that a man's leg was sticking out of a black barrel in the distance. He investigated and saw that a very large, very dead man was stuffed inside the barrel. The plant owner called the police because Malaband had been killed so recently, his identity was quickly established and his family contacted.

His brother said George was meeting Richard Kuklinski the day he disappeared. Richard was questioned by the police. He denied everything. However, for the first time in his life, after perhaps hundreds of murders, he was finally connected to a homicide.

Richard was haunted by his mistake. He was always so meticulous in every phase of the process. This was a rare, unforced error. He should have just buried Malaband or driven him to the caves and given him to the rats. It was maybe the earliest signal that he was slipping just a little bit.

There would be more evidence of slippage in a couple years. But in the near term. He vowed to be more careful, which was essential when handling a task for a mobster as high-profile as John Gotti.

On Tuesday, March 18, 1980, a 12-year-old named Frank learned he had made his school's football team overjoyed. He borrowed a friend's motorized dirt bike. He never made it home for dinner. That night, a car driven by a neighbor, John Favara, hit Frank and dragged him down the entire block.

51-year-old Favara, a factory worker, was allegedly so drunk he had no idea he had hit anyone that day in Howard's Beach, Queens. Unfortunately for Favara, he had just killed. John Gotti's youngest son, Gotti, was a notorious captain in the Gambino family. And beyond the heartbreak of losing a child. He was furious about the incident. Favara was drunk and extremely negligent, but it was still an accident.

As such, Gotti might have been able to forgive Favara if Favara had handled it properly. But Favara continued to drive the car around the neighborhood for months, as if nothing had happened, and he never went to the Gotti household to apologize. It was also reported that Favara drunkenly shouted What the fuck was he doing in the street when he finally realized he had killed a child? Favara couldn't have handled it worse if he had tried.

Sammy the Bull Gravano knew about the talents of Richard Kuklinski and asked Richard if he'd be interested in Evening. The score for Frank Gotti's death. Naturally, the answer was yes. Sammy was a made man and a soldier in the Gambino family, and he was a favorite of current boss Paul Castellano. But when Richard said yes, the foundation was laid for a future collaboration of these three men John Gotti, Sammy Gravano and Richard Kuklinski.

That would be the coup that removed Paul Castellano and replaced him with John Gotti, and it started right here. Four months after John Gotti's son was killed. On July 28, 1980, Richard met John Gotti's crew, which included Gotti's younger brother, Gene. The crew, now with the addition of Richard Kuklinski, drove in a van to the Long Island Furniture Factory, where Favara worked. They grabbed Favara as he walked to his car, the same car he had been driving when he killed Gotti's son.

They drove to East New York and parked in a junkyard there. Gene Gotti and the crew beat Favara, mercilessly, breaking bones, knocking out teeth and dislodging an eye. Then Richard took over. He tore off Favara's clothes, tied him up and used road flares to burn him in some truly terrible ways. Just like he had done to a farmer who had stolen from him several years earlier. Remarkably, Favara survived, and Gene Gotti finished the job with a lead pipe.

Richard then stuffed Favara into a 55-gallon barrel and made it disappear. A week after the murder, FBI agents confronted John Gotti and asked if he knew anything about Favara's sudden disappearance. Gotti politely replied that he knew nothing and no one was ever charged with the murder.

That first big job with Sammy the Bull and John Gotti would eventually lead to Richard's final high-profile murder, maybe his final murder period. But it was the one that happened after the gory Favara murder that helped lead to the end of the Iceman. There were five murders that were the beginning of the end for Richard Kuklinski. George Malaband was one of them, the overweight gambler whom Richard had stuffed in a barrel, which was then discovered by the owner of a chemical plant.

The next two were numbers two and three on that list. Louis Maskay owned a general store in Forty, Fort, Pennsylvania. Louis also bought truckloads of blank videotapes that Richard had stolen, and, like many others before him, Louis recklessly pestered Richard for more merchandise. On July 1, 1981, a year after Richard helped John Gotti and Sammy the Bull, Louis Maskay made a trip to Phil Solomene's store in Patterson, New Jersey.

Louis frequently participated in the illegal poker games that Solomene hosted at his store, but this time he was there to buy more stolen videotapes.

Solomene slipped away and called Richard. Solomene said Maskay was at the store right now and had the cash to make a purchase. An hour later, Richard walked into the store.

Maskay was in the bathroom. Richard opened the door and found Maskay sitting on the toilet. Richard pulled out a .22 caliber pistol with a suppressor on the end and shot Maskay above the left eye. Then, to ensure the job was complete, Richard shot him in the head again. Richard apologized to Solomene for killing in the store, and Solomene wisely told the deadliest man he knew not to worry about it.

Kuklinski and Solomene dumped Maskay's body into a black plastic bag, then went out to Maskay's van and pried open the side door. Inside was $90,000, right where Maskay said it would be. Kuklinski and Solomene split the money evenly, and then Richard hauled Maskay's body out to his warehouse in North Bergen, New Jersey. In the back of the space, there was an old well that was full of ice-cold spring water. A few years earlier, Richard had helped another hitman store a dead body in a meat freezer so the dead man's wife could collect the insurance money.

For the scam to work, it had to appear that the man had died long after the actual murder. So they kept the man on ice. Until the new widow could collect her money, the plan worked to perfection, and Richard collected a healthy portion of the widow's insurance money. Kuklinski hoped the frozen sequel would be as successful.

He thought that the ice-cold water would slow the decomposition of Maskay's body. Richard dumped Maskay inside the well, put a tire on top of him, then a strip of plywood, and finally poured cement over the hole. He figured he'd leave Maskay in the well for a handful of months until winter arrived. Then remove the body and dump it somewhere where it could be found. Louis Maskay's disappearance would probably prompt an investigation, but when there were no immediate leads, the police would move on to other things. Then, when Maskay's body turned up and there were still no leads, the police would probably file it away as another unsolvable murder that wasn't worth their time to pursue.

The plan was logical, and most of it worked just as Richard hoped. But it was that last part, the part where the police didn't bother to pursue the investigation, that became the problem. By the time Louis Maskay's body was discovered, Richard's career was slipping fast, murders and disposals were getting sloppy and people were turning against him. Richard was always worried about the people around him, knowing too much, and the person who knew the most was Phil Solomene.

And Solomene would know a whole lot more before it was all over.

Paul Hoffman kept pestering Richard and Phil Solomene to find him some stolen Tagamet, a drug used to treat ulcer pain. Hoffman was Richard's poison supplier and the crooked pharmacist. And the professional hitman had been introduced by Solomene. Hoffman was currently requesting Tagamet because it was really popular and easy for Hoffman to sell for marked-up prices. When the flow of drugs went this direction, Richard and his crew would hijack the shipment and give it to Solomene, and Solomene would sell it to a buyer. Like Hoffman, Hoffman kept reminding Solomene he had the money, he just needed the product.

And saying something like that to Phil Solomene was a bad idea because Hoffman didn't know that. Solomene and Richard ran a side business where Solomene would lure a buyer into his store, Richard would kill the buyer, and then Solomene and Richard would split the buyer's cash. When Paul Hoffman showed up at Solomene's store with $25,000 and said he wanted the Tagamet that Richard had repeatedly promised was available, Hoffman walked himself into a trap. Solomene called Richard. Richard dropped what he was doing and drove to the store with two handguns and a hunting knife.

When he arrived, Hoffman again bragged that he had the cash. Richard said It was perfect timing. The Tagamet had come in and it was at his warehouse in North Bergen.

Richard never liked Paul Hoffman. He rarely liked anyone, but he felt Hoffman was a quote greedy scumbag. The only reason the pharmacist was still breathing was because he was Richard's poison supplier. But Hoffman wasn't the only person who could supply poison. And he had conveniently delivered himself. With a care package of $25,000, Hoffman followed Richard to a warehouse on a desolate street in north Bergen, New Jersey.

They walked in and Richard pointed to the back wall. Boxes were stacked against the wall, and Richard said they were full of tagamet. That was a lie. Of course. The boxes were empty, but Hoffman was excited and he pulled his car into the warehouse to load the drugs.

The moment Hoffman put his car in park, Richard pulled out a.

25 caliber handgun and shot Hoffman in the neck. Richard thought one shot would do it, but Hoffman was still moving. Richard pulled the trigger a second time, but the gun jammed. Hoffman was not a large guy or a strong guy, but a surge of adrenaline turned him into superman. Despite his bleeding neck. He charged out of the car and attacked Richard.

Paul Hoffman came miraculously close to winning a battle with Richard Kuklinski, but his chances for victory ended. When Richard grabbed a tire iron, Richard bashed Hoffman over the head and eventually bludgeoned him to death. There was blood everywhere, all over the warehouse floor, all over Richard's clothes, even in his shoes, but that was part of Richard's business. He washed up and put on fresh clothes and then stuffed Paul Hoffman into a 55-gallon metal barrel.

Richard sealed the drum and lifted it into his van. He drove over to Phil Solomene's store and offered to split the $25,000 with him, but Solomene told Richard to keep it all. Richard had done all the work, Richard had to get rid of the body. But he was hungry, so he drove to Harry's luncheonette in Hackensack and ate a roast beef sandwich. While Paul Hoffman's 55-gallon tomb sat in the back of his van outside.

As Richard sipped a diet pepsi, he decided to make the disposal easy on himself. He deposited the barrel behind the restaurant and there it sat for weeks, or maybe months. Everyone probably assumed it belonged to the diner or was a piece of garbage that was waiting to be picked up. Richard returned to Harry's luncheonette on a regular basis to eat lunch and check on the barrel. Sometimes he ate his sandwich out back and used the barrel as a table.

He thought it was hilarious. Then one day the barrel was gone. Richard never found out what happened to it or the body of Paul Hoffman, but since he never heard anything about it again. The barrel was likely picked up by garbage collectors and thrown into a landfill or something like that, and the workers never knew what was inside.

Next time on Infamous America, Richard finally exacts revenge on a nemesis, but things start to fall apart around him. He eliminates people he no longer trusts. At the same time that a New Jersey detective starts an investigation that soon leads to an undercover operation by the ATF. That's next week on Infamous America.

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Original music by Rob Vallier. I'm Your host and producer Chris Wimmer. Find us at our website, blackbarrelmedia..com or on our social media channels. You can find Black Barrel Media on Facebook and Instagram, and B Barrel Media on Twitter, and you can stream all our episodes on YouTube.

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