| Up Close and Personal with a Killer When I was finally admitted into the bowels of Trenton State Prison in New Jersey's capital to interview multiple murderer Richard Kuklinski, aka “the Iceman,” it wasn't at all what I had expected. My assumption was that it would be like the movies. We'd be separated by a shatter-proof glass barrier. We'd communicate through telephone handsets. There would be guards all around watching our every move. But I couldn't have been more wrong. Clarice Starling had more protection when she visited Dr. Hannibal “the Cannibal” Lector in The Silence of the Lambs. At least she had bars. And frankly, as a killer, Lector was downright crude compared to the stealth and skullduggery of the Iceman. Lector liked to bite; Kuklinski preferred a cyanide solution administered from a nasal spray bottle. A surprise spritz to the face usually produced a shocked inhalation from the victim, who as a result would die in under a minute. And unless the body was found right away and a savvy medical examiner knew what to look for, the poison would go undetected because cyanide naturally dissipates in the body after two hours. But cyanide was only one of the things I was thinking about on the morning of January 16, 1992, when I arrived for my date with the Iceman. |
