Richard Kuklinski, also known as “The Iceman”, was a killer for hire. He murdered somewhere between 100 and 200 people by many different weapons (Martin, 2006). The first time Kuklinski murdered someone was when he was fourteen years old, due to his rough family life (Source 2). He craved murder and had an appetite for violence. Little did anyone know, Richard Kuklinski would become a highly dangerous hitman based upon his genetics and environment.
Kuklinski’s lust for violence and blood started when he was ten years old. He was torturing and killing cats for pleasure. Kuklinski would put cats into a furnace and then proceed to watch them try to escape until the cats died (Dietz, 2001). At the age of eighteen, he unquestioningly
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murdered a random stranger, on the sidewalk, who was selected for him, causing Kuklinski to earn respect from the Mafia (Source 2). At first, the Mafia was skeptical of Kuklinski’s love for murder, causing him to be limited to carrying out slightly less heinous crimes (Martin, 2006). Kuklinski became a highly reputable and well-known hitman for several crime families, including the DeCavalcantes, the Genoveses, and the Gambinos. Kuklinski’s career of crime included robbery, hijackings and the selling of pornographic movies, but murder was his specialty (Source 2). Kuklinski murdered people with a plethora of methods.
Some of the weapons that he used to kill people were: firearms; icepicks; hand grenades; crossbows; chain saws, which he did not like to use because they made too big of a mess; a bomb attached to a remote-control toy car; and other heinous weapons (Martin, 2006). He learned many of these tactics from Robert Pronge, a fellow hitman also known as Mister Softee because he drove a Mister Softee ice cream truck as his cover. Kuklinski later stated that his favorite method of murder was by a bottle of cyanide that he would spray in his victim’s face. (Source 2). His favorite place to shoot people was under their chin and his favorite method of disposing of bodies was to put the dead victim in a barrel and then dump them in a random spot. Once, Kuklinski’s victim was too tall to fit in a barrel so he had to cut the person’s legs off to make him fit (Dietz, 2001). He sometimes put corpses in a deep freezer to freeze them and throw the actual time of their death. One time, he stored a corpse in the freezer of a Mister Softee truck for two years, giving him the nickname: “The Iceman” (Martin, 2006). Kuklinski was caught after an autopsy of a corpse showed that the victim had been frozen (Dietz,
2001). Not only did Kuklinski rob, hijack, and murder people, he also abused his second wife. The abuse started before they were married. His wife expressed the fact that she did not want to marry him. Kuklinski retaliated by stabbing her in the back with a hunting knife, saying that he could not live without her (Source 2). The abuse did not stop after Kuklinski married Barbara. He had pointed a gun at her several times, threatening to kill her; he tried to smother her with a pillow; he tried to run her over with a car, and he broke her nose three times by hitting her extremely hard (Martin, 2006). He abused Barbara because he saw his father abusing his mother when he was growing up. Kuklinski’s father beat his wife and children on a regular basis. Kuklinski’s older brother even died from the harsh abuse from his violent father (Source 2). He had watched his father stab his mother when he was younger. Kuklinski learned how effective violence could be from his father’s harsh violence (Dietz, 2001). Kuklinski’s abuse as a child played a major role in making him who he is, a cold-blooded murderer. Because of all the abuse, he hated his father so much and murdered anyone who reminded him of his father. His father had a loud mouth, so he would kill anyone who had a loud mouth (Source 2). Kuklinski inherited a violent temper from his father, causing him to murder anyone who would make him mad. He holds unreasonable grudges, does not like to be criticized, and thinks that caring is a major weakness, all because of his rough childhood (Dietz, 2001). Kuklinski feels “empowered” when he kills people, which is why he has a lust for murder. He longed to translate his love for killing into a way of life, which is exactly what he did (Martin, 2006).
David Berkowitz unleashed his random malicious scats during the summer of 1976. He is known today as one of New York’s most notorious serial killers. Berkowitz was born on June 1st, 1953 in New York, New York. He was adopted by the Berkowitz couple a few days after his birth. When Berkowitz was 18 the joined the U.S. Army. After the army, he got a job as a security officer and moved into an apartment in New York. No one even noticed the danger that slept next door.
The crime committed by Bernhard Goetz in 1984, is one that can be interpreted as an inhumane act of violence. On December 22, 1984, the thirty-seven year old Bernhard Goetz boarded a New York City subway. Sitting alone in his seat with his Smith & Wesson revolver, he was approached by four black teenage males (Linder). The four teenagers asked Bernhard Goetz for five dollars. When this happened, Bernhard Goetz felt endangered, and decided to pull out his Smith & Wesson revolver, and begin to shoot the young men. After firing four bullets in the New York City subway, he had injured three of the four young men. When Bernhard Goetz saw Darrell Cabey, the last of the four teenagers cowering on the floor, he said, “you don’t look too ba...
In the essay, “Global Warming is Eroding Glacial Ice,” Andrew C. Revkin argues that global warming is the primary cause for many of the world’s natural disasters; including flash floods, climate change, and the melting of the polar ice caps. He includes multiple accounts of expert testimony as well as a multitude amount of facts and statistics to support his theory that global warming is a threat to the world. However, in the essay “Cold Comfort for ‘Global Warming’,” Phillip Stott makes the complete opposite argument. He argues that global warming is nothing to be worried about and the melting of the polar icecaps is caused by the interglacial period we are currently in. After reading both of these essays and doing extensive research on both viewpoints, I completely agree with Revkin that global warming is an enormous threat to our world today. My research not only helped me to take a stand but it also showed me the invalidity in Stott’s essay.
Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” does a marvelous job of highlighting the violent nature of mankind. The underlying cause of this violent nature can be analyzed from three perspectives, the first being where the occurrence of violence takes place, the second man’s need to be led and the way their leader leads them, and lastly whether violence is truly an innate and inherent characteristic in man.
Kody Scott, later known as Shanyika Shakur, was born in Los Angeles in 1963. Before last imprisonment he committed various crimes, such as, robbery, assault, and murder. Kody’s childhood was pretty rough. He grew up as the fifth of six children in a broken home. His mother, Birdy Scott, worked odd jobs and long hours to support her children. While his father, Ernest Scott, left the family in 1970 and was completely out of Kody’s life by 1975. Shortly after completing sixth grade at Horace Mann, Kody joined a subgroup of the infamous L.A. Crips on June 15th, 1975. Kody committed his first murder on the night of his initiation. This would be the start of Kody’s descent into becoming “Monster Kody”. It was two years after his initiation that Kody first donned the name Monster. Scott had beaten a robbery victim so bad that the police said it was “The work of a
One of the most gruesome serial killers of all time was Andrei Chikatilo. He was born on October 16, 1936 in Yablochnoye, a Ukrainian farming village. One of his clearest memories of his youth was that of his mother telling him his older brother had been stolen and eaten by neighbors during a great famine. This thought remained with him always and he later disclosed he often imagined the torturous ending his brother must have had.
One well-known serial killer is Gary Ridgway. Ridgway was born in February of 1949 in Salt Lake City, Utah. His early life can be viewed as an indicator to his la...
A question that arises in almost any medium of art, be it music, film or literature, is whether or not the depiction of violence is merely gratuitous or whether it is a legitimate artistic expression. There can be no doubt that Michael Ondaatje's long poem The Collected Works of Billy the Kid is a violent work, but certain factors should be kept in mind before passing it off as an attempt to shock and titillate; certainly, the poem does both of these, but they are not the primary purpose of the work. For one thing, social context needs to be considered; Billy lived in the "Wild West", a time associated with range wars, shoot-outs and great train robberies. The entire legend of Billy the Kid has been built around his criminal activities and notorious reputation; indeed, the more popular this myth becomes, the more people he is accused of having murdered. If anything, it was a cultural fascination with violence that "created" the legend, perhaps even more so than anything the "real" Billy ever did. Michael Ondaatje comments on this phenomenon and actually offers an alternative vision of who Billy the Kid was; perhaps he was not just a blood-thirsty killer but a man who, due to circumstance and human nature, was continually being pushed over the edge. Ondaatje is more concerned with the motivations behind the acts of violence than the acts of violence themselves: "A motive? some reasoning we can give to explain all this violence. Was there a source for all this? yup -" (54). If they shock, it is to shock the readers out of complicity and encourage them to think about the nature of violence and their own capacity for it.
1. What is the difference between a. and a Explain why the iceman was so well preserved. ( source one ) It is said that a frozen body will stay preserved for hundreds, even thousands of years.
Robert Frost is often known as one of the greatest American poets of all time. Although he is sometimes remembered as hateful and mean spirited, his life was filled with highs and lows. These differentiating periods are represented throughout his poetry. Frost once said that “A poem begins in delight, and ends in wisdom.” As can be seen, this quote not only reflected his poetry, but his life. Though many years of his life were troubled by misfortune, Frost always seemed to persevere. Robert Frost was a talented, thoughtful poet whose life was filled with complexity and tragedy (brainyquote.com).
Upon his arrest he had confessed to 5 burglaries and several violent sexual assaults, including the two unsolved murders and sexual assaults of Barbara Krlik, 15 and Annie Mae Johnson, 24. He had also admitted to have attempted sexual assaults on more than 4 women, all of which failed because he preferred to be a necrophilia stating that “He got no thrill with the living women he raped” (Gado, 2004).
The person I chose to research was Gary Ridgway. He is also known as The Green River Killer. Gary was a serial killer in Washington. He has been convicted of murdering 49 women, he has confessed to around 60 killings, but is estimated to have killed closer to 80 women. All the women that he had killed were prostitutes that he had picked up, had sex with them, and then strangled them. He says that he never raped or tortured any of his victims, he just killed them. Gary started killing prostitutes in 1892 and is confirmed to have killed till 1998, but is thought that his last kill was around 2001. He was called the Green River Killer because his first victims’ bodies were found around the Green River.
To take off the aggression and need to compensate the horrible memories of the childhood explain the reason why serial killers abuse animals during their childhood. When they were children they control pets and they can harm them knowing that the animals can fight back. Therefore, they feel themselves as if they were in absolute power. This animal torture later will turn in to human victim torture.
Over the course of history, violence amongst men has shaped the world in which we live through wars, political protests, or social conflicts. Sadly, enough, this is a factor of human nature which resides in all individuals and cannot be controlled or avoided. Not only have these events of man’s inhumanity been documented, but they have also become the underlying theme for many well known works of literature. Both Golding and Wiesel shed light on the immorality of mankind’s actions by putting it under close scrutiny, leaving the reader left to wonder how human beings are capable of so callously hurting and killing one another.
We all have cravings, be it for snacks or sweets, there is always something we desire. We crave horror in the same way. In Stephen King’s essay, “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” he argues that people need to watch horror films in order to release the negative emotions within us. King believes that people feel enjoyment while watching others be terrorized or killed in horror movies. King’s argument has elements that are both agreeable and disagreeable. On one hand he is acceptable when claiming we like the thrill and excitement that comes from watching horror movies; however, his views regarding that the fun comes from seeing others suffer cannot be agreed with because the human condition is not as immoral as he claims it to be.