There was room for improvement that the University of Tennessee’s Forensic Anthropology Center (FAC) had just recently begun to explore. Forensic anthropologists at the time were unable to determine PMI for a well-decayed corpse. Had Kuklinski tried to hide the victim’s identity by removing personal effects and fingertips, as he had done in previous cases, determining the PMI may have been impossible. Masgay’s frozen corpse left no pathologic clues for time of death. Deppner’s body was too decomposed for any accurate biological estimate. The personal effects found on Deppner and Masgay’s bodies were the only clues to identify them and provide evidence for the post-mortem interval (PMI) – how long they had been dead. Gambino family hitman Roy DeMeo and his crew dismembered their victims for easy disposal with the philosophy of “no body, no crime.” DeMeo hired Richard Kuklinski for occasional hits. Masgay was a customer for fencing hijacked VHS tapes. Deppner was an associate in Kuklinski’s breaking-and-entering crew. Kuklinski’s murders were not limited to Mob hits, however. Kuklinski worked with DeMeo’s crew as an enforcer. DeMeo and his crew perfected a system of murder called the “Gemini method.” They would lure a target into an apartment next to DeMeo’s Gemini Lounge bar where, after a shot to the head, the crew would drain the body of blood and dismember the corpse for easy disposal. Later, he became involved with a like-minded killer, Gambino family hitman Roy DeMeo of New York. He started doing occasional jobs for the DeCavalcante family in New Jersey. Kuklinski had already committed a number of murders by the time he began his career with the Mob. A missing persons report confirmed this was Louis Masgay.ĭeppner and Masgay were both associates - and now victims - of Mob hitman Richard Kuklinski. Investigators were fortunate that the culprit was in a hurry and did not properly thaw the body, or else they would have never realized the victim died more than two years before. ![]() The body appeared fresh because it had been frozen. ![]() During the autopsy, the coroner found evidence of ice crystals in the victim’s heart. Corpses typically begin to decompose from the bacteria inside the body, but in this case the body had more decay on the outside than inside. The corpse appeared to be fresh with little decomposition. Getty ImagesĪ few months later, police found another body in Orangetown, just north of the New Jersey-New York border, under curious circumstances. Mob hitman Richard Kuklinski was arrested on December 17, 1986, and ultimately sentenced to 60 years in prison for the murder of associates Daniel Deppner and Gary Smith.
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