Carlo - The killer within: in the company of monsters

Stolen Flower

Predators and Prayers

Smiling Wolf

The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer

The Night Stalker: The Life and Crimes of Richard Ramirez

Gaspipe: Confessions of a Mafia Boss

The Butcher: Anatomy of a Mafia Psychopath

In Memory of Ben Byer and Jenifer Estess

This edition first published in hardcover in the United States in 2011 by
The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.
141 Wooster Street
New York, NY 10012
www.overlookpress.com
For bulk and special sales, please contact

Copyright 2011 by Philip Carlo

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

ISBN 978-1-46830-085-7

He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Beyond Good and Evil

Killer: 1: one that kills

2 a: one that has a forceful, violent, or striking impact

b: one that is extremely difficult to deal with

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis: Commonly known as ALS, it was first described by Charcot in the nineteenth century, and is a relentlessly progressive, presently incurable, neurodegenerative disorder that causes muscle weakness, disability, and eventually death. ALS is also known as Lou Gehrigs Disease, after the famous New York Yankee baseball player who was affected with the disease.

Lauren B. Elman, M.D., and Leo McCluskey, M.D., MBE

Clinical Features of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis,

June 19, 2009, UpToDate.com

More than 300,000 Americans alive today will die of ALS.

The ALS Association

This book is dedicated to my wife, Laura Garofalo Carlo.
Without her help, love, guidance, and support, not only would this
book never have been possible, but the frame of mind needed to
write the book would not have been possible.

The Killer Within is also dedicated to my assistant,
confidante, and friend, Kelsey Osgood,
who gave voice to me after I lost my hands
and my ability to hold a pen.

I n trying to understand and write comprehensively about what motivates professional killers, serial murderers, Mafia bosses, and mob hit men, I have gone into prisons across the country, sat down opposite some of the most notorious criminals of modern times, and picked their brains. I am not a cop, FBI agent, or from any branch of law enforcement. I did this to learn the intimate secrets and idiosyncrasies these people have and to tell their stories with unvarnished candor. Always careful not to point fingers or make judgments, I managed to gain their confidencenot an easy task.

I extensively interviewed Californias notorious Richard Ramirez, aka the Night Stalker, at San Quentins death row. I spent over two hundred hours at Trenton State Prison with Richard Kuklinski, the Ice Man, a six-foot-six, 320-pound contract killer who, during his forty-three-year career, murdered over two hundred people. For many months, I worked with Anthony Gaspipe Casso, the head of the Lucchese crime family, and learned not only what makes a Mafia boss tick, but the culture of La Cosa Nostra, its mindset, rhyme, and rhythmhow it became the most successful criminal enterprise of all time. More recently, I wrote The Butcher: Anatomy of a Mafia Psychopath. This was the story of Tommy Karate Pitera, a drug-dealing capo in the Bonanno crime family who killed over fifty people, dismembered them, and strategically buried the pieces in federally protected bird sanctuaries throughout the tri-state area. I managed to slip in and out of these peoples world without doing damage to myself because, I think, I was born and raised on the mean streets of Bensonhurst, Brooklynground zero for the New York Mafia. It was in Bensonhurst where, as a boy, I came to know sudden, deadly violence up close and personal. It was in Bensonhurst that I graduated from the school of hard knocks with honors.

However, as I write this, everything has changed. A monkey wrench has been thrown into the mix, for now a stone-cold killer is stalking me, a remorseless murderer far worse than any I have yet met, written about.

Because of this killer, I was forced to flee New York and settle in South Beach, Miami, Florida. The warm weather here is better for my health, though I did not escape unscathed. In New York, this killer ravaged my limbs and robbed me of the use of my hands. I cannot even hold a pen now. I am only able to continue writing with the help of an assistant, someone who can readily deal with the in-depth violence I write about, and take flawless dictation. I posted an ad for such a person on a Columbia University bulletin board. After interviewing a dozen different candidates, I found Kelsey. She has a perfectly heart-shaped face, unusually large eyes the color of Tupelo honey. Kelsey is extremely well read, particularly attentive. An aspiring writer herself, she can get on paper my thoughts faster than I can say them. We work like a bow and fiddle.

As I now dictate this to Kelsey, we are on the beach, sitting on comfortable lounges in South Beach, Miami, under the subdued shade of a big, yellow umbrella. The sun shines brilliantly. To my left is the surprisingly clear Atlantic Ocean, a clean aquamarine color. Before me is a long stretch of white beach. Above is a pastel blue, cloudless sky. It is over eighty degrees, though a pleasant breeze off the ocean makes it comfortable. However, lurking somewhere behind me, where I cannot see because I am unable to turn my head due to atrophy of the muscles, is the killer I talk about. I shiver at the thought. I feel its icy breath on the back of my neck. Despite the killers unsettling presence, the beach is an idyllic place to write. If it werent for the breathing machine Im using, a passerby would see nothing wrong. I am tan and surprisingly healthy looking, but where there were once large bicep muscles, there is now only a gathering of thin skin. I look down at my legs. They are little more than bones covered in loose flesh. They have become so weakened by the killer that I can no longer walk or support myself.

I turn to Kelsey. Our eyes meet. The clean, fresh smell of the ocean is all about us. This is somewhat awkward. I have already written two books with Kelseys assistance, but now, for the first time, she is actually a character in the story. I plan to be brutally honest here, and I fear it could be embarrassing, even hurtful, to her. I do my best to take a long, deep breath. I turn my attention to Kelsey, sentences and thoughts, images and emotions swirling about inside my head. I will soon give them all life and breath.

So Im ready. Are you, K? I ask.

Yes, she says.

Chapter One, I say, knowing this will be painful for me, not sure if I have the wherewithal and strength to put it all on paper, I take the first step

I am now sitting in my motorized, all-black, fancy Permobile wheelchair on Via Nuova Marina, at the northern end of the glorious Bay of Naples.