Albert Fish

Albert Fish (May 19, 1870 – January 16, 1936) was an American serial killer and cannibal. He was also known as the Moon Maniac, the Gray Man, and the Brooklyn Vampire.

Over the course of his criminal career, he murdered at least fifteen children (many of whom he ate), and molested and tortured countless others across the United States. He sometimes castrated his male victims before killing them.

Early Life and Crimes

Born Hamilton Fish in Washington, DC, to a family with a history of mental illness, Fish grew up in an orphanage where he was ruthlessly whipped and beaten. In 1898, he was married to a woman nine years his junior, with whom he had five children. However, his wife subsequently ran off with another man.

Fish, a painter, drifted across the United States, molesting and torturing children in nearly every state. Most of his victims came from poor, black families who were not likely to be able to do much about his actions, owing to the racism prevalent in the country during that time. Reputed to be a sado-masochist, Fish reportedly indulged in self-mutilation, driving needles into his body, mostly around his genitals; stuffing cotton balls soaked with lighter fluid into his rectum and setting fire to them; and consuming not only the flesh of his victims, but urine, blood, and excrement. He attributed these tendencies and his cruel, murderous history to his vile excuse for a childhood. He also claimed God set him on these missions.

Grace Budd

On May 28, 1928, then aged fifty-eight, Albert Fish visited the Budd family in Manhattan, New York City. He had placed an advertisment in a local newspaper claiming to be a farmer from Long Island named "Frank Howard" who needed a young man to work on his farm. It was merely a ploy to obtain a victim. One of the Budds' sons, seventeen-year-old Edward, had responded to the advert.

At the Budds' apartment, Fish found that Edward was too old for his tastes and too strong to overpower. He later confessed that he immediately set his sights on Edward's younger sister, ten-year-old Grace. Fish promised to hire Edward and that he would send for him in a few days, and in the meantime he convinced Mr and Mrs Budd to let Grace accompany him to a party that evening at his home.

Albert Fish left with Grace Budd that day but neither returned. The case caused some alarm in New York, at the idea of a kindly old man able to lure a young girl away, never to be seen again, but a major police operation failed to turn up any leads.

The Infamous Letter

Six-years later, in November, 1934, Mr and Mrs Budd received a letter that read:

My dear Mrs. Budd,

In 1894 a friend of mine shipped as a deck hand on the Steamer Tacoma, Capt. John Davis. They sailed from San Francisco for Hong Kong China. On arriving there he and two others went ashore and got drunk. When they returned the boat was gone.

At that time there was famine in China. Meat of any kind was from $1 to 3 Dollars a pound. So great was the suffering among the very poor that all children under 12 were sold for food in order to keep others from starving. A boy or girl under 14 was not safe in the street. You could go in any shop and ask for steak — chops — or stew meat. Part of the naked body of a boy or girl would be brought out and just what you wanted cut from it. A boy or girls behind which is the sweetest part of the body and sold as veal cutlet brought the highest price.

John staid there so long he acquired a taste for human flesh. On his return to N.Y. he stole two boys one 7 one 11. Took them to his home stripped them naked tied them in a closet. Then burned everything they had on. Several times every day and night he spanked them — tortured them — to make their meat good and tender.

First he killed the 11 year old boy, because he had the fattest ass and of course the most meat on it. Every part of his body was Cooked and eaten except the head — bones and guts. He was Roasted in the oven (all of his ass), boiled, broiled, fried and stewed. The little boy was next, went the same way. At that time, I was living at 409 E 100 st., near — right side. He told me so often how good Human flesh was I made up my mind to taste it.

On Sunday June the 3 --1928 I called on you at 406 W 15 St. Brought you pot cheese — strawberries. We had lunch. Grace sat in my lap and kissed me. I made up my mind to eat her.

On the pretense of taking her to a party. You said Yes she could go. I took her to an empty house in Westchester I had already picked out. When we got there, I told her to remain outside. She picked wildflowers. I went upstairs and stripped all my clothes off. I knew if I did not I would get her blood on them.

When all was ready I went to the window and Called her. Then I hid in a closet until she was in the room. When she saw me all naked she began to cry and tried to run down the stairs. I grabbed her and she said she would tell her mamma.

First I stripped her naked. How she did kick — bite and scratch. I choked her to death, then cut her in small pieces so I could take my meat to my rooms. Cook and eat it. How sweet and tender her little ass was roasted in the oven. It took me 9 days to eat her entire body. I did not fuck her tho I could of had I wished. She died a virgin.

The police immediately set about tracing the sender, and the following month, on December 13, Albert Fish was arrested.

He lead the police to the cottage where he had killed Grace and her skull was found buried in the garden.

Fish confessed murdering several other children, including a four-year-old boy he claimed to have dismembered alive and eaten in 1927 and a fifteen-year-old girl murdered in 1932.

Eventually, authorities tied Fish to the murders of fifteen children and the molestation of many others. He was, however, only charged with the murder of Grace Budd.

Trial and Execution

At his trial, which opened on March 11, 1935, Fish pleaded insanity. He claimed to have heard voices from God telling him to kill children. Several psychiatrists took the stand to talk of Fish's many sexual fetishes, including coprophilia, urophilia, pedophilia and masochism, but they insisted that these activities did not necessarily mean someone was insane.

The trial lasted for ten-days. The jury found Fish to be sane and guilty, and the judge pronounced the death sentence.

Fish was executed on January 16, 1936, in the electric chair at Sing Sing. He spoke of the prospect of electrocution as the "supreme thrill", and even helped the executioners fasten the straps that held his body in place. A Daily News reporter who covered the trial wrote that Fish’s “watery eyes gleamed at the thought of being burned by a heat more intense than the flames with which he often seared his flesh to gratify his lust.” It was reported that the first jolt of electricity did not kill Fish, and that a second jolt was needed.

A few wrote, facetiously, that the 400 or so needles Fish had inserted into his body over the years had caused a short circuit.

Fish's crimes are recounted in Harold Schecter's Deranged. He is mentioned in Stephen King's novel Black House, and some of his letters are quoted.

External links

• Crime Library Article about Albert Fish
• Feature Film on Albert Fish by John Borowski