﻿In our society the elderly are often seen as non-threatening, innocent,
and incapable, however this would not be the case for the subject of today’s video:
a man named Albert Fish. Albert Fish was a psychotic and perverted old man with one
of the sickest hearts and minds humanity has ever known. He was a child murderer, rapist,
and cannibal, and found disgusting pleasure in the pain of his helpless victims. Today we’ll be going
over Fish’s disturbing life and crimes, but fair warning, they aren’t for the faint of heart.
Fish was born Hamilton Howard Albert Fish on May 19th, 1870 to Ellen and Randall Fish
in Washington, D.C. At the time of his birth Fish’s father was 75 years old,
and would end up passing away due to a heart attack by the time Fish was only five years old.
Ellen had little way of caring for Albert and his three children, and was forced to temporarily
place them all in an orphanage. While at the orphanage Fish endured many beatings at the hands
of the other boys as well as the staff that were supposed to be taking care of him. It was through
these beatings that Fish discovered his masochism, finding pleasure in the whippings and beatings,
causing him to often gain an erection and suffer even more taunting and ridicule. Fish remained
at the orphanage for four more years before his mother finally had the means to re-adopt and take
care of all of her children. By age 12 he entered his first homosexual relationship with another
boy his age. This relationship introduced him to taboo sexual practices such as eating and drinking
urine and feces, as well as peeping on other boys. His sexual tendencies continued to turn criminal,
and by twenty years old Fish claimed he began working as a prostitute and raping young boys.
He was eventually interred in an arranged marriage and would have 6 different children
who he raised as he continued to secretly molest children, choosing for some reason to spare his
children from his disturbing sexual tendencies. In 1898 a friend took him to a waxwork museum
where fish saw a bisected penis and soon became obsessed with sexual mutilation.
In 1910 Fish entered a relationship with a 19-year-old mentally disabled boy named
Thomas Kedden. During this relationship Fish made Kedden endure sadomasochistic practices
and eventually went so far as to taken Kedden to a barn and torture him. The process happened
over the span of two weeks and by the end he tied Kedden up, chopped off half of the boy’s penis,
and then left him to die, supposedly kissing Kedden on the cheek on the way out. Fish would
later talk about the incident and state”I shall never forget his scream, or the look he gave me.”
In 1917, Fish’s wife left him for another man, taking most of their belongings around
the house and leaving Fish to care for their six children by himself. Not long after this
Fish began experiencing auditory hallucinations, with one incident being so bad that Fish wrapped
himself up in a rug and claimed that he was hearing John the Apostle give him orders,
and after his arrest he would be diagnosed with religious mania. Fish also began to indulge
further in his painful sexual ideas, embedding up to 29 needles at a time into his groin
and abdomen, lighting wool on fire that was placed into his anus, and either hitting himself with a
nail studded paddle or having his children do it for him. He also began to indulge in cannibalism,
serving himself and occasionally his poor children meals consisting of raw meat.
By 1919, Fish continued and perfected his sick criminal activity, this time by abducting,
assaulting, and murdering several boys, most of whom were either African-American or mentally
disabled as Fish believed that would make the police less inclined to investigate.
Fish tricked the children by either offering them gifts, or by reportedly paying other boys to
acquire children for him. Once he had his victims Fish would torture and mutilate them before
actually murdering them, using what he called his “instruments of hell”, including a meat cleaver,
butcher knife, and a small handsaw. While out on the hunt for a victim on June 11th, 1924,
Fish met a young girl named Beatrice Kiel who was alone on her parent’s farm on Staten Island,
and he nearly lured the young girl away from the farm before her Mother fortunately
discovered what was going on and chased Fish off the property. Still determined to abduct Beatrice,
Fish decided to sleep in the Kiels’ barn but was found out by Beatrice’s father and forced to
leave. Instead of abducting Beatrice, however, Fish would end up finding his victim in a nine
year old boy named Francis McDonnell. Francis had been out playing with friends on July 14th,
just three days after Fish’s failed interaction with Beatrice, and was seen being abducted by a
man that witnesses would later describe as having “thick grey hair and [a] drooping grey moustache.
Everything about him seemed faded and grey…”. These descriptions would lead to Fish being
known by the public as “The Grey Man.” Francis was reported missing that night and a search party was
put together immediately, but it was unfortunately already too late. Francis’s body was found hanging
in a tree nearby his home. The body showed signs of sexual assault and was not only extremely
lacerated, but the boy’s left hamstring was so torn up it was almost ripped completely off.
It appeared that he had been murdered via strangulation with his own suspenders.
Fish wanted to continue practicing and perfecting his disgusting torture methods and decided to
lure a young boy named Cyril Quinn as well as his friend back to Fish’s apartment with the offer of
sandwiches. While Fish was preoccupied elsewhere in the apartment the two boys, still unaware of
the danger they were in, decided it would be fun to wrestle on Fish’s bed and somehow ended up
dislodging his mattress. It was then that they discovered Fish’s horrid instruments of torrid
and the reality of their situation sunk in. The two boys made the smart decision to run
for their lives, thankfully being able to bolt past their abductor and out of their apartment
before Fish could even realize what was happening. On May 25th, 1928, Fish saw an ad in the paper
from a young 18 year old boy named Edward Budd who was looking to be hired for work.
Seeing this as a great opportunity to acquire a victim, Fish went to the Budd Household in
Manhattan and introduced himself as Frank Howard, a farmer from upstate who was looking to hire some
farm hands. He agreed to hire both Edward and his friend Willie and told them he would return in a
few days to pick the boys up and drive them to the farm. For whatever reason Fish didn’t show
up but did send them a telegraph saying that he was delayed and would instead come get the
boys the next day, and did in fact make it this time. Fish got the apartment just as the family
was returning from church and was invited to come inside for lunch. While spending time around the
Budds’ dinner table Fish unfortunately met Edward’s eight year old sister Grace. She
was a beautiful young girl who was dressed in her Sunday best, and she tragically caught Fish’s eye.
Fish later admitted that while he had planned on tying Edward up, mutilating him, and leaving him
to bleed to death, as soon as he saw Grace Fish decided he was going to change victims.
In a weird power play, Fish called Grace over with her mother’s approval and asked her to count out
a stack of money and coins he had laid out on the table which came out to a total of $92.50,
before giving her some candy for a job well done. Fish then informed the Budds’ that there
had actually been a change of plans and he had to attend his niece’s birthday party , and was
now wondering if he would take Grace with him so she could spend some time with girls her age.
After some convincing her parents agreed and waved goodbye to their daughter as she unknowingly
marched to her death. When the supposed Mr. Howard failed to return with their daughter,
the Budd family panicked and reported her missing. The Budd family had spent plenty of time with Fish
and were able to give the police a detailed description of him, as well as giving them the
telegraph that Fish had written to them when he failed to pick up the boys. After years of failed
leads and misleading evidence, the police were slowly giving up on the case. In November of 1934,
about seven years after Grace’s abduction, received a horrifying letter from Fish in
which he detailed what he did to Grace as well as other victims, stating “...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…”. Fish’s
cocky letter was what would lead to his demise, as on the envelope the letter was delivered in,
the police were able to make out a small hexagonal emblem with the letters “N.Y.C.B.A.”,
which stands for the New York Private Chauffeur's Benevolent Association. Through this they tracked
down a janitor who had taken those envelopes, but said that he left them in an old boarding room.
The landlady of this room told them that Fish was staying in that room but had just checked out,
however he was likely to return soon to collect some money that had been sent by his son.
When Fish inevitably did return the landlady stalled him until the police could arrive,
and when he realized he was about to be taken downtown Fish threatened the
officers with a razor blade, but was quickly disarmed and arrested.
Fish was tried for the murder of Grace Budd, with the trial beginning on March 11th, 1935.
The defense made no attempt to fight for Fish’s innocence, instead attempting to prove that he was
insane. The jurors ended up finding him sane and guilty leading to Fish getting the death penalty,
however some of them later admitted they truly did think he was insane, but they felt he deserved
to die for the crimes he had committed. Fish was incarcerated in March of 1935, however it wouldn’t
be until January 16th of the following year that he was executed by electric chair. According
to James Dempsey, Fish’s lawyer, Fish’s final statement was actually several pages of notes
he had penned that would never be shown to the public as they were “...the most filthy string
of obscenities that [he had] ever read…”. Albert Fish is genuinely one of the most monstrous
human beings to ever exist, and we can only be grateful that his victims received some sort of
justice for the unbelievable torments they were forced to endure. Leave your thoughts about the
case down in the comment section below and let us know any other cases you would like us to cover.
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