When it comes to serial child killer Albert Fish, the adjectives to describe his inhumanity
hardy seem strong enough - depraved, perverted, deviant, degenerate - he was all that and
more. The crimes he committed fill the heart with rage, while the taunting letters he sent
the victim’s families make you wonder how a human being could be so cruel. In this week’s
Biographics, we venture in the sordid life of Albert Fish - and it ain’t pretty!
Early Life
Hamilton Howard Albert Fish was born on May 19th, 1870 in Washington, D.C. His father,
Randall, was 75 years old when he was born, being 43 years older than his mother, Ellen
. The old man died when Albert was five years old, and the children were placed in an orphanage.
At the orphanage, Albert sang in the choir. He was also subjected to merciless beatings
by other boys and staff members. The physical pain of the beatings and whippings became
something that he came to realize gave him a sort of sexul pleasure. He would get erections
mid way through a beating, which would bring ridicule and further torment from the older
boys.
Albert spent four years at the orphanage. When he was nine his mother secured a job
and took her children back. Two years later, Albert began a relationship with a telegraph
boy who introduced him to a range of depraved practices including drinking urine and eating
feces. He also took to hanging out at local bathing rooms so that he could watch young
boys getting undressed.
At around the age of eleven, Albert fell from a cherry tree and suffered a serious concussion.
This would result in constant headaches, dizzy spells and a pronounced stutter.
Growing Depravity
In 1890 he moved to New York City with his mother. He would later tell the police that
he became a male prostitute at this time, but this has never been substantiated. He
began working as a painter and paperhanger. Throughout the 1890’s he, according to his
later testimony, regularly molested young children, preferring those who were under
the age of six. He also enjoyed writing obscene letters to women who had placed personal ads
in the newspapers.
In 1898, Albert’s mother arranged for him to marry a nineteen year old girl by the name
of Anna Mary Hoffman. They would go on to have six children. At the same time, he maintained
sexul relationships with a string of male lovers. One of them took him to a waxworks
museum, during which Albert was fascinated by a model of a dissected human penis. It
was this experience that developed in him a fascination with genital mutilation and
castration. For the rest of his life he would insert needles into his scrotum and penis
in order to achieve sexual satisfaction.
Religious Mania
In 1903, Fish was arrested for embezzlement and sentenced to Sing Sing prison. During
his incarceration he regularly had sex with other men. After his release, his children
recalled that his behavior became increasingly bizarre. He would regularly hear voices and
claimed that he was receiving messages from the Apostle John. On one occasion his oldest
son, Albert junior, saw him standing on a hillside with his arms outstretched screaming
‘I am Christ!’ He was convinced that he was being directed by God to castrate little
boys. Psychiatrists would later diagnose him with a condition known as religious mania.
The children also recounted seeing their father flagellating himself on the back with a nail-studded
paddle.
In 1910, Fish began a sexual relationship with a nineteen-year old intellectually disabled
man by the name of Thomas Kedden. Fish was working away from home in Wilmington, Delaware.
He brought Kedden back to his room and the two engaged in sadomasochistic sexual acts.
Over a period of days, these acts became more like torture, with Fish inflicting all of
the pain. He took Kedden to an old farmhouse with the intention of killing the boy and
dissecting his body. In the end he merely cut off half of Kedden's penis before leaving
him to his own fate.
In 1917, Fish’s wife left him for another man. Albert was left with six children to
raise on his own. According to Fish, Anna took virtually all of the possessions that
the family owned. From this point, his paranoia took on new dimensions. His children once
found him wrapped up in a carpet and he would encourage them to hit him on the bare buttocks
with his nail studded paddle. However, none of the children ever claimed that their father
physically abused them.
It was around this time that Albert began experimenting with cannibalism. He started
about by eating raw meat, which he would also serve to the children and then escalated to
human flesh.
Kid Killer
In 1919, Fish intensified his criminal activity, abducting, abusing and murdering young boys
in and around the Washington, D.C. area. His typical victim would be black or intellectually
impaired, as he believed the police would be less inclined to pursue the disappearances
of these children. He developed the skill of luring young children away by offering
them gifts and appearing to be exceedingly kind and flattering towards them.
In July, 1924 Fish came across a young girl who was playing alone on her parent’s Staten
Island farm. He had convinced the girl to go off with him to pick rhubarb when the mother
arrived and scared him off. Still his obsession with the eight-year-old girl forced him to
return and he tried to sleep in the barn. Once again he was discovered, this time by
the father, and chased off.
Another botched abduction occurred when he invited two young boys to his apartment for
lunch. While he was preparing the food, the boys waited in his bedroom. They began play
wrestling on the bed and then fell onto the floor. There they saw, under the bed, Fish’s
self described ‘instruments of hell’ - a meat cleaver, a hacksaw and a knife. Frightened
out of their wits, the two boys took to their heels, running past Fish and out of the apartment.
Fish’s modus operandi of snatching the unimportant and unmissed was thrown into chaos when, in
he unwittingly abducted and murdered Francis McDonnell, the son a Staten Island police
officer. The eight-year-old was playing ball on the street with four friends, when Fish,
who had been hanging around for hours, called the boy over. When his friends turned to see
where Francis was, both he and the stranger were gone.
When Francis failed to return home, his father set out to find him. After scouring the neighborhood
and questioning the other boys, he kept hearing about the gray haired old man who had been
hanging around. Then, he telegraphed police headquarters. The next day a massive search
was underway throughout Staten Island. Eventually, the body of Francis McDonnell was found by
three boy scouts under a pile of branches and leaves on a rural property.
All of the clothing below the child's waist had been pulled from his body. It was apparent
that he had been vociosuly seuallya ssaulted. Fish had finished him off by strangling Francis
with his own suspenders, which were wound so tightly that they appeared to be part of
his flesh. Within minutes more than fifty police officers were surrounding the body.
The next day, the case was given the highest priority with 250 officers assigned to it.
The boy’s father, Arthur McDonnell, was transferred from Manhattan precinct to Staten
Island so that he could personally work on his son’s case.
The autopsy on Francis’ body revealed that he had been eating raisins just prior to his
death. The police concluded that this must have been the lure that the killer had used
to pull the boy away. The terrible condition of the body caused the coroner to also comcldue
that the attacker could not have been an elderly man. To cause that degree of physical damage
he must have been in his prime. Hysteria swept through the state and daily
reports came in of sightings of the ‘gray man’. In the weeks following the discovery
of the child’s boy, dozens of men were questioned with several being arrested but later released.
Hopes for an early resolution to the case vanished as the leads dried up. With public
interest in the case fading, the dead boy’s mother made a desperate plea to the public
. . . Help us catch the monster who killed our little
boy. Help us find the gray man. Grace Budd
On May 25, 1928, eighteen year old Edward Budd placed a one line classified advertisement
in the New York World newspaper in an attempt to find employment. Three days later, an elderly
man knocked on the front door of the Budd apartment on 15th Street in Manhattan. He
said his name was Frank Howard and he was replying to the situations wanted ad in the
paper. Edward Budd’s mother invited him in and sent his younger sister, Beatrice to
fetch her brother from next door. Edward soon tuned up with his friend Willie in tow. Mr
Howard offered both boys jobs on his farm on Farmingdale, Long Island. He then told
them that he would return on Saturday and drive the boys to the farm.
The following Saturday the boys waited excitedly with their bags packed. But Mr Howard never
turned up. Instead a telegraph was delivered which told the boys that Howard had been delayed
and would come for the boys the next day. He turned up in the early afternoon on Sunday,
just as the family had returned from church. He was invited to stay for lunch. It was while
sitting at the food table that Mr Howard got his first view of Grace Budd.
The pretty eight-year-old was dressed in her best Sunday dress. The old man was immediately
smitten, beckoning Grace over to him. She looked to her mother who nodded her assent.
Mr Howard told Grace how pretty she was. He then asked if she was a good counter. When
she nodded, he pulled from his pocket the biggest wad of money anyone else in the room
had ever seen. He laid the cash and coins on the table and asked Grace to count it for
him. Grace counted out $92.50, at the conclusion
of which Mr Howard rewarded her with a fifty cent piece and told her to go and buy some
candy for her and her sister. Again the mother nodded her approval and the little girl happily
left the room. It was then that the old man informed the Budds that there had been a slight
change of plan. He had to attend his young nieces birthday party that afternoon but he
would return for the boys that evening. Then, just as he was leaving, he turned to Mr Budd
and said that he had just had a thought – would they allow him to take young Grace to the
birthday party with him? It was going to be such fun, with lots of food, games and children
her age. And, of course, he would have her back by nine o’clock.
Mrs Budd was hesitant – they didn’t even know this man. But he did seem exceedingly
kind and he clearly loved children. Before she could answer, her husband had made up
her mind for her, saying that the girl never got out and it would be good for her to have
some fun for a change. Mrs Budd did want to know where the party was going to be. Howard
answered that it was at his sister’s place at 137th and Columbus Avenue. The Budd’s
didn’t realize that Columbus ends at 110th Street, so the address did not exist.
And so it was the young Grace Budd was dressed up in her spring coat and gray hat with blue
streamers and headed off up the street with the gray man. Mrs Budd stood on the door and
watched then disappear around the corner, It as the last time she saw her daughter.
The Budds waited with growing alarm for Mr Howard to return with Grace. By Monday morning
Mrs Budd was hysterical with worry. Edward was rushed off to the nearest police station
to report that the girl was missing. A short time later, four detectives arrived at the
Budd home to question the family The Budd kidnaping was big news all over the
country. The case was unique in that the whole Budd family had gotten a long and detailed
look at the so-called Mr Howard. Thousand of flyers were printed with a detailed description
accompanied by a photo of Grace. These were distributed through both the US and Canada.
As expected there were a rash of false sightings and leads that went nowhere. But then a solid
lead emerged. The telegraph office where Howard had sent the telegraph to the Budds from was
identified. An intensive search of that area then found another clue – a food basket
that Howard had left at the Budd’s house was identified and the man who had sold it
to Howard was tracked down. From this it was deduced that the kidnapper was a resident
of East Harlem. But from there, the trail went cold. Despite a raft of letters and confessions
coming in, nothing panned out. Then, in September, 1930 there was break in
the case. Police arrested a 66 year-old by the name of Charles Edward Popel for the crime.
Pope was held in custody for 3 ½ months and then put on trial only to be found not guilty.
In November, 1934, the still grieving parents of Grace Budd received an excruciatingly gruesome
letter which police later confirmed was from Albert Fish. It read in part . . .
I grabbed her and she said she would tell her mama. 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.
Closing In
The police were able to compare the handwriting in the letter to the telegraph note that they
had recovered years before. It was immediately obvious that they were written by the same
person. But it wasn’t the letter itself that finally brought Albert Fish down. It
was the envelope in which it was contained. Printed on the back of the envelope flap were
the initials N.Y.P.C.B.A. Police were able to track it down to the New York Private Chauffeur's
Benevolent Association. They found out that a janitor at the association had taken a bunch
of envelopes home to his rooming house at 622 Lexington Avenue.
Detectives descended on the boarding house but were frustrated that no one there recognized
the description of Mr Howard. But then the janitor remembered that when he had taken
the envelopes, he had not yet moved to Lexington Avenue. He had still been living at East 52nd
Street.
When a detective showed the landlady the description of Mr Howard, she immediately recognized him
as the elderly man who had moved in when the janitor had left. The officer asked to see
the man’s signature in the register. Pulling out the letter that had been sent to Mrs Budd,
he could see that the signature was written by the same person who wrote the disgusting
letter. The man had signed his name as ‘Albert H. Fish’.
The detective discovered from the landlady that Albert Fish, who had moved out a few
days earlier, received regular support checks from his son. On several occasions he had
asked the landlady to cash the checks on his behalf. It just so happened that the check
was due any day and Fish had said that he would return for it.
The police now set up a 24 hour surveillance of the boarding house. Yet after three weeks,
there was no sign of Fish and the surveillance was reluctantly called off. Then, on December
4th, the landlady of the rooming house phone the police to inform that Fish had just come
in and inquired about his check. In fact, he was still there. The landlady was told
to stall him. She ushered him into a room and gave him a cup of tea. Minutes later,
a detective walked into the room and, looking at the frail old man on the couch, said, ‘Albert
Fish?’
Fish was momentarily taken aback. But then he reached into his vest pocket and pulled
out a razor blade and held it out threateningly. The detective quickly closed in grabbed the
old man’s wrist and twisted. The blade fell to the floor and the pathetic killer slumped
back down on the couch.
Looking down at the man he had been hunting for years, the detective said, ‘I’ve got
you now’.
Trial
Albert Fish went on trial for the murder of Grace Budd on March 11, 1935. The night before,
he had managed to extract a chicken bone from the soup he had been served, sharpen it to
a point and proceed to repeatedly stab himself with it. When a guard heard him moaning, he
rushed in and managed to take the makeshift weapon away from him. It was reported as a
suicide attempt, but it was simply a means of satisfying his deranged sexual urges.
Throughout the ten day trial, Fish maintained an indifferent attitude. He sat slumped in
his chair, often with his eyes closed and appeared to show absolutely no interest in
what was going on. One reporter described him as resembling ‘a corpse insecurely propped
in a chair’.
The defense readily admitted that Fish committed the crime. It was their contention, however,
that he was legally insane at the time of the killing and that he remained that way
as he sat in front of them. The prosecution, on the hand, set out to prove the opposite
- that he was sane, knew the wrongness of what he was doing and, therefore, must answer
for his actions.
The prosecution called a series of psychiatrists as witnesses, each of whom stated that the
defendant was sane, though suffering from a whole host of psychotic conditions. In the
end the prosecution did persuade the jury that Fish was sane. They found him guilty
of murder in the first degree. The sentence was execution in the electric chair at Sing
Sing prison.
One of the jurors later revealed that most of the jurors actually felt that Fish was
insane - but they felt more strongly that he was deserving of the electric chair.
Justice?
Albert Fish’s last day on earth was January 16, 1936. He was escorted into the execution
chamber at 11:06 pm. He clasped his hands together in prayer as he was lowered into
the chair and strapped in. The leather cap was fitted and electrodes attached to his
skin.
As the current urged through his body, Albert Fish’s body jolted backward, the veins in
his neck bulged and his fists involuntarily clenched. Then his body went limp.
The monster was no more.