Albert Fish was a sadist, a masochist, a child molester, and a cannibal. The examining psychiatrist claimed, "There was no known perversion that he did not practice and practice frequently". Simply stated, Albert Fish enjoyed pain.
Raised as an orphan in Washington, D.C., he placed blame for his atrocities on the cruelties he experienced at the orphanage. He once wrote, "Misery leads to crime. I saw so many boys whipped, it took root in my head."
As an adult, Fish married and had six children. His wife left him in 1917 for another man. It was at this point when Albert Fish started his bizarre behavior. He would dance naked in the moonlight chanting, "I am Christ! I am Christ!". He also partook of strange pastimes such as burning himself with pokers, inserting needles into his groin, and flagellating himself with a nail-studded paddle.
Being that this was not enough abuse, Fish began to answer "lonely hearts" ads from widows who wanted to wed again. He would write obscene letters to these women about paddling, punishment, and worse. One resource states he bigamously married three women he met through the correspondence.
About the time of 1928, Albert Fish's fascination with pain, both receiving and inflicting, turned toward children. Being the grandfatherly type, Albert Fish made friends with a Manhattan family named Budd. He earned the trust of the family using an alias name of Frank Howard and was granted permission to take their 10 year old daughter Grace to his niece's birthday party. However, there was no party and Fish took the little girl to an abandoned cottage in Westchester County.
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Fish carried
with him what he referred to as his "instruments of hell" which
consisted of a butcher knife, a cleaver, and a saw. He killed little
Grace by strangling her and then dismembered her corpse. He returned
to his home with a wrapped package of her flesh which he cooked with
carrots and onions. He had enough stew to last for nine days
creating a continual state of sexual excitement.
Because Albert Fish had used an alias, Grace was reported missing for six years. The Budd's never gave up hope that their beautiful daughter was still alive. |
In 1934, horror struck the Budd family. They received an anonymous letter from Fish that revealed the gruesome tragedy of what happened to Grace. He confessed in this letter of killing and eating their daughter but he also noted that he did not molest her. (How kind) Police were able to trace the letter back to Albert Fish in a New York boarding room where he was arrested December 13, 1934.
The tabloids had a field day during the trial of Albert Fish, calling him the Thrill Vulture, Vampire Man, and Moon Maniac. The court found him sane and guilty of first degree murder after which Fish confessed to several other crimes.
One such crime as described at
the Crime Library is
quoted below:
| Ultimately, Fish did
confess the unspeakable things he did to Billy Gaffney: "I
brought him to the Riker Ave. dumps. There is a house that stands
alone, not far from where I took him....I took the boy there.
Stripped him naked and tied his hands and feet and gagged him with a
piece of dirty rag I picked out of the dump. Then I burned his
clothes. Threw his shoes in the dump. Then I walked back and
took the trolley to 59 St. at 2 A.M. and walked from there home.
"Next day about 2 P.M., I took tools, a good heavy cat-of-nine
tails. Home made. Short handle. Cut one of my
belts in half, slit these halves in six strips about 8 inches
long. I whipped his bare behind till the blood ran from his
legs. I cut off his ears -- nose --slit his mouth from ear to
ear. Gouged out his eyes. He was dead then. I stuck
the knife in his belly and held my mouth to his body and drank his
blood. "I picked up four old
potato sacks and gathered a pile of stones. Then I cut him
up. I had a grip with me. I put his nose, ears and a few
slices of his belly in the grip. Then I cut him through the middle
of his body. Just below the belly button. Then through
his legs about 2 inches below his behind. I put this in my grip
with a lot of paper. I cut off the head -- feet -- arms-- hands
and the legs below the knee. This I put in sacks weighed with
stones, tied the ends and threw them into the pools of slimy water you
will see all along the road going to North Beach. "I came home with my meat.
I had the front of his body I liked best. His monkey and pee wees
and a nice little fat behind to roast in the oven and eat. I made
a stew out of his ears -- nose -- pieces of his face and belly. I
put onions, carrots, turnips, celery, salt and pepper. It was
good. "Then I split the cheeks of
his behind open, cut off his monkey and pee wees and washed them first.
I put strips of bacon on each cheek of his behind and put them in the
oven. Then I picked 4 onions and when the meat had roasted about
1/4 hour, I poured about a pint of water over it for gravy and put in
the onions. At frequent intervals I basted his behind with a
wooden spoon. So the meat would be nice and juicy. "In about 2 hours, it was
nice and brown, cooked through. I never ate any roast turkey that
tasted half as good as his sweet fat little behind did. I
ate every bit of the meat in about four days. His little monkey
was a sweet as a nut, but his pee-wees I could not chew. Threw
them in the toilet." |
At times, Albert Fish was at a loss to explain his actions. He proclaimed strong religious feelings stating he "sometimes felt a need to make a sacrifice". To the court psychiatrist, he said he had killed Grace Budd "to save her from some future outrage" that he could foresee and felt sure that "an angel would stop him if he did the wrong thing".
Albert Fish was sentenced to electrocution in New York's Sing Sing Prison. He looked forward to his demise by way of electrocution saying, "It will be the supreme thrill - the only one I haven't tried". On January 16, 1936, Albert Fish walked unassisted into the execution chamber to become the 65th oldest prisoner ever executed at the New York prison.
For a more detailed account on Albert Fish, check out the Crime Library web site.
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