Hamilton Howard "Albert" Fish

Also known as

Gray Man Frank Howard

The Werewolf of Wysteria Thomas A. Sprague
The Brooklyn Vampire Robert Hayden
The Moon Maniac John W. Pell
The Boogey Man

May 19, 1870 – January 16, 1936

Mugshot from 1903
American serial killer, child rapist and cannibal.
He boasted that he "had children in every state",[2] and at one time stated
the number was about 100. However, it is not known whether he was referring to rapes or cannibalization,
nor is it known if the statement was truthful.[3] He was a suspect in at least five murders during his lifetime.
Fish confessed to three murders that police were able to trace to a known homicide, and he confessed to
stabbing at least two other people. He was put on trial for the kidnapping and murder of Grace Budd, and
was convicted and executed by electric chair.[4][5]

Early life
Birth and childhood
Fish was born in Washington, D.C., on May 19, 1870, to Randall (1795 – October 16, 1875) He wished to
be known as "Albert" after a dead sibling and to escape the nickname "Ham & Eggs" that he was given at
an orphanage in which he spent much of his childhood.

Fish's family had a history of mental illness. His uncle suffered from mania. A brother was confined in a
state mental hospital. His sister was diagnosed with a "mental affliction". Three other relatives were
diagnosed with mental illnesses, and his mother had "aural and/or visual hallucinations".[9][10]

In 1875, his mother put him into Saint John's Orphanage in Washington, where he was frequently abused.
He began to enjoy the physical pain that the beatings brought.[11] Of his time at the orphanage, Fish
remarked, "I was there 'til I was nearly nine, and that's where I got started wrong. We were unmercifully
whipped. I saw boys doing many things they should not have done."

By 1880, his mother had a government job and was able to remove Fish from the orphanage. In 1882, at
age 12, he began a relationship with a telegraph boy. The youth introduced Fish to such practices
as urolagnia (drinking urine) and coprophagia (eating feces). Fish began visiting public baths where he
could watch other boys undress and spent a great portion of his weekends on these visits.[11] Throughout
his life, he would write obscene letters to women whose names he acquired from classified
advertising and matrimonial agencies.[9]

1890–1918: Early adulthood and criminal history

By 1890, Fish arrived in New York City, and he said at that point he became a prostitute and
began raping young boys. In 1898, his mother arranged a marriage for him with Anna Mary Hoffman, who
was nine years his junior.[10][12][13][14] They had six children: Albert, Anna, Gertrude, Eugene, John, and
Henry Fish.[10]

Throughout 1898, he worked as a house painter. He said he continued molesting children, mostly boys
younger than age six. He later recounted an incident in which a male lover took him to a waxworks
museum, where Fish was fascinated by a bisection of a penis. After that, he became obsessed with sexual
mutilation.[12][15]

Thomas Kedden
Around 1910, while he was working in Wilmington, Delaware, Fish met a 19-year-old man named Thomas
Kedden. He took Kedden to where he was staying, and the two began a sadomasochistic relationship; it
is unclear whether or not Fish forced Kedden to do these things, but in his confession he implies that the
man was intellectually disabled. After ten days, Fish took Kedden to "an old farm house", where he began
to torture him. The torture took place over two weeks. Fish eventually tied Kedden up and cut off half of
his penis. "I shall never forget his scream, or the look he gave me," Fish later recalled. He originally
intended to kill Kedden, cut up his body, and take it home, but he feared the hot weather would draw
attention to him; instead, Fish poured peroxide over the wound, wrapped it in a Vaseline-covered
handkerchief, left a $10 bill, kissed Kedden goodbye, and left. "Took first train I could get back home.
Never heard what become of him, or tried to find out," Fish said.[16]

In January 1917, Fish's wife left him for John Straube. It was about this time
that Fish began to indulge in self-harm. He would embed needles into his groin
and abdomen.[10] After his arrest, X-rays revealed that Fish had at least 29
needles lodged in his pelvic region.[10] He also hit himself repeatedly with a
nail-studded paddle and inserted wool doused with lighter fluid into his anus
and set it alight.[17] While he was never thought to have physically attacked or
X-ray of Fish's pelvis and
abused his children, he did encourage them and their friends to paddle his
perineum, introduced as
evidence at his trial, buttocks with the same nail-studded paddle he used to abuse himself. He soon
demonstrating more than two developed a growing obsession with cannibalism, often preparing himself a
dozen self-embedded needles
dinner consisting solely of raw meat and sometimes serving it to his children.

1919–1930: Escalation
In about 1919, he stabbed an intellectually disabled boy in Georgetown, Washington, D.C..[18] Fish chose
people who were either mentally handicapped or African-American as his victims, explaining that he
assumed these people would not be missed when killed.[19] He would later claim to occasionally pay boys
to procure him other children.[20] Fish tortured, mutilated, and murdered young children with his
"implements of Hell": a meat cleaver, a butcher knife, and a small handsaw.[21]

Beatrice Kiel
On July 11, 1924, Fish found eight-year-old Beatrice Kiel playing alone on her parents' Staten Island farm.
He offered her money to come and help him look for rhubarb. She was about to leave the farm when her
mother chased Fish away. Fish left but returned later to the Kiels' barn, where he tried to sleep but was
discovered by Hans Kiel and forced to leave. During 1924, the 54-year-old Fish, suffering from psychosis,
felt that God was commanding him to torture and sexually mutilate children.[10]
Cyril Quinn
Shortly before his abduction of Grace Budd, Fish attempted to test his "implements of Hell" on a child he
had been molesting named Cyril Quinn. Quinn and his friend were playing box ball on a sidewalk when
Fish asked them if they had eaten lunch. When they said that they had not, he invited them into his
apartment for sandwiches. While the two boys were wrestling on Fish's bed, they dislodged his mattress;
underneath was a knife, a small handsaw, and a meat cleaver. They became frightened and ran out of the
apartment.[22]

Murder of Grace Budd

On May 25, 1928, Fish saw a classified advertisement in the Sunday edition of the New York World that
read, "Young man, 18, wishes position in country. Edward Budd, 406 West 15th Street." On May 28, 1928,
Fish, then 58 years old, visited the Budd family in Manhattan under the pretense of hiring Edward; he later
confessed that he planned to tie Edward up, mutilate him, and leave him to bleed to death. He introduced
himself as Frank Howard, a farmer from Farmingdale, New York. Fish promised to hire Budd and his friend
Willie, and said he would send for them in a few days. He failed to show up, but he sent a telegraph to the
Budd family apologizing and set a later date. When Fish returned, he met Grace Budd. He apparently
changed his intended victim from Edward Budd to Grace Budd and quickly made up a story about having
to attend his niece's birthday party. He convinced the parents, Delia Flanagan and Albert Budd I, to let
Grace accompany him to the party that evening. The elder Albert Budd was a porter for the United States
Equitable Life Assurance Society. Grace had a younger sister, Beatrice, two older brothers, Edward and
George Budd, and a younger brother, Albert Budd II. Grace left with Fish that day but never returned.[26]

The police arrested 66-year-old superintendent Charles Edward Pope on September 5, 1930, as a suspect,
accused by Pope's estranged wife.[5] He spent 108 days in jail between his arrest and trial on December
22, 1930.[27] He was found not guilty.

Letter to the mother of Grace Budd

In November 1934, an anonymous letter was sent to the girl's parents which ultimately led the police to
Fish. Mrs. Budd was illiterate and could not read the letter herself, so she had her son read it to her.[28] The
unaltered letter (complete with Fish's misspellings and grammatical errors) reads:[10]

"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 to 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 a 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 to the Butchers to be cut up and 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 yr 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 Head – bones and guts. He was roasted in the oven,
(all of his ass) boiled, broiled, fried, stewed. The little boy was next, went the same way. At that
time I was living at 409 E 100 St, rear – 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 wild flowers. 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 stairs. 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. I did not fuck her, though, I could of [sic] had I
wished. She died a virgin."

Police investigated the letter. The story concerning "Capt. Davis" and the "famine" in Hong Kong could not
be verified. The part of the letter concerning the murder of Grace Budd, however, was found to be
accurate in its description of the kidnapping and subsequent events, although it was impossible to confirm
whether or not Fish had actually eaten parts of Grace's body.[29][30][31]

Other crimes discovered after Fish's arrest

Francis McDonnell
During the night of July 14, 1924, 9-year-old Francis McDonnell was reported missing by his parents. He
failed to return home after playing catch with friends in the Port Richmond neighborhood of Staten Island.
A search was organised and his body was found—hanging by a tree—in a wooded area near his home. He
had been sexually assaulted, then strangled with his suspenders.[9] According to an autopsy, McDonnell
had also suffered extensive lacerations to his legs and abdomen, and his left hamstring had almost entirely
been stripped of its flesh. Fish refused to claim responsibility for this, although he later stated that he
intended to castrate the boy but fled when he heard someone approaching the area.

McDonnell's friends told the police that he was taken by an elderly man with a grey moustache. A neighbor
also told the police he observed the boy with a similar-looking man walking along a grassy path into the
nearby woods.[9] Francis' mother, Anna McDonnell, said she saw the same man earlier that day. She told
the reporters, "He came shuffling down the street mumbling to himself and making queer motions with
his hands ... I saw his thick grey hair and his drooping grey moustache. Everything about him seemed faded
and grey."[9]

This description resulted in the mysterious stranger becoming known as "The Grey Man". The McDonnell
murder remained unsolved until the murder of Grace Budd.[9] When several eyewitnesses, among them
the Staten Island farmer Hans Kiel, positively identified Albert Fish as the odd stranger seen around Port
Richmond on the day of Francis McDonnell's disappearance, Richmond County District Attorney Thomas
J. Walsh announced his intention to seek an indictment against Fish for the boy's murder. At first, Fish
denied the charges. It was only in March 1935, after the conclusion of his trial for the Budd murder and
his confession to the killing of Billy Gaffney, that Fish confirmed to investigators that he also raped and
murdered Francis McDonnell. When the McDonnell confession was made public, the New York Daily
Mirror wrote that the disclosure solidified Fish's reputation as "the most vicious child-slayer in criminal
history".[9]

Billy Gaffney
On February 11, 1927, 3-year-old Billy Beaton and his 12-year-old brother were playing in the apartment
hallway in Brooklyn with 4-year-old Billy Gaffney. When the 12-year-old left for his apartment, both
younger boys disappeared; Beaton was found later on the roof of the apartments. When asked what
happened to Gaffney, Beaton said "the bogeyman took him." Gaffney's body was never
recovered.[35] Initially, serial killer Peter Kudzinowski was a suspect in the boy's murder. Then, Joseph
Meehan, a motorman on a Brooklyn trolley, saw a picture of Fish in a newspaper and identified him as the
old man whom he saw February 11, 1927; the old man had been trying to quiet a little boy sitting with
him on the trolley. The boy was not wearing a jacket, was crying for his mother, and was dragged by the
man on and off the trolley. Beaton's description of the "bogeyman" matched Fish.[36] Police matched the
description of the child to Billy Gaffney. Detectives of the Manhattan Missing Persons Bureau were able
to establish that Fish was employed as a house painter by a Brooklyn real estate company during February
1927 and that on the day of Billy Gaffney's disappearance he was working at a location a few miles away
from where the boy was abducted.[37] Fish claimed the following in a letter to his attorney:[10]

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 G 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 trolley to 59 St. at 2 A.M. and walked home from there. 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 half in six strips about 8 in. 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 thru the
middle of his body. Just below his belly button. Then thru his legs about 2 in. 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. Water is 3 to 4 ft. deep. They
sank at once. 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 in the oven. Then I picked 4
onions and when meat had roasted about 1/4 hr., 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 hr., it was nice and brown, cooked thru. 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 as sweet as a nut, but his pee-wees I could not chew. Threw them
in the toilet.
Elizabeth Gaffney visited Fish in Sing Sing, accompanied by Detective King and two other men. She wanted
to ask him about her son's death, but Fish refused to speak to her. Fish began to weep and asked to be
left alone. After two hours of asking him questions through his lawyer, James Dempsey, Mrs. Gaffney gave
up. She was still unconvinced that Albert Fish was her son's killer.