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Read this!! This is crazy! Read this whole thing and tell me what you think about it!
There are few killers in American
history that are remembered today as being as deranged and fiendish as the
seemingly kind and harmless, Albert Fish. He looked like every child's favorite
grandfather but behind the quiet facade of his silver hair and mustache lurked a
hideous monster who preyed on the young and the innocent with his horrific
"instruments of hell" -- a meat cleaver, a butcher knife and a saw. He was the
self-admitted molester of more than 400 children during a span of 20 years and
in the words of one of the shocked psychiatrists who examined him, he lived a
life of "unparalleled perversity." Albert Fish remains one of the oldest men
ever executed in the electric chair but it was a death that came too late for
many of his victims.
After his capture, Fish would
blame the conditions of his childhood for his crimes. Although he was related to
ancestors who fought in the American Revolution, Fish was abandoned at an early
age and placed in an orphanage, where he saw and experienced his first brutal
acts of sadism. He had been born in 1870 in the Washington D.C. area and later
married and raised six children. He had minor public education and mostly worked
as a handyman and a painter. It's likely that his psychosis actually manifested
much earlier but according to the testimony of one of his children, his weird
and unpredictable behavior did not begin to surface until January 1917. It was
at this time that his wife ran away with John Straube, a slow-witted handyman
who boarded with the Fish family. Fish returned from work one day to find the
house deserted and stripped of its furniture.
Mrs. Fish was apparently a bit odd
herself. She once returned to her husband with Straube at her side and asked if
they could move in with the family. Fish said that she could but that her loved
could not and so she agreed and sent Straube away. Days later, Fish discovered
that his wife had actually secreted Straube in the attic and he lurked there
while she smuggled food up to him. Again, Fish told her that she could stay but
that Straube had to leave. They both departed this time and the family never saw
Mrs. Fish again.
Soon after, Fish began to behave
very strangely. He took his family up to their summer home, Wisteria Cottage, in
Westchester County, New York for outings and they would watch, terrified, as he
climbed a nearby hill, shook his fist at the sky and repeatedly screamed, "I am
Christ!". Pain seemed to delight him. Whether inflicting it on himself or
others, he took strange pleasure in being whipped and paddled. He encouraged his
own and neighbor children to paddle his buttocks until they bled, often using a
paddle that was studded with inch-and-a-half nails. He also inserted a large
number of needles into his body, mostly in the genital region, and burned
himself constantly with hot irons and pokers. He even answered classified ads
placed with widows seeking husbands. His letters --- 46 of them were recovered
and entered as evidence at his trial -- were so obscene and vile that the
prosecution refused to make them public. Basically, Fish told the lovelorn
ladies that he was not as interested in marriage as he was in their willingness
to paddle him. None of the women accepted his offers.
Albert Fish in the 1930's (UPI
Photo)
On night of the full moon, his
children later testified, Fish would consume huge quantities of raw meat. Over
the years, he collected a great amount of published material on cannibalism and
he carried the most gruesome articles with him on his person at all times.
Before he ever turned to murder, Fish was examined several times by
psychiatrists at Bellevue but he was always released and judged "disturbed but
sane."
When and where Fish first
became a murderer is unknown. He confessed to six killing and referred vaguely
to dozens more, although the victims, dates and places were lost to his hazy
memory. He did confess to murdering a man in Wilmington, Delaware; mutilating
and torturing to death a mentally retarded boy in New York in 1910; killing a
Negro boy in Washington also in 1919; molesting and killing four year-old
William Gaffney in 1929; and strangling to death five year-old Francis McDonnell
on Long Island in 1934. The most sensational murder carried out by Fish was the
abduction and horrific slaughter of Grace Budd in 1928. Her abduction led to a
man hunt that lasted for six years. The police have given up hope of ever
solving her mysterious disappearance until a slender clue, gleaned from an
anonymous letter sent to the girl's parents, led detectives to Albert Fish.
Fish introduced himself to
the Budd's in a way that never raised suspicions with the hard-working family.
Albert Budd, Grace's father, earned a modest living as a doorman but it never
seemed to be enough to adequately take care of the entire brood, which consisted
of his wife, Delia, eighteen year-old Edward, Albert Jr., Grace and the
youngest child, five year-old Beatrice. To help his father make ends meet,
Edward advertised in the May 27, 1928 issue of the New York World
Telegram for a job. His ad read: "Young man, 18, wishes position in the
country," followed by his name and address.
That same afternoon, a
nicely dressed Albert Fish answered the ad and showed up at the Budd home in the
Chelsea district of Manhattan. He introduced himself as Mr. Frank Howard, a
farmer from Long Island who was willing to pay $15 per week to a willing young
worker. The family could scarcely believe Edward's luck and good fortune and
quickly invited Mr. Howard into the house. After hearing Fish's description of
the farm, Edward readily accepted the position Mr. Howard promised to return the
next week and take not only Edward out to the farm, but his friend Willie as
well. Howard stressed that he had enough work for both of the young
men.
Fish did not return as
promised on June 2, the following Saturday, but he did send an apologetic
telegram, and arrived on Monday instead. Impressed by his manners, the Budd's
greeted him warmly and invited him to stay for lunch. Fish behaved just like a
visiting grandfather and passed out treats and dollar bills to the children. He
presented two of the bills to Eddie and Willie and while he had a prior
engagement, he promised to return that evening to pick them up and take them to
his farm. However, he had a special treat for the oldest daughter, Grace, he
told her trusting parents. If they were agreeable to the idea, he wanted to take
her to a children's birthday party at the home of his married sister at 137th
Street and Columbus Avenue. The Budd's readily agreed and Grace left with Fish,
holding onto his hand, still wearing the pure, white dress that she had worn to
church that morning. The two of them walked off down the street together. The
Budd's waved goodbye to their little girl -- and never saw her alive
again.
(Left) Grace
-- standing far right) with her mother, older sister and her younger brother.
(Right) A
Likeness of Grace that was featured in newspapers and tabloids at the time of
her disappearance. (Bettman Archives)
When Grace did not return
home that night with Mr. Howard, the Budd's were concerned but not overly
worried. They assumed that the party has lasted late and that she had likely
spent the night with Mr. Howard's sister. They tried hard to convince themselves
of this, even into the following morning, when there was still no sign of Grace.
Finally, Albert Budd decided to go to the address himself and inquire after his
daughter. However, he soon found that the address where Howard's sister
supposedly lived did not even exist -- Columbus only went as far as 109th. This
made his next stop the closest police station, where he was referred to the
Missing Persons Bureau and eventually to veteran detective, William King. The
detectives were suspicious of the situation right from the start. It did not
take them long to find that there was no Frank Howard with a farm on Long
Island. This also meant that there was no real clue to the abductor's true
identity. The man had covered his tracks well, even going as far as to retrieve
the telegram that he had sent to the Budd's. He claimed that he was going to
complain to Western Union because it had been addressed incorrectly.
Regardless, King and other
members of the Bureau started a long and arduous search for the Western Union
copy of the telegram. It was the only link that he had with Grace's kidnapper
and three postal clerks spent more than 15 hours sifting though tens of
thousands of duplicates with King before they found the one that Howard had
sent. The only clue it provided was that it had been sent from an office in East
Harlem. The idea of searching every home in that part of the city was first
considered and then abandoned as a physical impossibility. King then focused on
another slim link -- a small pail of cheese and a carton of strawberries that
Howard had purchased for Mrs. Budd. He told her that they were fresh from the
farm. Investigators scoured the East Harlem area until they found the
delicatessen where Howard had bought the cheese and they also found the street
peddler who had sold him the strawberries. The peddler described the man in
detail but could recall nothing else significant about him. That trail also ran
cold...
One of over 1,000 circulars that
were sent out by the NYPD to police departments around the country. The flyers
never turned up any leads
(New York Daily News)
Grace Budd's disappearance started
a widespread search through New York City that fall, particularly when the
detective and the family went to the media with the story. Grace's photo
appeared on the front page of newspapers and garnered hundreds of tips, leads
and investigation advice from an angry and panicked public. Thousands of
circulars were printed and sent out to police departments throughout the United
States and Canada but with no results. The Budd's grew more and more despondent
as lead after lead went nowhere. A couple of months after Grace vanished, even
the most dedicated investigators --- with the exception of Will King -- had
given up on the case as hopeless.
King was already a legend in New
York law enforcement circles and he was the only investigator who never gave up
hope. Not a day went by when he did not think of Grace and her grieving parents
and when he did not put in at least some time on the case, following up long
shots and making calls. He never let a lead cross his desk that he did not look
into.
At one point, King was
sure that he was onto his man when he received a file on a gray-haired con man
and forger named Albert Corthell, who was on the run for trying to abduct a
little girl from an adoption agency. King tracked Corthell for months, chasing
him from city to city across the country. He finally caught up with him and was
crushed when he found out that Corthell had been in prison in Seattle when Grace
was taken.
Corthell turned out to be
one of two strong leads that King pursued over six long years. Another suspect,
Charles Edward Pope, was also arrested and actually charged in Grace's
kidnapping. However, Mrs. Budd, the principal witness in the case, admitted in
court that she had picked out the wrong man. It turned out that Pope had been
blamed for the kidnapping by his vindictive ex-wife. He was subsequently
released.
Around the same time that
Corthell and Pope were being exhaustively investigated by the police, another
gray-haired old man was arrested in New York and was charged with sending
obscene materials, mostly letters, through the mail. The letters were sent with
Fish pretending to be a well-known Hollywood movie producer and in them, he
offered large sums of money to women who might engage in sadomasochistic orgies
with him. After his arrest, he was committed to the psychiatric ward at Bellevue
for a ten-day observation. While there, the letter writer claimed that, although
his friends knew him as Albert, his real name was Hamilton Fish and he was a
relative of the famous New York family of the same name. He would tell the same
story again when arrested for Grace Budd's murder four years later. Strangely,
there has never been any reason to doubt that he may have actually hailed from
this prestigious family stock. Fish remained in Bellevue for nearly 30 days in
the winter of 1930. He was polite and cooperative and the doctors judged him
sane, although with sexual problems that they attributed to dementia caused by
his advancing age. He was thought harmless and was released from the hospital
into the custody of his daughter Anna.
Meanwhile, years were
passing in the Grace Budd case and despite Detective King's ongoing efforts, it
appeared that her vanishing would never be solved. Then on November 11, 1934 --
six years after she had been kidnapped -- Mrs. Budd received an unsigned and
anonymous letter in the mail. The letter claimed to be from a friend of someone
named "Captain John Davis". According to the letter writer, Captain Davis was a
seafaring man who, on one of his trips to China, developed a taste for human
flesh, namely the flesh of children, during a famine in the Far East. The letter
then described in graphic terms how Captain Davis, after returning to New York,
had kidnapped and murdered two young boys, had cooked their flesh and had eaten
it. After learning from Davis that the flesh of children was "good and tender",
the deranged letter writer decided to try it for himself. He had visited the
Budd home for lunch and had taken the girl away with him.
Mrs. Budd sobbed
hysterically as the letter went on to detail how he had taken Grace to an empty
house in Westchester, New York. He let her pick flowers in the garden while he
stripped himself naked. He called her into the house and when she saw the
grizzled and naked old man, she began to scream. She tried to run away, he
wrote, but he caught her, stripped her and then choked her to death. Then, he
dismembered her body and cooked and ate the smaller pieces. Bizarrely, the
letter described how Grace had been killed and cut up but went to extremes to
assure Mrs. Budd that she had not been sexually molested in any way. "She died a
virgin", the writer assured the anguished mother.
After the horrific letter,
investigators went into action, pulling out all stops to find the monster who
had written it. The investigation was again led by Detective King, who had
deferred his retirement two years earlier so that he could continue to work on
the Grace Budd case. King immediately found "Mr. Howard's" original Western
Union telegram blank and there was no doubt about it -- the handwriting was the
same. "Howard" and the letter writer were one and the same person. King used a
microscope on the letter and discovered an almost indiscernible design on the
flap of the envelope. It turned out to be the letters N.Y.P.C.B.A. and a quick
search through the Manhattan telephone directory revealed the letters to stand
for the New York Private Chauffeur's Benevolent Association, headquartered at
627 Lexington Avenue. The association gladly opened its files to Detective King
and he spent hours checking the backgrounds and handwriting of their 400
employees. Sadly though, he did not come up with a match. Undaunted, he called
all of the employees together and questioned them rigorously. He also added an
appeal for any information the drivers might have that could help him with the
case. He offered immunity for theft of the letter writing materials and
envelopes --- all he wanted was to catch the sadistic child killer.
After his appeal to the
drivers, King retreated to a private office in the association's headquarters
and hoped that his assurances would pay off. A few minutes later, a nondescript
man in a chauffeur's uniform named Lee Sicowski knocked on the door. He told
Detective King that he had a habit of taking the association's stationary home
with him and using it. In fact, Sicowski explained, he had left some of the
unused notepaper and envelopes in a room that he had occupied at 622 Lexington.
Detectives raced to the rooming house but there was nothing there. King then
urged Sicowski to think of anywhere else the stationary could have been.
Sicowski then remembered that he had also spent some time in a cheap boarding
house at 200 East 52nd Street. He might have left some of it there.
This address turned out to
be a flophouse but it was here that investigators struck gold. The landlady,
Mrs. Frieda Schneider, stated that Sicowski's old room was recently occupied by
a man who fit Frank Howard's description. His name was actually Albert Fish.
Carefully, checked the signature in the room register and he was convinced that
the handwriting was the same as that of the letter writer. However, Fish had
recently checked out of the place but he was in the habit of receiving a monthly
check from one his sons. It was always sent to the 200 East 52nd Street address.
King was prepared to invest a few more weeks in the hunt for the killer and so
he took a room at the flophouse at the top of the stairs, which gave him a view
of the entrance and the upstairs and downstairs hallways.
He waited for three days
and then on December 13, 1934, King received an urgent call from the flophouse.
He had left to return to the station and file some paperwork when the landlady
called -- Fish was back! When he returned to the house, Mrs. Schneider met him
at the door. Fish had come back a half hour earlier and to stall until the
detective could get there, she had given him a cup of tea and invited him to sit
down. Trying to remain clam, King drew his revolver and walked into the room
where Fish waited. What he found was a harmless-looking, white-haired old man
with a scraggly mustache and watery blue eyes. He was sipping at a cup of team.
Detective King identified himself and the Fish made no effort to conceal his own
identity. Then, the detective asked Fish to accompany him to police headquarters
for questioning.
King was then shocked and stunned
when the seemingly harmless old man reached into his pocket and lunged at King
with a vicious straight razor in his hand! Fish was no match for the solidly
built officer though and King grabbed him by the wrist and twisted it until the
razor dropped to the floor. He quickly handcuffed the old man and searched his
pockets. To his horror, he found that Fish's pockets were crammed with assorted
sharp knives and razors. He then turned the man around to face him and stared
into his withered face. "I've got you now," King said triumphantly, ended a six
year manhunt.
Albert Fish and his relentless
pursuer, Detective Will King (New York Daily
News)
At the police station,
Fish became more resigned to his arrest and confessed to succumbing to his
"blood thirst" in the summer of 1928. His original victim, he explained, had
been intended to be Edward Budd, who had placed the classified ad. However, when
he got to the Budd house and saw the size of the stocky teenager, he changed his
mind and set his sights on the more vulnerable Grace. He freely confessed to
kidnapping the girl and taking her to Wisteria Cottage in a place called
Worthington Woods, in Westchester County. His recall of the day when he
kidnapped the girl was clear after six years, as the old man had probably
relived it in his mind over and over again. He had bought a round trip train
ticket to Worthington Woods for himself and a one-way ticket for Grace. And he
also remembered that when they were changing trains, he had left a bundle behind
on the seat. Grace, trying to be helpful, ran back and retrieved it for him.
Inside of the bundle were Fish's grisly tools of death -- a cleaver, saw and
butcher's knife -- and Grace happily handed them over, never knowing that they
would taste her flesh a short time later. After arriving at Wisteria Cottage,
Fish systematically strangled the girl, beheaded her and dismembered her body,
dissecting her torso at the waist, and then he cut her up and ate her over a
nine-day period. Investigators later reported that Fish grinned as he described
draining her blood and drinking it.
(Left) The haunting and abandoned
Wisteria Cottage. (Above) The Skull of Grace Budd was discovered buried with
other pieces of her skeleton beside a wall behind the cottage. (New York
Daily News)
The horrified detectives
then made their own trip to Wisteria Cottage and recovered the skeletal remains
of Grace Budd, buried in pieces beside a stone wall behind the cottage.
Detective King finally had his killer -- but Fish couldn't stop confessing. He
described other murders that he had committed between 1910 and 1934. Much of
what he told police turned out to be false or exaggerated but he still provided
enough details to convince the investigators that he had killed before. Some
have even suggested that he may have killed dozens of people! The detectives
were also chilled to discover that Fish had been arrested in the New York area
six times since the disappearance of Grace Budd on charges that ranged from
petty larceny, to vagrancy, to sending obscene letters through the post office.
Three of the arrests occurred in the three-month period after Grace had been
kidnapped but each time the charges against him were dismissed. As for the other
arrests, he walked free each time with either a short period of incarceration or
a fine. No one ever guessed that the old man was a depraved killer.
One of the few people not
surprised at the arrest of Fish was his son, Albert Fish Jr. "That old skunk,"
he said in a newspaper interview, "I always knew that he would get caught for
something like this." He went on to tell of his father's penchant for raw meat
and how he had come home one day to find his father stripped naked and beating
himself with a heavy board that was studded with sharp nails. He threw the old
man out of his house shortly after. He concluded his interview in disgust. "I've
never wanted anything to do with him and I'll not left a hand to help
him."
Fish was examined by teams
of doctors and he relished the notoriety. He described his fetishes and
perversions to the fascinated psychiatrists, telling of inserting needles into
his scrotum (later X-rays revealed 29 rusty needles in his body) and inserting
wool that was doused with light fluid into his anus and setting it on fire. One
psychiatrist in particular, Dr. Frederic Wertham, got remarkably close to Fish
before and after his trial. He later wrote that Fish "looked like a meek and
innocuous little old man, gentle and benevolent, friendly and polite. If you
wanted someone to entrust your children to, he would be the one you would
choose." However, he then went on to describe Fish as the most complex example
of a "polymorphous pervert" he had ever known --- someone who had practiced
every perversion and deviation known to man, from sodomy to sadism, eating
excrement and self mutilation. He even confessed to Wertham that he had carried
Grace's ears and nose back to New York with him, wrapped in newspaper. He placed
the bundle on his lap as he traveled by train and quivered with excitement as he
thought about what was inside.
One of the X-Rays of Fish's pelvic
region revealed 29 needles that had been inserted in his body and left there.
(New York Daily News)
Like the other examining
physicians, Wertham judged Fish to be insane. He said that Fish was a sadist of
incredible cruelty, a homosexual and a pedophile with a penchant for young
children. As a self-employed painter, Fish had skulked around basements and
cellars for 50 years and preyed on scores of innocent children. He could not
begin to guess how many victims the man had claimed "but I believe to the best
of my knowledge," Wertham concluded, "that he has raped one hundred children, at
least."
Fish's attorney, James
Dempsey, told the jury at trial, mentioning the needles and the nail-studded
paddles, that they were dealing with a tragic mental case. "We do not have to
prove that he is insane," Dempsey told the jury. "Rather it is up to the state
to prove that he is sane." Dempsey only had one question for the lead
psychiatrist for the defense, Dr. Wertham, but that one question about Fish's
sanity took an hour and fifteen minutes to read. It was 15,000 words long and
covered 45 type-written pages. Wertham only used three words to reply: "He is
insane."
This stunt did nothing to
convince the jury though and whether they believed he was insane or not, they
wanted to see the killer punished. He was found guilty and sentenced to die in
the electric chair. Fish had only one response to this verdict: "Going to the
electric chair will be the supreme thrill of my life."
He came to Sing Sing
prison in 1935 carrying a Bible and handcuffed to another murderer, named Stone,
whose forefathers had also fought in the American Revolution. Dozens of appeals
to save Fish were rejected and he was scheduled to die on January 16, 1936. As
his appointment with the electric chair grew closer, Fish told reporters that he
was looking forward to his execution. "It will be the only thrill I have not
tried," he reportedly said. On January 16, Fish ate his last meal (a steak) and
without aid, entered the death room and walked briskly to the electric chair. He
climbed into the seat and readily helped the guards fix the electrodes to his
legs. The reporters and witnesses who were present were aghast at his behavior.
He could barely manage to contain his joy at going to a violent death.
Legend has it that death
did not come as quickly as Fish might have liked. When the switch was pulled,
according to the story, the first massive jolt of over 3,000 volts failed to
kill him. Blue smoke appeared around him but that was all and it has been
surmised that the needles that he had put into his body actually created a short
circuit. Another, prolonged and massive charge had to be sent through his body
in order to execute him -- or so the story that circulated went. In truth, Fish
died just like anyone else. When the current raced through him, his body surged
and his fists clenched. Moments later, the doctor on duty pronounced that Fish,
the oldest man ever executed at Sing Sing, was dead.
While the old man's corpse
was being taken out to the autopsy room, his defense attorney met with
reporters. In his hand, he held Albert Fish's final statement, several pages of
hand-written notes that he had penned in the hours before his death. To this
day, the statement has never been revealed. "I will never show it to anyone,"
Dempsey said. "it was the most filthy string of obscenities that I have ever
read."
Return to Dead Men Do Tell
Tales
© Copyright 2004 by Troy Taylor. All Rights
Reserved.
There are few killers in American
history that are remembered today as being as deranged and fiendish as the
seemingly kind and harmless, Albert Fish. He looked like every child's favorite
grandfather but behind the quiet facade of his silver hair and mustache lurked a
hideous monster who preyed on the young and the innocent with his horrific
"instruments of hell" -- a meat cleaver, a butcher knife and a saw. He was the
self-admitted molester of more than 400 children during a span of 20 years and
in the words of one of the shocked psychiatrists who examined him, he lived a
life of "unparalleled perversity." Albert Fish remains one of the oldest men
ever executed in the electric chair but it was a death that came too late for
many of his victims.
After his capture, Fish would
blame the conditions of his childhood for his crimes. Although he was related to
ancestors who fought in the American Revolution, Fish was abandoned at an early
age and placed in an orphanage, where he saw and experienced his first brutal
acts of sadism. He had been born in 1870 in the Washington D.C. area and later
married and raised six children. He had minor public education and mostly worked
as a handyman and a painter. It's likely that his psychosis actually manifested
much earlier but according to the testimony of one of his children, his weird
and unpredictable behavior did not begin to surface until January 1917. It was
at this time that his wife ran away with John Straube, a slow-witted handyman
who boarded with the Fish family. Fish returned from work one day to find the
house deserted and stripped of its furniture.
Mrs. Fish was apparently a bit odd
herself. She once returned to her husband with Straube at her side and asked if
they could move in with the family. Fish said that she could but that her loved
could not and so she agreed and sent Straube away. Days later, Fish discovered
that his wife had actually secreted Straube in the attic and he lurked there
while she smuggled food up to him. Again, Fish told her that she could stay but
that Straube had to leave. They both departed this time and the family never saw
Mrs. Fish again.
Soon after, Fish began to behave
very strangely. He took his family up to their summer home, Wisteria Cottage, in
Westchester County, New York for outings and they would watch, terrified, as he
climbed a nearby hill, shook his fist at the sky and repeatedly screamed, "I am
Christ!". Pain seemed to delight him. Whether inflicting it on himself or
others, he took strange pleasure in being whipped and paddled. He encouraged his
own and neighbor children to paddle his buttocks until they bled, often using a
paddle that was studded with inch-and-a-half nails. He also inserted a large
number of needles into his body, mostly in the genital region, and burned
himself constantly with hot irons and pokers. He even answered classified ads
placed with widows seeking husbands. His letters --- 46 of them were recovered
and entered as evidence at his trial -- were so obscene and vile that the
prosecution refused to make them public. Basically, Fish told the lovelorn
ladies that he was not as interested in marriage as he was in their willingness
to paddle him. None of the women accepted his offers.
Albert Fish in the 1930's (UPI
Photo)
On night of the full moon, his
children later testified, Fish would consume huge quantities of raw meat. Over
the years, he collected a great amount of published material on cannibalism and
he carried the most gruesome articles with him on his person at all times.
Before he ever turned to murder, Fish was examined several times by
psychiatrists at Bellevue but he was always released and judged "disturbed but
sane."
When and where Fish first
became a murderer is unknown. He confessed to six killing and referred vaguely
to dozens more, although the victims, dates and places were lost to his hazy
memory. He did confess to murdering a man in Wilmington, Delaware; mutilating
and torturing to death a mentally retarded boy in New York in 1910; killing a
Negro boy in Washington also in 1919; molesting and killing four year-old
William Gaffney in 1929; and strangling to death five year-old Francis McDonnell
on Long Island in 1934. The most sensational murder carried out by Fish was the
abduction and horrific slaughter of Grace Budd in 1928. Her abduction led to a
man hunt that lasted for six years. The police have given up hope of ever
solving her mysterious disappearance until a slender clue, gleaned from an
anonymous letter sent to the girl's parents, led detectives to Albert Fish.
Fish introduced himself to
the Budd's in a way that never raised suspicions with the hard-working family.
Albert Budd, Grace's father, earned a modest living as a doorman but it never
seemed to be enough to adequately take care of the entire brood, which consisted
of his wife, Delia, eighteen year-old Edward, Albert Jr., Grace and the
youngest child, five year-old Beatrice. To help his father make ends meet,
Edward advertised in the May 27, 1928 issue of the New York World
Telegram for a job. His ad read: "Young man, 18, wishes position in the
country," followed by his name and address.
That same afternoon, a
nicely dressed Albert Fish answered the ad and showed up at the Budd home in the
Chelsea district of Manhattan. He introduced himself as Mr. Frank Howard, a
farmer from Long Island who was willing to pay $15 per week to a willing young
worker. The family could scarcely believe Edward's luck and good fortune and
quickly invited Mr. Howard into the house. After hearing Fish's description of
the farm, Edward readily accepted the position Mr. Howard promised to return the
next week and take not only Edward out to the farm, but his friend Willie as
well. Howard stressed that he had enough work for both of the young
men.
Fish did not return as
promised on June 2, the following Saturday, but he did send an apologetic
telegram, and arrived on Monday instead. Impressed by his manners, the Budd's
greeted him warmly and invited him to stay for lunch. Fish behaved just like a
visiting grandfather and passed out treats and dollar bills to the children. He
presented two of the bills to Eddie and Willie and while he had a prior
engagement, he promised to return that evening to pick them up and take them to
his farm. However, he had a special treat for the oldest daughter, Grace, he
told her trusting parents. If they were agreeable to the idea, he wanted to take
her to a children's birthday party at the home of his married sister at 137th
Street and Columbus Avenue. The Budd's readily agreed and Grace left with Fish,
holding onto his hand, still wearing the pure, white dress that she had worn to
church that morning. The two of them walked off down the street together. The
Budd's waved goodbye to their little girl -- and never saw her alive
again.
(Left) Grace
-- standing far right) with her mother, older sister and her younger brother.
(Right) A
Likeness of Grace that was featured in newspapers and tabloids at the time of
her disappearance. (Bettman Archives)
When Grace did not return
home that night with Mr. Howard, the Budd's were concerned but not overly
worried. They assumed that the party has lasted late and that she had likely
spent the night with Mr. Howard's sister. They tried hard to convince themselves
of this, even into the following morning, when there was still no sign of Grace.
Finally, Albert Budd decided to go to the address himself and inquire after his
daughter. However, he soon found that the address where Howard's sister
supposedly lived did not even exist -- Columbus only went as far as 109th. This
made his next stop the closest police station, where he was referred to the
Missing Persons Bureau and eventually to veteran detective, William King. The
detectives were suspicious of the situation right from the start. It did not
take them long to find that there was no Frank Howard with a farm on Long
Island. This also meant that there was no real clue to the abductor's true
identity. The man had covered his tracks well, even going as far as to retrieve
the telegram that he had sent to the Budd's. He claimed that he was going to
complain to Western Union because it had been addressed incorrectly.
Regardless, King and other
members of the Bureau started a long and arduous search for the Western Union
copy of the telegram. It was the only link that he had with Grace's kidnapper
and three postal clerks spent more than 15 hours sifting though tens of
thousands of duplicates with King before they found the one that Howard had
sent. The only clue it provided was that it had been sent from an office in East
Harlem. The idea of searching every home in that part of the city was first
considered and then abandoned as a physical impossibility. King then focused on
another slim link -- a small pail of cheese and a carton of strawberries that
Howard had purchased for Mrs. Budd. He told her that they were fresh from the
farm. Investigators scoured the East Harlem area until they found the
delicatessen where Howard had bought the cheese and they also found the street
peddler who had sold him the strawberries. The peddler described the man in
detail but could recall nothing else significant about him. That trail also ran
cold...
One of over 1,000 circulars that
were sent out by the NYPD to police departments around the country. The flyers
never turned up any leads
(New York Daily News)
Grace Budd's disappearance started
a widespread search through New York City that fall, particularly when the
detective and the family went to the media with the story. Grace's photo
appeared on the front page of newspapers and garnered hundreds of tips, leads
and investigation advice from an angry and panicked public. Thousands of
circulars were printed and sent out to police departments throughout the United
States and Canada but with no results. The Budd's grew more and more despondent
as lead after lead went nowhere. A couple of months after Grace vanished, even
the most dedicated investigators --- with the exception of Will King -- had
given up on the case as hopeless.
King was already a legend in New
York law enforcement circles and he was the only investigator who never gave up
hope. Not a day went by when he did not think of Grace and her grieving parents
and when he did not put in at least some time on the case, following up long
shots and making calls. He never let a lead cross his desk that he did not look
into.
At one point, King was
sure that he was onto his man when he received a file on a gray-haired con man
and forger named Albert Corthell, who was on the run for trying to abduct a
little girl from an adoption agency. King tracked Corthell for months, chasing
him from city to city across the country. He finally caught up with him and was
crushed when he found out that Corthell had been in prison in Seattle when Grace
was taken.
Corthell turned out to be
one of two strong leads that King pursued over six long years. Another suspect,
Charles Edward Pope, was also arrested and actually charged in Grace's
kidnapping. However, Mrs. Budd, the principal witness in the case, admitted in
court that she had picked out the wrong man. It turned out that Pope had been
blamed for the kidnapping by his vindictive ex-wife. He was subsequently
released.
Around the same time that
Corthell and Pope were being exhaustively investigated by the police, another
gray-haired old man was arrested in New York and was charged with sending
obscene materials, mostly letters, through the mail. The letters were sent with
Fish pretending to be a well-known Hollywood movie producer and in them, he
offered large sums of money to women who might engage in sadomasochistic orgies
with him. After his arrest, he was committed to the psychiatric ward at Bellevue
for a ten-day observation. While there, the letter writer claimed that, although
his friends knew him as Albert, his real name was Hamilton Fish and he was a
relative of the famous New York family of the same name. He would tell the same
story again when arrested for Grace Budd's murder four years later. Strangely,
there has never been any reason to doubt that he may have actually hailed from
this prestigious family stock. Fish remained in Bellevue for nearly 30 days in
the winter of 1930. He was polite and cooperative and the doctors judged him
sane, although with sexual problems that they attributed to dementia caused by
his advancing age. He was thought harmless and was released from the hospital
into the custody of his daughter Anna.
Meanwhile, years were
passing in the Grace Budd case and despite Detective King's ongoing efforts, it
appeared that her vanishing would never be solved. Then on November 11, 1934 --
six years after she had been kidnapped -- Mrs. Budd received an unsigned and
anonymous letter in the mail. The letter claimed to be from a friend of someone
named "Captain John Davis". According to the letter writer, Captain Davis was a
seafaring man who, on one of his trips to China, developed a taste for human
flesh, namely the flesh of children, during a famine in the Far East. The letter
then described in graphic terms how Captain Davis, after returning to New York,
had kidnapped and murdered two young boys, had cooked their flesh and had eaten
it. After learning from Davis that the flesh of children was "good and tender",
the deranged letter writer decided to try it for himself. He had visited the
Budd home for lunch and had taken the girl away with him.
Mrs. Budd sobbed
hysterically as the letter went on to detail how he had taken Grace to an empty
house in Westchester, New York. He let her pick flowers in the garden while he
stripped himself naked. He called her into the house and when she saw the
grizzled and naked old man, she began to scream. She tried to run away, he
wrote, but he caught her, stripped her and then choked her to death. Then, he
dismembered her body and cooked and ate the smaller pieces. Bizarrely, the
letter described how Grace had been killed and cut up but went to extremes to
assure Mrs. Budd that she had not been sexually molested in any way. "She died a
virgin", the writer assured the anguished mother.
After the horrific letter,
investigators went into action, pulling out all stops to find the monster who
had written it. The investigation was again led by Detective King, who had
deferred his retirement two years earlier so that he could continue to work on
the Grace Budd case. King immediately found "Mr. Howard's" original Western
Union telegram blank and there was no doubt about it -- the handwriting was the
same. "Howard" and the letter writer were one and the same person. King used a
microscope on the letter and discovered an almost indiscernible design on the
flap of the envelope. It turned out to be the letters N.Y.P.C.B.A. and a quick
search through the Manhattan telephone directory revealed the letters to stand
for the New York Private Chauffeur's Benevolent Association, headquartered at
627 Lexington Avenue. The association gladly opened its files to Detective King
and he spent hours checking the backgrounds and handwriting of their 400
employees. Sadly though, he did not come up with a match. Undaunted, he called
all of the employees together and questioned them rigorously. He also added an
appeal for any information the drivers might have that could help him with the
case. He offered immunity for theft of the letter writing materials and
envelopes --- all he wanted was to catch the sadistic child killer.
After his appeal to the
drivers, King retreated to a private office in the association's headquarters
and hoped that his assurances would pay off. A few minutes later, a nondescript
man in a chauffeur's uniform named Lee Sicowski knocked on the door. He told
Detective King that he had a habit of taking the association's stationary home
with him and using it. In fact, Sicowski explained, he had left some of the
unused notepaper and envelopes in a room that he had occupied at 622 Lexington.
Detectives raced to the rooming house but there was nothing there. King then
urged Sicowski to think of anywhere else the stationary could have been.
Sicowski then remembered that he had also spent some time in a cheap boarding
house at 200 East 52nd Street. He might have left some of it there.
This address turned out to
be a flophouse but it was here that investigators struck gold. The landlady,
Mrs. Frieda Schneider, stated that Sicowski's old room was recently occupied by
a man who fit Frank Howard's description. His name was actually Albert Fish.
Carefully, checked the signature in the room register and he was convinced that
the handwriting was the same as that of the letter writer. However, Fish had
recently checked out of the place but he was in the habit of receiving a monthly
check from one his sons. It was always sent to the 200 East 52nd Street address.
King was prepared to invest a few more weeks in the hunt for the killer and so
he took a room at the flophouse at the top of the stairs, which gave him a view
of the entrance and the upstairs and downstairs hallways.
He waited for three days
and then on December 13, 1934, King received an urgent call from the flophouse.
He had left to return to the station and file some paperwork when the landlady
called -- Fish was back! When he returned to the house, Mrs. Schneider met him
at the door. Fish had come back a half hour earlier and to stall until the
detective could get there, she had given him a cup of tea and invited him to sit
down. Trying to remain clam, King drew his revolver and walked into the room
where Fish waited. What he found was a harmless-looking, white-haired old man
with a scraggly mustache and watery blue eyes. He was sipping at a cup of team.
Detective King identified himself and the Fish made no effort to conceal his own
identity. Then, the detective asked Fish to accompany him to police headquarters
for questioning.
King was then shocked and stunned
when the seemingly harmless old man reached into his pocket and lunged at King
with a vicious straight razor in his hand! Fish was no match for the solidly
built officer though and King grabbed him by the wrist and twisted it until the
razor dropped to the floor. He quickly handcuffed the old man and searched his
pockets. To his horror, he found that Fish's pockets were crammed with assorted
sharp knives and razors. He then turned the man around to face him and stared
into his withered face. "I've got you now," King said triumphantly, ended a six
year manhunt.
Albert Fish and his relentless
pursuer, Detective Will King (New York Daily
News)
At the police station,
Fish became more resigned to his arrest and confessed to succumbing to his
"blood thirst" in the summer of 1928. His original victim, he explained, had
been intended to be Edward Budd, who had placed the classified ad. However, when
he got to the Budd house and saw the size of the stocky teenager, he changed his
mind and set his sights on the more vulnerable Grace. He freely confessed to
kidnapping the girl and taking her to Wisteria Cottage in a place called
Worthington Woods, in Westchester County. His recall of the day when he
kidnapped the girl was clear after six years, as the old man had probably
relived it in his mind over and over again. He had bought a round trip train
ticket to Worthington Woods for himself and a one-way ticket for Grace. And he
also remembered that when they were changing trains, he had left a bundle behind
on the seat. Grace, trying to be helpful, ran back and retrieved it for him.
Inside of the bundle were Fish's grisly tools of death -- a cleaver, saw and
butcher's knife -- and Grace happily handed them over, never knowing that they
would taste her flesh a short time later. After arriving at Wisteria Cottage,
Fish systematically strangled the girl, beheaded her and dismembered her body,
dissecting her torso at the waist, and then he cut her up and ate her over a
nine-day period. Investigators later reported that Fish grinned as he described
draining her blood and drinking it.
(Left) The haunting and abandoned
Wisteria Cottage. (Above) The Skull of Grace Budd was discovered buried with
other pieces of her skeleton beside a wall behind the cottage. (New York
Daily News)
The horrified detectives
then made their own trip to Wisteria Cottage and recovered the skeletal remains
of Grace Budd, buried in pieces beside a stone wall behind the cottage.
Detective King finally had his killer -- but Fish couldn't stop confessing. He
described other murders that he had committed between 1910 and 1934. Much of
what he told police turned out to be false or exaggerated but he still provided
enough details to convince the investigators that he had killed before. Some
have even suggested that he may have killed dozens of people! The detectives
were also chilled to discover that Fish had been arrested in the New York area
six times since the disappearance of Grace Budd on charges that ranged from
petty larceny, to vagrancy, to sending obscene letters through the post office.
Three of the arrests occurred in the three-month period after Grace had been
kidnapped but each time the charges against him were dismissed. As for the other
arrests, he walked free each time with either a short period of incarceration or
a fine. No one ever guessed that the old man was a depraved killer.
One of the few people not
surprised at the arrest of Fish was his son, Albert Fish Jr. "That old skunk,"
he said in a newspaper interview, "I always knew that he would get caught for
something like this." He went on to tell of his father's penchant for raw meat
and how he had come home one day to find his father stripped naked and beating
himself with a heavy board that was studded with sharp nails. He threw the old
man out of his house shortly after. He concluded his interview in disgust. "I've
never wanted anything to do with him and I'll not left a hand to help
him."
Fish was examined by teams
of doctors and he relished the notoriety. He described his fetishes and
perversions to the fascinated psychiatrists, telling of inserting needles into
his scrotum (later X-rays revealed 29 rusty needles in his body) and inserting
wool that was doused with light fluid into his anus and setting it on fire. One
psychiatrist in particular, Dr. Frederic Wertham, got remarkably close to Fish
before and after his trial. He later wrote that Fish "looked like a meek and
innocuous little old man, gentle and benevolent, friendly and polite. If you
wanted someone to entrust your children to, he would be the one you would
choose." However, he then went on to describe Fish as the most complex example
of a "polymorphous pervert" he had ever known --- someone who had practiced
every perversion and deviation known to man, from sodomy to sadism, eating
excrement and self mutilation. He even confessed to Wertham that he had carried
Grace's ears and nose back to New York with him, wrapped in newspaper. He placed
the bundle on his lap as he traveled by train and quivered with excitement as he
thought about what was inside.
One of the X-Rays of Fish's pelvic
region revealed 29 needles that had been inserted in his body and left there.
(New York Daily News)
Like the other examining
physicians, Wertham judged Fish to be insane. He said that Fish was a sadist of
incredible cruelty, a homosexual and a pedophile with a penchant for young
children. As a self-employed painter, Fish had skulked around basements and
cellars for 50 years and preyed on scores of innocent children. He could not
begin to guess how many victims the man had claimed "but I believe to the best
of my knowledge," Wertham concluded, "that he has raped one hundred children, at
least."
Fish's attorney, James
Dempsey, told the jury at trial, mentioning the needles and the nail-studded
paddles, that they were dealing with a tragic mental case. "We do not have to
prove that he is insane," Dempsey told the jury. "Rather it is up to the state
to prove that he is sane." Dempsey only had one question for the lead
psychiatrist for the defense, Dr. Wertham, but that one question about Fish's
sanity took an hour and fifteen minutes to read. It was 15,000 words long and
covered 45 type-written pages. Wertham only used three words to reply: "He is
insane."
This stunt did nothing to
convince the jury though and whether they believed he was insane or not, they
wanted to see the killer punished. He was found guilty and sentenced to die in
the electric chair. Fish had only one response to this verdict: "Going to the
electric chair will be the supreme thrill of my life."
He came to Sing Sing
prison in 1935 carrying a Bible and handcuffed to another murderer, named Stone,
whose forefathers had also fought in the American Revolution. Dozens of appeals
to save Fish were rejected and he was scheduled to die on January 16, 1936. As
his appointment with the electric chair grew closer, Fish told reporters that he
was looking forward to his execution. "It will be the only thrill I have not
tried," he reportedly said. On January 16, Fish ate his last meal (a steak) and
without aid, entered the death room and walked briskly to the electric chair. He
climbed into the seat and readily helped the guards fix the electrodes to his
legs. The reporters and witnesses who were present were aghast at his behavior.
He could barely manage to contain his joy at going to a violent death.
Legend has it that death
did not come as quickly as Fish might have liked. When the switch was pulled,
according to the story, the first massive jolt of over 3,000 volts failed to
kill him. Blue smoke appeared around him but that was all and it has been
surmised that the needles that he had put into his body actually created a short
circuit. Another, prolonged and massive charge had to be sent through his body
in order to execute him -- or so the story that circulated went. In truth, Fish
died just like anyone else. When the current raced through him, his body surged
and his fists clenched. Moments later, the doctor on duty pronounced that Fish,
the oldest man ever executed at Sing Sing, was dead.
While the old man's corpse
was being taken out to the autopsy room, his defense attorney met with
reporters. In his hand, he held Albert Fish's final statement, several pages of
hand-written notes that he had penned in the hours before his death. To this
day, the statement has never been revealed. "I will never show it to anyone,"
Dempsey said. "it was the most filthy string of obscenities that I have ever
read."
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