Serial Killer Albert Fish #truecrime

Albert Fish, the Brooklyn Vampire

The monster known as Albert Hamilton Howard Fish was born on May 19 1870 to Randall and Ellen Fish. His father was more than twice his mothers age and was 75 when Albert was born. There were 3 other Fish children and a 4th named Albert who had passed away. Hamilton Howard would adopt his deceased brothers name.

Mental illness was sprinkled throughout the family. Alberts mother suffered from hallucinations, while one of his brothers was institutionalized. Several other relatives had slightly less severe conditions. In 1875, Randall Fish had a heart attack and Albert was put into an orphanage when his mother could not support the family.

It was at the orphanage that the real trouble began for young Albert. He was at Saint Johns Orphange in Washington DC until 1880 and endured horrific abuse. The children were regularly whipped in front of each other. And over time, Albert began to enjoy both being beaten and watching the other kids suffer. It was here he took the name Albert to avoid being called Ham and Eggs.

In 1880, his mother got a steady job and was able to take her son home. But the damage and violence from the orphanage stayed with him. He began harming himself wit a studded paddle, and in 1882 he started spending time with an older boy who pushed Albert further into depravity. He was introduced to bizarre practices such as eating human waste.

Around this time Albert started going to the public baths where he would watch other boys change. In 1890, Fish moved to New York City and worked as a male prostitute. He also began abusing young boys. After spending 8 years in this way, his mother arranged a marriage for him with a teenager named Anna Mary Hoffman.

The new couple had 6 kids, whom Albert mistreated in a variety of ways, taking inspiration from the treatment he received at St. John’s orphanage. Being married did not stop any of Alberts depravities. He went on a date with a man to a wax museum where he saw models of human organs that had been opened up to show the inner workings. This spurred an interest in recreating the wax sculptures using real human parts.

In 1903, fish spent a brief time in the infamous Sing Sing prison for theft. One of the first known victims of Alberts abuse was a teenager named Thomas Kedden. He met the 19 year old while working in Wilmington Delaware. His later writings indicate that Thomas was mentally handicapped, but this did not stop Albert.

Over 2 weeks he tortured the young man in an old barn. Fish had intended on killing and dismembering him, but the hot weather gave him pause as he feared the smell would get him caught as he transported the meat. Instead he cut the boys member off and left him in the barn with a $10 bill, never to hear from him again.

In 1917, Alberts wife left him, taking most of their possessions. This pushed the creature further over the line of insanity. He began having auditory hallucinations, believing that people from the Bible were giving him commands and also began pushing needles into his groin and stomach. The other ways that Albert hurt himself included using a studded paddle and also lighting a wick with lighter fluid on fire after inserting it into himself. He also encouraged his children and their friends to use the paddle on him.

Alberts violence against children also escalated with his preferred victims being handicapped or black kids as he did not think their disappearances would be as noticeable if he killed them. And unfortunately this seems to have been the case as the 3 known murder victims were all white children.

The first of Alberts known victims was an 8 year old boy named Francis McDonnell. The boy and his mother, Anna, had seen a man walking near their home in Staten Island on July 15, 1924. Anna would later describe how the man shuffled down the road talking to himself and how “everything about him seemed faded and gray.”

That afternoon Francis disappeared while playing in the park. His friends said that they last saw him following an an old man into the woods. When his family and police searched the woods, they found him. He had been stripped naked, beaten, and strangled with his own suspenders. The viciousness of the crime made police question whether an elderly man could have done it. Aside from the sightings, the only clues they had were the raisins that the boy had eaten prior to his death, and which they believed had been used to lure him into the woods.

The next known victim of Fish, was a 4 year old boy named Billy Gaffney. On February 11, 1927 the child was playing outside his family’s apartment with the neighbors. They were being watched by a 12 year old, who went inside for a moment to check in his baby sister. When he came back outside Billy and another boy were gone. Billy would never been seen again, and the other child was found hiding. When asked he said that the boogeyman had taken Billy.

It was not until after Albert was arrested that the truth about what happened to Billy would come to light. In a horrific letter, the creature described what he did to the boy. Be warned this is graphic and shows the pure evil inside of the monster. Fish took him to a dump where they would not be seen. He stripped him and burned the clothes and tied Billy up and left him there so he could return later with his tools. He used a belt that he had cut into strips to whip the child. He then cut off the boys ears, nose, gouged out his eyes, and and slit his mouth from ear to ear.

By this time Billy was dead. Fish opened his stomach and drank blood from the wound. He cut up the body and packaged most of it in weighted potato sacks to dispose of in some water along the road, but he put the facial parts, some stomach, and his pelvic area from just below his bellow button to the upper thigh he put into a bag to take with him to eat.

The sick creature detailed how he cooked and ate the pieces. He roasted the boys behind with bacon and made a stew with the pieces he had cut from Billy’s face. He wrote that he had never tasted anything as good as the boys backside.

The case that would lead to Alberts arrest is likely the most well known murder that he committed. On June 3, 1928, he answered an add that the Budd family had put in a newspaper seeking work for their son Edward. Fish had planned on taking the boy with him, but when he arrived at their Manhattan home he saw the Buds daughter, 10 year old Grace and made up his mind to take her.

He had brought some small gifts for the family that he said came from the farm he claimed he wanted Edward to work on. He pulled a wad of cash out and asked Grave to count it. The family was extremely poor and they had never seen such wealth. When she was done counting he gave her 50 cents for some candy as a reward and some money to her brother to go to the movies.

The Budd family had been drawn in by the disgusting creature and so when he asked if he could take Grace to his nieces birthday they were hard pressed to refuse as the girl rarely got to have fun and Fish had presented himself as a wealthy and kind man. When they did not return, the budds contacted the police. They found out that the name Fish had given them was fake and that the address of the party did not exist.

Despite tips and information on the man who had taken Grace, police made little progress in the case. This would change in November 1934. The monster sent the Budd family a letter, which Edward read aloud to her parents as they were illiterate. It told of a man the killer knew who had worked on a steam ship. The man had visited China during a famine and found human meat being sold. The description of the meat had led Fish to want to try human meat for himself.

He then went on to write how he had tricked the Budds into letting him take their daughter. Fish took the young girl to an empty house he had picked out for the murder. He strangled the poor girl then cut her into pieces. According to the letter, it took the monster 9 days to eat all of her. While the letter mortified the Bud family, it also provided police with some clues as to the identity of its author.

The envelope was stamped with the letters NYPCBA which stood for the New York Chauffeur’s Benevolent Association. Police learned that some of this stationary had been taken by a janitor and left in a boarding house room. Investigator learned from the landlord that a man named Albert Fish had just vacated the same room and expected mail which he asked the landlord to hold for him.

The lead investigator, William F King, staked out the boarding house to wait for the killer to return. When fish came back he took him to the police station for questioning. The monster did not attempt to hide the fact that he had killed Grace. He was locked up and his trial began on March 11 1935.

The trial lasted 10 days during which Fish claimed he was insane. Psychiatrists detailed the sick compulsions that drove the creature to kill which included sadism, masochism, piquerism which is when a person derives pleasure from penetrating a person with sharp objects, eating human waste, pedophilia, and necrophelia.

Alberts children testified how he had taught them various “games” that involved abuse and masochism. By the trials end, there was little doubt that Fish was insane for the jurors, but that he was insane and evil enough that he had to be punished and he was sentenced to death. He would remain in prison until his execution. On January 16 1936 Albert Fish was sent to the electric chair.