Suspected of murdering six children, Albert Fish was convicted of one of those crimes and sentenced to death by the electric chair in 1935. In 1936 Fish was executed but his deviant crimes are still shocking to this day.
Born in May of 1870 Fish is said to have come from a family with a long line of mental illness. Due to family hardships his mother placed him temporarily in an orphanage where he later said he enjoyed watching the young boys undress and was turned on sexually by the beatings handed out to him by the teachers. Once his mother was able to care for Fish again she took him back into her custody where it is said she introduced him to such acts as drinking urine and eating feces.
In 1890 Fish moved to New York City and began molesting and raping little boys. Even after his arranged marriage in 1898 Fish admitted he continued to commit those crimes. During this time Fish also attempted to castrate a mentally slow man but the man’s screams frightened Fish and he fled.
In 1917 Fish’s wife (whom he had six kids with) left him for another man. This is when he is said to have begun purposefully harming himself. Fish not only enjoyed hitting himself with a nail-studded paddle but he would also insert needles into and around his groin area. Most of these Fish said he would remove, but later x-rays of his pelvis showed that as many as 29 needles were still lodged deep within his body.
In 1928 Fish committed the crime he would later be convicted for. Answering an ad placed in a local newspaper regarding a young man looking for work, Fish showed up at the Budd home under the guise that he owned a farm and needed a strong worker.
Fish originally intended to lure the 18 year old Edward Budd away to molest and murder him. However, upon arriving he met the family and it was 10 year old Grace Budd that caught his eye and changed his plans. After offering Edward Budd a job on his made-up farm, Fish promised to return at a later date to collect his new employee.
Eventually returning as promised, Fish told the Budd’s he would have to come back later to pick up Edward because he had to attend his niece’s birthday party. Fish convinced the Budd’s to let Grace accompany him. She was never seen alive again.
It would be six years before the Budd’s found out what befell their beloved daughter. In 1933 they received a letter describing in detail the horrific murder and cannibalization of Grace. Poorly written, the monstrous letter detailed Fish’s initial reasons for wanting to eat someone and how when he met Grace he knew he had to have her.
In the letter Fish described how Grace put up quite a fight before he was able to strangle her to death.
Cutting her body up into small pieces he took what he was able to home with him where he made a stew and claimed to have dined on her for nine days. Fish ended the letter by telling the Budd’s he had not raped their daughter; she died a virgin.
The letter was sent anonymously but police were able to trace the envelope it arrived in back to Fish. Upon his arrest and interrogation police discovered that Grace Budd was not the only small child he had abducted, murdered, eaten and sent a grotesque letter to the family divulging his atrocities to. Four year old Billy Gaffney’s story was very similar to Grace’s and occurred in 1927.
During his trial in 1935 Fish proclaimed he was innocent by reason of insanity. He claimed he heard voices in his head telling him to commit his crimes. No juror was moved and after 10 short days Fish was convicted of killing and cannibalizing little Grace Budd.
Please visit these sites for more information:
www.crime.about.com/od/serial/p/albertfish.htm
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Fish