Albert Fish: The Original Boogeyman

Albert Fish born to the name of Hamilton Fish on May 19, 1870. At the time of his birth, his father, Randall Fish, was 75 and his mother was 32 (Blanco). His father “claimed descent from ‘Revolutionary stock,’” and was a Potomac River boat captain (Bosky, 2007; Bardsley, 2013). Fish’s family’s health history consisted of many mental illnesses, including religious mania. Furthermore, at least seven relatives in the two previous generations had severe mental disorders, and two died in asylums (Newton, 2006). His father died five years after he was born from a heart attack at Sixth Street Station of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Washington, D.C.. Fish was then put in St. John’s Orphanage which frequently partook in beatings for punishment; he later reported his experiencing and witnessing sexual assault. Furthermore, “it has been documented that the teacher would shred the children’s clothes off, severely beat them, whip them, and exacerbate the experience by forcing other students watch… a severe form of shame punishing,” (Brown, Harris, & Daniels, 2014). The orphanage fostered Fish’s enticement and sexual arousal for the not only the other boys’ beatings, but for the physical pain inflicted on himself as well. He even claimed to “have ‘always’ desired to inflict pain onto others, and in return, to have pain inflicted on him,” (p. 3). According to Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives, the orphanage is where “his sadomasochism flowered: ‘I saw so many boys whipped,’ he said, ‘it ruined my mind,’” (Brosky, 2007).

In 1880, Fish’s mother landed a government job that allowed her to remove her son from the orphanage. Shortly after, he fell from a cherry tree, causing a severe concussion and stutter (Wilson & Seaman, 2004). Already a troublemaker by age 10, Fish was running away from home on Saturdays and persistently wet the bed (Newton, 2006). By age 12, Fish had his first relationship with a telegraph boy who turned him onto urolagnia (drinking of urine) and coprophagia (consumption of feces) (Wilson & Seaman, 2004). He also began “visiting public bathrooms in order to watch other boys undress for sexual gratification, a behavior known as scoptophilia,” (as cited in Brown et al., 2014, p. 3). With the name of Hamilton, his peers taunted him with the nickname of “Ham and Egg.” This resulted him to change his name to “Albert,” his dead brother’s name (Newton, 2006, p. 77). He graduated from public school at age 15.

In 1898, Fish’s mother arranged him a marriage to 18-year-old Anna, with whom he would father six children. In 1890, Fish moved to New York City where, as speculated, he became a male prostitute in addition to becoming house painter/decorator (Bosky, 2007). Later on in 1917, his wife left him for a handyman familiar with the family named John Straube; “Fish took her back on condition that she send her lover away,” and she ironically hid him in their attic until getting caught and leaving Fish for good (Newton, 2006, p. 77). They never divorced; Fish raised the children successfully on his own, claiming to have never hurt them. He later had “three subsequent marriages, short and bigamous, and played quasi-sexual games with his stepdaughter, Mary,” (Bosky). After his first failed marriage, however, his behavior significantly changed. His children reported the change after the first time their mother left; “apparently subject to hallucinations, he would shake his fist at the sky and say ‘I am Christ!’” (Newton, 2006, p. 77). He grew obsessed with sin, sacrifice, and atonement through pain, and even asked his children and their friends to “paddle him until his buttocks bled,” (p. 77). Furthermore, Fish began partaking in piquerism where “one shoves needles into the body around the area between the scrotum and the anus,” (as cited in Brown et al., 2014, p. 3). He even lost track of some of the needles as they got deeper. Later in his life, a prison X ray displayed at least 29 needles where some were even disintegrated and scattered (Newton, 2006, p. 77). Newton also explains that on other occasions, Fish soaked cotton balls in alcohol to insert into his anus and set them on fire (p. 77). Fish also slipped the needs under his fingertips, ironically stating “if only pain were not so painful!” (p. 77).

The criminal career of Albert Fish may never be known to its entirety due to lack of resources in the early 1900s. Detective William King spent a great deal of time tracking down Fish, suspecting at least four child murders in New York City alone; psychiatrist Frederic Wertham suspected at least five murders, and police estimated between eight and fifteen children (Bosky, 2007). The exact number is still unknown; however, it is speculated that hundreds of children were assaulted by The Boogey Man.

Albert Fish’s first known offense occurred in 1903. He was arrested for embezzlement and frequently had sex with men in prison (Blanco). Coincidentally, he had frequently been in mental institutions where doctors said he had an “abnormal” and “psychopathic” personality (Bardsley, 2013). Due to being exposed to the experiencing and witnessing of violent punishment at such a young age in the orphanage, it is clear he was also a sociopath. In addition to the environmental factors preluding to his sociopathy, all of his marriages failed and his childhood family was never close in their relations. According to Geographic Profiling, Fish committed 15 murders between 1910 and 1934 (Rossmo, 2000, p. 246). While still with Anna, Fish committed his first murder in 1910 in Wilmington, Delaware (Newton, 2006, p. 77). According to Murderpedia, the victim was sexually abused, tortured, and mutilated, and Fish did not kill again until 1919 (Blanco). However, after Anna’s final departure, he frequently traveled across the country taking up odd jobs and attacking possibly hundreds of children (Bosky, 2000). He even bragged about having children in every state. He targeted poor victims, including African Americans, and claimed police were less apt to care about them (Bosky, 2007). Targeting these high-risk victims allowed him to stay under the radar for as long as he did than if he targeted wealthy ‘important’ people. This religious fanatic tried justifying his brutal crimes through bible scripture and believed “God ordered him to torment and castrate little boys,” (as cited in Brown et al. 2014, p. 4). Castrating boys became such an obsession, and “in St. Louis in 1911, he left one boy bleeding and fled the city,” (Bosky, 2007). He essentially claimed to be ordered by God to “impartially molest children of both sexes as he traveled the country,” (Newton, 2006, p. 77). His criminal record included charges of grand larceny, petty theft, violating parole/ probation, and the writing of obscene letters to women, but was only first convicted of grand larceny (as cited in Brown et al., 2014, p. 4).

Albert Fish’s legacy lives on the brutal crime committed in May of 1928. Fish responded to a newspaper clipping of 18 year-old Edward Budd looking for work in White Plains, New York. Fish posed as a wealthy farmer from Farmingdale named “Frank Howard” and claimed his farm needed help (Newton, p. 77). Edward’s mother, Delia, answered the door and had her youngest daughter run and get her son for an interview by Mr. Howard. She closely observed him and his “kindly face, framed by gray hair and accented by a large droopy gray moustache,” (Blanco). Once Fish saw the boy who was quite larger and stronger than anticipated, he falsely promised him a job and would return in a week. Arriving late, Mr. Howard brought gifts of strawberries and fresh cheese to essentially gain their trust and to further fool them. On June 3, 1928, ten year-old Grace Budd made an appearance, and Mr. Howard convinced her mother to let her go his niece's birthday party and to return that evening. After granting permission, the Budd family never saw their Grace again.

Newspapers covered Grace’s kidnapping, and for six years, her abduction remained a mystery. During this time, Fish was “confined to a psychiatric hospital for two months and was discharged as ‘not insane; psychopathic personality; sexual type,’” (Newton, 2006, p. 77). In 1931, Fish’s obsession with writing obscene letters to women got him arrested; police found ‘well-used cat o’ nine tails in his room’ (p. 77). After his release and further psychiatric evaluation, Fish “felt compelled to gloat,” (p. 77).

On November 11, 1934, Mrs. Budd received an anonymous, gruesome letter on identifiable stationary. Recalling their encounter on June 3, six years prior, the letter read: “Grace sat on my lap and kissed me. I made up my mind to eat her,” (Unkenholz, 2016). They had arrived at the empty house that Fish picked out in advance and told Grace to wait outside; “She picked wildflowers. I went upstairs and stripped all my clothes off. I knew if I did not, I would get her blood on them.” He called for her out the window and hid in the closet until she was in the room. In this letter, he admitted in full detail of ripping her clothes off, choking her to death, and cutting her in small pieces to take cook her and eat her. “It took me 9 days to eat her entire body,” Fish self-incriminated. He was sure to let the mother know he did not rape her but could have if he wanted. His psychological need and desire to gloat to the family six years later is ultimately what got him caught. He showed how careless and disorganized he was by using the distinct stationary that let him to be tracked down at a flophouse (Ramsland & McGrain, 2010, p. 8). Her bones were found behind an abandoned house in Westchester Counter behind Wisteria Cottage (Bosky, 2007).

Under arrest, he admitted to the murder and consumption of Grace Budd and further confessed to dozens of child molestations and three more child murders in 1919, 1927, and 1934 (Ramsland & McGrain, 2010; Newton 2006). He confessed to “beating, killing, and cannibalizing Billy Gaffney, age four, and to killing Francis McDonnell, age eight,” (Bosky, 2007). The general public thought he looked innocent and grandfather-like due to his age. The Supreme Court however was “reliably informed of the killer’s involvement in 15 homicides,” and the state was desperate to win a death penalty sentence that “overrides his insanity defense with laughable psychiatric testimony,” (Newton, 2006, p. 78). Doctors tried claiming that Fish’s coprophagia is common; “a man who does that is socially perfectly alright,” (p. 78). Fish rambled obscene confessions, and the jury found him sane and guilty for the premeditated murder of Grace Budd. At age 65, he was sentenced to death by electrocution; he even stated, "What a thrill that will be, if I have to die in the electric chair!" (“Albert Fish Trial: 1935”). It took two jolts of electrocution to kill this deranged, sadomasochist cannibal on January 16, 1936. It is speculated that this short-circuit was caused by the dozens of needles in his pelvis (Newton, 2007).

To this day, children are told spooky bedtime stories about “The Boogey Man.” They are warned by adults to be good or else they will get kidnapped and eaten by this monster. Little do these terrified kids know, the stories are actually true. This man truly was a child-eating monster.

Resources

"Albert Fish Trial: 1935." Great American Trials. . Retrieved July 14, 2017 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/law/law-magazines/albert-fish-trial-1935

Bardsley, M. (2013). Albert Fish. Crime Library. Retrieved July 12, 2017.

Blanco, J. I. (n.d.). Albert Hamilton FISH. Retrieved July 12, 2017, from http://murderpedia.org/male.F/f/fish-albert.htm

Bosky, Bernadette Lynn. (2007). Albert Fish. In C. Bankston III (Ed.), Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives. Hackensack: Salem. Retrieved from http://online.salempress.com.ezproxy.pvc.maricopa.edu

Brown, J., & Harris, B., R, & Daniels, S. (2014). Psychology of Albert Fish. Behavioral Health, Volume 1 (Issue 1), pp. 2-6

Fish, Albert Hamilton. (2008). In L. J. Palmer, Encyclopedia of Capital Punishment in the United States (2nd ed.). Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Retrieved from http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/mcfcpus/fish_albert_hamilton/0

Unkenholz, T. (2016, January 15). Read This Twisted Letter From An Infamous Cannibal To The Mother Of His Victim. ViralNova. Retrieved from www.viralnova.com/fish-letter/

Newton, M. (2006) The encyclopedia of serial killers (2nd ed.) New York: Facts on File, Inc.

Ramsland, K., & McGrain, P. N. (2010). Inside the minds of sezual predators. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

Rossmo, D. K. (2000). Geographic Profiling. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

Wilson, C., & Seaman, D. (2004) The serial killers: A study in the psychology of violence. London: Virgin Publishing.