Winner of the Spring 2018 StMU History Media Award for
Best Article in the Category of “Crime”
Article with the Best Introduction
In today’s society, we are taught at a young age to never speak to strangers without our parents around or by ourselves in general. However, in the late 1920s, it was a different time of danger and being more aggressive in hate crimes and violence. Sadly, those “norms” would erupt in a rise of terror and isolation within Brooklyn, New York. On February 11, 1927, two boys, Billy Gaffney and Billy Beaton, were having fun within their apartment, unsupervised. A few hours passed, both boys could not be found, until someone found Billy Beaton alone on the apartment roof. When asked where Billy Gaffney had gone, he responded with, “The boogey man took him.”1
This “boogey man” who took Billy Gaffney was indeed one’s worst nightmare. Calling him a man certainly does not do justice to the true monster that this “boogey man” Albert Fish was. At fifty-six years old, Albert Fish already had quite a life before that February day in 1927. He had been born on May 19, 1870 in Washington D.C. Originally named Hamilton Fish, Albert was the youngest of his three siblings. However, Fish had no clue as to who he would become. He was raised in a family whose members had mental health issues. His family was mostly illiterate, and to make matters worse, his own mother, when he was at the age of five, put him in an orphanage due to financial problems. Albert’s time in St. Johns Orphanage sparked a dangerous set of behaviors. He was frequently abused and beaten at the orphanage, but he soon developed something of an enjoyment of the feeling of physical pain, often giving him erections.1 In 1879, Albert’s mother was back on her feet financially and able to support Fish again. But Fish went from the abusive environment of the orphanage to a crowd of neighborhood youths who introduced the nine-year-old Fish to the practices of drinking urine, as well as to coprophagia (the act of eating feces or dung). He also started visiting public bath houses to watch young boys undress. Poor Fish’s mother had no idea that in her absence, her son was developing disturbing behaviors.
By 1890, twenty-year-old Fish had moved to New York City. In this part of Fish’s life, his behaviors escalated to rape, sodomy, and then to castration, mostly on male individuals of lower social status, such as African-American males and disadvantage males whom he believed would not be missed.3 He continued his acts of complete horror even after being arranged into a marriage in 1898 with his wife.4
During his marriage, he and his wife had six children together. He never abused his own children in any way, but he did became a house painter and usually targeted homes with young boys aged around six and continued with molestation and a morbid and horrid interest in castration.5 He was then incarcerated in 1903 for embezzlement, which then led to Fish regularly having sex with men in prison. However, his actions led to his divorce from his wife in 1917, who left him for a handyman named John Straube, and taking all of their children. That only made Fish become more sunk into a hole of obsession and terror.6 He began having morbid and frightening thoughts, and developing cravings such as cannibalism in which he enacted upon his victims in murdering them. Surprisingly, he had never been caught committing any of these murders, and if he were ever close to getting caught, he would flee the city. That is, up until Fish made a big mistake, which later helped solve the mysterious disappearance and murder of Billy Gaffney. This was possible through the unfortunately more famous case of the murder of a young girl, Grace Budd.
Grace Budd was an eleven-year-old girl who lived in a farmhouse with her brother, mother, and father. In a newspaper advertisement, Albert Fish found a man by the name of Edward Budd looking for a job. Fish then marked Edward Budd to be his next victim.7 Soon after, Fish responded to the newspaper ad by posing as a wealthy farmer named Frank Howard in need of help on his farm, and he began to be friendly with the Budd family.8 Fish’s plans, however, had switched after he discovered Edward Budd had a younger sister Grace, who seemed to be far more vulnerable than Edward had been. This is when Fish began to create a disgusting and horrible scheme to capture the young Grace Budd. Fish convinced the parents to let Grace accompany him to his sisters’ birthday party, which he completely fabricated.9 Fish took Grace and she never returned home after that day. Only after seven years, on November 11, 1934, were the details to what had happened to innocent Grace discovered. Fish sent a letter to the parents of Grace Budd detailing what he had done to her.8 To their horror, he confessed that he cooked parts of her to taste her flesh. He detailed her last moments, describing the torture and truly horrid acts Fish had committed upon her before Grace Budds’ final moments on earth. One would hope that Fish would end the letter on that horrifying and heart breaking note; however, he then described the process of preparing her body to feast upon, the parts of the body he had used, the taste of their daughters’ flesh and how he found her taste so satisfying. He then included at the end of the letter how he left her a virgin, as if that would lighten the terrible acts that he had committed on the young and innocent Grace Budd and her family.11
It was only through this tragic incident that justice came about for Albert Fish’s horrendous act of murder. Fish’s letter to the Budd family was just enough evidence to find and capture him. Detective William King helped track down and arrest Albert Fish using symbols on the stationary he used to write to the Budd family, “N.Y.P.C.B.A.” standing for “New York Private Chauffeur’s Benevolent Association.” King successfully located where it had come from, tracing it back to a room at 200 East 52nd Street from a janitor who had moved from there. This location was the exact place where Fish came frequently to receive his mail. Finally, this helped investigator William F. King pinpoint exactly where Albert Fish would be; waiting right outside of his room.12
Fish was captured and taken in for questioning. During questioning, Fish admitted to murdering Grace Budd and confessed to the investigators exactly where he had buried the remains of Grace Budd. They were able to locate Grace Budd’s bones, which were located behind Wisteria Cottage, an abandoned house in Westchester County. Fish then confessed to eating parts of Budd’s body, as well as to the murder of Billy Gaffney, including the torment he had done to Billy.8 After Fish’s arrest, he did not care for the consequences and looked very much forward to having his penalty be death. In March 1935, Fish pleaded sane but guilty.14 The court decided that he was sane, and accepted his plea of guilt.15.
Fish was executed on January 16, 1938 in the electric chair in Sing Sing Prison. Even to his death he continued his bizarre behavior, exclaiming that being electrocuted would be “the supreme thrill” of his life.9. Therefore, Albert Fish had never really suffered any consequences. Even to his death, Albert Fish took pleasure in his morbid thoughts and ultimately met the peak of his horrid obsession.
- Murderpedia: The Encyclopedia of Murderers, June 2017, s.v. “Albert Fish,” by Juan Ignacio Blanco. ↵
- Murderpedia: The Encyclopedia of Murderers, June 2017, s.v. “Albert Fish,” by Juan Ignacio Blanco. ↵
- Martin Fido, True Crime: The Infamous Villains of Modern History and Their Hideous Crimes (United Kingdom: Carlton Publishing Group, 2013), 186. ↵
- Murderpedia: The Encyclopedia of Murderers, June 2017, s.v. “Albert Fish,” by Juan Ignacio Blanco. ↵
- “Evil serial killer known as the Brooklyn Vampire who kidnapped children and cut them up and ATE them, known as the Gray Man and the Werewolf of Wisteria murderer Albert Fish was one of the most twisted serial killers,” Daily Mirror, The: Web Edition Articles (September 2017): 9. ↵
- Murderpedia: The Encyclopedia of Murderers, June 2017, s.v. “Albert Fish” by Juan Ignacio Blanco. ↵
- Murderpedia: The Encyclopedia of Murderers, June 2017, s.v. “Albert Fish,” by Juan Ignacio Blanco. ↵
- Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia, 2017, s.v. “Albert Fish,” by Bernadette L. Bosky. ↵
- Murderpedia: The Encyclopedia of Murderers, June 2017, s.v. “Albert Fish” by Juan Ignacio Blanco. ↵
- Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia, 2017, s.v. “Albert Fish,” by Bernadette L. Bosky. ↵
- Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia, 2017, s.v. “Albert Fish,” by Bernadette L. Bosky. ↵
- Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia, 2017, s.v. “Albert Fish,” by Bernadette L. Bosky. ↵
- Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia, 2017, s.v. “Albert Fish,” by Bernadette L. Bosky. ↵
- Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia, 2017, s.v. “Albert Fish,” by Bernadette L. Bosky. ↵
- Salem Press Encyclopedia of Science, 2013, s.v. “Irresistible impulse rule.” By Mario Morelli. ↵
- Murderpedia: The Encyclopedia of Murderers, June 2017, s.v. “Albert Fish” by Juan Ignacio Blanco. ↵
202 comments
Sabrina Hsu
This article left me in chills, Fish is truly a monster and I can’t believe some of the terrifying things he has done. I think the worst part of it was the letter he wrote to Grace Budd’s parents. He was so cruel that he not only did all those horrible things to her but he put it all in writing so that her parents could read it. Only someone without a heart would be able to do that. The thing I enjoyed most about this article was its ability to drag the reader in and have them on the edge of their seat all the way to the end. It’s always important for articles like these to be written well because without it you don’t stay intrigued in the story.
Belene Cuellar
It’s stories like this that make me think how there are so many sick people in this world. It can be your next door neighbor or your loved one and you’ll never even know it. Writing a letter to his victims parents describing all of the things he did to her is just another level of cruelty. It definitely kept my attention the whole time I was reading it.
Hailey Rodriguez
Reading this article gave me the chills. It is such a well written and very detailed story of this serial killer. I had never heard this story before. It seems unfair for Fish to have ended up enjoying pain and hurting others because he was hurt and abused as a child. However, this does not justify the horrible, horrible things he did to children and especially the little girl, Grace Budd. I can’t imagine how her parents must have felt when they were reading the letter he had sent to them containing the details of what he did to their daughter. It is truly scary to know that there may be other human beings out there, right now, who are like this, if not worse.
Christopher Hohman
of the three articles I have read about serial killers this is the most disturbing. this article is simply bone chilling. I have read the articles about Jack the Ripper and the Zodiac, but this article just took the horridness to a whole other level. To think that a person would be capable of eating and murdering children is just disgusting. Albert Fish definitely deserves a place in history as one of the most horrific serial killers of all time.
Mason Meza
This article made my stomach turn, but it was very interesting. I don’t understand how one could ever do something so horrible to young kids such as Grace Budd and Billy Gaffney. It is completely disgusting that one would ever think of harming a child let alone eating them and sending a letter to their parents explaining in detail how he ate her and how she begged for mercy, and the fact that he had the audacity to say that he left her a virgin is unbearable. The fact that he didn’t even suffer any consequences because of the pleasure that he received from physical pain is just wrong. Nobody in their right mind should ever feel that way doing such gruesome things.
Diego Aguilera
I love this article because of the introduction is so grabbing and really keeps me interested in everything the story has to tell. He for sure lived a crazy sad life full of horror and sorrow. Its crazy the stuff he would do to these people and say ” the boogey man took him”. To see how he was put to death is far from horrific as them made him suffer just like the victims he took. My favorite part of this article is simply the imagery, the author does a excellent job to keep the reader involved and on the edge of my seat to read this chilling story.
Alexandra Rodriguez
It’s astonishing to see such inhumane acts committed for so long. Fish’s whole life was dedicated to horrifying hobbies including castration, and no one in his personal life, like his wife, knew. It is pretty scary to think that as a community these details were overlooked and/or ignored. While some think that parents shouldn’t let a child go to a party with a coworker they have only known for a short amount of time, I probably would have made the mistake. Majority of people in the world have a positive view of all people. Just like Anne Frank, despite all the horrible things that could happen, a vast majority of the population still believes that people are generally good. The culture surrounding crime changes due to the crime happening, so while we as a community have a common understanding that the amount of crime has changed from back then. It is also safe to say that as we change in order to prevent more horrendous acts being done to children, the perpetrators are also changing to gain access to their twisted fantasies. It is so astonishing to think that despite the population being “good” we still have so many ill minds, who contort inhumane thoughts and then target our innocent children. It makes me question if I am close to someone who may have similar disgusting thoughts, and I don’t even know it.
Dylan Sanchez
I couldn’t help but think to myself how this was such an intriguing yet disgusting article to read. The writing was fantastic and truly etched into the reader’s head how sick an individual can be. Again, fantastic writing and imagery, I hope to read more of this author’s works on such topics. It still does seem crazy to me how this mean truly never suffered for his actions. In the end, he got what he wanted.
Janelle Larios
I have read countless articles and listened to countless podcasts over serial killers, but never have I ever been so thoroughly disturbed by the killer and his method of murder. This article left me speechless from beginning to end. The terror and torment did not ever stop, there was not a light at the end of the tunnel because even in the killers arrest and execution Albert fish did not have any regret or remorse over his killings and his own disturbed mind. He fully accepted the consequences and enjoyed his last moments as a cannibalistic murderer. I cannot fathom the horrendous and tragic ending Grace Budd had to experience and the horrific letter detailing her death the family had to endure. As well as the absolute disrespect of not only Grace but of her family when Fish so graciously left her virginity intact as if that would subdue and or dismiss the other atrocious acts that Fish enacted upon her. I was truly disturbed from beginning to end and absolutely shaken and heart broken over these tragedies.
Antoinette Johnson
This article “The Boogey Man Took Him”: The Cannibalistic Serial Killer Albert Fish is intriguing and it makes people wonder how well are we protecting our children. Today, there are more safety precautions and law enforcement in place to help avoid murder and sexual abuse of children. Though, Parents, Siblings, teachers, etc. are unaware of how is around their child and what the person and/or people are doing to their child or children. Like this man Albert Fish there are people who suffer from abuse and begin to want to inflict it on others. That friendly neighbor that always comes over for dinner could be a perpetrator of abuse on your children. The saying keep your enemies close, but your friends closer offers great merit in these situations because most of the time it is always the people you least expect that cause so much arm. At the end of this article, the author stated “Albert fish didn’t suffer any consequences” he thought the death penalty of elocution would be the supreme thrill. People like Albert Fish make me question the type of people who live in our world.