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Albert Fish
Hamilton Howard “Albert” Fish was a cannibal and child rapist. He was also known as
“The Gray Man”, “The Werewolf of Wisteria”, “The Brooklyn Vampire”, and “The
Boogeyman”. Fish was a suspect in at least five murders, three of which he confessed to
committing; he also confessed to stabbing two other people. Doctors said he suffered from a
religious psychosis. The Fish family had an extensive history of mental illness. Fish’s uncle
suffered from religious mania, a brother was confined in the state mental hospital, another
brother had died of hydrocephalus (increase of cerebrospinal fluid around the brain) and his
sister had a "mental affliction". Three other close relatives suffered from severe mental illnesses
and his mother was believed to suffer frequent aural and/or visual hallucinations. He had minor
public education and mostly worked as a handyman and a painter. Throughout his life, Fish
compulsively wrote obscene letters to women whose names he acquired from classified ads and
matrimonial agencies. 46 of his letters were recovered and used as evidence at his trial. The
letters were so obscene and vile that prosecution refused to make them public. Essentially, Fish
told the women he wrote to that he was more interested in their willingness to paddle him than he
was in marriage.
Hamilton Fish was born on May 19, 1870 in Washington D.C. He had three living
siblings. His brother, Albert, had died at a young age, and Fish wished to go by the name of his
deceased sibling. At the time of his birth, Fish’s father was 75 years old; 43 years older than
Fish’s mother. The elder Fish died of a heart attack in 1875, and Albert’s mother was unable to
care for him. She put him into Saint John's orphanage in Washington where he spent much of his
childhood. He was frequently stripped naked along with other boys who would then be whipped
and beaten in front of each other by teachers. He came to enjoy physical pain and the beatings
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would often cause erections, for which the other orphans teased him. By 1880, his mother had a
government job and was able to look after him. In 1882, at age 12, he began a relationship with a
telegraph boy. The boy introduced Fish to such practices as drinking urine and coprophagia
(eating poo).
The most renowned murder committed by Fish was that of 10-year-old Grace Budd in
1928. Albert Budd, Grace's father, worked as a doorman but could not seem to make ends meet
for the entire Budd Family. To help his father out, Edward Budd, Grace’s 18-year-old brother,
placed an advertisement in the paper that read: "Young man, 18, wishes position in the country,"
followed by his name and address.
Albert Fish answered the ad and showed up at the Budd home in Manhattan. He
introduced himself as Frank Howard, a farmer. After hearing Fish's description of the farm,
Edward agreed to work for him for 15 dollars a week. “Mr. Howard” promised to return the next
week and take Edward out to the farm.
Fish returned as promised on the following Monday and had lunch with the Budd family.
He told Mr. and Mrs. Budd that if they were agreeable to the idea, he wanted to take Grace to a
children's birthday party at the home of his married sister. They were agreeable to the idea. Of
course, they no had no idea at the time that this man was a murderous, cannibalistic, child
molester. If they had, they probably would not have been so agreeable to the idea.
Much later that evening, Grace’s father reported her disappearance to the police. For six
years, the search for Grace Budd’s abductor continued and yielded no sufficient evidence or
leads. Then on November 11, 1934, Mrs. Budd received an anonymous letter in the mail. The
unknown author began the letter with an anecdote about his sailor friend who, on one of his trips
to China, developed a taste for the meat of human children during a famine in the Far East. The
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letter then graphically described how the sailor had kidnapped, murdered, cooked, and eaten two
young boys upon his return to New York. After learning from his sailor friend that children were
tasty, 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.
The letter went on to detail how he had taken Grace to an empty house in Westchester
and let her pick wildflowers in the garden while he stripped himself naked. He called her into the
house and when she saw him, she started screaming. She tried to run away, he wrote, but he
caught her, stripped her and choked her to death. Then, he dismembered her body and cooked
and ate the smaller pieces. Finally, the letter went to extremes to assure Mrs. Budd that Grace
had not been sexually molested, claiming that "she died a virgin.”
Detective King, the chief investigator of the case, discovered a design on the flap of the
envelope that turned out to be the letters N.Y.P.C.B.A. (New York Private Chauffeur's
Benevolent Association). At the N.Y.P.C.B.A. headquarters, the detective spoke to a man named
Lee Sicowski. He told Detective King that he had a habit of taking the association's stationary
home with him and had left some of the unused notepaper and envelopes in a room of a cheap
boarding house at 200 East 52nd Street. The landlady of the house, Mrs. Frieda Schneider, stated
that Sicowski's old room was recently occupied by a man who fit Frank Howard's description.
His name was Albert Fish. Fish had recently checked out of the place, but he received monthly
checks from one of his sons that were always sent to the boarding home’s address. Detective
King took a room at the top of the stairs, which gave him a view of most of the building.
He waited for three days for Fish to return. On December 13, 1934, King received an
urgent call from the landlady. Fish was back. When King returned to the house, he introduced
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himself and Fish made no effort to conceal his own identity. Then, the detective asked Fish to
accompany him to the police station for questioning.
At the police station, Fish confessed to the kidnapping and murder of Grace Budd. His
intended victim had been Edward Budd, but when he got to the Budd house and saw the young
girl, he set his sights on the more vulnerable Grace. He freely confessed to kidnapping the girl
and taking her to Wisteria Cottage in Westchester County.