Serial Killers: Confessions of a Cannibal (4 page)

The hunt for Grace Budd and the elusive Frank Howard had involved hundreds of New York City police officers, and perhaps thousands of lawmakers from around the country. One man, though, stands out. He was Detective William F. King, of the Bureau of Missing Persons. A resolute investigator, King was as tough as they come. He’d been a locomotive fireman and had served in the Great War before applying his unique skill set to police work.

Early in the Budd case, King had been assigned to track down Albert Corthell, so no one was more disappointed than he when the charges were dismissed so soon after he eventually landed the fugitive. Nonetheless, King remained determined to catch Grace Budd’s abductor. It would be safe to say that he had developed a near obsession with bringing the case to resolution. By the spring of 1931, that resolution seemed further off than ever.

In March 1932, New York Times reporter R. L. Duffus published an article under the banner, “Kidnapping: A Rising Menace To The Nation.” In it, Duffus bemoaned the surge of kidnappings that was sweeping the nation. Most famous of these was the tragic abduction and murder of the Lindbergh baby, for which German immigrant Bruno Hauptmann would eventually go to the chair. But there were plenty of others. It seemed that anyone with the means to pay a ransom was at risk from criminals desperate for a payday during the bleak depression years.

The New York Times illustrated Duffus’ article with a collage of four young kidnapping victims. Three of these were the offspring of wealthy parents. In each of these cases a ransom had been demanded and paid and the children had been safely returned to their homes. No ransom had ever been demanded for Grace Budd. At the time the article appeared, Grace had already been missing for four years.

Two more years passed before the Budd case was again in the headlines. It happened in June 1934, as New York City played host to the U.S. Navy. On May 30, the entire U.S. fleet, comprising 185 warships, had sailed in to New York harbor in an impressive show of American naval might. Over the next two-and-a-half weeks, the city rolled out the red carpet. Officers attended galas and banquets hosted by Mayor LaGuardia and the Big Apple’s social elite. Meanwhile, 22,000 enlisted men swarmed across the city, taking in the delights of Times Square, Chinatown, Coney Island and New York’s many other attractions.

The New York press, of course, covered the whole event in detail, with picture spreads dominating their pages. Mostly, these were of battle cruisers, aircraft carriers, and the teeming crowds who had come out to see them. But there were human interest pictures too, shots of beaming sailors interacting and posing with the locals and enjoying the hospitality of the city. It was one of these that would inadvertently provide the telling break in the Budd case.

The picture appeared as one of a spread in the Daily Mirror on Monday, June 4, 1934. It showed a couple of soldiers posing with their dates, two attractive young ladies dressed in their finery. The girl standing on the right of the picture was wearing a full-length white dress and a wide-brimmed hat that cast part of her face into shadow. She was dark-haired and pretty, her allure accentuated by the charming half-smile that played on her lips.

Millions of New Yorkers saw the picture, but one of them, a Brooklyn housewife named Adele Miller, drew a different conclusion to the rest. She became convinced that the girl in the photograph was Grace Budd. So convinced in fact that she took a pair of scissors and snipped the picture from the newspaper. Then she drew an arrow pointing to the girl, with the caption, “This is the girl, Grace Budd.” Finally, she slipped the cutting into an envelope and mailed it to the Budd family.

Delia Budd was intrigued by the picture. After studying it for hours under a magnifying glass she became convinced that it was indeed Grace. Family and friends were less certain, although even they had to admit that there was a resemblance and that the girl could certainly pass for a slightly older Gracie.

The following morning, Delia and Albert Budd took the subway across town to the Missing Person’s Bureau and showed the picture to Detective King. Within hours, the newspapers had wind of the story and had reprinted it, along with copy that suggested that the Budd girl had finally been found. She was urged to report to her local police precinct and identify herself.

But any fleeting hope that the Budds may have harbored was soon dashed. On Thursday, June 14, a 16-year-old girl by the name of Florence Swinney walked into the Morrisania police station in the Bronx and identified herself as the girl in the photograph. That evening the Budds heard the bad news from Deputy Chief Inspector Francis Kerr. After years of false dawns, they took this latest letdown stoically.

Unbeknownst to the Budds, the Florence Swinney affair was not a total loss after all. In fact, it would have a dramatic impact on the hunt for their missing daughter. Among the millions of people who had followed the story to its rather disappointing conclusion was an avid reader of newspapers, a man who had more reason than most to maintain an interest in the case. His name was Albert Hamilton Fish, although he sometimes used the alias Frank Howard. Six months after Florence Swinney identified herself to the police, six years after he’d stolen away their daughter, Fish would contact the Budds again, heaping upon them even more sorrow.

Detective William King, as we have already noted, maintained a near obsessive interest in the Budd case. Despite the lack of suspects, despite the dearth of viable leads, King continued to work the angles, chasing down any clue that emerged, no matter how meager. One of the tactics he employed was to occasionally plant false stories in the New York press about the case. King’s motive for doing this was two-fold. On the one hand he wanted to keep the story in the public arena. You never knew when a story might trigger someone’s memory and provide a potentially valuable lead. So far however, the returns had been paltry, mostly crank calls and well-meaning but useless tips. King’s second reason for running the stories was the possibility that he might flush his quarry from hiding, a scant hope to be sure, but one that cost nothing to pursue.

On November 2, 1934, Walter Winchell, the undisputed king of New York’s gossip columnists, ran the following piece in his regular feature in the New York Daily News:

I checked on the Grace Budd mystery. She was eight when she was kidnapped six years ago. And it is safe to tell you that the Dep’t of Missing Persons will break the case, or they expect to, in four weeks. They are holding a “cokie” now at Randall’s Island, who is said to know most about the crime. Grace is supposed to have been done away with in lime, but another legend is that her skeleton is buried in a local spot. More anon.

The story, of course, was pure fabrication. The “cokie,” or cocaine addict, did not exist and there was no direct evidence to suggest the manner in which Grace’s body had been disposed of, or indeed that she was definitely dead. However, the one person who knew the answer to these questions read the article and this time he decided to act. He decided to write a letter.

The missive arrived at the Budd’s apartment on the morning of November 12, having been mailed the previous day from a post office at Grand Central Station. Delia Budd opened it, but she was functionally illiterate and could decipher no more than her own name. Instead, she handed it over to her son, Edward who began reading silently, his features quickly morphing into a frown and the color rapidly blanching from his face.

“What’s it say, Eddie?” Delia Budd asked. Edward didn’t answer. He turned on his heel and headed out of the door. An hour later he was handing the vile letter over to Detective King. Nothing the veteran cop had read to that point could match the sheer depravity of the thing. In this case, Delia Budd’s lack of education had been a blessing. The letter read as follows: 

“My dear Mrs. Budd,

In 1894 a friend of mine shipped as a deck hand on the Steamer Tacoma, Capt. John Davis. They sailed from San Francisco for Hong Kong China. On arriving there he and two others went ashore and got drunk. When they returned the boat was gone.

At that time there was famine in China. Meat of any kind was from $1 to $3 a pound. So great was the suffering among the very poor that all children under 12 were sold for food in order to keep others from starving. A boy or girl under 14 was not safe in the street. You could go in any shop and ask for steak — chops — or stew meat. Part of the naked body of a boy or girl would be brought out and just what you wanted cut from it. A boy or girls behind which is the sweetest part of the body and sold as veal cutlet brought the highest price.

John staid there so long he acquired a taste for human flesh. On his return to N.Y. he stole two boys one seven, one 11. Took them to his home stripped them naked tied them in a closet.  Then burned everything they had on. Several times every day and night he spanked them — tortured them — to make their meat good and tender.

First he killed the 11-year-old boy, because he had the fattest ass and of course the most meat on it. Every part of his body was Cooked and eaten except the head — bones and guts. He was roasted in the oven (all of his ass), boiled, broiled, fried and stewed. The little boy was next, went the same way. At that time, I was living at 409 E 100 St., near — right side. He told me so often how good Human flesh was I made up my mind to taste it.

On Sunday June the 3rd 1928 I called on you at 406 W 15 St. Brought you pot cheese — strawberries. We had lunch. Grace sat in my lap and kissed me. I made up my mind to eat her.

On the pretense of taking her to a party. You said “Yes,” she could go. I took her to an empty house in Westchester I had already picked out. When we got there, I told her to remain 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.

When all was ready I went to the window and called her. Then I hid in a closet until she was in the room. When she saw me all naked she began to cry and tried to run down the stairs. I grabbed her and she said she would tell her mamma.

First I stripped her naked. How she did kick — bite and scratch. I choked her to death, then cut her in small pieces so I could take my meat to my rooms. Cook and eat it. How sweet and tender her little ass was roasted in the oven. It took me nine days to eat her entire body. I did not fuck her though I could of had I wished. She died a virgin.”

So horrific was this letter than King was at first tempted to disregard it as the ravings of some foul lunatic. Yet something about it bore the ring of authenticity. Its author had taken care to provide detail, the part about the pot cheese and strawberries, for example. Those minutiae were, of course, public knowledge, having been broadly reported in the press. But what about the address that had been mentioned – 409 East 100
th
Street? Was it mere coincidence that it fell within the direct locale the police had focused their search on in the aftermath of Grace Budd’s abduction? King didn’t think so, and he had one way of testing his theory. Drawing a copy of the Howard’s Western Union message to the Budds on June 2, 1928, he compared the handwriting to that in the letter. It did not take a professional graphologist to see that it was a match.

The authenticity of the letter had been established, but other than proving that its author was a deeply depraved individual, it provided not a whole lot more, neither his identity nor his whereabouts. The envelope, though, was a different matter. On its back flap was a six-sided symbol, with the letters N.Y.P.C.B.A. arranged around it, one to each side. Underneath this emblem was a two-line address, which someone (presumably the anonymous sender) had attempted to obliterate. The second line, which read New York City, had been left in tact; the first had been scored through with an ink pen. Still, the job had been imperfectly done. Using a magnifying glass, Detective King was able to make out the words, “627 Lexington Avenue.”

N.Y.P.C.B.A. as it turned out, stood for “New York Private Chauffer’s Benevolent Association.” After making a call to the union’s president, Arthur Ennis, King set out across town with the envelope in hand. Yes, Ennis said, the envelope was definitely official N.Y.P.C.B.A. stationary. However, he didn’t recognize the handwriting and hours spent scanning the registration forms of past and present members failed to turn up a match.

Despite this setback, King was filled with an overwhelming conviction that he was finally close to cracking the case. He prevailed upon Ennis to call an emergency meeting of the association for the next day, something that Ennis was all too happy to do.

Once the members were gathered on the following day, King stepped up to address them. He thanked them for coming in at such short notice, laid out the facts of the Budd case and explained how the letter and envelope had brought him to the N.Y.P.C.B.A. Then he made an appeal for information. Had any member removed stationary from the association’s offices? Did any member know of someone who might have done so? Much to King’s disappointment, nobody spoke up.

The meeting was soon adjourned, leaving King frustrated at another promising lead that appeared to have hit a brick wall. Just as he was about to leave, however, a young man approached and timidly introduced himself as Lee Sicowski. He said that he had some information to share but had been too embarrassed to speak up in the general meeting. A few months earlier, Sicowski admitted, he’d taken a few sheets of writing paper and some envelopes from the office for personal use.

King immediately perked up. Where were the items now, he wanted to know. Sicowski said that he’d used some of the stationary and had the rest at home. He then agreed to accompany the detective to the address, a rooming house on Lexington Avenue.

Any hopes that King may have had of a quick resolution, however, were soon dashed. No one by the name of Frank Howard had signed the rooming house register, and neither the proprietor nor any of her staff recognized the description that King offered. Then another snippet of information occurred to Sicowski. He had taken the stationary before moving to this address, he said. Previously, he’d stayed at 200 East 52
nd
Street, Room 7. Had he left any N.Y.P.C.B.A. stationary in the room when he’d moved out, King wanted to know. Sicowski wasn’t sure, but thought he might have.

King tried to temper his hopes as he drove towards the new address that Sicowski had given him. This was a complicated case and every lead he’d pursued so far had come to nothing. He warned himself to expect more disappointment. His sleuthing instincts though, were abuzz with anticipation. Maybe, just maybe, his quest was nearing an end.

At the rooming house, landlady Frieda Schneider welcomed King in and listened intently to his story. Then, as he was describing his suspect, a peculiar expression came over her face. “Why, that sounds like Mr. Fish,” she said.

“He lives here?” King asked.

“Not any more, but he did. Moved out a few weeks ago.”

This was disappointing news. Nonetheless, King pushed on. “Would you mind if I took a look at your register?” he asked.

The landlady quickly produced the book, flipping it open to the entry signed Albert H. Fish. King then pulled the letter from his pocket and compared the handwriting. It was a match.

“Now Mrs. Schneider,” he said, “This is very important. Did Mr. Fish give any indication as to where he was going after he checked out?”

“He did not,” Mrs. Schneider said emphatically, “Although he did say that he would be by mid-December to see me. He has a son who sends him a check every month from North Carolina, you see. Mr. Fish asked me to hold it for him.”

King’s next question caught the landlady by surprise. “Mrs. Schneider,” he asked, “Do you have a room that I might rent?”

Over the weeks that followed King set up a round-the-clock stakeout of the rooming house. He himself took up residence in the house, occupying Room 7, the room previously inhabited by Lee Sicowski, and by Albert Fish. In the meanwhile, he traced Fish’s son to North Carolina, where he was working in the Civilian Conservation Corps, one of the programs set up under President Roosevelt’s New Deal. Making sure that Fish Jr. was not tipped off, King instructed the C.C.C. paymaster to let him know as soon as the next pay checks were mailed out. That call came on December 4, with an envelope addressed to Albert Fish intercepted at the Grand Central post office the following day.

Days passed without Fish showing up at the boarding house to collect his mail. On December 13, Detective King was summoned to police headquarters to attend a meeting. He’d barely arrived when there was a frantic call from Mrs. Schneider. Fish was there!

Asking the landlady to delay the old man for as long as possible, King returned immediately to 200 East 52
nd
Street. He arrived to find Fish seated at the kitchen table, sipping from a teacup. The old man was dressed in a mismatched outfit of striped trousers and tweed jacket. He wore a vest and tie. A black overcoat and a battered fedora rested on a chair.

“You’re Albert Fish,” King said as he stepped into the room. It was a statement, not a question.

The old man regarded him through watery eyes for a moment, then inclined his head slightly and pushed back his chair. He got slowly to his feet in a hunched, gargoyle-like maneuver. King crossed the room towards him but he’d barely taken a step when Fish reached into his vest pocket and came up bolding a razor blade. He slashed at King, but the detective easily evaded the blade’s arc and closed a meaty hand on Fish’s bony wrist. Fish let out a gasp of pain and slumped back into his chair. The razor blade went skittering across the floor.

“I’ve got you now,” William King said triumphantly.