Serial Killers: Confessions of a Cannibal (6 page)

Fish had now finished telling his horrific story, relating it in a deadpan delivery that somehow accentuated the horror. Yet there was one important detail that he had omitted. In his letter to the Budds, he’d claimed that he’d eaten parts of Grace’s body. Now he made no mention of that atrocity and King, surprisingly, made no effort to press him on the issue. Those harrowing details would emerge later.

No murderer has ever been convicted on the strength of his confession alone. In order to successfully prosecute Albert Fish, the police needed to verify the details of his horrific statement. Not only that, but the destroyed body of little Gracie Budd had to be recovered and returned to her family for a proper burial.

So it was that, at around 5 p.m. on December 14, 1934, a couple of police cars departed the offices of the Missing Persons Bureau and headed north towards Westchester County. The first car carried Sergeants Thomas Hammill and Hugh Sheridan. In the second, Bureau Chief John Stein rode in the front passenger seat. In back were Detective King and Chief Inspector John Ryan. Between them sat Albert Fish.

It was dark by the time the group arrived at Wisteria Cottage. The old house, sitting back from the road among the trees, gave off an air of malevolence. With an emergency light to guide them, the detectives removed their prisoner from the car and started towards the building, their breath visible as vapor in the frigid air. Fish seemed almost excited as he led them along the wraparound porch through the back door and up the stairs, to the room where the murder had taken place. There, with his shadow casting gargoyle-like shapes on the ceiling, he re-enacted the crime. This was where he’d placed his tools, this was where he’d strangled her, here was the spot where he’d cleaved the body in two.

His grim drama played out, Fish was taken outside and instructed to lead the detectives to Grace’s body. It took a while before he located the spot. Once he did, Detective King soon spotted a smooth, curved object, yellowed with age. The jawbone was missing but it was unmistakably a skull, and judging from the size, the skull of a child. Soon after, the missing jawbone and several bone fragments were uncovered, enough to give credence to Fish’s story. It was time to call in the local authorities. The murder had, after all, occurred in Westchester County. It was their crime scene.

Greenburgh Police Chief Phillip Quinlan arrived at Wisteria Cottage at around 8:40, bringing with him Westchester District Attorney Frank Coyne and a contingent of police officers. Albert Fish had since departed the scene with his police escort, but Sergeants Hammill and Sheridan had stayed behind to liaise with the Greenburgh officers. After being briefed on the situation Chief Quinlan instructed his men to secure the crime scene. Not a moment too soon either. The story had since broken in New York and carloads of reporters and press photographers began arriving. All of this activity attracted the locals and a sizeable crowd had soon gathered. Fortunately, there were barricades in place to prevent them trampling the crime scene as the police got to work by lamplight. By morning they had recovered the ribs, finger bones, vertebrae, and shoulder blades of a young child, no older than 12.

Fish was by now back at police headquarters where he was subjected to another round of questioning. He offered a near verbatim version of his earlier confession, yet still the issue of cannibalism went unmentioned and the police made no effort to press Fish about it.

While this was going on, the Budd family was being roused from sleep by a New York Herald reporter, who broke the news that Grace’s body had been found and that her killer was in custody. Soon other news teams had arrived at the apartment and the family was barraged with questions and requests for photographs. They responded stoically. After six years, the pain of their loss had been muted. This at least was closure.

At around 1:00 a.m., the Budds had another visitor when Detective King arrived to drive Albert and his son Edward to police headquarters to see if they could identify Fish as the man who had visited their apartment and taken Grace away. Mrs. Budd, who had proven an unreliable witness in the past, was not asked to participate.

At police headquarters, Detective King led the Budds to Captain Stein’s office, fighting their way through the throng of newsmen swarming about the place. At the door, he pulled Edward aside and told him to enter the room and see if he could spot the man who had taken his sister. Edward, now a powerfully built young man of 24, nodded solemnly, then opened the door and stepped into the room. Inside there was a hive of activity, with at least a dozen officers swarming about the place. Some appeared to be examining the contents of a leather satchel, others staring intently into a cardboard box that was sitting on a desk. The place was abuzz with conversation but that subsided immediately as the officers spotted Edward. In what appeared to be almost a choreographed move, they suddenly parted, leaving Edward face to face with a frail looking old man seated at a desk.

Fish gave no indication that he recognized Edward, but the response from the younger man was instantaneous. “You dirty old bastard!” he screamed, lunging. “You dirty son of a bitch!” But for the intervention of several officers, Fish might not have lived to see the inside of a courtroom.

As Edward was led away, still spitting venom, Albert Budd stepped forward. The elder Budd appeared almost timid as he stood before the man who had murdered his daughter. “Do you know me?” he asked in a tremulous voice.

“Yes,” Fish said. “You’re Mr. Budd.”

Budd’s eyes filled with tears. “And you’re the man who came to my house as a guest and took my little girl away.”

Fish made no reply. And the vaguely bored expression on his face barely wavered.

The following days were taken up with jurisdictional issues. As the murder had been committed in Westchester County the trial would take place there, while New York retained the option of trying Fish for kidnapping should the murder prosecution fail to deliver a guilty verdict. In the interim, the search of Wisteria cottage continued, yielding the saw and cleaver that Fish had used to dismember the body (the butcher’s knife was never found, leaving the police to speculate that Fish may have carried it away with him).

The site also yielded a plethora of bones, which sent the press into a frenzy speculating as to how many children Fish had murdered at the cottage. In the end though, the bones proved to be of animal origin. But that didn’t stop the lurid headlines. The newspapers seemed particularly keen to find a sensational nom de guerre for the decrepit killer, describing him variously as the “Ogre of Murder Lodge,” “Modern Bluebeard,” the “Aged Thrill-Killer,” the “Orgiastic Fiend,” the “Brooklyn Vampire,” and one that has stood the test of time, “The Werewolf of Wisteria.”

The papers also began delving into Fish’s past, turning up a story that was every much as sickening as the murder of which Fish now stood accused.

Albert Fish was born in Washington D.C. on May 19, 1870. His birth name was Hamilton Fish, but he changed it to Albert after he became tired of his young playmates taunting him with the nickname 'Ham and Eggs.' Albert had been the name of a sibling who had died at a young age. Fish’s father was Randall Fish, a riverboat captain who was 43 years older than Albert’s mother. Randall was 75 when Albert was born. He died five years later, leaving his wife destitute. As a result, Albert and his three siblings were sent to an orphanage.

There was a history of mental illness in the Fish clan, with religious mania a recurring trait. But the seeds of Fish’s own particular brand of madness were sown at the orphanage where the inmates were frequently whipped and beaten. Young Albert soon discovered that he enjoyed pain and was also sexually aroused by watching other children being subjected to corporal punishment. Often he’d achieve an erection while watching physical abuse being meted out, or while being beaten himself. 

In 1879, Fish’s mother got a government job that allowed her to liberate her children from the various institutions in which they’d been placed. The damage to young Albert though, had already been done. The boy had developed a number of disturbing behaviors including a compulsion for drinking urine and eating feces. He also enjoyed both inflicting and receiving pain, the latter usually self-administered with a nail-studded paddle or a homemade cat-o-nine-tails. By the age of 12, Fish was regularly visiting public baths to secretly watch young boys undress. He was also involved in his first homosexual relationship. 

In 1890, Fish moved to New York City, and began working as a painter and decorator. This occupation suited him perfectly as it gave him access to apartment buildings where there were always unattended children. He soon developed an efficient M.O., luring young boys down into basements where he’d attack and rape them. Even then, the wily criminal hedged his bets. Usually, he targeted black children, knowing that the police were less likely to investigate a complaint. At the same time, Fish regularly visited brothels, where he’d pay to be whipped and beaten.

Mugshot of Albert Fish as a young man

In 1898, Fish met and married a woman named Anna, nine years his junior. The couple would have six children: Albert, Anna, Gertrude, Eugene, John, and Henry. In January 1917, Fish’s wife eventually tired of his bizarre behavior and eloped with their lodger, a handyman named John Straube. Within weeks she was back, complaing that Straube beat her and begging forgiveness. Fish, at the urging of his older children gave her a second chance. But just days after returning to the bosom of her family, Mrs. Fish smuggled her lover Straube into the house, hiding him in the basement. When Fish found out, he again ejected the pair. They later returned while he was away and cleared out all of the family’s furniture.

By all accounts Fish was a devoted and loving parent who worked hard to provide for his large family. However, the desertion by his wife seemed to trigger an escalation of his madness. His religious mania, in particular, intensified. On one occasion he spent an entire night lying on the floor wrapped in a carpet. Asked why he was doing it, Fish explained that he had been instructed to do so by John the Apostle. Another time, he climbed a hill and stood shouting at the moon over and over again, “I am Christ! I am Christ!”

Fish’s episodes of self-harm also intensified over this period. His children would often find him beating himself bloody with a nail-studded paddle. On occasion, he’d even encourage the children to beat him as he crouched on all fours on the floor. Another favorite perversion of his was to soak a wad of cotton wool in alcohol, shove it into his anus and then set it alight. But even that paled into comparison with his most extreme form of self-mutilation. That involved inserting sewing needles into his flesh, usually in the area between his scrotum and anus. The pain must have been excruciating, but even that wasn’t enough for Fish. He tried inserting the needles directly into his testicles. That pain however was so intense that even the seasoned masochist could not handle it.

Nail studded paddle used by Fish to inflict self-harm

At the time of his arrest in 1934, the police were unsurprised to find that Fish already had a criminal record and had done time in prison, mostly for petty thefts and larcenies. Fish’s favorite criminal activity, though, was writing obscene letters. Usually he’d find his targets for these disgusting missives through matrimonial agencies, or by scouring the classified pages of various newspapers. His preferred targets were landladies offering rooms for rent.

In these letters, Fish often presented himself as a successful Hollywood producer, looking for a place to board his teenaged son. He usually presented the boy as well built but mentally deficient and in need of constant discipline. He’d then go on to describe exactly how, and how often, he expected the boy to be beaten. If the landlady was agreeable (and many were, given the large sums on offer), Fish would follow up with another and then another letter, becoming ever more graphic and depraved. Eventually, he’d introduce his other obsessions into the equation suggesting that he would like to drink the woman’s urine and eat her feces.

One such letter – addressed to a Mrs. Edna Solarid – was handed over to the police in September 1930 and Fish, who had made the mistake of providing a return address, was promptly arrested. In custody, he admitted to writing the letters, explaining that it was “sort of a habit.” He was sent to Bellevue for psychiatric evaluation, spending thirty days there before being released. Staff at the clinic considered him eccentric but harmless. Then again, they had no way of knowing about the little girl he’d so brutally killed and butchered just two years before.