Albert Fish

At 65 years old, Albert Fish has this physical status:

Hamilton Howard "Albert" Fish (May 19, 1870- 1936) was an American serial killer, child narcotic, and cannibal.

He was also known as the Gray Man, the Werewolf of Wysteria, the Moon Maniac, and The Boogey Man.

Fish once boasted that he "had children in every state" and that his number of victims was around 100.

However, it is not clear if he was referring to rapes or cannibalization, and it is also unknown if the accusation was accurate.Fish was a suspect in at least five murders in his lifetime.

Fish confessed to three murders that police were able to trace to a suspected homicide, and he admitted to stabbing at least two others.

He was tried and executed by electric chair for Grace Budd's kidnapping and murder, and he was found guilty.

In the 2007 film The Gray Man, starring Patrick Bauchau as Fish, his crimes were dramatized.

Early life

Albert Fish was born in Washington, D.C., on May 19, 1870, to Randall (1795 – October 16, 1875), and Ellen (née Howell; 1838–c. ) and Margaret (1690) – 1880—c. (1903) Fish. The fish's father was an American of English origins, and his mother was a Scotish American. At the time of his birth, his father was forty-three years older than his mother and 75 years old. Walter, Annie, and Edwin were the youngest child and had three living siblings: Fish was the youngest of three siblings. After a deceased sibling and wanted to avoid the name "Ham & Eggs" that he was given at an orphanage in which he spent a substantial portion of his childhood, he wanted to be named "Albert" after his orphanage.

The fish's family had a history of mental disorders. His uncle had mania, one of his brothers was imprisoned in a state mental hospital, and his sister Annie was diagnosed with a "mental disorder." Three other relatives were diagnosed with mental disorders, and his mother had "aural and/or visual hallucinations."

In 1875, fish's father, a fertilizer manufacturer, died after a fatal heart attack at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station. According to congressional Cemetery records, he died on October 16 and was buried on October 19 in grave R96/89. The fish's mother took her son into the Orphanage of Saint John in Washington, where he was often physically assaulted. Fish began to enjoy the physical pain that the beatings brought.

Fish's mother, who had a government job by 1880, was able to remove Fish from the orphanage. He began a relationship with a telegraph boy in 1882, when he was 12 years old. Fish were introduced to such habits as urolagnia (drinking urine) and coprophagia (eating feces). Fish began to bathe in public baths, where he could watch other boys undress, spending a large amount of his weekends in these visits. He'll write obscene letters to women whose names he obtained from classified advertising and matrimonial companies throughout his life.

1890-1918: Early adulthood and criminal history traces.

By 1890, Fish, at the age of 20, had migrated to New York City. He was involved in male sex and emergence of molesting and raping boys, the bulk of which were younger than six years old. Anna Mary Hoffman, a nine-year-old boy, arranged a marriage for him in 1898. They had six children: Albert, Anna, Gertrude, Eugene, John, and Henry Fish. Fish was arrested for grand larceny, was found guilty, and imprisoned in Sing Sing.

Fish related to an incident in which a male lover brought him to a wax museum, where he was fascinated by a human penis bisection and then became obsessed with sexual mutilation.

Fish was living in Wilmington, Delaware, around 1910, when he encountered Thomas Kedden, a 19-year-old man. He took Kedden to where he was staying and the two began a sadomasochistic friendship; it is unclear if or not Fish coerced Kedden to do these things; his confession indicates that Kedden was intellectually impaired. Fish carried Kedden to "an old farm house," where he tortured him for a week. Kedden was eventually tied up and cut off half of his penis. "I will never forget his scream or the look he gave me," Fish later said. He had intended to kill Kedden, cut it up, and take it home, but instead, Fish poured Persuader over the wound, wrapped it in a Vaseline-covered handkerchief, kissed Kedden goodbye, and left. "It's the first train I could get home." "Never heard what happened to him or tried to find out," Fish said.

In January 1917, Fish's wife left John Straube for John Straube, a handyman who boarded with the Fish family. As a single parent, the fish then had to raise his children. Fish told a newspaper that after his wife left him, she took almost every piece of the family's house. Fish began to have auditory hallucinations; he once wrapped himself in a carpet, insisting that he was following John the Apostle's instructions.

Fish began to indulge in self-harm by embedding needles into his groin and abdomen around this time. Fish had at least twenty-nine needles embedded in his pelvic region, according to X-rays after his capture. He struck himself repeatedly with a nail-studded paddle, and also injected wool doused with lighter fluid into his anus, setting it ablaze. Although Fish was never said to have physically assaulted or assaulted his children, he did encourage them and their families to paddle their buttocks with the same nail-studded paddle he used to assault himself.

In Georgetown, Fish stabbed an intellectually disabled boy about 1919. He chose people who were either physically impaired or African-American, later explaining that he assumed these people would not be missed if killed. Later, fish would later say that he had occasionally paid boys to hire other children for him. With his "implements of Hell": a meat cleaver, a butcher knife, and a tiny handsaw, fish tortured, mutilated, and murdered young children.

On July 11, 1924, Fish discovered eight-year-old Beatrice Kiel on her parents' farm on Staten Island, New York, alone. She begged her to come and assist him in looking for rhubarb. When her mother chased Fish away, she was about to leave the farm. The fish was released but he returned to the Kiels' barn later, but Beatrice's father was compelled to leave, but he was later discovered by Beatrice's father and coerced to leave. Francis McDonnell was killed three days later by Fish, who was also on Staten Island. During 1924, the 54-year-old Fish, who was suffering from psychosis, felt that God had ordered him to torture and sexually mutilate children.

Fish attempted to put his "implements of Hell" on a child he had been molesting, Cyril Quinn, just shy of his kidnapping of Grace Budd. Fish asked Quinn and his buddy if they had eaten lunch on a sidewalk when they asked if they had eaten lunch. He welcomed them into his apartment for sandwiches when they said they didn't have to because they didn't have them. When the two boys were wrestling on Fish's bed, they dislodged his mattress; under were a knife, a small handsaw, and a meat cleaver. They were afraid and ran out of the apartment.

Despite being married, Fish married Estella Wilcox in Waterloo, New York, on February 6, 1930; they divorced after only one week. In May 1930, Fish was arrested for "sending an offensive letter to a woman who answered an advertisement for a maid." Following his capture and another in 1931, he was admitted to the Bellevue Hospital for observation.

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