Hamilton Howard "Albert" Fish

Was an American serial killer (May 19, 1870 – January 16, 1936).

He was also known as the Gray Man, the Werewolf of Wysteria, the Brooklyn Vampire, the Moon Maniac, and The Boogey Man. A child rapist and cannibal, he boasted that he "had children in every state" and at one time stated the number was about 100. However, it is not known whether he was referring to rapes or cannibalization, nor is it known if the statement was truthful. He was a suspect in at least five murders during his lifetime. Fish confessed to three murders that police were able to trace to a known homicide, and he confessed to stabbing at least two other people. He was put on trial for the kidnapping and murder of Grace Budd, and was convicted and executed by electric chair. His crimes were dramatized in the 2007 film The Gray Man, starring Patrick Bauchau as Fish.

Birth and childhood

Fish was born in Washington, D.C., on May 19, 1870, to Randall and Ellen Fish. Fish's father was American, of English ancestry, and his mother was Scots-Irish American. His father was 43 years older than his mother and 75 years old at the time of his birth. Fish was the youngest child and had three living siblings: Walter, Annie, and Edwin. He wished to be known as "Albert" after a dead sibling and to escape the nickname "Ham & Eggs" that he was given at an orphanage in which he spent much of his childhood. Fish's family had a history of mental illness. His uncle suffered from mania. A brother was confined in a state mental hospital. His sister was diagnosed with a "mental affliction".

Three other relatives were diagnosed with mental illnesses, and his mother had "aural and/or visual hallucinations". His father was a river boat captain and, by 1870, was a fertilizer manufacturer. The elder Fish died in 1875 at the Sixth Street Station of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Washington, D.C. of a heart attack. The Congressional Cemetery records show that Randall died on October 16, 1875, and was buried on October 19, 1875, in grave R96/89. Fish's mother then put her son into Saint John's Orphanage in Washington, where he was frequently abused. He began to enjoy the physical pain that the beatings brought. Of his time at the orphanage, Fish remarked, "I was there 'til I was nearly nine, and that's where I got started wrong.
We were unmercifully whipped. I saw boys doing many things they should not have done."
By 1880, his mother had a government job and was able to remove Fish from the orphanage. In 1882, at age 12, he began a relationship with a telegraph boy. The youth introduced Fish to such practices as urolagnia (drinking urine) and coprophagia (eating feces). Fish began visiting public baths where he could watch other boys undress and spent a great portion of his weekends on these visits. Throughout his life, he would write obscene letters to women whose names he acquired from classified advertising and matrimonial agencies.

1890–1918: Early adulthood and criminal history By 1890, Fish arrived in New York City, and he said at that point he became a prostitute and began raping young boys. In 1898, his mother arranged a marriage for him with Anna Mary Hoffman, who was nine years his junior. They had six children: Albert, Anna, Gertrude, Eugene, John, and Henry Fish.

Throughout 1898, he worked as a house painter. He said he continued molesting children, mostly boys younger than age six. He later recounted an incident in which a male lover took him to a waxworks museum, where Fish was fascinated by a bisection of a penis. After that, he became obsessed with sexual mutilation. In 1903, he was arrested for grand larceny and was sentenced to incarceration in Sing Sing.

Around 1910, while he was working in Wilmington, Delaware, Fish met a 19-year-old man named Thomas Kedden. He took Kedden to where he was staying, and the two began a sadomasochistic relationship; it is unclear whether or not Fish forced Kedden to do these things, but in his confession he implies that the man was intellectually disabled. After ten days, Fish took Kedden to "an old farm house", where he began to torture him. The torture took place over two weeks. Fish eventually tied Kedden up and cut off half of his penis. "I shall never forget his scream, or the look he gave me," Fish later recalled. He originally intended to kill Kedden, cut up his body, and take it home, but he feared the hot weather would draw attention to him; instead, Fish poured peroxide over the wound, wrapped it in a Vaseline-covered handkerchief, left a $10 bill, kissed Kedden goodbye, and left. "Took first train I could get back home. Never heard what become of him, or tried to find out," Fish said.

In January 1917, Fish's wife left him for John Straube, a handyman who boarded with the Fish family. Fish then had to raise his children as a single parent. After his arrest, Fish told a newspaper that when his wife left him, she took nearly every possession the family owned. He began to have auditory hallucinations. He once wrapped himself in a carpet, saying that he was following the instructions of John the Apostle. It was about this time that Fish began to indulge in self-harm. He would embed needles into his groin and abdomen. After his arrest, X-rays revealed that Fish had at least 29 needles lodged in his pelvic region.

He also hit himself repeatedly with a nail-studded paddle and inserted wool doused with lighter fluid into his anus and set it alight. While he was never thought to have physically attacked or abused his children, he did encourage them and their friends to paddle his buttocks with the same nail-studded paddle he used to abuse himself. He soon developed a growing obsession with cannibalism, often preparing himself a dinner consisting solely of raw meat and sometimes serving it to his child.

Judgment and sentence

Albert Fish's judgment for the premeditated murder of Grace Budd opened on March 11, 1935, White Plains, New York, with Judge Frederick P. Close, Deputy Attorney General, Elbert F. Gallagher, for 'charge. James Dempsey defended Fish. The judgment lasted 10 days. Fish pleaded madness, and declared that he heard the voice of God asking him to kill children. Several psychiatrists testified to his sexual fetishism, which included coprophilia, ondinism, pedophilia and sado-masochism, but they disagreed as to whether his activities meant he was crazy. Defense witness expert Fredric Wertham, a psychiatrist who studied child development, directed psychiatric expertise for the New York Criminal Court; he claimed that Fish was insane. Another defense witness, Mary Nicholas, 17-year-old daughter-in-law of Fish. She will describe how he taught her and her siblings a "game" involving masochism and molestation. Albert Fish forced these children and grandchildren to participate in some of these "games" such as "Buck-Buck, How many hands up": Fish undressed completely then went on all fours, gave them sticks and asked them to sit on his back. They had with their finger to show a figure between one and ten if he did not guess (which happened every time) they had to hit him as many times with the stick as the number chosen. Their mother was almost always present during these games, which continued every night for about an hour.

There was also "Sack of Potatoes over" Fish was also in underpants he was climbing on those shoulders and they had to slide along his back while clawing with their nails. Once Albert wanted them to play with needles under their nails but they had to stop because it hurt too much. The jury found him to be healthy and guilty, and the judge sentenced him to death.

After his conviction, Fish confessed the murder of eight-year-old Francis X. McDonnell, whom he killed on Staten Island. McDonnell was playing in front of the porch of his house not far from Port Richmond, July 15, 1924. His mother saw an "old man" walking while squeezing and loosening his fists. He passed without saying anything. Later that day, the old man was seen again, but this time watching McDonnell and his friend play. The boy's body was found in the woods, near the place where a neighbor noticed the "old man" taking the child earlier in the afternoon. He had been attacked and strangled with his suspenders19,20.

His last meal was roast chicken that was served to him to avoid a tentavive suicide indeed a few months earlier he cuts his veins with a bone of T-bone steak.

Fish arrived in March 1935, and was executed on January 16, 1936, in the electric chair at Sing Sing. He entered the room at 23:06 and death was pronounced 3 minutes later. He was buried in the prison cemetery. He is said to have said that electrocution would be "the supreme thrill of my life." Just before the switch was activated, he said, "I do not even know why I'm here," the witness said. . It took two electric shocks before Fish died, which contributed to the legend of the device being short-circuited, because of the needles that Fish had previously inserted into the body.

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