Albert fish was and still is one of the most horrific and notorious Cannibal serial killers in history. Albert was born on May 19, 1870. His real name was Hamilton Fish, but he chose to use the name Albert, after his dead brother. A child rapist and cannibal, he boasted that he "had children in every state" and at one time stated the number was around the 100 mark in total!
The criminal activity of Fish started at a young age and by the age of 20 he was working as a prostitute and in his spare time he would sexual assault young boys! Fish ended up marrying and did manage to live a somewhat normal family life in the suburbs of New York city and even had six children. Later, he met a 19-year-old man called Thomas Kedden. He took Kedden to where he was staying, and the two began a sadomasochistic relationship; Fish ended up torturing Thomas for two weeks and cutting off half of his penis! Fish once said that "I shall never forget his scream, or the look he gave me," although Fish was originally going to kill Thomas, but he changed his mind and instead let him go.
In 1917 his wife had left him for a handyman, she left the children but took nearly everything else. After this Fish had a break down and began to suffer with auditory hallucinations and he began to self-harm by inserting needles into his groin and abdomen area. Although there is no evidence that Fish ever abused his children, he did encourage them to paddle him with a nail studded paddle.
It was around this time that Fish’s obsession with cannibalism began when he started eating only raw meat, he would also serve it to his children. Between the years of 1919 and 1930 Fish would regularly mutilate and kill children! His preferred victim was the mentally handicapped or African American as Fish assumed they wouldn’t be missed.
His first confirmed murder was that of Francis McDonnell, followed by 4-year-old Billy Gaffney. Fish tortured Gaffney to death, cut him up and throw his remains into a pond.
His most famous victim and the one that would lead to his arrest was that of Grace Budd, age 10. Fish originally planned to kill her brother but changed his mind after seeing Grace. He managed to lure her away from home by asking her parents if he could take her to his nieces’ birthday party. Fish then took Grace to an abandoned house, choked her to death and then cut her up and began eating her for the next 9 days! Fish ended up sending a letter to the mother of Grace Budd, and this would lead to his capture as the paper was traced back to Fish! In the letter Fish goes on about, how the famine in China lead to cannibalism. At the end of the letter in goes into detail how he killed her daughter Grace – (As the letter is quite disturbing I won’t include it in this article, however if you are interested in reading it you can get it on the web. However, please note it is quite graphic)
Although it was clear he was insane he was still put on trail and executed by electric chair! It is said that Fish had to executed twice as the first time did not kill him – some believe this may be down to all the needles he had used to self-harm and somehow that had caused the effect of a short-circuit.
Albert Fish was executed on January 16, 1936, at 11:06pm and was buried in the Sing Sing Cemetery. His last words were said to be "I don't even know why I'm here."… Albert Fish was one of Americas worst killers and perhaps one of the worst the world has seen.
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