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- Hi friends, how are you today? My name is Bailey Sarian and today is Monday, which means it's Murder, Mystery, and Makeup Monday. If you're new here, hi, my name is Bailey Sarian and on Mondays I sit down and I talk about a true crime story that's been heavy on my
and I do my makeup at the same time. So if you're interested in true crime and you like makeup, I would highly suggest you hit that subscribe button because I'm here for you on Mondays. Bitch. Today's video has been so highly requested since day one when I started Murder Mystery Makeup and I've been avoiding this one because of how awful it is, okay? It's all bad, okay? I've been putting this one off.
Just letting you know right now, full disclosure, all of these stories are bad. But this one, I legit like lost sleep over. So just a little disclaimer here, you know, I'm gonna be covering a lot of messed up territory. I'm talking about child abuse, child murder,
severe mental illnesses, obviously murder, torture, everything and anything, okay? So just letting you know right off the bat, this one is a very intense story and this man was very, very sick in the head to the point of putting pins in his testicles. Oh yeah, pins in the testicles. And there's proof, photographic images to back that up. So it's like, okay, what I'm getting at is buckle up bozos,
- Today's story is about a man named Albert Fish. I know, I know, I know. 'Cause I was like, oh, Fish, cute. Not cute. Ugh, this guy sucks. Boo. Okay, so today we're talking about Albert Fish, right? So he actually wasn't born like Mr. Albert Fish, no. He was actually named Hamilton Howard Fish. Yeah, and he was born in May of 1870. I know.
1870, can't even imagine what that was like, but he was born. Albert was the youngest of five kids born to Ellen and Randall Fish, and they lived in Washington, DC. The first thing to note is that he changed his name in his teenage years to Albert, which the name Albert was his brother's name, and his brother had died. I'm not sure how he died, but I guess he wasn't using the name anymore, and Albert was like, "Yeah, it's mine now."
I'm not sure. It was said that he hated the name Hamilton because the kids would tease him and call him Ham and Eggs. Yeah, like that was bad or something. Ham and Eggs. But it bothered him, okay? He didn't want to be called Ham and Eggs. But honestly, like, by the end of this, it's probably the nicest thing anyone has ever called this guy. So anyways, I'm just gonna make it less confusing. I'm gonna call him Albert. Got it?
Good. Okay, so Albert's parents, Ellen and Randall, they had a whopping 43-year age difference, which, you know, that's not bad, but it's like by the time Albert was born, Randall, his dad, was 75 years old. And, you know, it's like he wasn't around long. Like when Albert turned five, his dad died. So it's sad. I forgot there's cannibalism in today's story too. Disclaimer.
Okay, so his dad died when he was only five. And like, I guess it was a pretty big deal because when Randall died, Ellen lost her shit, okay? Obviously as a wife, she's mourning the loss of her husband, her partner, sad, awful.
But allegedly, she was already mentally unstable. And apparently she had, this is talking about Albert's mom. She had suffered from like visual hallucinations and she heard things, people talking to her. She saw things, you know. We don't know because we weren't there, but so it's all alleged, I guess.
Don't come back and haunt me, ghosts, okay? You guys are keeping me up at night. So the death of her husband just really pushed her hallucinations over the edge. She just couldn't take care of herself or her kids anymore. So she decided to place them up in an orphanage. You know, okay, look, real talk. Some sources say just Albert got sent to an orphanage. And then other sources say that all the kids went to orphanage, like different orphanages. Orphanages.
Orphanages. You know when you say it too much, it just doesn't sound right. Anyways, so either one, but either way, what we do know is that Albert went to an orphanage. So I'm sure you've heard about like the 19th century, the old timey orphanages. I think everyone kind of has an idea of like what that was like. And if you don't, well, I mean, they just look at the end of the day, these old time orphanages, they were not great.
At all. They were actually very bad. There really aren't that many stories. I'm sure they're out there, of course. But they're a little bit harder to find, these stories where like a little kid goes to an orphanage and has, you know, a super great time and just becomes like a great superstar. You know, it's just like hard to find because a lot of the times these places were just not great. To paint the picture of what life was like in your average everyday, like run-of-the-mill Catholic orphanage in the 1800s,
Kids were faced with constant abuse, mutilation, sexual assault, and sometimes just straight up murder. There was this super famous lawsuit in 1996 against a Catholic orphanage called St. Joseph's in Burlington, Vermont. One of the star witnesses described watching at least two children die at the hands of nuns. Particularly one time when a witness saw a nun throw a little boy out of a fourth story window
And like she said, she saw the body bounce off the ground and obviously very traumatizing, but like this was normal behavior.
Not at every orphanage, but you get the point. Like they just were not the safest spaces, okay? That's all I'm getting at. There was a lot of naughty nuns just running around. Just, mm, mm, mm. I don't get it. How could he say you love Jesus and then be throwing people out the window? Like, I don't understand that. It's so sad. Poor Jesus. He's like, "I don't want anything to do with this."
It's not funny, it's just like a little inside joke between me and you. Anywho, so that place was a doozy, but a lot of them were pretty much like that. And this particular orphanage where Albert Fish was dumped was no exception. It was called St. John's Orphanage in Washington, D.C. And Albert said that like almost every day he was beaten there. He was beaten up by other kids. He was beaten up by the nuns.
and like other children would watch him get beaten, I guess, by like nuns. So they, they being the nuns, would allegedly strip the children naked before whipping them and humiliate them by having their peers watch. Yeah. So as you probably can imagine, maybe, when you're subjected to horrendous abuse as a child, it's gonna do something to your brain. Hi, welcome to Murder, Mystery, and Makeup, where literally a bad childhood
I mean, I'm talking trauma. Well, fuck you. But for Albert, it was said that like, you know, many theories are out there, but many believe that it was a defense mechanism that he kind of started whenever he would be getting beaten by the nuns, where he kind of flipped it in his head and he started to enjoy it.
He liked it. He enjoyed the pain that the nuns were giving him. Especially in front of other people, it was like, "Ooh." And after a while, the beatings actually made Albert climax. Whoa. That's gotta be real confusing, especially for a kid. Like, huh? So we're not off to a great start, as you can see, with Albert. - At Amica Insurance, we know it's more than just a car. It's the two-door coupe that was there for your first drive.
the hatchback that took you cross-country and back, and the minivan that tackles the weekly carpool. For the cars you couldn't live without, trust Amica Auto Insurance. Amica. Empathy is our best policy. So things really just escalated from there. I mean, Albert started beating other kids himself. And then on top of that, he started self-harming. Albert would burn himself with ropes and swallow needles.
We'll circle back to that. But yeah, as a kid, right? Like that's fucked up. Also on top of that, a lot of people would notice that Albert started reading like a lot of books and articles about criminals.
I mean, same, but like, you know, his obviously is a little bit more severe. It just like fits into his larger profile. He's getting off on pain and not just other people's pain, like his own pain as well. It's just not, it's not a good combo. Okay, not a good combo. So at some point, Albert's mother, she ends up getting it together and she finds herself like in a better place.
So she is able to get Albert back from the orphanage and she brings him back into the family home at the age of 10, which sounds like a good thing. But by this point, like the damage was already done. Okay. Albert was displaying all kinds of disturbing signs. Disturbing signs meaning, you know, your child is not just acting out aggressively, just like...
the trifecta of a serial killer. Albert was still self-harming. He was wetting the bed and then, this part, Albert started hanging out with another local kid, same age, friends, right? Friends, finally, normalcy, yay. But when Albert and his friend got together, I'm not kidding,
This is what friends do, I guess. I'm not sure. So when these two got together, they would drink their own urine and eat their own poop.
together as best friends do I guess. 'Cause look, I know you guys only see like the video that I do here right now, right? But like I'm always working on stuff, stories and whatnot. And like lately I've been coming across this weird theme of people eating their own poop, like serial killers and stuff. And I'm seeing it more and more and it's like, did I just not see it before? No, right? Like I've never, I don't know.
Yeah. Now if that's not a red flag, I don't know what is. Okay. So eating poop together, wow, love that. I can't judge. I mean, yeah, I can. That's nasty. Okay, so his other hobbies weren't so great either. I mean, obviously still better than eating poop, but like he would spend his weekends visiting public pools where he said, quote, "He could see young people without clothes."
"And when that didn't tickle his fancy enough, "he started going to public bath houses "where he would spy on other boys "as they got dressed or undressed." Again, he's like 10, 11, like we get, yeah, I mean, okay. Exploring your sexuality makes sense, but like he would go on to say that he loved the whole experience and he loved the smells and sounds of dudes bathing. Well,
I'm like, "Well, I could see that." Why am I trying to always find excuses for these people I swear? I'm always like, "Well, he had nothing else to do, I'm sure. "You were just looking." But no, it's concerning here because obviously, we're not here to talk about what a great man he is, Bailey. Another fun hobby he started doing was answering classified ads in the paper.
So this time period that we're talking about is the late 1800s, and there was a lot of pressure on women to be married, okay? You did not want to be single during this time. You'd be considered a spinster, okay? No one would want to look at you, talk to you, nothing, because you were just...
Pathetic. And we could look back on it and laugh now, but it was like a really big issue back then. I mean, it was hard if you weren't married, you know? Kind of like the 1800s equivalent of online dating. Women would place personal ads in the newspaper seeking out marriage proposals. So they put out an ad, be like, charmed, I'm sure. I'm a raven-haired daughter of a milkman seeking a good man.
Something along those lines. So Albert is reading these and he got off on responding to those classified ads with, I guess, really vulgar, obscene letters. It would be like the equivalent to like the unwanted dick picture where you're just like, dude.
No, it's like that. In my research, I tried to find the letters, at least a visual, you know, just to see and cannot find them. So you're really gonna have to use your imagination here. So Albert, he's like in his teens now and like a lot of teens. He needs to find a job. So what does he do? He goes to one of his all-time favorite stomping grounds, the bathhouses. And sadly, he's again, very young, okay?
Hello, where's his mom? I don't know. But he starts getting involved in sex work there. Not that sex work is bad. It's just, he's like,
He's gotta be like 12 at this point. That's not good. And I guess business was just booming for him because he keeps working as a sex worker all the way into his twenties. That's when Albert moves up to New York and continues to do sex work there full time as well. Among all the things that Albert probably got into up there, a very important turning point in his life
is when Albert meets a steamer captain and his name was John Davis. So go with me on this. It's now 1894. Albert is 24 years old and he has a new friend. And I use quotes because this was a guy who like worked at the local docks and no hate, but the docks were widely known as a place to get a John when you were a sex worker.
So it's hard to say if this guy was a friend or just like a hookup who like helped him. I don't know It's an acquaintance, you know, just a lot of horny sailors looking for a quickie. It's an easy buck So a lot of people hung out there so Albert and this friend were hanging out at the docks now this friend introduces Albert to Captain John Davis now
Now, the captain's boat was at one point on a shipping route to China and had shipped back and forth there during a really bad famine in the late 1800s. It was called the North Chinese Famine of 1876 to 1879, and it was massive.
I'm losing my voice. Millions died, millions. Some estimate up to like 13 million died during this time. Apparently meat was at a premium. People during this time were so desperate that they were selling their children for meat. I'm telling you, history's wild. Anyways, and this captain fully confessed to Albert. And actually it was more like he was bragging about it. This captain tells Albert that he had a quote,
"acquired taste for human flesh." So he's kind of humblebraggy and like, "Yeah, that's all I eat, human flesh. "What about you?" So he goes on to tell Albert that while he was captain of this ship, whatever, he ate the meat of human children in China. And then he told Albert like, "Yeah, their asses," this is what he says, like a literal quote, "their asses were the most delicious meat ever."
I'm sorry, it just doesn't sound real. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It sounds so fake, but he said like their asses were the most delicious meat ever and tasted like veal. I don't know if I would believe someone if they just randomly told them that, but I mean like, look, this Captain John guy just goes on and on and he tells Albert like, yeah, this one time I kidnapped a seven year old and an 11 year old and I killed them and ate them too. Like no big deal. He's literally, yeah. So do you and I, we're like, wow.
That's different, okay? But this really got into Albert's head and he was just like, what? I wanna do that. So then Albert goes out and he starts getting all these books, a lot of books, many books about cannibalism and serial killers and just gets invested. Albert at this point is still a young man and he's also the baby of the family in his family.
So his mother was like really worrying over him. I mean, he wasn't getting married. What was going on with him? And she could not have that. So her solution was that Albert should get married.
That's it, Albert's getting married. So his mother, Ellen, does a little matchmaking, you know, in 1898. When Albert is 28 years old, she arranges a marriage with a woman named Anna Chapman. And weirdly, it kind of works out, you know? Albert meets Anna, the two settled down. He gets a respectable job. He's working as like a house painter. And he and Anna, they would go on to have six kids. I mean, they were officially busy, okay? They were busy.
Six kids? Yeah, busy. But of course, it doesn't take too long for Albert to get bored, let's be honest here. He wants to get into trouble again. At this point of his life, he does get thrown into prison for committing fraud and something else.
and I couldn't really figure out like what the fraud was that he was doing. Once again, this story is like very old, right? And back in the day, it's like finding records is hard. You could find all the other stuff he did, but like the little fraud, nobody really thought to like note that down. Anyway, so he gets arrested for like a lot of
petty crimes. But after his incarceration, he gets right back onto his same old, same old, you know? This era is where it gets a little murky because we really only have Albert, his own account of like what happened. But it's within these next six to seven years that he begins sexually assaulting young boys and just really going hard, okay? I mean, if that wasn't
messed up enough, he also has his first kill. So Albert said that he would victimize poor people who, according to him, quote, "Wouldn't be missing for anyone." So he was targeting a lot of people of color. He was targeting people with mental health issues. He was targeting the poor. His work as a house painter and being self-employed pretty much allowed him to like take jobs anywhere he wanted. And he figured the police
they wouldn't throw themselves into finding these types of missing people. And it's sad because it's like, fuck. And then to put a little bow on top of all of his bullshit, I'm like whispering because I don't want my neighbors to hear me.
The bow on top was that he also liked targeting another particularly vulnerable group, the physically disabled. I know, this guy's Satan. He really is. I think he's Satan. Pretty sure. So yes, at this point, Albert has now escalated from simply eating his own poop to now just being a total piece of poop, you know? And he's like not just satisfied with like
rape and killing. He wants to get into torture. Albert now wants to explore rape, torture, kill, aka sexual sadism, it's called. Not to be confused with BDSM, bondage, domination,
sadomasochism, which is supposed to be consensual, always consensual, don't, don't know your name. But with Albert, there was nothing consensual about what Albert wanted to do. And he claimed that in 1910, he had his first sexual sadistic victim.
Is it sadistic or sadism? He had his first like sexual, like real sick victim, a 19 year old disabled man named Thomas Keaton. Now listen, poor Thomas.
There was nothing in the research about how Albert snagged Thomas into his web, whether it was seduction or offers to help, or if he just kidnapped him. We don't know. But what we do know is that Albert said he took Thomas to a farmhouse and tortured him over the course of two weeks. He said that
"He," quote, "shall never forget his scream or the look he gave me," end quote. So after torturing this poor man for two full weeks,
Albert reaches his ultimate goal, I think. He ends the torture by cutting off half of Thomas's penis. Yeah. He ends up leaving Thomas in that farmhouse, but first he poured peroxide over the wound, left him $10, then kissed him goodbye. This guy is literally Satan, I'm telling you.
I mean, there's no record of whether or not Thomas survived or if he died. Okay, so Albert is finding time to do all this sick stuff while being married. Yeah, he's still married at this time with kids. Yeah. And like, I guess he doesn't even hide it that well, like what he's doing. Eventually his wife, she catches on to something 'cause she's like, man,
something is off with my husband. I don't know what it is but something's not right. You know to be quite fair uh she was young when she got married to Albert. She couldn't have been any older than 21 but she makes the bold decision in 1912 after nine years and six kids to divorce Albert. I know it was like my record like stopped because first of all divorce was like not even really
"What? Like you didn't do that. You didn't divorce." So like, when I was doing my research, I was like, "Yeah, you go girl, you go. You take those kids, you get out of there." Right? But then I read the next line in my research and I was like, "Oh, so she's done. She's like, 'It's not me. It's definitely you. Okay?'" She's done. She gets out of there. She leaves Albert. Bye forever. But she actually left the kids too. Yeah. She left them with Albert.
Damn it! I was rooting for you, Anne. Yeah, she left the kids. She left all the kids. She was like, "I'm gonna go start a new life without any of you. Goodbye." It was said that Albert was like deeply affected by his wife leaving him. And he had to like find new ways or he was finding new ways to cope with the pain. For one, he started eating raw meat. I guess that helped with the pain.
I could see that. Yeah, he started eating raw meat. He also fed his kids raw meat. Okay, all right, you know. And then he also started stabbing himself in his testicles with needles. And I'm not just talking about like a poke, whatever. He would take needles and he would jab them, big needles, all the way into his sack.
Now Albert would claim that it helped him deal with the loss of his wife. Yeah, let that marinate. So I think it's safe to say that Albert isn't adjusting very well to being single and a father. So at this point, Albert is deep into his torture phase right now. You know, he didn't know how to deal with the loss of his wife or whatever.
But he started getting a little crafty by like working out or kind of creating these things called instruments of hell. And these were like different tools that would help him torture children, like paddles covered in nails, a meat cleaver, different knives that just had different sharp edges and just to the extreme. So he's like working on these, crafting, saying that it's helping him take his mind off of
the separation of his wife. Like, it's just so bizarre, right? Like, okay, sure. But Albert, I mean, he's crafting away, trying to, I don't know what he's trying to do. I don't know what his end goal is here. And you know what's even more annoying? This is a side note, but like, I couldn't find anything about him being a dad. Like, was he a good dad? At the end, we get a testimony, but...
I don't know. What his kids do? I hope they're okay. Couldn't find nothing. Anyway, so by the time Albert is 40, when he's 40, he's running for a second chance at love. So he gets back into his personal ads thing, trying to find his perfect match. So he's writing all these different women, asking them if they would be into like getting together and also be a real partner in his desire to inflict torture and death on young children.
XOXO? Apparently he got very graphic, but tried to keep it romantic. He didn't get any offers. How come no one reported him to the police? I'm not sure how it worked back then. I really don't. Like police? Like how come no one reported that? Maybe they did. I don't know. So hard to find information on older stories. I just wonder how they solved mysteries back then. It seemed so complicated.
You know what though? Albert was in luck. He did end up finding a second wife who he ended up marrying between the year 1912 to like 1915-ish. So he somehow meets another woman. I know, I can't even get a second date. So he marries a second woman. He settles down with her and he starts getting some good painting gigs.
Things are on a bit of an upswing for him. Albert even gets commissioned by the Second Presbyterian Church in Chappaqua, New York. So he gets commissioned by this church to paint some angels on the church ceiling. I know, I guess he was like a really great painter. I don't know, probably an overlooked fun fact about him, but I guess he was, for obvious reasons, overlooked.
But it wouldn't last long because his second wife would leave him as well. But like this second divorce, it just really unleashed something because now Albert says that he's starting to think that like the angels that he was painting, these angels were now talking to him. Yeah. So he said that these angels are talking to him. He's hearing voices within the church.
urging him to commit crimes in the name of Saint John the Apostle. Okay, so who's Saint John, you ask? Well, we could do a whole video on that, huh? But to put it simply, he was the guy, the man, who wrote the very last book of the Bible while in exile. It's called Revelations.
or the Revelation of Saint John or the Apocalypse of Saint John the Apostle. Yeah, have you ever read Revelation? Have you read that one? It's that one book of the Bible that actually reads like a horror film. No, horror novel, sorry.
It's all about the end of times. It's got, you know, the one with the four horsemen. It's got an all-ending disease, the earth dying and the sea boiling into blood. It's very dramatic. So according to Albert, John was telling him to commit crimes. John, the John who wrote the revelations or whatever. Yeah. So he's believing this. And I mean, if this guy, if this St. John guy, whatever, is asking you to die,
commit crimes in the name of
of the Lord and Savior, whatever. Like he's thinking, oh, this is legit. Like I have to do this. Or he's making it all up, we don't know. So all of this was really just setting the stage of what would be Albert's most visible crimes starting in the year of 1924. So at this point, Albert is now 54 years old. But back then when people were having kids super young, 54 was already considered like prime grandpa age.
Don't come for me. This is like back then and now, no. Now we don't consider it prime. No. 54 is still young now, baby. Live. But back then,
prime grandpa age. So Albert now has like this kind, soft-spoken, wise grandfather approach to him. He had a gray mustache, very full, okay? And he was very demure and not imposing at all. And he apparently had these really beautiful blue eyes that mellowed into what people had described as quote,
"warm and welcoming," end quote, in his old age. So this sucks, right? So he's got this friendly face and whatnot. People are like, "Oh, nice old man." Great. As you can imagine, this is not gonna end well. So on July 14th, 1924, an eight-year-old boy named Francis MacDonald was playing on his porch in Staten Island, New York. So Francis' mom, her name's Anna, she was sitting on the porch. She's like watching Francis play.
And she notices like a stranger kind of like down the street and walking, you know, towards the end of the street. She later described this man, this person walking as a frail elderly man with a thick drooping gray mustache. She also said that this man was like muttering to himself.
and making strange jerking motions with his hands. She just made a note of this guy. She's like, yeah, he's kind of weird. You know, I don't know, but she just makes a note and good thing she does. So later that day, when Francis doesn't make it home after playing baseball in the park with his friends, the first person in Anna's mind was that guy, the old man. Now, Francis, the young boys, his friends,
said that he, Francis, was like lured into the woods by an old man with a gray mustache. So these kids, they go and look for Francis and that's where they find the poor little boy hanging from the tree. Yeah, I'm sorry. He was strung up by his own suspenders. Oh.
It was, ugh. Yeah, this poor little boy. He had been, Francis' little boy had been sexually assaulted, strangled, and his body was mutilated. Not only that, but the entire back of his left thigh, the hamstring, had been completely just stripped away. Just gone. Boof.
Gone. Yes, whoever had done this took the hamstring. He needed it, I guess. What did Albert do with it? Well, he took that hamstring and he ate it. He ate it. He ate it. Albert, Albert, what are you doing? Honestly, why didn't he just eat one of his own kids? Just gonna say it. Look, you could have saved everybody else's time, everyone else's heartbreak, and you could just eat your own damn kids. I know it's not right, but it was an option. And I feel it's very selfish, Albert.
that you were going out here and you were killing other people's children. That's not okay. We don't do that. So Albert was never caught for the killing of Frances, but he did get another nickname in the media. So his first nickname was Ham and Eggs Fish, remember? But now he was known as the Gray Man. Gray Man? The Gray Man, man, man. So the next major killing, now I'm saying major,
and visible because Albert himself claims to have been killing basically nonstop since 1910. But the crimes I'm talking about right now are the ones that he claimed and he put like a lot of extra effort into. So just keep in mind, like this whole time he's been killing allegedly, not caught obviously. And the next major killing after Francis was a little four-year-old boy named Billy Gaffney.
So on February 27th, 1927, Billy was last seen playing with a friend in the hallway of his Brooklyn apartment. After a while goes by, no one sees the boys playing anymore. I mean, it seems like they just disappeared. They eventually find Billy's friend on the roof of the building and
And like most like, he's like freaking out. He just seems spooked. And he tells the adults that the quote unquote boogeyman kidnapped Billy. What?
Yes, the boogeyman. So the police are called and the whole neighborhood starts banding together to look for little Billy, but they can't find him. A trolley driver tells the police that he'd seen like a little boy who looked like Billy walking with an elderly man. And it seemed, it appeared that this man was trying to keep little Billy from crying. And that's the only clue police ever had.
Despite all of their searching, Billy was never seen again and his body was never found. Now, Albert did come out later on and like explained what he did to Billy. Like there's a reason why the body was never found because Albert Fish, he was not a sloppy man, okay? For the most part. The only other person who actually knew what happened to Billy was Albert, who eventually detailed the entire crime.
Here's what he said. You ready? Albert said he took little Billy to the Riker Avenue dumps. Now that's in New York and it was once a dump, you know, place for garbage and whatnot. Now it's been covered and like turned into a parking lot. But back then it was a dump in a pretty under populated area. So Albert said that he takes his little four-year-old Billy, he takes him to this dump, he strips him naked
He ties him up and then gags him with like a dirty rag. Albert then burns this little boy's clothes and shoes and he throws them into the dump. And then the weird part, Albert leaves. He leaves little Billy at the dump site overnight. Albert literally goes home. Yeah, this poor child. But
Really, he was going back home because he wanted to grab some of his instruments of hell that he was working on. So Albert takes his sweet time coming back because he comes back the next day at 2:00 PM. First of all, what? I guess he was like extremely confident that no one had anything to dump that day. And I mean, he was right. No one did because when he got back the next day at 2:00 PM, Billy was still there.
I know, this poor child. I'm laughing because I'm uncomfortable and it's how I deal with like my trauma and hurt and pain, okay? Great, thanks. Albert made a cat 09 tails, which is another biblical instrument of death. And if you don't know what this is, it's basically like a leather whip with a really firm handle and it has nine lashes. It's literally designed to rip the flesh off of a body.
So Albert DIY'd one of these out of his own leather belts. I can't with these people. I just can't. Why? It's like if they would put this energy towards something productive, you know? It's just like, wow, the things we could do.
As a society, as people, huh? So he made his own out of his own belts. And he was like, oh, it's not fair. I only have six belts instead of nine, but it'll work. So he was like a little disappointed. He only had six lashes, but it was enough. So he went home, he grabbed that, he brought it back and he whipped poor little Billy, Albert said, until the blood was pouring down his legs. And then...
because he's not done this sick fuck. He cut off his ears, his nose, he slit his mouth from ear to ear, and then he gouged Billy's eyes out. Yeah, so I mean, I don't even know what to say. What do you even say to that, huh? Idea alert. What if you like didn't do that? Crazy thought. What if you like just didn't do that? After all of this, Alberta says, this is the point where Billy died. Yeah,
But this absolute demon isn't done for little Billy. So Albert takes the pieces that he had cut off, the ears, the nose. He cuts off part of Billy's face, his belly, his butt cheeks, his penis and his balls. And he takes that all home. Sorry, I'm just...
The rest of his body, like his severed head, his limbs, et cetera, et cetera, he puts into potato sacks full of stones and then dumps them into a pool of slimy water that you can see on the road to North Beach. I was like, what is it? I don't know what that means. North Beach is like a few miles east on Long Island from the dump. So a lot of people were like, okay, well, maybe when he was commuting home, maybe like it was along the way because he was still living in Long Island around this time.
So after Albert like bags up all the meat, he takes it home and Albert called it his meat. He takes it home and he then cooks it. He cooks it up. And this is a direct quote from Albert. He said, quote, "The front of his body I liked best and a nice little fat behind to roast in the oven and eat. I made a stew out of his ears, nose, pieces of his face and belly.
I put onions, carrots, turnips, celery, salt and pepper. It was good. I never ate any roast turkey that tasted half as good as the sweet fat little behind it. I ate every bit of the meat in about four days.
End quote. I'm not sure if that's supposed to be a flex or not. I don't know if he gave the meat to his kids. He never made a comment about that, but my guess is like, you're going to feed your kids that meat. I don't know, right? Anyways, despite all that, Albert was never caught or even considered a suspect in Billy's murder. We wouldn't know until later on. So at this point, okay, after Billy's murder, the media had given him another nickname,
Albert was now being called the boogeyman. And that one is way scary, right? The boogeyman? Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of people think this is where like watch out for the boogeyman originates from. You know, as a kid when you're told that. Not sure. I could not confirm or deny that, but I think it may be a possibility. Right. Am I right? So then we are now in the year 1928.
At this point, Albert is almost 60. Yes, yes, yes he is. I mean, he's been doing this for we don't know how long. He is now 60 and he's really getting into his role of like harmless old man.
Like people just love this guy. So he plans this elaborate way to get his next victim. And he had his eyes set on an 18 year old kid named Edward Budd. Albert Fish, now going by the name Frank Howard,
takes once again to the newspaper and puts an ad out. So he doesn't legally change his name, but he's just using this as, you know, his ad name. So he pretends to be a farmer from Long Island who wants to give someone a job in a town called Farmingdale.
Very fitting. So in his advertisement, he offered room and board as well as $15 a week, which was really attractive to a lot of different people, but especially to one viewer of the ad, Edward Budd. It was a trap, but Edward, he sees the ad and he responds to Albert. And again, Albert's using the name Frank and Frank's like, okay,
"I'll hire ya." So Albert goes to Edward's house. I'm not sure why, like I couldn't figure out why, but it happens. Albert goes to Edward's house in the Meatpacking District in Manhattan, which nowadays is, I guess, like a chic, rich neighborhood with lots of nightlife and hotels. But back in the 1920s,
it was a meat packing district where a lot of working class people worked at slaughterhouses and meat packing warehouses. And people were not well off in this area. Many of them very poor and would even starve to death. So when Edward gets this job, I mean, it's huge, not only for him, it's huge for his family as well. And they're really hopeful that this job is gonna work out for him.
It's gonna bring money. I mean, shit, yeah, hell yeah. So Albert shows up on June 3rd and he has brought some gifts for the family with him straight from his farm, which side note, Albert doesn't have a farm, but straight from his farm. So Albert brings the family creamy cheese and strawberries. And the family was like so charmed by his gifts. And I mean, they just liked this old wise man right away. So they were like, "Do you wanna stay for lunch? Come on in."
Come on. So Albert's like, "Yeah, I'll come in and eat a nice little snack and take a little break." But while doing so, that's when Albert meets Edward's little sister. Her name, well, she's 10 years old and her name was Grace Budd.
So sweet little Grace, she suffered from anemia. So with anemia, you're weakened and lightheaded and just tired all the time, which is a really sad state to be in as a child. And well, there are a lot of reasons why a person can become anemic. Lack of nutrition is sadly one of them. So she was very weak and fragile and usually quiet, very shy. But something about Albert, I don't know, he, again, he had that old man likability thing, I guess.
and she took to him right away. And the family's like, "Oh my God, she must really like you." You know, she likes nobody like people do with dogs. She goes up to him and she sits on his lap and she's like talking to him and he's listening. I know. So she's talking about her life at school and how she didn't really have many friends and that she was feeling lonely, which is really sad. And Albert is one thing for sure.
He is an opportunist. So here's this physically diminished, vulnerable little girl who thinks this guy's really nice, right?
I mean, it was too much for him to resist. He was like, "I'm gonna fucking take her instead." So Albert, Albert, Albert, Albert, he instantly abandons his original plan to take Edward and Albert comes up with a new game plan. He's like, "I'm gonna take the girl." You know, the girl's sitting on his lap and he's like, "Oh my gosh, it's so funny you should mention being lonely because I have a niece your age and wouldn't you know it?"
I am heading to her birthday party right now. And little Grace is like, oh my God, wow. She's happy because Albert is inviting Grace to go with him to the birthday party. And Grace and her mom are just really happy. And for some reason, we can't judge, but they really trusted him.
Grace's mom described Albert as like a frail little man with the most blue eyes and a very gentle voice. So Albert agrees to take Grace with him to the birthday party uptown. And then he's like, "Yeah, I'll bring her back. I'll collect Edward and we'll go back to my farm, my farm job." So the two of them say their goodbyes. And sadly, that's the last time anyone ever saw Grace bud.
I know. Sad. Fuck that.
So as the night's going on, you know, the two haven't come back. So Grace's mom thought, like, what if they were in an accident? So she and her husband rushed to contact the police the next morning. So they go to the police and they're giving them all the information. And the police tell them that not only was there no record of any incident or accident involving an older man and a young girl over the past day, but that they had no record of a man named
Frank Howard from Farmingdale. Fuck. So Grace Budd going missing, this is the case that gets a lot of attention. It gets a lot of attention like in the media, everyone's talking about it, but police have so little to go on. They have really nothing. The only hard evidence they had were a set of fingerprints and a handwriting sample from a telegram signed by the mysterious Frank Howard.
A.K.A. Albert, plus eyewitness accounts. I mean, again, this is a long time ago. And most importantly, like they don't have any solid leads and they don't even have a body, which it's hard to solve any crime without a body. The detective who was assigned to the case, his name was William King. He said he was grilling every known pervert and pedophile he could find. And then two years go by.
The case is going cold. And then a potential lead pops up. A woman turns in her 66-year-old husband, a man named Charles Pope.
saying that he had shown up at home with a little girl around the same time that Grace Budd had disappeared. So it turns out this Charles Pope guy had formally been institutionalized himself. And I really couldn't find out what for, but I guess like it was enough because when his wife turned him in, the police were convinced they had their guy, their perp.
"This is our guy, this is him, arrest him." But the evidence against Charles Pope was a little wobbly. You see, Grace's mom said like, "Yeah, he kind of looks like the guy, sort of." And then they did a writing sample because they had that telegram from Albert. So they do a writing sample and it's not right.
They're like, "If you squint, it kinda looks like it." And then get this, even though his fingerprints did not line up with the fingerprints they had on record, which you would think like, okay, at this point that eliminates him as a suspect, right? No, because no. So they took Charles Pope
"all the way to trial." Yeah, this poor Pope. Charles Pope, even though he ends up being tried for Grace's disappearance, his case ends up being dismissed. And it apparently became like very clear at trial that Pope's wife, she made the whole thing up.
and accused Charles of the crime as a revenge tactic. Could you imagine being that upset at your man? That is real fucked up. Not exactly sure what he did to deserve that, but she must've been real mad. Meanwhile, while all of that drama's going on, Albert is still just out there murdering and eating children.
Okay. Albert's real busy, but he somehow finds time to then pencil in another marriage. Yeah. In 1930, when Albert was 60, there is a record that he married a woman who he met through a matchmaking service for desperate singles. That's what it said. What is this?
Even back then they had some desperate people, so don't feel so bad now. I guess this wife though, she was a lot quicker than the previous wives because their marriage only lasted about one week.
and then she was out of there. I would love to know what was said behind closed doors 'cause she found something out, she had to. Albert would end up getting arrested on two different occasions for sending obscene letters through the mail. Even though he would use different names, aliases, he would go by like Thomas or James. His style was so obvious that police caught on that it was Albert. So he just kept getting caught.
is what I'm getting at. He just seemed to tone it down a little bit, huh? Because of this, because of him writing these wonky ass letters, he ended up being committed to a hospital for a while. Yet Albert was put under observation at New York's famous psychiatric hospital, Bellevue. While he was there, they determined that he could tell right from wrong, but that he was sexually sadistic, pretty much. Facts.
You know, facts. So in June of 1934, at this point, little Grace has been missing for six years. She wasn't forgotten, that's for sure. Because one man has a lead that he ends up sending to Grace's family. What man, you ask? Well, none other than the farmer with the farm from Farmingdale, Frank Howard. Oh, Albert couldn't resist.
So a man claiming to be Frank Howard contacted Grace Budd's family through a handwritten letter. And not only did it contain gruesome details, the writing matched the telegram that Frank Howard, quote unquote, Frank Howard had sent the family back in 1928.
So in this letter, this Frank guy starts off like with a little tangent telling her all about the cannibal steamboat captain he met 40 years ago and the famine in China. I guess just in case they wanted a little backstory. We all like backstory. Thanks. In the letter, it basically confirmed to Grace's family that he was indeed the killer. But here's what it said. This is just a little...
a little part of the letter. So, the letter said, quote,
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 of my clothes off. I knew if I did not, I would get hurt 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 mama. First, I stripped her naked. How did she kick, bite, and scratch?
I choked her to death and 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. This is a little vulgar. Well, all of it is. I did not fuck her, though I could have had I wished. She died a virgin."
Bro, you just can't be doing this kind of shit. You just can't. You just can't. Can't be doing this, you guys. We need to talk this out a little bit. Are there people walking around thinking this kind of stuff now? Oh god. Oh dear. Okay, look, we gotta talk this out. Alright, you don't need to be killing and eating people. They don't taste very good. Probably just not a good idea in general to be doing that. Oh, makeup. Okay. So, that's...
That's that letter. I don't know if he wanted to get caught, but that letter, even from his fake name, led to his capture. Because the envelope he used to send it was traceable.
It had a logo on it and detectives were able to trace the envelope to one specific location. It was like New York's private, some kind of association. So detectives, they take this clue and they run with it. They had all the members of the association submit a sample of their handwriting to compare the letter Albert had sent to theirs, right? But as you can imagine, none of them matched.
And then a janitor came forward, which is pretty bold of this janitor because I'm sure this janitor was scared out of their minds, right? So this janitor admits that he had taken some of the embossed paper like some time back, but he no longer had any of them because he had left them at his old apartment. And the police are like, hey.
Hey, that's something. It's something. So the detectives go to the apartment building where the landlady confirmed that someone matching Albert's description had in fact lived there for two months and get this, literally had only just left. And they're like, oh, what's this guy's name? What's this guy's name? Albert Fish. Yay, investigators. You know, like they must've been high-fiving. We did it.
They got him. So the landlady also tells them that Albert wanted her to hold onto a letter for him that would be arriving and that he would be by like later to pick it up, this letter. So the police stake the place out. And a few days later on December 13th, 1934, they got him.
Finally, they finally have a killer that has been on a free-for-all for basically over like 25 years. And at the age of 64, Albert's spree, his little murder nasty spree, finally comes to an end.
end. Just, that's a long time. It kind of seems like at this point he was ready to be caught because when he was arrested, he just spilled his guts. While in custody, Albert not only confessed to about a hundred murders, he said he had killed, quote, a child in every single
state, quite a flex, but sure, okay. Most importantly for Grace Budd's family, he took police to the location where he had killed and buried her. And he also filled them in on like the details that he didn't include in the handwritten confession that he sent to her family.
After his confession, he takes authorities to the cottage where they find the skull and small bones, basically like enough to put together an entire skeleton of a small 10 year old girl. They also found his saw and cleaver, and when they compared the skull to Grace's dental charts, it was confirmed to be Grace.
So Albert also confesses to the murders of Francis and Billy and gives them all the same little details he did for Grace. The police tried to pin a bunch more murders on him, but Albert had integrity.
Sure. He didn't confess to like other crimes that they were trying to pin on him. He took pride in his work, it seemed. He'd be like, "Mm-mm, those aren't my work. Do not even show me that. I would never do that."
He was kind of snooty. He had to like protect his reputation. He was such a dick. A judgy serial killer? Hmm, no, okay. So even though he confessed to Frances and Billy, there were like I said, dozens and maybe up to a hundred murders that were never solved that Albert claimed he committed. Which I wonder if they lied.
I don't know. There's so many questions. So he interviewed before his trial with a psychiatrist and Albert claimed that he had molested up to 400 children and tortured and maimed approximately 100 victims and murdered at least 15 children over a 20 year period. Why nobody searched is just like the really sad part. Yeah, it's all sad. It's just all sad.
So Albert Fish's trial for the murder of Grace, which is the only murder he was ever tried for, began on March 11th, 1935. And it turned into like this huge, massive public event. There were over 300 people who came to the courthouse.
I mean, everyone wanted to see like the finally captured Albert who had been given a whole lot of new nicknames since ham and eggs, you know? So people just want to know who was this boogeyman, gray man. He also was called the werewolf of Wisteria, the Brooklyn vampire. And one of my favorite ones, the moon maniac. It's not funny. It's just, I liked that one. The moon maniac, cool.
Albert's absolutely unhinged criminality clearly touched a nerve in the community. And I mean, rightfully, this guy was like real sick, you guys, okay? And people just wanted justice. The prosecution started their case by calling Fish a cold-blooded murderer in their opening statements. And the defense began their argument by claiming that Albert, or Fish, was not responsible for his acts, but that the psychiatrist,
of the hospitals had a lot to answer for. I mean, they're the ones who released this nut job in the first place. And a lot of people were like, oh shit, mm, ooh, that's kind of a good point. Mm, yeah, what do you think? I don't know, mm, you know? When asked if he knew killing and cannibalism were wrong, Albert replied, just,
Yes, that should just be enough. The, ah, no, just kidding. Throughout the course of the trial, Albert Fish's background was discussed by his defense, specifically the time he spent in an orphanage, his three marriages, and past behavior that might have indicated that Albert was not in his right mind. Like his children, his children even went to testify that he never abused them and that he was a good dad.
I don't know. One daughter took the stand, cried, and swore Albert had been nothing but a good father. I wonder. Eh, it didn't matter. It's just like, what were his kids doing? His children did say, though, that they did notice their dad was a little...
Kooky. For example, one of his sons reported that he found a nail-studded paddle in their apartment and that his father, as we know, loved raw meat and would ask for it during a full moon. His other children stated that they once saw their father naked on a hill screaming, "I am Christ!" Kooky, I guess. I could see that.
Huh? And remember how into self-mutilation Albert was? Well, the defense used that part. Okay, so look, apparently the county jail where he was being held when he was first arrested reported that they found over 30 needles embedded into Albert's groin when they x-rayed him. I don't have balls, but like,
I just can't imagine like needles just in there all the time. What the fuck? Are we okay? But at the end of the day, the defense's attempt at the insanity plea, it wasn't going to hold up, okay? It was not going to hold up against one major witness. It was Grace Budd's father. His name was also Albert.
So Grace's father was frail and like beaten down and he was just a heartbroken mess. Oh, so sad. So the prosecutor was like, okay, walk around the courtroom until you see the man who took your daughter because he can't see very well. So he gets up and he's walking around the courtroom and when he sees Albert,
who had his face like apparently buried in his hands. But he looks at Albert and he says, you know, he just yells it like, "That's the man who took my child away. That's him right there." And like that sealed the deal for everybody. After a 10 day trial, Albert Fish was found guilty of the murder of Grace Budd, a premeditated crime in the interest of sexual gratification. And despite the fact that the jury definitely agreed that Albert was 100% off,
they still sentenced him to death, which sounds about right. So after all this is said and done, he was now, you know, sitting on death row. And Albert reportedly said that death was the ultimate experience that he hadn't experienced yet. I mean, he does love pain and he said death would be quote, "A supreme thrill." So yeah,
Here we go. It's the most Albert thing that Albert ever did. Apparently, Albert became excited not only to die, but to do it in the electric chair. Like this, this is his Disneyland.
And according to a Daily News journalist who was at the execution, said that Albert's like teary eyes flashed with joy at the thought of being subjected to much more intense heat compared to what he usually burned to satisfy his lust. He asked if he would be conscious at the moment of his death, and he said it was the only pleasure he had yet to taste, his own death, the delicious pain of dying.
He's such a little weirdo. He's such a little weirdo. He's so weird. Eye roll. Let him go. Jeez. So at 66 years old, Albert Fish was sent to die by the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison in New York on January 16th, 1936. He was reportedly silent on his walk from the cell to the execution chamber. And then he entered the chamber and...
His hands clasped in prayer. And then at 11.09 p.m., Albert Fish was pronounced dead. Dead.
Won't be missed. Bye. See you later. Okay. Waste of space. I mean, but get this. Albert's legacy lives on in like so many think pieces, historical documents, psychiatric evaluations, pop culture and whatnot. I mean, he's definitely had a big lasting impact at how we look at serial killers, I guess. A fun little end note.
In 2005, Westchester County where Sing Sing prison is located tried to convince the Empire State Development Corporation to invest in tourism of the Pacific.
the prison to let visitors see the electric chair where Albert Fish and other notorious killers were killed. You see, I guess like a lot of infamous criminals were executed there and it never became a thing, which look, a lot of people like wanted this, but honestly,
Don't let it happen because it's giving major black mirror vibes, right? No, we're not doing that. No, don't do that. It's giving black mirror vibes. It's giving... Anyways, Albert Fish did so much more. I mean, this could easily be a 100 part episode. He was definitely a very sick man who unfortunately did not get caught fast enough. I hope his kids...
turned out okay, I don't know, and did not follow in their father's footsteps. Yeah. Anyways, that, my friends, is a snippet of Albert Fish and his shitty life. I'm sorry. What's there left to say, huh? This guy's gross. I hope you have a really good rest of your week. You make good choices. Be safe out there. I love and appreciate you, and I will be seeing you guys later.