ALBERT FISH
Albert Hamilton Fish (May 19, 1870 - January 16, 1936) was an American serial killer and cannibal. He was also known as the Gray Man, the Werewolf of Wysteria and the Brooklyn Vampire.
A Knock at the Door
Edward Budd was an enterprising eighteen-year-old. He was determined to make something of himself and escape the desperate poverty of his parents. On May 25, 1928, he put a classified ad in the Sunday edition of the New York World: "Young man, 18, wishes position in country. Edward Budd, 406 West 15th Street." He was a strapping young fellow who was eager to work and contribute to the well-being of his family. Trapped in the dirty, stinking, crowded city in a miserable tenement with his father, mother and four younger siblings, he longed to work in the country where the air was fresh and clean. On the following Monday, May 28, Edward's mother, Delia, a huge mountain of a woman, answered the door to an elderly man. He introduced himself as Frank Howard, a farmer from Farmingdale, Long Island, who wanted to interview Edward about a job. Delia told her five-year-old Beatrice to get her brother at his friend's apartment. The old man beamed at her and gave her a nickel. While they waited for Edward, Delia had a chance to get a better look at the old man. He had a very kindly face, framed by gray hair and accented by a large droopy gray moustache. He explained to Mrs. Budd that he had earned his living for decades as an interior decorator in the city and then retired to a farm he had bought with his savings. He had six children that he raised by himself since his wife had abandoned them all over a decade ago.
Albert Fish and New Recruits
With the help of his children, five farmhands and a Swedish cook, he had made the farm into a successful one with several hundred chickens and a half-dozen dairy cows. Now, one of his farmhands was moving on and he needed someone to replace him.
At that moment, Edward came in and met Mr. Howard, who remarked at the boy's size and strength. Edward assured the old man he was a hard worker. Mr. Howard offered him fifteen dollars a week, which Edward accepted joyfully. Howard even agreed to hire Willie, Edward's closest friend.
Mr. Howard had to leave for an appointment and promised to come back on Saturday to pick them up. The boys were thrilled and the Budds were happy that a good position with the kindly old gentleman had come so quickly from Edward's modest ad.
Saturday, June 2, was the supposed to be the big day, but Mr. Howard didn't show up. Instead they got a hand-written note from Mr. Howard saying that he had been delayed and would call in the morning.
The next morning around eleven, Frank Howard came to the Budds' apartment bringing gifts of strawberries and fresh creamy pot cheese. "These products come direct from my farm," he explained.
Delia persuaded the old man to stay for lunch. For the first time, Albert Budd, Sr. had an opportunity to talk with his son's new employer. It was the kind of talk that makes a father very happy. Here was this kindly, polite old gentleman rapturously describing his twenty acres of farmland, his friendly crew of farmhands and a simple, hearty country life. He knew it was what his son wanted.
Albert Fish and Gracie
Albert, Sr. was a porter for the Equitable Life Assurance Company and had the air of a man perpetually submissive. He was not very impressed with the way this Frank Howard looked in his rumpled blue suit, but the old man was credible and genteel.
Once they sat down to lunch, the door opened and a lovely ten-year-old girl appeared. Gracie was humming a song. Her huge brown eyes and dark brown hair contrasted with her very pale skin and pink lips. She would be a real heart breaker someday.
Coming right from church, she still wore her Sunday clothes: white silk confirmation dress, white silk stockings, and string of creamy pearls made her look older than her 10 years.
Frank Howard, like most men who came face to face with the radiant Gracie, couldn't take his eyes off the beautiful girl. "Let's see how good a counter you are," he said as he handed her a huge wad of bills to count. The impoverished Budds were flabbergasted by the money the old man was carrying around with him.
"Ninety-two dollars and fifty cents," Gracie told him in short order.
"What a bright little girl," Mr. Howard said, giving her fifty cents to buy candy for herself and her little sister Beatrice.
Howard said that he would come back later in the evening to pick up Edward and Willie, but first he had to go to a birthday party that his sister was throwing for one of her children. He gave the boys two dollars to go to the movies.
Vanished
Just as he was about to leave, he invited Gracie to go with him to his niece's birthday party. He would take good care of her and make sure that Gracie was home before nine o'clock that evening.
Delia asked where Mr. Howard's sister lived and he replied that she lived in an apartment house at Columbus and 137th Street.
Delia wasn't sure that she should let her go, but Albert Sr. convinced her that it would be good for Gracie. "Let the poor kid go. She don't see much good times."
So Delia helped Gracie on with her good coat and her gray hat with the streamers. She followed Gracie and Mr. Howard outside and watched them disappear down the street.
That evening there was no word from Mr. Howard and no sign of Gracie. A terrible sleepless night with no message from their beautiful daughter. The next morning, young Edward was sent down to the police station to report his sister's disappearance.
Without A Trace
The worst thing that Police Lieutenant Samuel Dribben said to the Budds was that the address that "Frank Howard" had given them for his sister's apartment was fictitious. The kindly old man was a fraud. There was no Frank Howard, no farm in Farmingdale, Long Island. None of it was true.
Police began the normal investigative activities. They checked out everything "Frank Howard" had told the Budds. They also had the Budds go through their "rogue's gallery" of photos and checked on all the known child molesters, mental patients, etc. It came to nothing. No trace of Gracie.
On June 7, New York police mailed out 1,000 fliers to police stations throughout the country with a photo of Gracie and a description of Mr. "Howard." This activity, along with all the local publicity, guaranteed an epidemic of Gracie sightings and crank letters, each of which had to be thoroughly investigated by the 20 plus detectives who had been assigned to the case.
There were a couple of solid clues. Police found the Western Union office in Manhattan from which "Frank Howard" had sent his message to the Budds, plus the original handwritten message. From the writing and grammar, it was clear that "Howard" had some education and refinement. Police also located the pushcart where "Howard" had bought the pot cheese that he had given to the Budds. Both addresses were in East Harlem, which then became a focal point of intense search and investigation.
Where Have You Gone Billy Boy?
The New York police were not strangers to child kidnapping. In fact, there was an oddly similar case just the year before. On February 11, 1927, four-year-old Billy Gaffney played in the hallway outside his apartment with his three-year-old neighbor who was also named Billy. A twelve-year-old neighbor who was babysitting his sleeping baby sister went to join the boys, but went back to his apartment quickly after hearing his sister cry.
A few minutes later, the older boy noticed that the two Billys were gone and told the younger Billy's father. After a desperate search, the father found his three-year-old son alone on the top floor of the building. His son had been up on the roof.
"Where's Billy Gaffney?" the man asked his son.
"The boogey man took him," the little boy replied.
The next day when a platoon of detectives came to investigate the disappearance of the Gaffney boy, they ignored the three-year-old witness, who stuck to his simple explanation. At first the police thought the boy had wandered outside into some of the factory buildings in the neighborhood or, worse, had fallen into the Gowanus canal a few blocks away. People in the community organized a search and the canal was dredged, but there was no sign of little Billy.
Albert Fish (The Boogey Man)
Eventually, someone listened to the three-year-old witness who gave them a description of the "boogey man." He was a slender old man with gray hair and a gray moustache. The police paid no attention to the description and did not connect it to a crime that had been committed by the "Gray Man" a few years earlier.
In July of 1924, eight-year-old Francis McDonnell played on the front porch of his home in the pastoral Charlton Woods section of Staten Island. His mother sat nearby, nursing her infant daughter when she saw a gaunt elderly man with gray hair and moustache in the middle of the street. She stared at the strange shabby old man who constantly clenched and unclenched his fists and mumbled to himself. The man tipped his dusty hat to her and disappeared down the street.
Later that afternoon, the old man was seen again watching Francis and four other boys play ball. The old man called Francis over to him. The other boys continued to play ball. A few minutes later, both the old man and Francis had disappeared. A neighbor noticed a boy that looked like Francis walking that afternoon into a wooded area with an elderly gray-haired tramp behind him.
The disappearance of Francis was not noticed until he missed dinner. His father, a policeman, organized a search. They found the boy in the woods under some branches. He had been horribly assaulted. His clothes had been torn from his body and he had been strangled with his suspenders. Francis had been beaten so badly that police doubted that the "old" tramp could have really been as old and frail as he looked. The beating was so severe that perhaps the old tramp had an accomplice who had the strength to maul the child.
The Manhunt for Albert Fish
In a short period of time, Manhattan fingerprint experts and police photographers were enlisted in the case as well as some two hundred and fifty plainclothesman. The huge manhunt yielded several promising suspects, except that none of them looked like the gray-haired, moustached old tramp. His face was burned forever in the memory of Anna McDonnell: "He came shuffling down the street, mumbling to himself, making queer motions with his hands. I'll never forget those hands. I shuddered when I looked at them...how they opened and shut, opened and shut, opened and shut. I saw him look toward Francis and the others. I saw his thick gray hair, his drooping gray moustache. Everything about him seemed faded and gray."
Despite the massive efforts of the police and the community, the "Gray Man" had vanished into thin air.
In November of 1934, the Budd case was officially still open although nobody ever expected it to be solved. Only one man, William F. King, continued to pursue the case. Every once in awhile, King would plant a phony item about a break in the case with Walter Winchell. On November 2, 1934, Winchell took the bait once again:
"I checked on the Grace Budd mystery," Winchell wrote in his column. "She was eight when she was kidnapped about six years ago. And it is safe to tell you that the Dep't of Missing Persons will break the case, or they expect to, in four weeks."
Ten days later, Delia Budd received a letter that her lack of education fortunately prevented her from reading. Her son Edward read it instead and ran out the door to get Detective King. The letter was singularly barbarous:
A Letter From Hell
"My dear Mrs. Budd, In 1894 a friend of mine shipped as a deck hand on the Steamer Tacoma, Capt. John Davis. They sailed from San Francisco for Hong Kong China. On arriving there he and two others went ashore and got drunk. When they returned the boat was gone. At that time there was famine in China. Meat of any kind was from $1 to 3 Dollars a pound. So great was the suffering among the very poor that all children under 12 were sold for food in order to keep others from starving. A boy or girl under 14 was not safe in the street. You could go in any shop and ask for steak -- chop |