Albert Fish

Albert Fish was born on May 19,1870 in Washington, D.C. and was placed in an orphanage at age five after his father passed away. While at the orphanage, he observed and experienced a number of perversions including forced masturbation in front of other children and brutal beatings. At the age of 7, Albert was reunited with his mother. Shortly thereafter, he fell from a cherry tree resulting in severe head trauma which caused him dizzy spells and terrible headaches. After graduating from high school, Fish started working odd jobs and traveling around the country. This gave him perfect opportunity to commit crimes. Albert Fish was labeled a “masochist, a child molester, and a cannibal” with his primary victims being children, mostly young boys. In 1910, Fish began his torturous, mutilating murder spree, which continued until he was caught on December 13, 1934.

Fish earned himself the nickname, `Brooklyn Vampire’ by murdering four children from 1932-1934. There are conflicting resources over the actual number of murders and molestations Fish committed but he was suspected of at least fifteen murders and molested between one hundred to three hundred children. He looked like every child’s favorite grandfather, but behind the quiet facade of his silver hair and mustache lurked a hideous monster who preyed on the young and the innocent with his horrific “instruments of hell” — a meat cleaver, a butcher knife and a saw. In 1928, Albert took Grace Budd to an abandoned cottage where he strangled and ate her. Six years later, he mailed a letter to the Budd family describing in lurid detail what had become of their daughter. The authorities were able to track him down by the postmark and he was arrested, tried and convicted. During the trial, Albert Fish pleads insanity but the jury did not believe him and sentenced him to death. On January 16, 1936, he was electrocuted at the Sing Sing Prison.