The Real-Life Boogeyman: Albert Fish in 1920s New York

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Today, we're heading back to New York City in the late 1920s in two in apartment,

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where a working class family just wants their teenage son to land a farm job and maybe lighten

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the bills around the house. A polite, grey-haired farmer shows up, offers them exactly what they're

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hoping to hear, and a short time later their 10-year-old daughter Grace walks out the door with them

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and her best dress and never comes home. This is the story of Hamilton Albert Fish, the people who

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loved him, the people he targeted, and the detective who refused to let this case fade into another

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forgotten file.

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New York City in the late 1920s is crowded, it's noisy, probably smelly, and not designed for

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families who are barely hanging on. Apartments are small, kids spill into stairwells and streets,

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and parents are doing their best math on rent, groceries, and whatever they can find.

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In that kind of life, putting a classified ad in the newspaper to get your teenage son a farm job

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feels hopeful and practical. That's exactly what the Bud family does in May of 1928,

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and that ad brings Hamilton Albert Fish to their front door, calling himself Frank Howard.

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To understand how risky that knock on the door really is, we need to rewind to 1870 Washington,

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DC. Albert is born into a family with more instability than support. His father is in his mid-70s

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when he's born, his mother in her early 30s. Several relatives struggle with serious mental illness,

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some end up in state hospitals, and his mother has her own hallucinations. When Albert is five,

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his father collapses and dies at a train station, at work, and his mother runs out of options for

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caring for the children. There's no modern foster system waiting, there is St. John's orphanage.

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And St. John's is not a safe haven. Former residents and later reports describe regular

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beatings, humiliation, and public whippings used as discipline. Albert tells Psychiatrist later

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that he got all wrong in that place, and that the pain eventually started to feel exciting

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instead of only frightening. And by exciting I mean sexually, he was sexually aroused by the

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beatings. And that's pretty terrifying from a grown man looking back at his own childhood.

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His mother eventually gets a government job, and goes and gets him, brings him home at around age 9,

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which is better than leaving him there, but everything that happened inside those walls

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stayed with him. As a teenager, Albert works as a telegraph boy, and takes on different labor jobs,

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while his private life goes in a very specific direction. He connects with an older boy who introduces

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him to acts involving urine and feces, and he starts hanging around public baths to watch younger

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boys undress. At the same time, he's already molesting children, often boys under six while living in

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New York. On the surface, he's just another young man hustling for work. Underneath, he's building a

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secret life where pain, control, and sex are all tangled together. In 1898, his mother arranges a

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marriage to Anna-Mary Hoffman. They have six children together. Their home is small, chaotic, and from

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the outside looks like a regular working-class family. His children later say he did not hit them,

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but they remember some things that are deeply unsettling, like their father beating himself

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with a nail covered paddle, and sometimes asking them to swing it, or seeing him stand out on a hill

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shouting that he is Christ. So you have this image of kids doing homework while their dad is both

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making dinner and staging his own private religious performance. While he's raising that family,

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Albert is also getting into trouble. He's arrested for petty crimes and spends time at syncing for

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embezzlement. Around 1910, he lures a young man with an intellectual disability, holds him for days,

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tortures him, and mutilates him. Albert leaves him ten bucks and disappears. Authorities do not

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connect that crime to him until much later. This is another early example of him running two

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lives side by side. One, the house painter who shows up on time, the other is a man testing how far

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his fantasies can go. In 1917, his wife leaves him for their handyman, who is also boarding in their

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home. She leaves the kids with Albert and she moves on. That moment hits him hard. He starts hearing

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voices more often, wrapping himself up in carpets, claiming biblical figures or speaking directly to him,

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and increasing his self-harm rituals. He starts sending obscene letters to women whose names he finds

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in classified ads. Those letters are explicit enough that they get him arrested more than once.

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His focus on religion zeroes in on the story of Abraham and Isaac. In later psychiatric interviews,

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he explains that he believes God is telling him to sacrifice children and that if he were wrong,

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an angel would stop him just like in that Bible story. He also admits that he chose black children,

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and children with disabilities for many of his attacks because he assumes police and newspapers

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will not push his heart to find them. That is calculated cruelty. It also says a lot about how law

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enforcement and media priorities looked in that era. By the mid-1920s, New York's system for

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handling missing children is very weak. Cases from poor or marginalized families can be dismissed as

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runaways or barely tracked at all. In 1924, eight-year-old Francis McDonald disappears on Staten Island

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after playing outside. His body is found in a wooded area. His mother tells officers that she saw an

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older gray-haired man shuffling and talking to himself near their home earlier that day.

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Papers describe this figure as "the gray man, a label that will follow Albert Fish in headlines

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long after he's arrested." In 1927, four-year-old Billy Gaffney goes missing from a Brooklyn

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apartment hallway while playing with a friend. The younger child says the "boogie man" took him.

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Billy's body is never found. That case stays unsolved for years until a trolley motorman sees

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Fish's photo in the news and remembers an incident where an older man on his line struggled with a

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boy who looked exactly like Billy. That is the level of detective work they're working with here.

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No databases, just someone reading the paper at the right time connecting the dots in their own head

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and then deciding to go to a station to report it. All of this brings us to the Bud Families

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apartment in May 1928. Edward Bud is 18. He wants farm work and places a small ad offering himself

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as a laborer. Albert reads it and decides that Edward will be his next victim. He shows up at their

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home as Frank Howard, a farmer from the country. He's older, thin, polite, and has that harmless

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grandfather look that lowers everyone's guard. The buds are cautious in a way that working class

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parents are cautious. They ask questions. They talk through the offer. They also live in a world where

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a man showing up in person, vouching for himself, means more than a name on a page. Their daughter Grace,

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10 years old, is curious and warm and sits close enough to hear everything. Frank Howard,

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Albert Fish, comes back more than once. He brings small gifts, talks about hiring both Edward and

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his friend on his farm and acts like someone who wants to help. He doesn't rush them. He lets the

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relationship feel normal. On a Sunday and early June, he shows up with a new idea. He says he needs to go

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to his niece's birthday party in Westchester and offers to take Grace along for the afternoon,

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promising to have her back by that evening. Grace leaves in her nicest dress. One her mother had

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carefully prepared. That is the last time her family ever sees her. The investigation that follows

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is huge for the era. Detectives chase rumors into the countryside, visit supposed farms,

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check boarding houses, and try to find any real Frank Howard. They keep running out of leads. One

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detective, William King, refuses to let the file gather dust. For six years, he keeps coming back

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the Grace's case. He pushes newspapers to reprint her photo and story hoping that some stranger reading

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at their kitchen table will notice a detail they previously ignored. During those same years,

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Albert is still out there in the world. He's working as a painter, moves through cheap

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rooming houses, sends more obscene letters, and continues pursuing his violent fantasies.

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In 1930, he's evaluated at Bellevue Hospital after yet another incident. Doctors there decide that

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he is disturbed and perverse, but legally responsible for his actions, and they let him go.

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From a modern perspective, that feels like a massive missed chance. But at the time, the system

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didn't have clear categories or long-term plans for someone like him. In November 1934,

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everything turns when a letter arrives at the bud home. Grace's mother can't read. She's

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illiterate, so one of her sons picks it up and reads it out loud for her. The letter describes what

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happened to Grace in disturbing detail and mentions specific facts that only the family and the

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investigators know. Police studied the envelope and noticed that it was mailed on stationary from a

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chauffeur's benevolent association. They trace that paper back to a particular boarding house,

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where a land lady remembers an older tenant with gray hair who fits the description

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and has asked her to hold on to a money order for him. Detective King waits at that boarding house.

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When Albert Fish walks up to collect his mail, King arrests him. At the station, Albert doesn't put

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up much of a fight. He confesses to killing Grace and admits to other crimes, including the murders

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of Francis McDonald and Billy Gaffney. He walks detectives through details that match what they

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already know from the cases and from the crime scenes. Albert's trial in 1935 is not about whether

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he committed these acts. That part is clear. The entire focus is on whether he is legally sane.

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Dr. Frederick Wurtham, a well-known psychiatrist at the time, examines Albert and concludes that he

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lives inside a delusional system shaped by religious obsession, childhood abuse, and the long list of

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parapherelius. He describes Albert as psychotic and argues that his crimes happened inside a reality

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where he believed he was following divine orders. The prosecution brings in other doctors who say that

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even with this extreme behavior, Albert knows what society calls wrong. They argue that understanding

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not morality is what matters for legal sanity. The jury hears all of this and eventually finds him

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sane and guilty. Later, one juror admits that they all believed he was mentally ill, but they felt

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that the death penalty was the only acceptable outcome. Albert returns to sing-sing as a condemned

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man instead of a financial criminal. In January 1936, he is electrocuted in the electric chair.

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Staff members say that he later walked calmly and even helped adjust the straps. Before his death,

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he writes his final statement for his attorney. The attorney refuses to share it, saying it's too

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obscene for anyone to see. What stays with people who study this case is not only the horror of what

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Albert Fish did. It's also the ordinary lives brushing up against his, kids playing in narrow hallways,

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parents opening their door to what looks like an opportunity, children sharing meals with a father

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who is both a caregiver and a threat. There's a detective who keeps one girl's missing file on his

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mental desk for six years. Hearing this story today, it feels a lot less like a simple tale of a

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monster and more like a warning about what can happen when a deeply damaged person learns exactly

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where systems look away and chooses to hide right there.

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Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder, binge-abull true crime stories. I'm Joe. Hello.

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I'm the host and if you thought the story today was interesting but you wish you had some more

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information, more details about the life of Albert Fish, the different crimes and all of that.

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I've got good news for you. This week I also covered this exact story on my other podcast, True Crime

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Blueprint. It's a longer episode if you want to hear more about a life and crimes of Albert Fish.

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Links to where you can find that podcast are in the episode notes of this episode.

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And that's going to do it. That's your episode for today. Thank you again for listening to 10 Minute

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Murder. See you next time.