Albert Fish was an American serial killer, cannibal and child-murderer active in New York between 1924 and 1934. Born Hamilton Howard Fish on 19 May 1870 in Washington D.C., he was placed in St John's Orphanage at the age of nine following his father's death. Fish moved to New York City in 1890, worked as a house-painter across the boroughs for four decades, married Anna Mary Hoffman in 1898, fathered six children, and was abandoned by his wife in 1917. By the time of his arrest at a Manhattan rooming-house on 13 December 1934, Fish was sixty-four years old and wanted for the murder of ten-year-old Grace Budd. The full record of the Albert Fish crimes is documented in this archive. He was electrocuted at Sing Sing State Prison on 16 January 1936.
Why the case matters
The Albert Fish crimes are studied today for three reasons. First, the 1934 arrest turned on a single piece of physical evidence — the embossed hexagonal emblem of the New York Private Chauffeurs' Benevolent Association on an envelope flap — and remains one of the earliest American examples of forensic document tracing in a child-abduction investigation. Second, the 1935 psychiatric record, compiled by Dr Frederic Wertham for the defence, is a foundational document in twentieth-century criminal psychiatry; Wertham's case notes established the vocabulary of paraphilic disorder in American legal discourse. Third, the Albert Fish pelvic X-ray taken at Bellevue Hospital in March 1935 — which revealed twenty-nine sewing needles embedded in the groin region — is one of the most-cited artefacts in the forensic literature on self-mutilation.
What this archive contains
The Albert Fish Archive is a documentary record of the case, organised around the surviving primary sources. You will find:
Weekly editorial dispatches — short single-topic readings of individual documents and anniversaries in the case.
Editorial principles
Every page in this archive is written from primary sources — Westchester County Court records, the Wertham psychiatric papers held at Cornell, period press reporting in the New York Times, Herald-Tribune, and Daily News, and the surviving letters and forensic reports. Where a claim rests on a single source, we say so. Where the evidentiary picture is contested — as with the count of total victims, which Fish himself inflated to "about one hundred" — we present the competing accounts and indicate which is best supported by the documentary record. See the editorial policy and the full source list for the archive's research standards. The material is held for scholarly and historical research and is written with deliberate restraint out of respect for the victims and their descendants.
Last reviewed: ·
Editorial team: Bureau of Historical Research ·
Citation:Albert Fish Archive, albertfish.com, accessed .
Frequently AskedARCHIVE FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Albert Fish
Who was Albert Fish?
Albert Fish (Hamilton Howard Fish, 1870–1936) was an American serial killer, cannibal and child-murderer active in the New York metropolitan area between 1924 and 1934. Born in Washington D.C., he worked as a house painter in New York for four decades before his arrest on 13 December 1934 for the murder of ten-year-old Grace Budd. He was electrocuted at Sing Sing State Prison on 16 January 1936. Read the full Albert Fish biography.
How many victims did Albert Fish have?
Three murders are documented with physical or confessional evidence accepted at trial: Francis McDonnell (1924, aged 8), Billy Gaffney (1927, aged 4), and Grace Budd (1928, aged 10). Fish himself claimed at various points to have assaulted or killed "about one hundred" children, but contemporary prosecutors considered this figure self-aggrandising. Investigators privately linked him to several additional unsolved disappearances that were never formally charged. See the full Albert Fish victims page, the broader record of Albert Fish crimes, or the consolidated list of Albert Fish victims names.
How was Albert Fish caught?
Fish was caught through a forensic document trace. In November 1934 he sent a confession letter to Delia Budd, the mother of Grace Budd. The envelope bore a small embossed hexagonal emblem — the monogram of the New York Private Chauffeurs' Benevolent Association. Detective William F. King traced the emblem to the association within forty-eight hours. Thirty-two days after the letter arrived, Fish was arrested at a Manhattan rooming-house on East 52nd Street. Read the full account of how Albert Fish was caught and the Albert Fish arrest record.
What were Albert Fish's nicknames?
The New York press gave Fish six aliases during the 1934–1935 investigation and trial: the Gray Man, the Boogeyman, the Brooklyn Vampire, the Moon Maniac, the Werewolf of Wysteria, and — in later accounts — simply the Cannibal. The Gray Man was the earliest, derived from Anna McDonnell's 1924 description of the "old gray man" who took her son Francis. See the full Albert Fish nicknames page.
The 1935 pelvic X-ray taken at Bellevue Hospital, ordered by the psychiatrist Frederic Wertham, showed twenty-nine sewing needles embedded in the groin and pelvic region. Fish had inserted them himself over many years as an act of self-mutilation. The X-ray is one of the most-cited artefacts in the forensic literature on paraphilic disorder. See the full Albert Fish X-ray page.
Where was Albert Fish executed?
Albert Fish was electrocuted in the death house at Sing Sing State Prison in Ossining, New York, on 16 January 1936 at approximately 11:06 p.m. The executioner was Robert G. Elliott, New York State's official electrocutioner from 1926 to 1939. Fish was sixty-five years old. Read the full Albert Fish execution account.
What were Albert Fish's last words?
The executioner Robert G. Elliott records in his 1940 memoir Agent of Death that Fish, seated in the chair, said: "I don't even know why I am here." Contemporary press reports of 17 January 1936 differ — the New York Times described Fish as silent, while the Daily News reported a phrase consistent with Elliott's account. For the full record and the competing sources, see the Albert Fish last words page.
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Grace Budd CaseJUN 1928 — DEC 1934
The Letter That Named a Killer
On 3 June 1928 a ten-year-old girl named Grace Budd left her parents' apartment on 406 West 15th Street in the company of a courteous, grey-haired stranger who called himself Frank Howard. She was never seen alive again. Six years, five months and eight days later her mother Delia received an unsigned letter in the post. The letterhead on the envelope was the one mistake that would hang Albert Fish.
Four years old. Disappeared from a Brooklyn apartment hallway with a playmate who later described a "boogey man" in a grey coat. Fish confessed by letter to the mother in 1935.
Eight years old. Taken from Port Richmond on Staten Island by a tall, grey-haired stranger. Believed to be Fish's first homicide, though he would not be linked to it until after his arrest.
Case SummaryPROSECUTION FILE
How Many People Did Albert Fish Kill?
Fish claimed, at various points during his 1935 trial and in his jailhouse conversations with the psychiatrist Frederic Wertham, to have assaulted or killed "about one hundred" children. Contemporary prosecutors found the figure self-aggrandising. Three murders are documented with physical or confessional evidence accepted at trial: Francis McDonnell (1924), Billy Gaffney (1927), and Grace Budd (1928). Investigators in New York, Washington, and New Jersey privately linked him to several additional disappearances that were never formally charged. See the victims archive for the full accounting.
ExhibitMAR 1935
The Needle X-Ray
Twenty-nine sewing needles, embedded in the pelvis and groin over decades of self-inflicted ritual, visible on the 1935 radiograph.
Before his arrest Fish was known to New York and Brooklyn detectives by half a dozen press-given aliases: the Gray Man, the Boogeyman, the Brooklyn Vampire, the Werewolf of Wysteria, the Moon Maniac.
Fish was electrocuted at 11:06 p.m. on 16 January 1936 in the Sing Sing death house. Robert Elliott, the state executioner, required two applications of current.
External ReferenceCURATED LINK
Further Reading on the Sing Sing Period
Readers interested in the penal context of the case — the Ossining death house in which Fish's sentence was carried out — are referred to the Mob Museum's historical account of Sing Sing electrocutions: Dead Men Walking: Sing Sing executions.
