Weekly Dispatch / 2026-04-24

The Letter That Ended It — 92 Years On

· In November 1934 Delia Budd opened an envelope bearing a small hexagonal emblem. The emblem belonged to a chauffeurs' association in Manhattan. The letter inside ended a six-year investigation.

Margaret Hollis
By Margaret Hollis Editor-in-Chief · Bureau of Historical Research Historian of early 20th-century American criminal cases
Archival photograph of New York Harbor docks, U.S. Army 14th Photo Section (1934 Manhattan)

Image: File:New York - Docks-New York Harbor - NARA - 68146192.jpg. Public Domain. Via Wikimedia Commons — 14th Photo Section, Air Service, U.S. Army.

In November 1934 Delia Budd opened an envelope bearing a small hexagonal emblem. The emblem belonged to a chauffeurs' association in Manhattan. The letter inside ended a six-year investigation.

The hexagon that solved the case

The letter to Delia Budd, postmarked 11 November 1934, is the document preserved as Trial Exhibit 4 at the Westchester County Court. Its forensic significance was not primarily in its confessional content, but in the small embossed hexagon on the envelope — 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, Albert Fish was under arrest at a rooming-house on East 52nd Street.

Related documents in the archive

For the full transcription and archival description, see the Budd letter page. For the capture itself, see the arrest.

Filed under: letter, budd, arrest. Dispatches are short notes by the editorial team, published weekly. For the full archive see the site index or the dispatches index. For the full case archive start with the biography, the victims, and the letters.