Albert Fish: Crimes, Victims, the Letter, and the Execution

Albert Fish was a house painter from Washington, D.C., who was executed at Sing Sing prison in 1936 for the 1928 murder of 10-year-old Grace Budd in New York. He confessed to killing two boys, Francis McDonnell and Billy Gaffney, but was never tried for either case. He was caught six years after Grace disappeared, because of a letter he mailed to her mother.

This is the full story as the records tell it: his childhood, the Budd case, the letter and the envelope that gave him away, the trial, and the execution. It also sorts out the parts that get repeated wrong, including his victim count, the needles, and his last words.

Childhood and the orphanage

Fish was born Hamilton Howard “Albert” Fish on May 19, 1870, in Washington, D.C. His father, Randall Fish, was 75 when Albert was born. Randall died of a heart attack on October 16, 1875, when the boy was 5. His mother, Ellen, then placed him in Saint John's Orphanage in Washington.

According to later accounts, he was beaten often at the orphanage, and he came to enjoy the pain. By 1880 his mother had a government job and took him home. He later went by Albert, the name of a sibling who had died.

Signs of his mental illness showed up long before any murder. There was also a family history. An uncle had mania, one brother was confined in a state mental hospital, and his mother reported hallucinations. None of that was understood as a warning in the 1880s. Our article on how childhood abuse shapes serial killers looks at why a childhood like his comes up so often in these cases.

Marriage, six children, and self-harm

In 1898, Fish's mother arranged his marriage to Anna Mary Hoffman, who was nine years younger. They had six children. Fish worked as a house painter, the trade he would still be working in during the years of the murders.

In January 1917, Anna Mary left him for John Straube, a handyman who had boarded with the family. Fish later told a newspaper that she took nearly everything the family owned. He raised the children alone.

After she left, his behavior got worse. He reported hearing voices, and he began pushing needles into his own groin and abdomen. He also hit himself again and again with a nail-studded paddle. Unlike the teenage serial killers covered elsewhere on this site, Fish was already a grown man with a family when his known crimes began.

In May 1930 he was arrested for sending an obscene letter to a woman who had answered an ad for a maid. After that arrest and another in 1931, he was sent to Bellevue Hospital for observation. Each time he was let go.

The Grace Budd case

In May 1928, 18-year-old Edward Budd placed a newspaper ad looking for work. Fish answered it in person. He called himself Frank Howard and said he was a farmer from Farmingdale, Long Island, who needed help.

On Sunday, June 3, 1928, Fish came back to the Budd apartment on West 15th Street in Manhattan. He had lunch with the family. Then he said he was going to his niece's birthday party that afternoon and asked if 10-year-old Grace could come along. Her parents said yes. Grace left with him and did not come home.

Fish took her to Wisteria Cottage, an empty house on Mountain Road in Westchester County that he had picked out ahead of time. That is where he killed her. Her remains were not found until December 1934, after Fish led police to the spot.

For six years the case went nowhere. In September 1930, police arrested Charles Edward Pope, a building superintendent, on an accusation from his estranged wife. Pope spent 108 days in jail before his trial on December 22, 1930, where he was acquitted. He had nothing to do with it.

The Albert Fish letter

In November 1934, Grace's mother, Delia Budd, received an unsigned letter. She could not read, so her son read it aloud to her. The letter opens with a long story about a sailor who learned to eat human flesh during a famine in China. Police could never confirm any of that part.

Then the writer turns to Grace. The first lines about that Sunday are the ones that matched what the family knew:

"On Sunday June the 3 [1928] I called on you at 406 W 15 St. Brought you pot cheese [and] strawberries. We had lunch. Grace sat in my lap and kissed me. I made up my mind to eat her."

The rest of the letter describes taking Grace to an empty house in Westchester, killing her, and claims that he ate her body. Police found that its account of the kidnapping and the events that followed was accurate. They could never confirm the claim that he ate any part of her.

This letter is often confused with a second one. After his arrest, Fish wrote a letter to his own lawyer describing the killing of Billy Gaffney. When people search for "the Albert Fish letter," they usually mean the one sent to Mrs. Budd.

How one envelope led police to Fish

Fish did not sign the letter, but he made a mistake with the envelope. It had a small hexagonal emblem with the letters "N.Y.P.C.B.A.," for the New York Private Chauffeur's Benevolent Association.

Detective William King of the Missing Persons Bureau had carried the Budd file since 1928. He traced the emblem to the association. A chauffeur there said he had taken some of the stationery home and left it behind when he moved out of a rooming house at 200 East 52nd Street. The landlady said Albert Fish had rented that room and checked out a few days earlier. He had asked her to hold a check his son was sending him.

King waited at the rooming house until Fish came back, and arrested him on December 13, 1934. Fish pulled a razor blade. King took it from him and brought him in. Unlike many famous serial killers who kept up claims of innocence, Fish did not deny killing Grace Budd. He then led officers to the site of Wisteria Cottage, where her remains were found.

Other Albert Fish victims: confessed, suspected, and claimed

Fish was convicted of one murder, and only one. The other cases tied to him fall into three groups, and they should not be mixed together.

Only the Grace Budd case went to trial. The others rest on Fish's own confessions or on police suspicion.

Case	What happened	Legal status
Grace Budd, 10	Left home with Fish on June 3, 1928, in Manhattan. Remains found in Westchester County in 1934.	Convicted of her murder, March 1935
Francis McDonnell, 8 (some reports say 9)	Killed in July 1924 in Port Richmond, Staten Island. His body was found hanging from a tree.	Fish confessed in 1935. Never charged or tried.
Billy Gaffney, 4	Disappeared in Brooklyn on February 11, 1927. His body was never found.	Fish confessed in a letter to his lawyer. Never charged or tried.
Yetta Abramowitz, 12, and Mary Ellen O'Connor, 16	Killed in the Bronx in 1927 and in Far Rockaway, Queens, in 1932.	Suspected only. Fish denied involvement.

Francis McDonnell's mother told reporters she had seen a stranger near their home that day, with "thick grey hair" and a "drooping grey moustache." She said "everything about him seemed faded and grey." The papers called the unknown man "the Gray Man," and the name stuck to Fish after his arrest.

In the Gaffney case, detectives found that Fish was working as a house painter a few miles from where the boy disappeared. Billy Gaffney's mother, Elizabeth, later visited Fish at Sing Sing with Detective King, hoping he would tell her what happened to her son. Fish refused to speak to her.

Fish also bragged that he had killed many more children, and he is quoted as saying he had "children in every state." No investigator ever confirmed those claims. Writers who have studied the case give rough estimates that range from 5 to 15 possible victims, but those are guesses. The numbers that hold up are one conviction and two other confessions. That still puts him among the most notorious American serial killers, because every known victim was a child.

The trial

Fish's trial for the murder of Grace Budd ran from March 11 to March 22, 1935, in White Plains, New York, before Judge Frederick P. Close. Elbert F. Gallagher prosecuted. James Dempsey, a former prosecutor, led the defense.

The defense did not argue that Fish was innocent. It argued that he was insane. The main expert was the psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, who testified for two days. He told the jury: "To the best of my knowledge, every sexual abnormality that I have ever heard of, this man has practiced." His conclusion was plain: "He is insane now and was insane before."

An X-ray taken after the arrest was shown in court. It revealed 29 needles lodged in Fish's pelvic area, some of them there for years. Sources describe the exact location a little differently, but 29 is the number reported from the trial.

The prosecution answered with its own doctors, including Menas Gregory, formerly of Bellevue Hospital, who said Fish was abnormal but legally sane. The jury found Fish sane and guilty. Several jurors later said privately that they believed he was insane but voted to convict because they wanted him executed. The judge sentenced him to death.

The execution and Albert Fish's last words

Fish was executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing prison in Ossining, New York, on January 16, 1936. He was 65. He entered the execution chamber at 11:06 p.m. and was pronounced dead about three minutes later. It was the same method Florida later used on serial killer Ted Bundy. The next day's New York Times ran the story on page 20 under the headline "Slayer Of Budd Girl Dies In Electric Chair."

His last words are often quoted wrong, because three different things get mixed up.

The words at the chair come from the executioner, Robert G. Elliott, who wrote in his 1940 memoir that Fish said, "I don't even know why I'm here."

The famous line about the electric chair being "the supreme thrill, the only one I haven't tried" is a different quote. It is reported from an interview in the death house during his final days, not from the execution.

The third is on paper. After the execution, his lawyer James Dempsey said Fish had left several pages of handwritten notes. Dempsey refused to release them: "I will never show it to anyone. It was the most filthy string of obscenities that I have ever read."

There is also an old rumor that the needles in his body shorted out the electric chair and that it took two jolts to kill him. One witness claimed a second jolt was needed, and the needle story grew from there. Those claims were later regarded as untrue.

For more on the case, read the 5 most disturbing Albert Fish quotes, with the context for each one, and our list of 5 Albert Fish books that cover the case in detail.

Albert Fish movies and documentaries

The case has been retold on film more than once. Its mix of a missing child, a six-year search, and a letter that broke the case open makes it an obvious captivating movie for fans of serial killer tales.

The best known is The Gray Man, a 2007 feature film directed by Scott Flynn, with Patrick Bauchau as Fish and Jack Conley as Detective William King. There is also a documentary, Albert Fish: In Sin He Found Salvation, about his life and crimes.

Albert Fish FAQ

How many people did Albert Fish kill?

He was convicted of one murder, Grace Budd in 1928. He confessed to two more, Francis McDonnell in 1924 and Billy Gaffney in 1927, but was never tried for either. He claimed many more, but investigators never confirmed them. For more, see these Albert Fish facts.

How was Albert Fish caught?

Through the envelope of the letter he mailed to Grace Budd's mother in November 1934. Its "N.Y.P.C.B.A." emblem led Detective William King to a rooming house at 200 East 52nd Street, where he arrested Fish on December 13, 1934.

How many needles were found in Albert Fish's body?

An X-ray shown at his 1935 trial revealed 29 needles in his pelvic area. He had pushed them in himself over a period of years.

What were Albert Fish's last words?

The version from the executioner's memoir is "I don't even know why I'm here." The "supreme thrill" line people often quote came from an earlier interview, not from the execution.

Was Albert Fish mentally ill?

The defense psychiatrist, Fredric Wertham, testified that he was insane. Doctors called by the prosecution said he was abnormal but legally sane, and the jury agreed with them. Several jurors later said they believed he was insane but wanted him executed anyway.

What was Albert Fish's real name?

Hamilton Howard Fish. He went by Albert after a sibling who had died.

Help us keep our site ad free! We make limited edition horror movie merch & serial killer shirts. We even have an Albert Fish shirt (seen above). Our guide to each common serial killer trait is a good next read.

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Sources

• Wikipedia. "Albert Fish." Accessed September 28, 2026. en.wikipedia.org.
• Evans, Colin. "Albert Fish Trial: 1935." Great American Trials, via Encyclopedia.com. Accessed September 28, 2026. encyclopedia.com.
• The New York Times, January 17, 1936, page 20: "Slayer Of Budd Girl Dies In Electric Chair." Original issue listing at rarenewspapers.com.
• Contreras, Cydney. "How Albert Fish Was Caught for Grace Budd's Murder." Oxygen, August 11, 2023. oxygen.com.
• Beeman, Amy. "This Is How Many Victims Killer Albert Fish Really Had." Grunge, May 11, 2021. grunge.com.
• Wikipedia. "The Gray Man (2007 film)." Accessed September 28, 2026. en.wikipedia.org.
• Schechter, Harold. Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America's Most Fiendish Killer. Pocket Books, 1990.