Crime, Conspiracy, Cults and Murder - Ep. 31 | This Man Is A Monster...

Episode Date: January 19, 2025

Join me, while we explore the twisted story of probably the most disgusting human being to ever exist... Albert Fish. Let's uncover the horrors of his crimes and the chilling legacy that still haunts true crime history... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, you beautiful little butterfly. You're so beautiful. I love looking at you and hearing about you and... I guess I don't hear about them. I just want to say that and preface that because I'm going to be talking about some pretty disgusting stuff today. It's going to get pretty gross up on here. All right? And also, as you can see, I am in a new space. I'm in my new studio.

I'm finally in it. I'm going to have a different background and stuff. I literally haven't changed my background really since I started on YouTube, but you know, you still got piquing, whatever, in my sign, whatever, whatever, whatever. And we got Bob Ross and my bear, but whatever. I'm in a green room and it makes me very happy, and I got a fireplace. So it's cozy. It's all warm and cozy for me to tell you about the most disgusting human being that's ever existed, basically.

And that is Albert Fish. This sick, twisted individual wasn't just a murderer. He was a cannibal. Yay! And today we will be deep diving into his life. Who was he? Why was he the way he was? Why was he the way he was?

Does that make sense? Yeah. And what led him to become such a prominent murderer? And those are the questions we're going to be answering today. So without further ado, let's unbuckle our seatbouts. Go Mach 5 down the highway, slam on the brakes, and bust through this windshield into this disgusting murderer. together. Hamilton Howard Fish was born in Washington, D.C. on May 19th, 1870. And his father was named

Randall and his mother, Ellen Howell. And their age difference was 43 years, which is a lot. We're starting off with some crime straight out the gate, basically. But when Albert was born, his mother was 32 and his father was 75. Man swimmers had walkers, if you know what I'm saying. Albert Fish came from a lineage that wasn't all there. His uncle had mania with complete lack of control over his emotions and outbursts. Just sounds like your typical woman, if you ask me, am I right? But not much is well known about his lineage in specific mental illnesses. Mostly because mental health was just not considered as important as it is today,

it was just very stigmatized and not well documented. Basically, if you complained about being sad, they'd just throw you in the looney bin, so it just wasn't worth it. However, his mother supposedly experienced frequent hallucinations, both auditory and visual. And this would obviously make her life very difficult because she couldn't seek the proper help, especially suffering with hallucinations. Like, I can't imagine having that happen and then not having any help. She was probably literally going crazy. And on top of that, one of his brothers was in a state mental hospital.

And his half-brother was suffering from schizophrenia and his sister Annie was diagnosed with a mental affliction as well. So just right out the gate, this face. Family is just full of mental illness and a lot of things that are going to hold them back in life. So he's not coming into a family that's, you know, very stable to say the least. And since his father was an old man by the time he had Albert, again, 75. This could explain his life troubles afterward due to the fact that having a child at this age presents a lot of health risks. And it didn't help that his mother struggled with her mental health and had three different siblings that struggled with mental health as well.

And in the 1870s, it was rough. It was a rough life. And the family struggled to meet financial demands, left, and right. And Randall worked as a fertilizer manufacturer and was an ex-riverboat captain. Sounds kind of cool. But the income he brought was barely enough for the family. And after his father passed on, his mother really, really struggled financially. Providing for her children after her husband was gone was an insane challenge having almost no support,

especially with women back in those days because like barely any women worked at that point. So like I said, Albert's father died when he was only five years old. Albert, that is not his dad. His dad was 75. Anyway, you get it. And his mother was just overwhelmed and struggled. Being widowed in the 19th century was just a nightmare. And eventually her isolation was just too much. And due to these difficulties, she decided to place Albert into St. John's orphanage in Washington, D.C.

And being placed into an orphanage at such a young age, once from a home with lack of discipline, to a place with harsh routines, which include physical beatings, is rough to say the least. But supposedly, Albert Fish secretly enjoyed these physical beatings and harsh forms of abuse, which later down the line could have confused his perception of pain and pleasure being blurred, which it does, and we'll see that. And the disciplinary measures at the orphanage were honestly incredibly brutal. It was documented that teachers would shred the children's clothes off, beat them, whip them and force other students to watch in a humiliation-like ritual.

So this skewed his view of the world for sure. And maybe seeing the other boys getting beatings and receiving them himself, points to where he probably had this pain, pleasure, confusion, sadomasochism beginnings. And at around 10 years old in 1880, his mother was finally able to secure a job, one being in the government sector, which allowed her to pull Albert out of the, orphanage. But at this point, it was already too late. This guy was way too far gone and maybe it was already in him. I think it was a little bit already in him, especially since his family history of mental health. But I think this just solidified it being in this orphanage where they literally

just beat kids senselessly. But in 1882 at 12 years old, he would begin a relationship with a boy who was a telegrapher. You know, those little things that people use for Morris Codes, this little book that bit, beep, beep, beep, beep. But this boy, but this boy. But this boy, introduced Albert Fish into drinking urine and eating feces. We're not even scraping the surface yet, so stay with me. And this introduction to this hobby, I guess, just ruined his image of pleasure. And later, he would begin to visit public baths

where other boys would undress watching them for pleasure as well. So he's just very secretive, very obviously was into other boys and men, which is no problem at all, but the whole eating feces, drinking urine, watching people without their consent, he just barrel rolls down the hill with all of this, and it gets just a lot worse. So although stability would somewhat return to his family, his mental capacity had declined, and learning to reintegrate into being in a family was extremely hard for him. And he had been emotionally scarred by what he had experienced at the orphanage

and had a hard time fitting in with a normal family dynamic. And it also didn't help that his mother was still suffering with her mental health. And running a family solely by herself was a very large financial burden. And Albert was also known to wet the bed until he was about 11 years old, which is linked to other serial killers or other murderers or people with violent tendencies, which obviously they didn't know back then, but we know now, along with hurting animals or, you know, injuring children and that kind of thing, or setting fires. That's another one. And at the age of 15, he graduated from public school and had been

ridiculed during his childhood by kids using his legal name, Hamilton. And to bully them, they use the term hammering eggs from Dr. Seuss, which I think it's kind of cute. But he really didn't like it. So he used the name Albert instead. So he didn't like emotional humiliation, but he loved physical humiliation, as we will see. And Fish would continue to decline in his mental health, committing crimes like petty theft and experimenting more with his self-harm fantasies. At some point in his life, he fell from a cherry tree and suffered a really bad concussion. And this would continue to influence his decline in mental health as well, with the frequent headaches, dizziness, and even developing a stutter.

And going back to things that are very similar to other people that have violent tendencies or even serial killers, it's waiting the bed, starting fires, hurting animals. And also, there has been proof that head trauma, certain head trauma, especially to the frontal lobe, is known to boost that tendency to be violent. So, who knows? Who's to say if it actually happened for Albert? But I'm sure it didn't do him any good. And he would also be arrested for forgery at 19 years old with the bail of $1,000, which was a lot of money compared to today's coin.

And his early adult years would become more sick and twisted. In 1890 at the age of 20, he would relocate to the Big Apple, New York City. But with a lack of education, he restored two male prosta, you know what. And it was kind of up his alley because he liked to do all that stuff, and then some, if you will. But casual gratification just wasn't enough in this business for him. So he began to delve into the darker side of it, and he would also start to target younger boys. So his ammo would be to lure the boys away, grape them, and molest them,

and do all sorts of horrible, horrible things to them, enjoying it doing to them and doing it to himself. And one of the things he used a lot was a nail paddle, which if you don't know what that is, we'll put it up, but it's basically, for any listeners, just a giant wooden paddle with literal nails sticking out of it. So he would use that on himself and on the boy. as well, and he would just gain so much gratification from it.

Um, just so, so sick. But unfortunately, it would get even worse. And in 1998, at the age of 27, his mother decided to arrange a marriage for him with a woman by the name of Anna Mary Hoffman. And she would be about nine years younger than him, which, you know, at that time, not too bad, not the, whatever it was, like, 42, 43 years that was between his parents, which is just... Crazy. Can't write my hand around that.

And he would actually go on to have six children with her named Albert, Anna, Gertrude, Eugene, John, and Henry. And his family life did not matter to him at all because he had his eyes set on other things, much more horrible things. And unfortunately, or probably fortunately, his wife would leave him for another man around 1917. And I'm sure she left him for a lot of reasons, but one of the main reasons, according to his testimony later down the line was that he would ask his children to paddle him with a nail-filled paddle like I showed before until he was dripping blood down his legs, which is just absolutely disgusting. But the paddles, like I said before, were only the beginning. It would actually be shown in court later on as well that he would enjoy, uh, this one's, this one's rough.

It makes me sick. Um, he would enjoy shoving needles into his skin. Uh, specifically between his anus and a testicular area. Just let you sit with that for a minute. You all right? I'm going to keep going. All right. An x-ray later on revealed the absolute insane amount of needles stuck in his pelvis and still in his pelvis. And he also would reportedly strick alcohol dredged rags into his butt.

light them for pleasure, which is just sadomasochism. That's what it is. It's just sadomasochism. And I'm just going to pretend that I'm, it's, everything's fine. It's not fine. It's terrible. It's absolutely terrible. And like, you got to have some serious things happen in your life for this to be a thing. But I digress. Let's continue. But before his wife would leave him, Fish would admit a relationship with a 19-year-old man named Thomas Bedden, where he would enjoy his sadomasochist relationship. And it was unknown if it was. consensual. Some reports say that it is and some reports don't know, so I'll just say that it's, the relationship itself was consensual, but I bet I'm positive, probably some of it wasn't, because of

the following. The man was apparently intellectually disabled, so I think you can't be able to consent to everything when you aren't fully there. But anyway, Fish would eventually go a step too far with Thomas. And he would torture Thomas for two weeks straight, even cutting off his his member while he was still alive. And Albert really wanted to keep the body afterward, but he didn't want to get found out, so instead he would just pour peroxide over Thomas's wound and leave a $10 bill on the table and kiss him goodbye and just leave. Because at this point, Thomas wasn't dead. He was still alive and just bleeding. out and Albert literally just slapped a tenor down and said, that was fun. See you next Tuesday.

And a quote from Fish remembering his screams state, I shall never forget his screams or the look he gave me. However, this was only the start of what a soon-to-be sick and twisted legacy. So because of his complete disregard for human life and his confusion of pleasure and pain, it would just elevate and continue to spiral and he would just want to keep going further and further. And later on, Fishwood state that he would target intellectually disabled as they were easier to lure and those who were African American as well. And his whole thought process was that they wouldn't be missed after they were killed. And the police just wouldn't bother looking for him, which unfortunately and heart-breakingly was very prevalent at the time, which is just horrible. And in 1919, he stabbed a disabled boy in Georgetown.

And he would go on to mutilate and torture more young boys with horrible tools such as a meat cleaver, a butcher knife, and even a handsaw. And he would also pay young boys to find and gather other children for more of his sick fantasies, which we found with a lot of murderers. They like employ kids to get other kids. I think it was actually the first video I ever did the first true time deep dive with Dean Coral, the Candyman, the Candyman killer. He used other boys to get other boys to kill, and it's just terrible. And one story was that of Beatrice Keel on July 11th, 1924. He would encounter her playing alone on her family farm, approaching her and offering her money to help him gather rhubarb in the nearby fields.

Before she could join him, her family stopped him and chased him away, thankfully. And he would later return and be found that evening hiding in their barn, where her father again forced him to leave. And this saved Beatrice from a horrible end that so many had experienced already. Like, children were vulnerable enough, and fish would just use this to his advantage. And we don't really know how many children were abducted or disappeared because of fish, which is unfortunate. But at least according to his claim, he stated at least a hundred. But when he says 100, it's unclear if he meant, you know, like torturing them or straining them or straight.

out murdering them, but regardless, both still just terrible and disgusting. And he would first allegedly target a victim by the name of Francis MacDonald at the age of eight years old from Long Island, New York. And the boy would be found in July 1924 hanging from a tree after a search party would find him. And the autopsy would reveal that he was essayed and strangled with his own suspenders. And there were portions of his flesh removed from him and lots of cuts across his leg. and stomach. And witnesses claimed they had seen an elderly man with a gray mustache mumbling to himself, a description that led him to be called the gray man. And the case for this would go cold for a

really long time until Fish was eventually arrested. And another child, by the name of Billy Gaffney, was only four years old in Brooklyn. And he would disappear in February of 1927, along with his three-year-old friend, Billy Beaton. And Beaton's older brother had left the two boys for a bit, and they would just disappear seemingly out of nowhere. And Billy Beaton would be found on a roof near where they were playing earlier. However, Gaffney was nowhere to be seen. And we're asked where Gaffney was, Beaton's older brother would say that the boogeyman got him. And this would be how he received the other nickname, the boogeyman.

And Gaffney's body would never be found, but Fish later admitted to his mother what he had done. And it was brutal. He would talk about how he killed the boy and then go into detail about what he did with the corpse afterwards and it just shows how far fish had fallen. He would describe whipping him until he bled, then cutting off his ears and nose, he would take out his eyes and he would also drink his blood. And after he was done, he would cut the boy up into pieces and dump the parts that he didn't want, keeping his quote unquote, rump, which refers to the boy's bottom, which he would roast in the oven, making a stew with smaller pieces. And he described the stew he made,

adding onions, gravy, and more to the dish, and he ate it all over the period of four days. So fish was a cannibal at this point and has truly just fallen in love with horrible, disgusting, monster-like tendencies, and he would not stop there. The most well-known use of his predatory tactics he used was an ad that he had in the paper, which, eventually led to his downfall. And that would be a young girl by the name of Grace Bud. In 1928, Fish would answer an ad sent out by Edward Bud, an 18-year-old looking for some part-time work.

So Fish responded to the ad and later that week would head to his address. And under the name Frank Howard, he visited the Bud family at their house in Manhattan, who was there to interview Edward for the job he made in the paper. And the original plan we learned later from Fish was that he wanted to kill young Edward, but changed his mind when his eyes stuck stumbled upon his younger sister, Grace Bud, who was only 10 years old.

So Fish said he would be back later to start Edward's workday the following week. But when the date came around, he was a no show. And he later apologized in a telegram to Edward, stating he would return at a later date that he provided. And when he finally did show, he gave gifts to the Bud family, including pot cheese and strawberries. And he would state that, unfortunately, today wouldn't work either, claiming his sister was having a birthday party in an apartment house on 137th Street, on Columbus, which we know now is just a fictitious address that he made up. And Fish would somehow convince this family to let Grace join him to his sister's party, stating that he would bring her back afterwards safe and sound. And this is just so heartbreaking, because I know it's a different

time, but this is a man you don't know and why would you let your daughter go with him? It's just terrible. Oh, it just gets so much worse. So after dressing her for her Sunday's best, the two set off, that would be the last time they would see their daughter alive. Grace was never returned back home. So the buds got the police involved and gave them an address. And they learned that there was no such thing as Frank Howard, nor the address he said he would be at. And the entire fabrication stumped the police.

So they sent out publications of a description of fish and grace so that if someone found or knew anything about their whereabouts, they could help. And after years and years of searching for clues and evidence, It wasn't until November of 1934 that a new piece of evidence would appear in the form of a horrifying letter. And this letter is barbaric and the most disgusting thing I've ever read in my life. And I'm not going to read it on here. If you do want to read it, you can maybe go look for, I mean, it's everywhere. You can see it anywhere if you want to go read it yourself.

I wouldn't recommend it. It made me nauseous. I'm sure it will make you as well. But essentially, he's talking about a story of a friend named John who developed a taste for human meat. And then he describes how delicious the ass fat is to cook and eat up in stews or by itself. And then fish gets really specific. Talking about how he brought her pot cheese and strawberries. And on the day that he had lunch with them and Grace sat on his lap, he decided he would eat her.

Like the second time he went over and gave them all those things, he literally decided. to eat her after she sat on his lap. And he stated that he lied about the party and took her to an empty house where he would take off her clothes, um, cutting her into small pieces so he could cook her and eat her. And he would describe how she was delicious and how it took him nine days to eat her whole body and ending it with how he never did anything sensual to the body and that she died a virgin, like that made what he did any less awful. It's just vomit-inducing.

And the letter was just too descriptive to be a lie with the pot cheese and lying about the birthday party being memorable to the day they lost their daughter. And the descriptions of the man were all too familiar to his now famous nickname, the Grey Man. And by following the clues in the letter, they found out his old place of residence, which was 200 East 52nd Street. And when detectives would talk to the landlady, she was shocked by the description they gave of this older gentleman, Frank Howard, who had only checked out of the residence recently.

However, the name Frank Howard wasn't familiar to the woman, as she knew him as Albert Fish. So with Detective King on the case, he learned from the landlady that Fish supposedly would receive a letter from his son, who worked for the civilian conservation corps in North Carolina, and that it contained money. So letters coming into the post office were then monitored to see if Fish would come back for his letter,

And they would be right. So on December 13th, 1934, the landlady called the detective, stating that Albert Fish was there looking for his letter. And when King opened the door, he was greeted by an older looking gentleman sipping from a teacup. And he asked him if he was Albert Fish, to which the man nodded in response. However, out of nowhere, Fish pulled out a razor blade and tried to attack Detective King, but he was weak and just fucking useless, and he was easily subdued because he's a weak piece of shit.

He's a weak, feral piece of shit. And when he was brought to the station, there was no hesitation at all, being entirely upfront about what he had done to Grace Bud, even the cannibalism part. And he wouldn't go to trial until March 11th, 1935. And the trial would last about 10 days with fish claiming insanity and stating he heard voices from God

telling him to kill children. And multiple psychiatrists studied his mindset, even claiming that there had not been a single person with a medical history with so many seizures. abnormalities as fish had. He was literally an anomaly. But the guy had psychosis, obviously delusions of voices telling him to kill children is not normal. And on top of that, we already know also he was insanely sadomasochistic, spanging himself with needles, and inflicting heavy pain on others to get sensual gratification. And of course, who could

forget the most important messed up of all the paraphylitic disorders. From from PDF elia to necrophilia to cannibalism to pee and poo and just the whole nine yards. And something interesting about some of the psychiatrists that analyzed him said that he was insane, but he was not legally insane. He knew what he was doing and that it was wrong, but did it anyway. So it didn't constitute as legally insane. And they used Fish's letter in the trial detailing his confession and insanity, describing all of his actions and thought process.

And the defense obviously really wanted him to get that insanity plea, probably because it would save his life because the death penalty was very prominent at this point. However, the jury would hear all of this disgustingness and obviously would find him guilty of the murders. And on top of that, declare him not insane, which I agree, he knew what he was doing the whole time. Do I think there's a lot wrong with him? Yes, I do.

But he deserves to burn in hell. I don't know how many times I can say that. So he would be incarcerated in a prison in New York and be sentenced to death in 1935. Womp, and he would be isolated from the other prisoners, probably because he had kind of an insane nature, and there was worries that he would just go on a killing spree. And or a lot of prisoners liked to kill people that hurt children,

because for some reason people in prison have this moral compass, which is good, I guess, that they don't like people that hurt kids. So, again, wamp, wamp, And we would learn other things about his crimes after his sentencing, where in interviews he would tell of other victims, and the number of which he claimed was in the hundreds of boys that he did bad stuff to and murdered. But again, this was just never verified because he was already sentenced to death at this point.

And at this point, they just didn't have any motivation to find out if he actually did these things to all these boys. And finally, on January 16th, 1936, he was put on on the electric chair and electrocuted to death. Whop, wow. And there was a rumor that they actually had to shock him twice due to the number of needles stabbed into himself, causing the chair to literally short circuit, although this claim is definitely unverified

and doesn't really hold any truth, but it's still horrifying to know that he did have dozens of needles shoved into himself that he, in fact, put into himself. And then it's also funny that he had to get re-electricuted so many times. but I don't like the fact that he might have enjoyed that. So either way, it's a win. He's dead. And his last words would be,

I don't even know why I'm here, which is crazy if he genuinely believed he had nothing, like, wrong that he did. But I don't think he did. I think he was just trying to act crazy for like the one last time to get out of it, and he couldn't. But what's truly horrifying is James Dempsey, Fish's lawyer who reported that he had Fish's final statement, but refused to share it stating that he'd never show anyone because it was the most filthy string of obscenities that he had ever read.

I don't even want to know. Usually I have this weird curiosity. I don't even want to know. He's dead. I'm done. Okay? In conclusion, Albert Fish is remembered as one of the most infamous and disgusting serial killers of all time. And I, for one, am glad that he is hopefully burning in hell if you're into that kind of thing.

Yeah, I know a lot of you requested this video. I hope I did it justice. I did shorten it a lot. We could have been sitting here for like eight hours. There's a lot of information on them. If you guys want me to do like a really, really deep dive, like to do a three, four hour video, let me know and let me know what that would be.

I'm totally down to do it. But obviously I need to make a lot of videos so I can only do so many of those. But I hope you enjoyed the video. Or you probably didn't. Sorry. But, you know, I hope you learned something from the video, I guess. Let me know what else you guys want to see down.

I always read the comments. Every video I do is probably one that you requested. And also if you want something sweet, go to sour.Gg. Get some new candy. We have new flavors that come out every week. Get something sweet after this very sour video. But yeah, until then. Oh, also, you can listen on Spotify and Apple Music if you want. And yeah, without further ado, that's all. Bye.