Murder In America - EP. 44 NEW YORK - The Most Disturbing Serial Killer I've EVER Heard Of: Albert Fish, The Cannibal Killer

Episode Date: November 22, 2021

WARNING: THIS EPISODE IS NOT FOR EVERYONE. THIS IS A SERIOUS MESSAGE- LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE WITH CAUTION. We go into GRAPHIC detail in this episode and it really is disturbing. In the early 1900's, a mysterious killer stalked the streets of New York City. He was given many nicknames by the press, "The Boogeyman", "The Werewolf of Wisteria", "The Brooklyn Vampire"... but even these names do not describe accurately how horrific the crimes of Albert Fish were. This, in my opinion, is the most disturbing episode of our show to date. This story, will haunt you. - Use code "MIA" at checkout to get $30 off your purchase of a digital picture frame at aura.com !! - Give the gift of salon perfect nails AT HOME for Christmas this year!! Go to OLIVEANDJUNE.COM/MIA and get 25% off of YOUR order!! - Start streaming the BEST in horror, suspense and thriller NOW on SHUDDER.COM (make sure to use our custom code, "STATE", to try SHUDDER for 30 days... for free!!) - Additional audio editing services provided by Joe Pietz.  https://instagram.com/joepietz?utm_medium=copy_link Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash America for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash America. The following podcast is not suitable for all audiences. We go into great detail with every case that we cover and do our best to bring viewers even deeper into the stories by utilizing disturbing audio and sound effects. Trigger warnings from the stories we cover

may include violence, rape, murder, and offenses against children. This podcast is not for everyone. You have been warned. Warning, what you're about to hear is a real letter written by a real serial killer. It is vile. It is disgusting.

And it is a crime. Extreme. Seriously, everybody, listener discretion is heavily advised. My dear Mrs. Bud, in 1894, a friend of mine shipped as a deck hand on the steamer Tacoma, Captain John Davis. They sailed from San Francisco to Hong Kong, China. On arriving there, he and two others went ashore and got drunk. When they returned, the boat was gone. At that time, there was a famine in China. Meat of any kind was one to three dollars a pound.

So great was the suffering among the very poor that all children under 12 were sold for food in order to keep the others from starving. A boy or girl under 14 was not safe in the street. You could go in any shop and ask for steak, chops, or stew me. Part of the naked body of a boy or girl would be brought out and just what you wanted cut from it. A boy or girl's behind, which is the sweetest part of the body, and is sold as veal cutlets, brings the highest price. John stayed there so long that he acquired a taste for human flesh. On his return to New York, he stole two boys, one seven, 111. He took them to his home, stripped them naked, and tied them up in a closet, and then burned everything they had on.

on. Several times every day and night, he spanked them, tortured them, to make their meat good and tender. First, he killed the 11-year-old boy because he had the fattest ass and, of course, the most meat on it. Every part of his body was cooked and eaten except the head, bones, and guts. He was roasted in the oven, all of his ass, boiled, broiled, fried, and stewed. The little boy was next, and he went the same way. At that time, I was living at 409 East 100th Street. He told me so often how good human flesh was, and I made up my mind to taste it. On June 3rd, 1928, I called on you at 406 West 15th Street and brought you pot cheese and strawberries. We had lunch. Grace sat on my lab and kissed me, I made up my mind to eat her. On the pretense of taking her to a party,

you said yes, she could go. I took her to an empty house in Westchester I had already picked out. When we got there, I told her to remain outside. She picked wildflowers. I went upstairs and stripped all my clothes off. I knew if I did not, I would get her blood on them. When all was ready, I went to the window and called her. Then I hid in the closet until she was in the room. When she saw me all naked, she began to cry and tried to run down the stairs. I grabbed her, and she said she would tell her mama.

First, I stripped her naked, how she did kick, bite, and scratch. I choked her to death, then cut her in small pieces so I could take the meat to my rooms, cook, and eat it. How sweet and tender her little ass was roasted in the oven. It took me nine days to eat her. entire body. I did not fuck her though. I could have if I wished. She died a virgin. The boogeyman, a character that has haunted the consciousness of humanity for centuries. Someone who enters your child's bedroom in the night terrifies them and on occasion takes them.

But all parents tell their children that the boogeyman isn't real, right? You, the one listening to murder in America, you know that the boogie man isn't real. But what if he was? What if there was a real-life Boogieman. Well, we believe if there ever was one, his name would be Albert Fish, a man who embodies the concept of evil more than anyone I've ever heard of. You may know of Albert Fish, but do you know the extent of his crimes? Do you know exactly what he did? I definitely didn't before this episode. And once you finish listening, I'm sure you will never be able to forget his name. The Werewolf of Wisteria, the Brooklyn Vampire, the Boogie Man. Seriously, y'all, this is another warning. This episode is about to get really, really dark. I'm Courtney Shannon.

And I'm Colin Brown. And you're listening to Murder in America. It was the year 1870. The Civil War had recently ended in America and the country was in the middle of reconstruction. Towns were being rebuilt. The country was healing. But it was in the year 1870 when one of the most evil forces in the history of the United States was born. A person more evil, more depraved than anyone that had ever come before him. This innocent baby boy, born on May 19th, 1870 in the Washington, D.C. area, would go on to commit such atrocious acts that people hundreds of years later would still tremble when they heard his name. This baby, born that day, was named Hamilton. But years later, he would go by the name Albert, Albert Fish. Albert Fish was born on May 19th, 1870, to parents

Randall Fish and Ellen Howell. And he was actually born with the name, Hamilton Fish, but he would go on to change that years later. And in a strange twist, Albert's father, Randall, was 43 years older than his mother Ellen, and he was 75 years old when Albert was born. Because of this, Albert never really got to know his father, but at least he would grow up under the watch and care of his mother Ellen. At least that's what Albert thought. Before we move on to the next part of Albert's life, I want to discuss the history of mental illness in the fish family. Albert's mother, reportedly suffered from constant oral and or visual hallucinations, meaning that she was seeing and hearing things that weren't there.

Albert's uncle had been diagnosed with mania, and he suffered from manic episodes. In addition, one of Albert's brothers was sent off to a state mental hospital for confinement and treatment, and his sister Annie had been diagnosed in the past with a, quote, mental affliction. He allegedly also had three other relatives in the family who had been diagnosed with a mental illness of some sort, but I couldn't track down who they were or what they suffered from.

Albert had three living siblings, Walter, Edwin, and Annie, the one who was diagnosed with a quote-quote mental affliction. And when Albert was only five years old, his father Randall, would pass away of a heart attack. His mother, Ellen, being a single mother of four kids, was immediately overwhelmed with all of the pressures of all of the pressures of all of the pressures of all of the pressures of the pressures of all of the pressures of the pressures of all of the pressures of the pressures of all of the pressure of parenting. and she herself suffered from mental illness. After Randall's death, Ellen found it difficult to deal with the pressures of raising the children all by herself, so she made the choice to drop Albert off at an orphanage. And this was the beginning of young Albert's descent into darkness. At this orphanage, the St. John's orphanage in Washington, D.C., Albert allegedly suffered unspeakable horrors.

He was beaten. He was whipped. He endured unspeakable acts of cruel. When interviewed later in life, this was what Albert had to say about his time in the orphanage. I was there till I was nearly nine, and that's where I got started wrong. We were unmercifully whipped. I saw boys doing many things they should not have done. But notice how in that quote he states that that's where I got started wrong. According to Albert's later accounts, after a while, the beatings that he was taking

at the orphanage began to turn him on. He would become aroused and erect while being whipped and beaten, even though he regularly ran away from the orphanage and was caught and returned, he seemed to enjoy the torture that was done to him there. While at the orphanage, Albert allegedly also learned the ins and outs of masturbation and other sex games. This was where the sadomasochistic roots were implanted in Albert. Albert was subjected to loads of perverted practices at this orphanage at a very young age, and even recounted later in life that at one point, he and some friends had doused a horse's tail in kerosene and set it ablaze. Eventually, the other children in the orphanage noticed that Albert was

beginning to enjoy the beatings he was given by the authority figures at the orphanage and that he was gaining erections from them and they began to tease him for it. The other kids even gave Albert a nickname, Ham and Eggs, poking at his birth name, Hamilton Fish. Eventually, Albert's mother secured a government job that paid her pretty well, but more importantly, it allowed her more time with her son. And as she tried to regain control of Albert, she realized that damage had already been done. He was a lot different than the boy he wanted. was, and it was evident that the darkness inside had been awakened. When Albert was allegedly only 12 years old in 1882, he began a youthful relationship with

a telegraph boy. This young boy introduced Albert to a variety of new extreme fetishes, including urolagnia, the consumption of urine, and coprophagia, the consumption of feces. Around this time, Albert had allegedly taken a brutal fall from a cherry tree and sustained a pretty bad concussion, an incident which some experts have claimed may have caused some of his psychopathic thoughts and delusions. After the fall from this tree, Albert began to suffer from persistent dizziness, very detailed daydreams, a vocal stutter, and severe headaches. He also wet his bed pretty frequently, which we all know is a behavioral pattern often attributed to budding

serial killers. Albert's favorite text when he was younger was allegedly Edgar Allen Poe's the pit and the pendulum, a literary work dealing with death and torture. Albert also became obsessed with true crime and murder when he was young and would carry around newspaper clippings about horrendous killings and accidents in his pockets at all times. At age 15, Albert graduated from a public school, and it was at this time in his life when he began to go by Albert Fish, as opposed to Hamilton. The bullying and the nicknames were simply too much for him, and he needed a change. He chose the name Albert allegedly in honor of a sibling of his that had passed on years It really was Albert's childhood and the abusive settings that he had been placed in that gave birth to the boogeyman, Albert Fish.

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and there was no turning back. When he was around 20 years old, in the year 1890, Albert moved to New York City and found work as a prostitute. Due to either his career or his personal choice, Albert began to hang out in bathhouses around the city, where he could watch young boys undress all day long. It was also during this time in his life when, according to Albert himself, he began to sexually assault young boys.

Albert would go on to claim that he raped over 100 young boys in his life, most under the age of six. but his claims were never fully substantiated. In the year 1898, after living in New York for almost eight years, Albert's mother, Ellen, arranged a marriage for him. Albert was to be wed to a beautiful young woman named Anna Hoffman, who was nine years his junior. At this point in his life, Albert had become a painter who specialized in painting and finishing houses, and for a while the marriage was successful.

Anna and Albert had a total of six children, named Albert Anna, Gertrude, Eugene, John, and Henry. But even though he was married, Albert couldn't control his dark and perverse sexual urges. In 1898, the same year in which he got married, Albert's male lover took him to a local wax museum. While walking throughout the museum, checking out the mannequins and the art pieces, Albert notices a medical display which graphically demonstrated a bisection of a penis. And Albert was mesmerized. Something about this display deeply entreat him. And it also turned him on. He would return to this display in the exhibit many times, and he became almost obsessed with the concept of genital mutilation.

This obsession would appear in the most gruesome way years later. Less than a decade into his marriage with Anna, Albert would begin his criminal career. In 1903, while working at some sort of store, Albert was convicted of grand larceny, amongst other things, and was sentenced to spend time at the notorious Sing Sing Prison in New York. he served 16 months of his sentence before he was paroled. Albert had quite the colorful criminal history,

and he was arrested and released many times in his life for a number of charges and behaviors, but it's hard to track down the exact and correct details of these arrests, so we're going to skip over the details. Because he was a house painter, Albert had to frequently travel for his job, and this, unfortunately, was where he would rape a number of young boys. He would do so by either convincing them to go along with his sexual,

by paying them, or he would just force himself onto them. And being a house painter, it was easy for him to have unfiltered access to children. He would spend the day fixing and decorating the homes while the parents were out for the day, or the parents were downstairs while he was on the second floor with the kids. And because he traveled so frequently, Albert's crimes had been tracked across the east coast of America. But his first major violent crime would take place in Delaware in the year 1910. What we are about to read is a long graphic confession directly from the killer's mouth. It was taken from John Beroski's book, Albert Fish, and his own words.

And here's the description of the crime that Albert wrote himself. Okay, guys, this is off script, but I just finished reading the passage that I'm about to read to you guys from Albert Fish's confession. And it is truly horrifying. And I really want to warn you guys that this is very graphic and very, very disturbing what you're about to hear. So please listen with caution. This is not a joke. This is serious. Please proceed with caution into this next passage. If you don't want to hear a very, very graphic and detailed description of one of Albert's most horrific crimes, just skip forward past the voice effect that you'll be hearing. About 25 years ago, or when I was 40, I was doing a painting job in Wilmington, Delaware. I was rooming near job on outskirts of city.

A well-built boy of 19. He had ran away from home in Arkansas on account of being stripped naked and whipped by a brutal stepdad. He had a pretty face, would pass for 16 except for his size, looked like a girl. He appeared to be kind of silly. He told me his story. Someone back home told him he could get a job in DuPont. He beat his way in empty RR carts and by foot.

When he got to Wilmington, he was told no more help were needed. He was silly in his actions and ways, though going on 20 and as strong as an ox. He was as easy to spank and switch as a boy of 10. He rode for two days in a banana car. Floor was covered with straw. Five men, regular hobos, used him day and night. His beehind was so sore from them and hurt him when he walked. He said all of them made him suck them off.

At first he spit it out, but they beat him on his bare behind with their belts and made him swallow it. He had the prettiest and fattest behind I ever saw on a man, but he was covered from his neck down to his shins with long black hair. You could hardly see his dicky or behind from hair. When I first met him, he had not ascend and was almost stoned, no place to lay his head. I took him with me to the place where I got my meals and we had supper. How he did eat.

I enjoyed watching him and filled him up. Then I took him to my room for just what I wanted. I knew he was lousy, for he could not stop scratching. I made him take everything off. He was full of the biggest lice I ever seen. His clothes were full, his shoes and hat worn out. I threw them out. I let good warm water run in the bathtub until it was half full.

Then I made him get in and sit flat on his beehind. I told him to stay there until I got back. I went to a drugstore and got a package of hair remover in a powdered form. I had a pair of clippers, and I cut all the long hair often. Then I got a tin can, dumped the powder in it, and added water. This made a paste. I smeared it all on him. Let it stand 10 minutes. Then I made him sit down and tub and took out a sponge and a cake of soap. I washed him good, then made him stand up. When I touched his back, belly behind and dick, every hair fell off. Then he was really naked and how pretty he looked. Nice big dicky and a fat behind. I wiped him dry,

then rubbed him all over with hair tonic. I loved him then and kissed him all over. Then the It was a warm night and I went out and got a quart of ice cream. We eat about half of it. Then I stripped naked and got in bed. He'd kissed me in the mouth many times my breast, belly, legs, dicky behind. I put ice cream in his behind and all on his dicky then licked it off. He'd done the same with me. Then I made him lay down on his knees, face down as I sat on side of bed. How sweet and pretty his bare naked ass looked to me. I kissed it a hundred times square in his sweet honeypot. Then I took my hairbrush and used the back of it to spank him. I made him yell, Ouch, Papa, I will be a good boy.

Yes, I spanked him on his nice fat ass, untied, looked like a ripe tomato all over. Then it was his turn to be Papa. I was his boy, and had done number two in my pants. He gave me a bath and sat on side of bed and made me lay across his knees face down. He spanked my bare ass good and plenty. Made me yell. Ouch, Papa, I won't do number two in my pants again. I spanked him till he cried.

He made me cry, too. My ass was all red when he got through. I saw it in the looking glass. How good it felt when he spanked, but it hurt, and I always wanted more and give him more. Nearly all night we had fun. I sucked him off first, then he sucked me off. We played with each other and rested. Then I took Vaseline and smeared some in his behind also in my own. Then I stuck my dicky up his behind. He had a large sugar bowl and it went all the way up. How good it felt as I shoved it in. It slipped out once or twice. Then he did it to me.

We put our arms around each other, kissed and went to sleep. I bought him some clothes. That went on for about ten days. How I had whipped many boys and girls, but they were gagged so they could not make no out, no cry. I craved for something different. I wanted to lash, cut, burn a nice big, fat, pretty bear ass like Thomas had. Torture him, hear him scream with pain. I could not do it here, too many people. I began to look around. About a mile away, there was an old farmhouse.

It had the name of being haunted. No one had lived in it for several years. It stood back from the road about 200 feet. Back of it was the barn. Three stalls and room for a carriage. Upstairs hog loft and coachman's room. In it was a bed and a chair. The door and lock was in good order with a key.

It has just the place to whip and torture Thomas, just as I wished. I put a chamber in the room for him to use. Then one rainy day, I bought a blanket, and we came to the torture chamber. I made him strip bare naked and locked him in. Then I went back to my room. Next day, I did not go to work. I bought a sharp knife, box of matches, and a pint of alcohol. I went back to the old house and got his clothes and put them with the other things in one of the stalls. There was a well in the yard, nice cold water. I filled an old pitcher full of water and gave it to him to drink. Then I cut about 20 switches off blackberry bushes. They were full of thorns. I brought two bookstraps they use in school. I took up three switches in the straps and tied his hand behind him,

then his feet. Now I said to him, I have you, just where I want you, and the way I intend to keep you for the next two weeks. Then I turned him over on his belly and began to torture his nice fat ass. I used one switch at a time, struck him as hard as I could. Each blow the thorn stuck in his flesh. Often I would drag the switch instead of lifting it. Then it would tear and rip the cheeks off his fat ass. How he did scream, it was sweet music to my very soul to hear him and know that no one else could. Then I spanked him, how the blood did spatter on the blanket and all over the wall. Then I took the knife and slid his fat ass between the cheeks. I held my mouth to his big ass and sucked the blood. Then I filled the pitcher with water, untied his hands, and locked him in

and went home. Next evening, I brought another blanket, a small hammer, tacks, six candles. Then I could work in the day and torture him at night. I tucked blanket over window and by the light of a candle I could see him. For five days, all he had was water and whippings. Then I brought him sandwiches and coffee. He was so hungry I made him eat his own number two before I gave him food. Then I made him lay on his back in bed. I turned both of his legs backward on his head and strapped his feet to head of iron bed. Then I had his nice, pretty fat ass turned up to me to do just whatever I could think of and that was plenty. The whole package of needles and the cheeks of his ass. It looked like a pin cushion. I stuck a pin all the way through

his dicky and one between his two balls. That was a Saturday night. I left him just as he was all night and went home. Sunday I brought some food in a bottle of peroxide. I pulled the needles out of his ass, dicky and balls. How the blood did pour when I pulled them out of his dicky It was as blue as ink. I poured peroxide on his ass and dick, then smeared him good with Vaseline. Then I untied his feet and let him rest. He went to sleep.

Then I jabbed a long needle in his belly, and he woke up. Then I fed him. From 9 a.m. Sunday until 11 p.m. I whipped, cut, and burned his bare ass, except at noon and 6 p.m. when I went out for food. To weaken him and keep him,

so I gave him food but once a day, I gave him a tablespoon, and he ate much of his own number two out of the chamber. In a short time, both of us got to like it. We called it peanut butter and number one cider. I let him rest about an hour. Then I bent his legs over his head again and tied his feet. I switched him hard between the cheeks of his fat ass, and when the thorn stuck in his flesh,

I dragged them so they would tear his ass. How he screamed. Then I spilled alcohol on his bare ass and Dickie, then set him on fire. I clapped my hands and jumped with joy when I heard him scream. It hurt like how well it lasted, but the alcohol burned off quick. I spanked him and switched his bare ass until I was all tired out. I spread paper on the floor and made him lay on his belly. I stripped naked and done a heap of number two on his ass.

Then I turned him on his back so he would be full of it. I had some in my be hind and I sat on his face and made him lick my bare ass clean with his tongue. But when I knew I had him so weak I could master him. Then I let him play Papa. Everything I'd done to him I made him do to me. He spanked, switched, cut, and burned my bare ass. He made me jump and yell when he sunk the thorns in me and then pulled them through my flesh. How I screamed when he set my ass on fire.

It hurt, but I got a big kick, a thrill out of it. Many times when I had him tied up, I was tempted to slice veal cutlets off his nice fat ass, take them out in the yard. a fire and roast him. My mouth fairly watered to see what it would taste like. I always wanted to eat a boy's nice fat ass. I also had a strong desire to cut off his prick and balls, split them open, roast them and eat them. But I knew if I did that I would not have to torture him or be tortured by him. I pissed and shit all on him in his mouth, eyes, ears. He did the same to me. I know we ate over 10 pounds of peanut butter and drank several gallons of cider between us in the five weeks I had him. All things have an end. My job was finished and I could not afford to keep him. Realizing that I must go

home. He did not want to put them on, but opened my pants, took out my dick, and suck me off. Then I was tempted. I tied him up again, played with his dicky until it got stiff. Then I took the knife and sliced off half of it. I shall never forget his scream or the look he gave me. The blood gushed in a stream. At first I intended to kill him, cut up the body and take it home. But the weather was hot, and as I knew I had no ice, it would stink and betray me. So I poured cold water over his dicky, then slowly poured the rest of the peroxide on the open wound. Then I took the rest of the Vaseline in a clean handkerchief and bound him up. I untied him, put his clothes on the chair by the side of the bed.

I gave him $10, kissed him goodbye. Took first train I could get back home, never heard what became of him or tried to find out. So if you don't understand fully what that passage meant, let us explain. Albert Fish allegedly met a young disabled man named Thomas Kedin, and he struck up a sadomasochistic relationship with him. At one point, Albert brought Thomas to a farmhouse where he tortured him. him for a period of two weeks. And at some point during that time, Albert decided that he was going

to kill Thomas. And remember how we discussed how Albert had gone to a wax museum and became obsessed with genital mutilation? Well, he was now given the chance to live out this fantasy. After restraining poor Thomas, Albert severed half of his penis. But after deciding that the hot weather would probably arouse some sort of suspicion around Thomas' murder, Albert had a change of heart. So he dressed the wound, left Thomas a $10 bill, gave him a kiss, and then left him in the farmhouse. He states at the end of the letter that he had no idea what happened to Thomas, and authorities were never able to track Thomas' body. No one really knows where that farmhouse is or what became of it. Either way, this incident came at just the beginning of Albert Fish's extremely dark and disturbing crime spree.

Anna Fish, Albert's wife, had had enough. She left Albert for a man named John, another local man with whom Albert was acquainted with. And Albert was the one who discovered this affair. Apparently, John was a handyman who was boarding with the family, unbeknownst to Albert, and a hidden space near the attic in the family's home. Food had been going missing around the house, and as Albert kept a diligent eye over his money and exactly what he bought for his family, he noticed that a large amount of food that he was purchasing wasn't making its way to the table. And one night when Albert walked upstairs, following his dog

who was whining, he noticed that the dog approached a small door and began to snarl and scratch at the wood. When Albert opened the door, there was John, the handyman, wrapped up in blankets, camping out in the home. And I'm going to let Albert explain these events to you himself. Again, this passage was taken from John Groskey's book, Albert Fish, and his own words. We were living then in a house at No.135th Avenue, College Point, the eight of us, Anna and myself and the six children, headed by Albert, who was 18 and had a job at the John W. Rapp works at 10th Avenue and 3rd Street, College Point. We were getting along fine. I have always been pretty good at my trade of house painting and we set a good table and paid the rent.

We had a small dog and it was always my custom to keep pretty good track of income and outgo. Put it all down, I say, and you'll never be fooled. I kept track in a little book I carried with me, not only of the money, but of food and clothing and all. And my book showed me about the time that we were using up more food than I saw going down on anybody's throat. I asked Anna, what's become of all this food? The way I figure it, there's about 10 pounds of meat a week and other stuff over and above what I can check. If I had any suspicions, I would have noticed how she got confused. when she passed it off by saying that the dog was eating his head off. That drew my attention to the dog, which was just a cur the children had picked up.

I wondered how such a small dog could get away with so much food. I figured it out. He must be cacheting the food the way animals do. I set a watch and one evening I saw that dog start up the stairs and I followed him. The dog went on up to a door leading into a kind of attic storeroom and began sniffing and whining at the crack. I thought to myself, now I found the place where you cash all this stuff and what a mess that will be. I opened the attic door and went in. It was a bit dark in there, and I stumbled over a heap on the floor.

It was this straw, sound asleep on the floor, snug as a bug and a rug, and a spread of some sort of the best blankets and quilts in the house. He sat up half asleep and mumbled something about, what have you got for me this time? I have always liked things to be easy and pleasant around me. Men of my type are like that. Even those I have handled rough, I would like it if they liked it too, if you know what I mean. If only pain were not so painful. But my main thought was that this might be excitement, something new, live and let live. It was pretty funny, leading Straub downstairs and walking into the dining room and telling him to pull up a chair.

He was struck dumb. So was my wife. They didn't know what was coming next. Neither did I. If I had any definite idea in mind at all when I fetched Anna's lover down from the attic and made him sit at the table across from me with Anna between, it was certainly no idea of violence. That came after when he and Anna sold the furniture to a junk man and left me the six children and took a honeymoon and Bridgeport on the money. That was going too far. After a couple have been married 19 years and have brought up six children, I think it must be the rule that early passion is pretty well petered out. Why not be frank about it? If the vitality peters out with the passion, everything comes out all right at the end, and the old folks sit around getting their fun, if any, out of crossword puzzles and a pack of cards. But the trouble is that vitality doesn't always peter out at the right time. And why not be frank about this, too?

There are thousands, probably millions of old people going around who have been stuck up on the shelf and are too lively to stay there. When I got looking around in the last few years hunting for my own kind, why? I found that the world is simply littered with people of both sexes on the wrong side of 50, according to the calendar, but still 20 and full of old nicks in their minds. After this incident with John, Albert's wife Anna had had enough, and according to Albert's confession, one day while he was at work, Anna sent she and Albert's children to see a movie. While they were at that movie, Anna and John took a van,

loaded almost every possession that the family owned, and they fled town, leaving Albert and the kids with almost nothing to their name. And this was quite a setback. The Fish family was left with almost no possessions, and they barely had any money. Surely not enough to feed an entire family. Albert claimed later on that he tried to hunt Anna and John down and even tracked them to Connecticut. He sent the police their way to see if they could recover any of the things that Anna had stolen, but Anna and John were already gone by the time authorities arrived. At one point, years later, Albert saw John out in public.

John was working on a house that was being built, and suddenly Albert could no longer control his rage. He chased John down into the half-constructed house and up a flight of stairs. When he reached the top of the stairs, Albert almost fell off the unfinished upper floor. But he grabbed onto some wood that would end up saving him from falling. By the time Albert regained his composure, John had already fled the building. But surely, if Albert would have gotten his hands on him, he definitely would have killed him. With the holidays rapidly approaching, I'm sure you guys are looking for a gift to give your loved ones.

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sordid past traumas began to resurface in his behavior patterns. Having always been interested in religion, Albert began to dive deep into his religious studies, and with his intense study of religion, came a new desire to wash himself of his sins and become reborn. Albert believed that one of the only ways to cleanse oneself of sin was through pain, and, oh yeah, human sacrifice as well. At one point, he began planning to sacrifice his own son, but he eventually abandoned this plan. but his studies in pain and tolerance at this point began.

He started off by sticking needles under his fingernails, but he had to abandon this hobby because it was too painful, even for him. He also started to hear voices in his head, voices that said words like stripes and rewardeth. Having a twisted mind, Albert took these words he was hearing as signs from angels or God, and he believed that they were telling him that he must torture others and himself to purge himself of his previous sins.

Albert also began to take Bible verses in scripture and add in his own words that he was hearing in his head, creating sadistic mish-mash phrases that he believed he needed to live by. These phrases included sentences like, Happy is he that taketh thy little ones and dasheth their heads against the stones, and blessed is the man who correcteth his son in whom he delighteth with stripes, for great shall be his reward. To Albert, the word stripes meant lashes from a whip.

This quote meant that the man who whips his son, who lashes his son, shall be blessed. And soon, these delusions would become Albert's entire twisted reality. As the delusions and signs from God came more and more frequently to Albert, he felt like he needed to bring his desires into the physical world. According to Albert, at this point, he began to rape and torture young boys. He believed that he was being told by God that he needed to beat children, castrate them, and murder them. Having a job as a painter, it was easy for him to find young boys. He would torture these young boys by beating them and inserting needles into their body.

He would rape them and allegedly sometimes he would kill them. According to Albert, he at one point hired a young girl to bring him young boys. During this period, Albert had to uproot his family and move a number of times, usually because he was being accused of inappropriately touching children. Albert also believed that he was being instructed to torture himself, and he had a particular fascination with needles. In addition to sticking needles under his fingernails, he would insert needles into his groin and abdomen,

and he wouldn't just stick them in and take them out. He would leave the needles inserted permanently. When his body was x-rayed after his eventual arrest and execution, investigators located at least 29 different needles, nestled deep in his flesh. Albert would also dip clumps of wool into lighter floating, and stick the clumps of material into his anus and light them on fire. Around this time, Albert also developed a growing fascination with cannibalism,

and he would often prepare himself a dinner consisting of solely raw meat. On occasion, he would serve this raw meat to his children as well. Albert also owned an infamous torture device that is truly shocking. It was a wooden paddle studded with nails. We will post a photo of this device on our Instagram, at Murder in America when this episode is posted because you have to see this thing to believe it. Albert would paddle himself with these nails

until his bottom bled, and he loved it. He would even have his children beat him on his bottom with this paddle as he was bent over on a stool or chair. Interestingly enough, Albert allegedly never laid a finger on his own children. Even though he forced his kids to beat and paddle their own father, it seems as though he never specifically set out to hurt them himself. It was kids that came from other homes that he decided were the ones that needed to be sexually assaulted, tortured, and murdered.

And thus, Albert Fish, the boogeyman, was born, always dressed in a sharp work suit and a gray mustache on his face. Albert never really raised any suspicions from those who he knew. But behind the scenes, the monster was hard at work. I couldn't find many details about this crime, but around the year 1919, Albert stabbed a mentally challenged boy and the Georgetown, Washington, D.C. area,

Typically, the victims that Albert selected would either be black or mentally challenged, as he believed these young children wouldn't really be missed. And as time wore on, Albert's mental state continued to deteriorate, and this leads us to July of 1924, when Albert began to take things up a notch. On July 11, 1924, Albert set out with the intent to kill. Most of the time, Albert carried with him his implements of hell, a nickname that he gave the tools himself, which he used to mutilate and murder. These implements consisted of a small hand saw, a meat cleaver, and a butcher knife.

On July 11, he came across a family farm on Staten Island and noticed a young girl named Beatrice Keel playing out in the sunlight around the home. He approached Beatrice and told her that he would give her some money if she came with him to help him find some rhubarb. Luckily, though, at that very last moment, Beatrice's mother came out and told Albert to leave the property. Later that night, in a strange twist, Albert would return to the property and try to sleep on the farm. Hands Keel, the father of the family quickly found Albert and chased him off of the property.

Just a few days later, on July 15, 1924, Albert would commit his first high-profile murder. Early in the day, an eight-year-old boy named Francis MacDonald was sitting on his front porch with his mother, when they both noticed a lanky man with a gray mustache, stumbling down the street, mumbling to himself. At the time, neither of them thought anything of it, and later that afternoon, Francis would go to the park with some of his friends. But as the children were playing, evil was lurking in the nearby woods. Francis never returned home that evening. And later on, one of the family's neighbors reported that they had last seen Francis walking into the woods with an elderly gray-haired man with a mustache. A search party was quickly assembled, and later that night, they discovered his body.

It was in a wooded area near the family's home. Francis had been sexually assaulted and then hung on a tree by his suspenders. After further investigation, authorities also determined that Francis had suffered deep laceration to his legs and abdomen, and that his left hamstring had almost been completely sliced and ripped out of his leg. Later on, Albert would claim that he had planned on castrating Francis, but he had fled the scene when he heard someone approaching. At the time, though, nobody knew that Albert Fish was the monster responsible for this horrific crime.

Francis's mother spoke to a local newspaper in a plea to discover who had done this to her son and claimed that she had seen an elderly man earlier on the day of her son's disappearance, stating, he came shuffling down the street mumbling to himself and making motions with his hands. I saw his thick gray hair and his drooping gray mustache. Everything about him seemed faded and gray. This quote led the press and the public to give Albert the nickname the gray man, And although the gray man would lay low for a few months after the murder and mutilation of Francis McDonnell, he wouldn't wait long to strike again.

On February 11, 1927, once again, Albert set out to murder, but this time he would strike in Brooklyn. On that day, three young boys were playing in the hallway of their apartment complex. The boys were Billy Beaten, a three-year-old who was with his older 12-year-old brother, and Billy Gaffney, a four-year-old neighbor of the brothers. At one point, the 12-year-old beaten sibling briefly returned to his family's apartment. However, when he came back out in the hallway, both his three-year-old brother Billy and his four-year-old neighbor, Billy Gaffney, were gone. Billy Beaton was later found alive on the roof of the apartment complex.

When his older brother asked what had happened to Billy Gaffney, the four-year-old his brother had been playing with, Billy Beaton, responded by saying, the boogeyman took him. On that same day, a man with gray hair and a gray mustache would be spotted on the trolley with a four-year-old boy. The man wouldn't be identified as Albert Fish until years later, but later on, Albert admitted that, yes, it was he who had been seen on the trolley with Billy Gaffney. Sadly, Billy Gaffney's body would never be found. And at this point, once again, I'm going to let Albert describe this murder to you himself. Some years ago, I lived at 228 East 81st, top floor front. Suppose I confess to you that I did blank the Gaffney boy in the same manner I did the B-girl. I am charged with the crime anyhow and many really believe I did.

I will admit the motor man who positively identified me as getting off his car with a small boy was correct. I can tell you at that time, I was looking for a suitable place to do the job. I brought him to the Riker Avenue dumps. There is a house that stands alone not far from where I took him. I took the G-boy there. Stripped him naked and tied his hands and feet and gagged him with a piece of dirty rag that I picked out of the dump. Then I burned his clothes, through his shoes in the dump. Then I walked back and took trolley to 59th Street at 2 a.m.

and walked home from there. Next day, about 2 p.m., I took tools, a good heavy cat of nine tails, homemade, short handle, cut one of my belts in half, slipped these half and six strips about eight inches long. I whipped his bear behind till the blood ran from his legs. I cut off his ears, nose, slid his mouth from ear to ear, gouged out his eyes. He was dead then. I stuck the knife in his belly and held my mouth to his body and drank his blood. I picked up four old potato sacks and gathered a pile of stones.

Then I cut him up. I had a grip with me. I put his nose, ears, and a few slight. of his belly in the grip. Then I cut him through the middle of his body, just below his belly button. Then through his legs about two inches below his behind. I put this in my grip with a lot of paper. I cut off the head, feet, arms, hands, and the legs below the knee. This I put in sacks, weighed with stones, tied the ends, and threw them into the pools of slimy water. You will see all along the road going to North Beach. Water is three to four feet deep. They sank at once. I came home with my meat. I had the front of his body I liked best.

His monkey and pee-wees and a nice little fat behind to roast in the oven and eat. I made a stew out of his ears, nose, pieces of his face and belly. I put onions, carrots, turnips, celery, salt, and pepper. It was good. Then I split the cheeks of his behind open, cut off his monkey and peewees and wash them first. I put strips of bacon on each cheek of his behind and put it in the oven. Then I picked four onions and when meat had roasted about a quarter of an hour, I poured about a pint of water over it for gravy and put in the onions. At frequent intervals, I basted his behind with a wooden spoon,

so the meat would be nice and juicy. In about two hours, it was nice and brown cooked through. I never ate any roast turkey that tasted half as good as his sweet, fat little behind did. I ate every bit of the meat in about four days. His little monkey was as sweet as a nut, but his peewees I could not chew. Threw them in the toilet. So in the late 1920s and early 30s, Albert began to desire a wife. But he couldn't find any local women that actually wanted him,

so he began to write obscene letters to. women who were seeking jobs as maids or leading marriage agencies. He would write these letters to practically any woman he could find in the paper, and they were typically women who were seeking marriage proposals. In these letters, he would ask unsuspecting women, amongst other things, if they would be okay with beating and whipping him. Here is an example of one of those letters. My dearest darling sweetest grace, your dear loving little note at hand, we missed a train on act of James W. Pell. When I told him we were going to Virginia, he said he wanted to go to you and be spanked and whipped with the rope on his bare ass by you and your daughter. He said you were the prettiest, sweetest, loving little woman he ever saw, and your girl was just lovely.

He was all set for a good whipping and expected you to strip him naked and both of you give it to him. I knew both of you would love him, for he is a dear soul with the heart of gold. He cried so hard I had to take his pants and spank him good. But I do love you, Grace, my darling, with all my heart. If you were my own dear sweet wife, you would not be afraid of me. You have a nice, pretty, fat, sweet ass. I'm a very passionate man. Out in Hollywood at the clubs, I often hear men say,

when they saw a pretty woman, if she was mine, I would kiss her sweet ass, drink her number one, and eat her number two. When you strip me naked, you will see what Mrs. H.P.W. called the most perfect form. Yours is the sweet honey of my heart. I can taste your sweet piss, your sweet shit. You must pee, pee in a glass, and I shall drink every. every drop of it as you watch me. Tell me when you want to do number two. I will take you over my knees, pull up your clothes, take down your drawers and hold my mouth to your sweet honey fat assholes

and eat, eat your sweet peanut butter as it comes out fresh and hot. That is how they do it in Hollywood. You won't need toilet paper to wipe your sweet pretty fat ass as I shall eat it all, then lick your sweet ass clean with my tongue. Albert was eventually arrested for sending one of these obscene letters, but nothing came out of the arrest. In 1930, according to Albert's confession, he married three separate women, but divorced all of them shortly after the ceremonies. And according to Albert, as he wrote in his confessions, he wasn't lying about anything that he had claimed he had done. He wrote, quote, in order to prove to you that I am not faking, and also to back your own convictions, borrow a 10 cup from pantry, and I will drink my own

urine and eat my own number two, end quote. But to tell the next portion of our story, we have to step back two years in time to the year 1928. What's better on a chilly fall night than curling up in front of the TV for a great scary movie? Personally, I love scary movies. I've seen almost every horror movie and nobody online has a better collection of horror thriller and the supernatural than Shutter, the best streaming service for horror. Shutter is the exclusive home for found footage hit VHS 94, a Shutter original. I actually just watched that movie and I cannot recommend it enough. I loved it. Binge the seasons of Creep Show and Slasher, both exclusively on Shudder.

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That's S-H-U-D-D-R dot com and use promo code state. Okay, everybody. Time for the ending of this story. Prepare for what you're about to hear. On May 25th, while pursuing an edition of the New York World newspaper, Albert came across an advertisement in the classified section of the paper that read, quote, Young Man 18 Wishes Position and Country, Edward Budd, 406 West 15th Street, end quote.

Just three short days later, Albert decided that he was going to tie Edward up, mutilate his body and leave him alone to bleed to death. So he set out to visit Edward at his family home. When Albert arrived that day, he introduced himself as Frank Howard, a local farmer who grew vegetables and lived a simple life. He told Edward and his family that he wanted to hire Edward and his friend Willie as help on his farm. And he left the house that day promising the family that he would send for young Edward in a few days. Albert would never end up hiring Edward, but he sent the Bud family a time.

telegram stating that he would return at a later date to work out some of the details. A short while later, Albert returned to the Bud family home, and it was at this point when he met young Grace Bud. Grace was 10 years old and full of life. When Albert met her for the first time, he became transfixed with her and immediately changed his mind on who he was going to kill. Instead of 18-year-old Edward, 10-year-old Grace was now the target. That day, when Albert visited the Bud family at their home, he quickly made up a fake story about his sister throwing a party later that afternoon for her daughter's birthday, a party that he was set to attend. He told the Bud family that he would love to bring Grace with him to the party and that he would get her back

promptly that evening. After some thought and consideration, shockingly, Grace's parents allowed Albert to take their daughter with him to his family party. And so that afternoon, Albert left the Bud family home with Grace. This was the last time she would ever be seen alive. After Albert left with Grace, she vanished. Her body would never be found and no trace of her was ever recovered. Her family was wracked with guilt and grief, and they made many appeals to the public, begging for anyone to help find their daughter and for someone to identify who this gray-haired Frank Howard was. But they had no luck, and in 1930, a 66-year-old local superintendent named Charles Edward Post,

was arrested as he was a suspect in Grace's disappearance. But after spending 108 days in jail and going through a trial, he was found not guilty and set free. And the family was back to square one. They would have to wait a long four years until they got a major clue that they could use to solve the disappearance of grace. But this clue was not one that would comfort them. Instead, it would fill them with absolute horror.

In 1934, an anonymous letter was sent through the mail to the Bud family. And as Mrs. Bud was illiterate and cannot read for herself, she had her son read it aloud to her. And this is what the letter said. My dear Mrs. Bud, in 1894, a friend of mine shipped as a deckhand on the steamer Tacoma, Captain John Davis. They sailed from San Francisco to Hong Kong China. On arriving there, he and two others went ashore and got drunk. When they returned, the boat was gone.

At that time, there was a famine in China. Meat of any kind was one to three dollars a pound. So great was the suffering among the very poor that all children under 12 were sold for food in order to keep the others from starving. A boy or girl under 14 was not safe in the street. You could go in any shop and ask for steak, chops, or stew meat. Part of the naked body of a boy or girl would be brought out and just what you wanted cut from it.

A boy or girl's behind, which is the sweetest part of the body, and is sold as veal cutlets, brings the highest price. stayed there so long that he acquired a taste for human flesh. On his return to New York, he stole two boys, one seven, one eleven. He took them to his home, stripped them naked, and tied them up in a closet, and then burned everything they had on. Several times every day and night, he spanked them, tortured them to make their meat good and tender. First, he killed the 11-year-old boy, because he had the fattest ass, and of course the most meat on it. Every part of his body was cooked and eaten except the head, bones, and guts. He was roasted in the oven, all of his ass.

Will, broiled, fried, and stew. The little boy was next, and he went the same way. At that time, I was living at 409 East 100th Street. He told me so often how good human flesh was, and I made up my mind to taste it. On June 3rd, 1928, I called on you at 406 West 15th Street and brought you pot cheese and strawberries. We had lunch. Grace sat on my lab and kissed me, and made up my mind to eat her. On the pretense of taking her to a party, you said yes, she could go. I took her to an empty house in Westchester I had already picked out. When we got there, I told her to remain outside. She picked wildflowers. I went upstairs and stripped all my clothes off. I knew if I did not, I would get her blood on them. When all was ready, I went to the window and called her. Then I

hid in the closet until she was in the room. When she saw me all naked, she began to cry and tried to run down the stairs. I grabbed her and she said she would tell her mama. First, I stripped her naked, how she did kick, bite, and scratch. I choked her to death, then cut her in small pieces so I could take the meat to my rooms, cook, and eat it. How sweet and tender her little ass was roasted in the oven. It took me nine days to eat her entire body. I did not fuck her, though. I could have if I wished. She died a virgin. Obviously, this would be the most horrifying thing to read as a parent, but this letter would go on to be Albert Fish's downfall. When the family brought it to authorities, they noticed a small hexagonal emblem on the envelope, and it read NYPCBA. This acronym stood for

New York Private Shoffer's Benevolent Association, and this would be the first major lead in the case. When authorities visited this company headquarters asking questions, they came across a janitor who claimed that he had taken some of the envelopes home with him, and he had left them in his rented room at a rooming house when he had checked out from the building. The police then headed to the rooming house and inquired that specific room. And that's when they first encountered the name Albert Fish. He had just checked out of the room a few days earlier and had even asked the landlady if she could hold on to a check for him

that he was expecting from his son in the mail. And so knowing that Albert was planning on returning to the building, authority settled in and prepared to make an arrest. At the time, a man named William F. King was the chief investigator for the case. William himself went up to Albert's room and set up camp determined to bring in his suspect himself. After waiting outside of Albert's door for a considerable amount of time, William watched in shock as suddenly Albert himself came strolling into the building. After a brief exchange between the two, Albert agreed to surrender

and accompany the detective to the police station for questioning. As the two were about to leave the building, Albert suddenly retrieved a razor blade from his pocket and threatened the detective. And after a violent scuffle, Albert was placed into handcuffs and hauled. off to jail. When the police entered Albert's apartment, they found the fish children living in abhorrent conditions. Allegedly, William F. King himself left the kids a dollar for food upon seeing them, as he felt so bad that they were in the condition that they were in. And with that, the werewolf of wisteria, the gray man, the boogeyman, Albert Fish was captured.

And once Albert was in jail, he crumbled. He almost immediately confessed to the murder of Grace Bud, and he led detective to the abandoned house where her bones were buried. She had been murdered and abandoned in the Wisteria Cottage, and her body had been buried in the wooded area behind the home. When investigators went to check the scene, they found the skeletal remains of 10-year-old Grace Bud. When asked to describe what happened to Grace, Albert was very matter of fact, and here's what he had to say.

I was in the house and took off my clothes in the other room. She picked flowers. I went to the window and called Grace. When she came in and saw me naked, she screamed and said, call Mama. I grabbed her by the throat and almost carried her in the room and laid her on the floor. I didn't think she would put up such a struggle. She was a frail-looking child. She gave me the surprise of my life. She was losing consciousness and I placed my knee on her chest to squeeze the breath out of her to get her out of her misery. Albert would go on to sign six full confessions

to his crimes and his trial was an absolute horror show. Many doctors were brought in to analyze Albert's lawyer argued that his obsession with religion, along with his fragile mental state made him insane. A defense chief expert witness, a psychiatrist named Frederick Wordum, backed up these claims and argued that Albert's cannibalism, his thoughts of sacrificing children, and his obsession with the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac were all things that proved he was insane. However, even though Albert was clearly mentally disturbed. The prosecution wanted him to be found sane so that he could be executed. Multiple witnesses, most being physicians and doctors, were brought in by the prosecution in an attempt to explain away Albert's mental problems. One witness for the prosecution was a man

named Minas Gregory, the former manager of a psychiatric hospital where Albert had been treated for a short time in his past. Minas testified that Albert was indeed abnormal, yet he was sane. Albert's defense attorney asked Minas if someone who practiced coprophilia, urophilia, and pedophilia would be considered sane or insane. Minas then testified that a person who engaged in these activities was not, quote, mentally sick and that those were, quote, common perversions, which were socially acceptable. And he even stated that Albert was no different than millions of other people and that even some prominent and successful individuals enjoyed coprophilia, erophilia, and pedophilia.

After a 10-day trial, Albert was found guilty and sane and sentenced to death. Jurors would later state that they had no doubt that Albert was indeed insane, but that they wanted him to be executed anyways. After about a year in prison, on January 16, 1936, Albert Fish was executed in the electric chair. Allegedly, Albert stated that he was excited to be electrocuted and even told the prison guards that being executed would be, quote, the supreme thrill, the only one I haven't tried, end quote.

When he was positioned in the electric chair, Albert allegedly even helped the executioner position the electrodes on his body. Albert's final statement before his execution was, quote, I don't even know why I'm here, end quote. Suddenly, a switch was flipped and Albert Fish was no more. That evening, a decade-long spree of terror suddenly came to a screeching halt, and the boogeyman was finally dead. Now, even though Albert Fish, in the eyes of the law, only killed three children, he himself claimed that he had murdered up to 100.

At one point, he even boasted that he had murdered a child in every state of America. And sadly, because he seemed to target children from minority backgrounds, children with mental disabilities, and children who lived in poverty, kids who, according to Albert, quote, wouldn't be missed. it's hard to know exactly how many kids he actually victimized, mutilated, and murdered. There's just simply no way to know. But from the confirmed crimes, we definitely know that Albert Fish was a monster, and in our opinion, Albert indeed could be the most depraved killer in American history. The boogeyman, the werewolf of Wisteria, the gray man, the moon maniac, the Brooklyn vampire. All of these names evoke thoughts and mental images.

of the darkest, most horrific creatures possible. And amongst these names, the name Albert Fish definitely belongs. Albert wasn't really a human. He was a monster. Only a person completely detached from reality, with no true sense of right or wrong, with a deeply disturbed and unstable mind could carry out the string of horrific crimes that Albert committed. And who knows how many victims this monster truly claimed?

How many sets of bones could still be out there, waiting for their eventual discovery. Personally, I didn't know that much about Albert Fish when I set out to write this episode. I mean, I knew a little bit about his crimes, but I didn't know what I know now. And now that I know all of this, this which you now know too, I wish I didn't. I really wish I could forget the details of these crimes, of the writings that Albert wrote, the letters he sent, completely wiped the story of these events from my memory. But I can't.

And that's exactly what the boogeyman is. The boogeyman isn't a real creature. The boogeyman isn't a tangible entity. The boogeyman is a concept. The idea of fear itself, of dread, disgust, danger, and terror, a thought that envelopes and grabs a hold of your brain and refuses to let go. And that's exactly what Albert Fish was and has become. He is the embodiment of evil.

His story still strikes terror into those who hear it, even almost a hundred years later. Even though he died through this story, he's still alive. He's still breathing. The fear is still there. And contrary to everything we've learned as adults, it seems like the boogeyman really is real. And he will never truly die. Hey, everybody, it's Colin here. As you might have heard last week, I was actually really, really sick. And now Courtney is starting to feel the exact same things that I was feeling. So she's losing her voice. I'm going to handle the outro here. And I handled the ads this week. Thank you all. for listening. I wrote this episode and I seriously could not believe how just dark and depraved this entire thing is. I mean, it's a really hard to process episode. I know a lot of you guys are going to come out of this shock by what you just heard me read. And I'm sorry that I had to do that to you, but that's just the facts of the case. That's what happened. I want to give a shout out to

all of our brand new patrons who joined us on Patreon this week, Katie Stovall, Jessica Warren, Andy, Bailey Dawson, Pedro Martinez, Taylor Beatty, Gavin Miller, Marco, Ashley, Rachel, Kimberly Alvarado, Annie, and Brandy Gutierrez. Wow, congrats everybody, and thank you for joining us on Patreon. We got exclusive episodes that you've never heard here, wherever you're listening to this, and we have a lot of cool things on there that you guys can go explore crime scene photos, and I love talking to all the patrons. If you guys don't follow us already on Instagram and Twitter. Go follow Murder in America. If you are enjoying the show, please take a screenshot of your screen and post it on your story. We're trying to grow this show organically. We don't have any money

on, you know, ads or anything. This is all you guys helping us bring this to life. But yeah, Courtney and I are actually in Houston. We're going to go visit AstroWorld in the next few days of Courtney's feeling up to it. And yeah, I am so happy, so blessed and just so grateful that all of you guys are out there and sorry we had to drop such a dark episode around Thanksgiving, but keep asking that question, everybody. The dead don't talk. Or do they? Happy Thanksgiving. We'll see you next Monday.