August 1, 2017 ▸ People, True Crime

Episode 219: Albert Fish: The Werewolf of Wysteria

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On this episode of The Sofa King Podcast, we talk about the crimes of a man who is perhaps the sickest serial killer we’ve ever covered: Albert Fish. We want to warn you that this episode is not for the faint of heart—this is truly horrible stuff! Read on at your own peril. Fish was one of the most brutal people in history, and he is considered the prototypical serial killer, from his sexual fetishes to his delusions and even his very creative cannibalism (which he even left recipes for…).

Albert Fish was born in 1870 in Washington, DC. His father was forty-three years older than his mother, and he had a heart attack when Albert was very young. His newly single mother had to send her children to an orphanage until she could find work, which took several years. During these formative years, experts think that Fish was exposed to beatings, cruelty, and even sexual abuse, creating the madman that he later became.

When Albert moved back in with his mom, he was ten years old, and by the age of twelve he had his first boyfriend, and he started to enjoy consuming urine and feces as part of his sexual discovery. By the age of 19, he had moved to New York, where he became a male prostitute and started to really go off the rails. In spite of an arranged marriage and several children, he preferred to have sex with men and children and never seemed to care for his wife. According to his own confessions, he was raping young boys this entire time.

In 1917, his wife left him for a handyman who rented a room in their house, and Albert was suddenly a single father. He also went totally insane, thinking God was talking to him. During this time, he started to beat himself with a paddle full of nails, stick needles in his abdomen and groin, and eat human flesh. (Like you do…) Soon, he started to abduct and rape children, often mentally ill and African Americans, so there wouldn’t be social outcry if they went missing. He raped and killed an unknown number of people, and he often mutilated and tortured them first.

He finally got busted when he sent a bizarre letter to the mother of one his victims. How did the police track Albert Fish using only the letter? What horrible things did he tell the victim’s mother, and how did it involved China, a steamer ship, and cannibalism? How many other murders did eyewitnesses link him to after the Budd killing? Why does he call genitalia “Monkeys and pee-wees,” and what human recipes did he write his attorney about? Listen, laugh, learn.

Link of images about Albert Fish: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/1928-murder-grace-budd-albert-fish-gallery-1.1277430