Hamilton Howard Fish: The Twisted Life and Gruesome Crimes of a Serial Killer

Early Life

• Hamilton Howard Fish, nicknamed 'Albert' after dead sibling, avoiding nickname Ham n Eggs
• Father was 43 years older than mother
• Family history of mental illness, uncle with mania, brother in state hospital, sister with 'mental affliction', mother had auditory and visual hallucinations, 3 other diagnosed relatives
• Father died of a heart attack, was put in orphanage, subject to harsh treatment
• Left at age 9 when mother got government job
• Started first relationship at 12, kinky stuff
• Went to New York and became a prostitute at age 20, began raping young boys

Mental Well-being

• In 1898, married a woman arranged by his mother
• Worked as a house painter, continued rape/molestation
• Became obsessed with sexual mutilation
• In 1903, arrested for grand larceny
• In 1917, wife left him and he had to raise six children on his own
• Began to have auditory hallucinations and hear religious messages
• Self-harm with needles in groin, began eating/serving raw meat to his children
• Raped and mutilated many

Murders and Execution

• In 1919, stabbed intellectually disabled boy, first known technical murder
• Chose mentally handicapped, black people, and children because they wouldn't be missed
• Used 'implements of hell' - meat cleaver, butcher knife, small handsaw
• In 1924, attempted to kidnap Beatrice Kiel, both mom and dad chased him away two different times
• Felt that God was commanding him to torture and sexually mutilate children
• Remarried in 1930, divorced after one week, arrested for writing obscene letters to maid advertisements in paper
• In 1931, sent to psychiatric hospital for evaluation
• Answered ad written by Edward Budd seeking employment
• Visited the Budds to hire Edward but actually wanted to murder him
• Met his 10-year-old daughter Grace and decided to kill her instead
• Made up story about his niece's birthday party, brought Grace to it
• Instead he took her to an abandoned house and killed and ate her
• In 1934, he wrote a letter to her parents describing what he did to her (traced back to Fish)
• Used stationary left in boarding house from someone who stayed before him, able to identify from guest list
• 2 new victims discovered after arrest
• Francis McDonnell was found sexually assaulted and strangled with his suspenders, left hamstring stripped of flesh
• Billy Gaffney there was nothing found but he was missing and Fish wrote letter to his lawyer about eating the boy
• He was questioned by Billy's mother, wept and refused to answer, she never believed he was her son's killer
• Trial began March 11, 1935
• Found sane and guilty
• Death sentence
• Executed by electric chair Jan 16, 1936 at Sing Sing correctional in New York
• 'I don't even know why I'm here'