Serial Killers: Confessions of a Cannibal

by Robert Keller

  When all was ready I went to the window and called her. Then I hid in a 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 mamma.

  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 my 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 of had I wished. She died a virgin.”

  So horrific was this letter than King was at first tempted to disregard it as the ravings of some foul lunatic. Yet something about it bore the ring of authenticity. Its author had taken care to provide detail, the part about the pot cheese and strawberries, for example. Those minutiae were, of course, public knowledge, having been broadly reported in the press. But what about the address that had been mentioned – 409 East 100th Street? Was it mere coincidence that it fell within the direct locale the police had focused their search on in the aftermath of Grace Budd’s abduction? King didn’t think so, and he had one way of testing his theory. Drawing a copy of the Howard’s Western Union message to the Budds on June 2, 1928, he compared the handwriting to that in the letter. It did not take a professional graphologist to see that it was a match.

  Chapter Nine:

  To Catch A Killer

  The authenticity of the letter had been established, but other than proving that its author was a deeply depraved individual, it provided not a whole lot more, neither his identity nor his whereabouts. The envelope, though, was a different matter. On its back flap was a six-sided symbol, with the letters N.Y.P.C.B.A. arranged around it, one to each side. Underneath this emblem was a two-line address, which someone (presumably the anonymous sender) had attempted to obliterate. The second line, which read New York City, had been left in tact; the first had been scored through with an ink pen. Still, the job had been imperfectly done. Using a magnifying glass, Detective King was able to make out the words, “627 Lexington Avenue.”

  N.Y.P.C.B.A. as it turned out, stood for “New York Private Chauffer’s Benevolent Association.” After making a call to the union’s president, Arthur Ennis, King set out across town with the envelope in hand. Yes, Ennis said, the envelope was definitely official N.Y.P.C.B.A. stationary. However, he didn’t recognize the handwriting and hours spent scanning the registration forms of past and present members failed to turn up a match.

  Despite this setback, King was filled with an overwhelming conviction that he was finally close to cracking the case. He prevailed upon Ennis to call an emergency meeting of the association for the next day, something that Ennis was all too happy to do.

  Once the members were gathered on the following day, King stepped up to address them. He thanked them for coming in at such short notice, laid out the facts of the Budd case and explained how the letter and envelope had brought him to the N.Y.P.C.B.A. Then he made an appeal for information. Had any member removed stationary from the association’s offices? Did any member know of someone who might have done so? Much to King’s disappointment, nobody spoke up.

  The meeting was soon adjourned, leaving King frustrated at another promising lead that appeared to have hit a brick wall. Just as he was about to leave, however, a young man approached and timidly introduced himself as Lee Sicowski. He said that he had some information to share but had been too embarrassed to speak up in the general meeting. A few months earlier, Sicowski admitted, he’d taken a few sheets of writing paper and some envelopes from the office for personal use.

  King immediately perked up. Where were the items now, he wanted to know. Sicowski said that he’d used some of the stationary and had the rest at home. He then agreed to accompany the detective to the address, a rooming house on Lexington Avenue.

  Any hopes that King may have had of a quick resolution, however, were soon dashed. No one by the name of Frank Howard had signed the rooming house register, and neither the proprietor nor any of her staff recognized the description that King offered. Then another snippet of information occurred to Sicowski. He had taken the stationary before moving to this address, he said. Previously, he’d stayed at 200 East 52nd Street, Room 7. Had he left any N.Y.P.C.B.A. stationary in the room when he’d moved out, King wanted to know. Sicowski wasn’t sure, but thought he might have.

  King tried to temper his hopes as he drove towards the new address that Sicowski had given him. This was a complicated case and every lead he’d pursued so far had come to nothing. He warned himself to expect more disappointment. His sleuthing instincts though, were abuzz with anticipation. Maybe, just maybe, his quest was nearing an end.

  At the rooming house, landlady Frieda Schneider welcomed King in and listened intently to his story. Then, as he was describing his suspect, a peculiar expression came over her face. “Why, that sounds like Mr. Fish,” she said.

  “He lives here?” King asked.

  “Not any more, but he did. Moved out a few weeks ago.”

  This was disappointing news. Nonetheless, King pushed on. “Would you mind if I took a look at your register?” he asked.

  The landlady quickly produced the book, flipping it open to the entry signed Albert H. Fish. King then pulled the letter from his pocket and compared the handwriting. It was a match.

  “Now Mrs. Schneider,” he said, “This is very important. Did Mr. Fish give any indication as to where he was going after he checked out?”

  “He did not,” Mrs. Schneider said emphatically, “Although he did say that he would be by mid-December to see me. He has a son who sends him a check every month from North Carolina, you see. Mr. Fish asked me to hold it for him.”

  King’s next question caught the landlady by surprise. “Mrs. Schneider,” he asked, “Do you have a room that I might rent?”

  Over the weeks that followed King set up a round-the-clock stakeout of the rooming house. He himself took up residence in the house, occupying Room 7, the room previously inhabited by Lee Sicowski, and by Albert Fish. In the meanwhile, he traced Fish’s son to North Carolina, where he was working in the Civilian Conservation Corps, one of the programs set up under President Roosevelt’s New Deal. Making sure that Fish Jr. was not tipped off, King instructed the C.C.C. paymaster to let him know as soon as the next pay checks were mailed out. That call came on December 4, with an envelope addressed to Albert Fish intercepted at the Grand Central post office the following day.

  Days passed without Fish showing up at the boarding house to collect his mail. On December 13, Detective King was summoned to police headquarters to attend a meeting. He’d barely arrived when there was a frantic call from Mrs. Schneider. Fish was there!

  Asking the landlady to delay the old man for as long as possible, King returned immediately to 200 East 52nd Street. He arrived to find Fish seated at the kitchen table, sipping from a teacup. The old man was dressed in a mismatched outfit of striped trousers and tweed jacket. He wore a vest and tie. A black overcoat and a battered fedora rested on a chair.

  “You’re Albert Fish,” King said as he stepped into the room. It was a statement, not a question.

  The old man regarded him through watery eyes for a moment, then inclined his head slightly and pushed back his chair. He got slowly to his feet in a hunched, gargoyle-like maneuver. King crossed the room towards him but he’d barely taken a step when Fish reached into his vest pocket and came up bolding a razor blade. He slashed at King, but the detective easily evaded the blade’s arc and closed a meaty hand on Fish’s bony wrist. Fish let out a gasp of pain and slumped back into his chair. The razor blade went skittering across the floor.

  “I’ve got you now,” William King said triumphantly.

  Chapter Ten:

  The Dreadful Truth

  Fish was driven back to police headquarters, where he was taken to the office of Captain John G. Stein, head of the Missing Persons Bureau, for his initial interrogation. That interrogation was to be
conducted by Detective King himself. King could hardly believe that the man seated before him now, five-and-a-half feet and perhaps 130 pounds of shrunken, wrinkled human being, was the criminal who had eluded him for over six years.

  Albert Fish with his nemesis, Detective William King

  He started off by producing the letter that had been sent to the Budds, showing it to Fish and asking if he had written it. Fish immediately acknowledged that he had. Then King showed Fish the telegram sent to the Budds in June 1928 by a man claiming to be Frank Howard. Was he the author of that too? Yes, Fish admitted.

  Years as an interrogator had taught William King exactly how to pace his questions. Sensing that Fish might be willing to confess all, he went in for the kill. “Are you the man who kidnapped Grace Budd?” he asked Fish directly.

  “I don’t know anything about that,” Fish shot back.

  “You mean to tell me,” King said. “That although you admit posing as Frank Howard, and although Frank Howard removed Grace from her parent’s home, you know nothing about it?”

  “I wasn’t there,” Fish insisted.

  “But you were there, Mr. Fish. Albert and Delia Budd will be able to identify you, as will their son Edward and his friend Willie Korman, as will Reuben Rosoff, the vendor who sold you the pail you used to carry pot cheese to the Budds. How about I put you in a lineup and see if they can pick you out?”

  Fish looked back at the detective, his runny eyes making it appear as if he was about to start crying. He said nothing.

  “Fine,” King said eventually. “I’ll go see about that lineup.” He turned and started walking towards the door. He’d barely taken three steps when Fish stopped him.

  “Wait,” Fish said. King turned around to face him. “I’m the man who took Grace Budd,” Fish said. “I took her from her home on June 3, 1928. I brought her to Westchester and I killed her that same afternoon.”

  King walked back across the room and dropped himself into the chair behind his captain’s desk. He pulled up a notepad and dipped his pen into the ink well as Fish started talking, his matter-of-fact tone belying the horrendous tale he had to tell.

  According to Fish he had never intended on killing Grace. His original target had been Edward Budd, whose classified advertisement had brought him to the Budd residence. The plan had been to lure Edward to an abandoned house in Westchester, where he would overpower and bind him. He would then slice off the boy’s penis before departing the scene, leaving him to bleed to death. Fish gave no explanation for why he intended carrying out this seemingly pointless crime and King didn’t ask. He was more interested in what had happened to Grace Budd.

  Fish then spoke about his first visit to the Budd’s apartment. How disappointed he’d been when he’d seen how tall and strongly built Edward was. Still, he was determined to go through with his plan, confident that the element of surprise would give him the upper hand. But then Willie Korman had come into the equation and Fish had seriously considered backing out. He’d come so far, though, that it seemed a pity to walk away. He decided instead to go ahead as planned. All he had to do was separate the boys. He felt confident that he could do so. “I have some experience in these things,” he chuckled.

  As he continued with his preparations, Fish had purchased the enamel pail from Rueben Rosoff and had also bought three items from Sobel’s pawnshop, a cleaver, a saw and a butcher’s knife.

  On the morning of Sunday, June 3, 1928, Fish set off for the Budd residence with his butchering tools wrapped in a piece of red-and-white canvas. On route, he stopped off to buy the pot cheese and strawberries that he’d later gift to Delia Budd. He’d also stopped at a newsstand where he’d left the package for later retrieval. Then he’d walked the short distance to the Budd residence.

  Edward had not been home when Fish arrived, but Mrs. Budd had invited him to stay to lunch. It was while enjoying that meal that Grace Budd had walked into the room and everything had changed. He decided there and then that it was she, and not her brother, that he wanted to kill. How though? How was he to lure her away?

  With a cunning typical of the predator that he was, Fish quickly concocted a story. Sending Grace away to buy candy for her and her sister, he told her parents about the children’s party he was due to attend. Then, as though the idea had just occurred to him, he suggested that Grace might accompany him. The Budds had wavered for a moment and Fish had thought they might say no. But then Albert Budd had given his permission and Delia had buckled and said yes too. Fish was astounded at how easily they had allowed their daughter to go off with a total stranger.

  After leaving the Budd residence Fish walked with Grace to the El station on 9th Avenue. There they boarded a train for Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx, where they switched to a train bound for Van Cortlandt Park. Disembarking, Fish led the little girl to the Putnam Division ticket office. He bought a return to Westchester for himself. For Grace, he purchased a one-way ticket.

  During the twenty-minute journey, Grace sat staring out of the window, seemingly entranced by the lush greenery of the countryside. As a city girl in 1920s New York, she would seldom have seen such openness. They disembarked in the town of Worthington in Westchester, where Fish was so wrapped up in what was to come that he left his package behind on the train. It was Grace who alerted him to the mistake, then quickly dashed back to retrieve the instruments of her own destruction.

  His parcel now safely tucked under his arm, Fish took Grace by the hand and set off on foot along Saw Mill River Parkway. The day was stiflingly hot and when Fish asked whether Grace wanted to take off her hat and coat she said yes. Taking these items from her, he folded the coat and placed it and the hat atop his bundle. Up ahead the road branched and Fish veered left. The path bent and became steeper. A half mile up it passed the Cudney farm, where old Mrs. Cudney stood tinkering with a fence post. Fish tipped his hat to her.

  Eventually, their destination loomed before them, a place pre-selected by Fish, who knew the area well. The two-storey clapboard house sat on a small incline, some thirty feet back from the road. It was surrounded on three sides by dense woodland, on the fourth by a steep hill. A small wooden outhouse stood some fifty feet up that hill. The place could not have been more isolated. Locals called it Wisteria Cottage.

  Wisteria Cottage

  It was now three o’clock in the afternoon. Leaving Grace to play among the wildflowers in the garden, Fish walked towards the house then skirted around the back of it. He found a large flat stone and lifted it, placed Grace’s hat and coat under it and allowed the stone to drop back into place. Then he spotted an empty paint can lying in the grass and walked over to retrieve it, carrying it into the house with him.

  Inside, the place was musty and damp, the bare floorboards strewn with mouse droppings. Wallpaper peeled from the walls like fetid streamers while the windowpanes were encrusted with so much grime that the sun’s power was considerably muted, throwing the rooms into a sort of twilight.

  Fish climbed the stairs to the second floor and walked to a bedroom that overlooked the front yard. Through the window he could see Grace playing in the yard, picking wildflowers and arranging them into a bouquet.

  Crouching beside the window, Fish placed his parcel on the floor and undid the string securing it. Then he rolled out the canvas and removed the iems held within – a butcher’s knife, a meat cleaver and a saw, his so-called “implements of hell.” These he arranged neatly on the bare floorboards. Then he began removing his clothes, dropping them in a pile. The body beneath was grizzled and skeletal, with white tufts of hair on his slightly concave chest and semi-erect penis. He stood naked and breathless in the room for a moment, before opening the window a crack and calling out to Grace, summoning her to the upper floor.

  Moments later, Fish heard the front door creak open and the sound of the child’s footsteps clip-clopping up the stairs. At the second floor landing she paused, gaining her bearings. It was then that Fish stepped naked into the passage.

&n
bsp; At the sight of the naked old man, Grace froze, her eyes widening in surprise and terror. Then she started screaming. “I’ll tell momma!” she yelled as she dropped the bouquet of flowers and turned back towards the stairs. Fish, though, was faster. Grabbing the screaming girl by the throat, he squeezed down hard, cutting off her air supply, dragging her into the empty room.

  Grace kicked and scratched, tried to wriggle free. But the old man was surprisingly strong. His bony fingers tightened their grip on the girl’s throat. He pulled her to the floor and got on top of her, digging his knees into her chest. Both of his hands had now found a grip on Grace’s throat and he squeezed down hard even as the child’s struggles subsided and her eyes bulged open and then glazed over. A final breath escaped her as he relaxed his grip. Grace Budd was dead. Albert Fish squatted over her, his breaths coming in short, sharp inhalations, his erect penis pushing against his lower belly.

  Fish remained only a moment in that position. He had work to do. Fetching the paint bucket he’d earlier found in the yard, he positioned it under Grace’s head. Then he used his butchering instruments to decapitate the child, using the paint bucket to catch the blood that gushed from her neck.