Albert Fish

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Albert Fish 1903

Albert Fish (born May 19, 1870 in Washington, DC as Hamilton Howard Fish , † January 16, 1936 in Sing Sing , Ossining ) was an American serial killer .

Career

Albert Fish came from a mentally ill family. Closer examination revealed seven relatives with severe mental disorders in two generations. Two of his uncles died in psychiatric hospitals, his mother suffered from hallucinations , one brother was insane (he died of hydrocephalus ), another was an alcoholic, and his sister went mad . Fish lost his father when he was five years old. The subsequent sole care by the mother overwhelmed her, so that Albert took her to a children's home, where he was subjected to torture by the carers. Fish later testified that these assaults had aroused him sexually and that he realized that he was sadomasochistic .

Fish's later great role model was the serial killer Fritz Haarmann . He was fascinated by Haarmann's actions and collected everything he could get about Haarmann. He was married and had six children, but was prone to homosexuality . That is why his victims were mostly male.

Criminal career

Fish's murderous career began in 1910 with the murder of a man in Wilmington. Fish is believed to have committed several murders in the years that followed. He has been arrested several times but has never been in prison for long. In 1928, Fish kidnapped and murdered 10-year-old Grace Budd after finding access to the Budd family under the pseudonym Frank Howard. Allegedly to offer the 18-year-old brother of the later victim a job on his farm (which did not exist) on Long Island. Under the pretext of taking the child to a party, he took her on the train to Greenburgh, where he overpowered her in an empty house, Wistaria Cottage. Fish was arrested on December 13, 1934, after writing a letter to the child's mother a month earlier, six years after the murder, and was convicted. The case gained a high degree of publicity , especially due to Fish's behavior during the night . He had strangled and beheaded the victim, boiled the severed body parts and consumed them as a meal for several days.

The trial of Fish took place in 1935. The exact number of his murders could not be determined. The guess ranges from at least 16 to over 100 murders. Several psychiatrists commented on Fish's sexual fetishes , including a. Masochism , coprophagia , pedophilia , out, but disagreed as to whether he could be considered insane. The main defense witness was Fredric Wertham , a psychiatrist who specialized in child development. He stated that he thought Fish was insane and therefore not sane. However, the court found him sane and he was sentenced to death on March 25, 1935 .

The sentence was carried out on January 16, 1936 in the electric chair . According to his personality, Fish was excited about the judgment and described it as “joy”, as it was the “only shiver” that he “had not yet savored”.

literature

  • Harold Schechter: Deranged. Simon & Schuster, New York 1990.
  • Colin Wilson , Patricia Pitman: Encyclopedia of Murder. Pan Books Ltd., London 1984.
  • Colin Wilson: Written in Blood. Grafton Books, London 1989.
  • Reinhard Haller : “The completely normal evil. Why people kill. "

Movies, Music & Computer Games

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Special to THE NEW YORK TIMES: FISH IS SENTENCED; ADMITS NEW CRIMES; Death in Electric Chair Fixed for Week of April 29 - Move to Set Aside Verdict Denied. In: The New York Times . March 26, 1935, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed December 6, 2019]).
personal data
SURNAME Fish, Albert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fish, Hamilton Howard (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American serial killer
DATE OF BIRTH May 19, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Washington, DC
DATE OF DEATH January 16, 1936
Place of death Sing Sing , Ossining