Albert's Rented Room

The Killer: Hamilton Howard "Albert" Fish (May 19, 1870-January 16, 1936) was an American serial killer and child molester who killed at least three children and was suspected of ten additional murders. Fish was put into an orphanage when his father passed away in 1875. While there, he was physically abused and, when he rejoined his mother five years later, he had grown to enjoy the pain inflicted upon him. At the age of 20, Fish moved to New York City where he married a woman his mother had picked out for him. Together, they had six children. After his wife left him in 1917, Fish began embedding needles into his groin and abdomen areas. By 1927, Fish was employed as a house painter by a Brooklyn real estate company and moved to a small rooming house at 55 E. 128th Street in Harlem. In 1928, Fish saw a newspaper ad stating that a young man named Edward Budd wanted to find work in a rural part of New York. Fish visited the Budd family under the pretence of hiring Edward, but after meeting Edward's younger sister, 10-year-old Grace Budd, he lied about having to attend a niece's birthday party. After Grace's parents gave him permission to take their daughter to the party, Fish took Grace to an abandoned house where he strangled her, decapitated her, dismembered her, and ate her remains over the next few days. After his arrest and subsequent execution, Fish became known as "The Werewolf of Wysteria."