In November 1934, Delia Budd received an unsigned letter describing in graphic detail how her ten-year-old daughter Grace had been abducted, killed, and eaten six years earlier. The letter to Grace Budd’s mother was written by Albert Fish, a 64-year-old house painter who had introduced himself to the family in 1928 as “Frank Howard.” Its envelope carried a small insignia that let detectives trace it back to him, and its contents became the central exhibit at the trial that sent him to the electric chair.
What the Letter Said
Fish wrote the letter on or around November 11, 1934. It was unsigned and bore no return address. It opened with a fabricated story about a friend named “John” who had supposedly acquired a taste for human flesh during an 1894 famine in China — a claim with no basis in fact and considered a product of Fish’s delusions.1Wikisource. Albert Fish Letter
From there Fish turned to Grace. He described arriving at the Budd apartment on June 3, 1928, carrying pot cheese and strawberries. He wrote that Grace “sat in my lap and kissed me” and that he “made up my mind to eat her.” He described taking her by train to an empty house in Westchester County, instructing her to pick wildflowers outside while he went upstairs and stripped naked to avoid staining his clothes. When Grace came in and saw him, he wrote, “she began to cry and tried to run down the stairs.” He described strangling her, dismembering the body with a handsaw, and roasting and eating her flesh over the following nine days.1Wikisource. Albert Fish Letter2People. He Ate a 10-Year-Old, Then Wrote Her Parents
How Fish Had Reached the Family
The letter’s details tracked a chain of events that had begun with a newspaper ad. In May 1928, eighteen-year-old Edward Budd placed a classified in the Sunday New York World seeking country work and listing the family’s address at 406 West 15th Street. Fish answered it. He later told Detective William F. King that his original plan was to lure Edward somewhere remote and kill him.3SerialKillerCalendar.com. Albert Fish
Visiting the family on May 28, 1928, Fish presented himself as Frank Howard, a retired interior decorator with a farm in Farmingdale, Long Island. Both were inventions.4The New York Times. Budd Girl’s Body Found; Killed by Painter in 1928; Slayer Trapped On the first visit he met Grace and shifted his target to her. Between visits he bought a cleaver, a saw, and a butcher knife.3SerialKillerCalendar.com. Albert Fish
On June 3, Fish returned and asked Delia’s permission to take Grace to a birthday party for his niece at Columbus Avenue and 137th Street. There was no niece and no party. He took Grace by train to Wisteria Cottage, an abandoned eight-room house in Worthington Woods, a sparsely populated hamlet between Elmsford and Ardsley. Fish later confessed that he strangled Grace on the second floor, dismembered her with a handsaw, buried the remains behind the house, and ate portions of her flesh over nine days.2People. He Ate a 10-Year-Old, Then Wrote Her Parents4The New York Times. Budd Girl’s Body Found; Killed by Painter in 1928; Slayer Trapped
Detective King of the NYPD’s Missing Persons Bureau ran the investigation and refused to let it go cold, but for six years no lead produced a suspect.2People. He Ate a 10-Year-Old, Then Wrote Her Parents
Why Fish Wrote It
Asked later why he had mailed a confession to the victim’s mother knowing it could lead to his capture, Fish said he was unsure but noted he had always possessed a “mania for writing.” Dr. Frederic Wertham, the psychiatrist who later examined him most extensively, concluded that Fish had acted on every recognized sexual abnormality of his era and treated the letter as another expression of the same compulsions.5AIAFS. Article: Albert Fish Fish had written a separate letter to the mother of Billy Gaffney, a four-year-old who vanished in Brooklyn in 1927, claiming he had tortured and eaten the boy as well.2People. He Ate a 10-Year-Old, Then Wrote Her Parents
How the Envelope Led Police to Him
The letter itself was unsigned, but the envelope was not anonymous. It bore the insignia of the New York Private Chauffeurs’ Benevolent Association. Detectives questioned the association’s members and learned that one member had left a supply of the envelopes behind at a boarding house where he used to live. They then compared the handwriting on the letter with names in the boarding house register. The match pointed to Albert Fish.6Oxygen. How Albert Fish Was Caught for Grace Budd’s Murder
King learned that a $25 check addressed to Fish’s son had arrived at a rooming house at 200 East Fifty-second Street on December 5, 1934. He staked out the building. At 1:00 p.m. on December 13, Fish walked in to collect the money, and King arrested him.4The New York Times. Budd Girl’s Body Found; Killed by Painter in 1928; Slayer Trapped
After two hours of questioning, Fish confessed. He told Acting Captain John Stein: “It makes my conscience feel better now that you have found her. I’m glad I told everything.” Police noted that he spoke without emotion. The next day Fish led investigators back to Wisteria Cottage, where they recovered a skull near a stone wall along with other remains. Medical examiner Dr. Amos O. Squire said identification would likely depend on dental work.4The New York Times. Budd Girl’s Body Found; Killed by Painter in 1928; Slayer Trapped
What the Letter Proved at Trial
Fish’s trial for the murder of Grace Budd ran from March 11 to March 22, 1935, in White Plains, New York. Judge Frederick P. Close presided. Elbert T. Gallagher and Thomas D. Scoble prosecuted; James Dempsey and Frank J. Mahony defended.7Encyclopedia.com. Albert Fish Trial 1935
Fish did not deny writing the letter or killing Grace. The only question left for the jury was whether he had been legally insane. The letter to Delia Budd was entered into evidence and became the most notorious exhibit in the case. Grace’s father, Albert Budd, identified Fish in court and tried to strike him before being restrained.2People. He Ate a 10-Year-Old, Then Wrote Her Parents
Three defense psychiatrists testified that Fish met the legal definition of insanity. Dr. Frederic Wertham, senior psychiatrist at Bellevue Hospital, told the court: “He does not know the character and quality of his acts. He does not know right from wrong. He is insane now and was insane before.”7Encyclopedia.com. Albert Fish Trial 1935 Dr. Smith Ely Jelliffe called the killing a “religious ritual” in Fish’s mind and testified that Fish believed he was acting under divine command. Dr. Henry A. Riley, a professor of neurology at Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, agreed. All three said Fish was not faking. Jelliffe told the jury that “men cannot manufacture a psychosis, any more than they can simulate a case of typhoid fever.”8The New York Times. Fish Held Insane by Three Experts
The prosecution turned the letter’s own precision against the insanity defense. Under the M’Naghten Rule, the state had to show only that Fish understood the nature of his act or knew it was wrong. Gallagher argued that Fish’s careful planning and his efforts to conceal the crime demonstrated exactly that. “If this defendant were operating under psychosis,” he asked the jury, “how could he tell you all of the details about the killing of this girl?” The state’s four psychiatrists included Dr. Charles Lambert, who described Fish as a “psychopathic personality without a psychosis.”7Encyclopedia.com. Albert Fish Trial 1935
On March 22, 1935, the jury found Fish sane and guilty of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to death.7Encyclopedia.com. Albert Fish Trial 1935
Execution
Fish arrived at Sing Sing on March 25, 1935. He was executed on the evening of January 16, 1936, entering the death chamber at 11:06 p.m. with his hands clasped in prayer, accompanied by the prison’s Protestant chaplain, Reverend Anthony Petersen. He made no final statement and was pronounced dead at 11:09 p.m.9The New York Times. Slayer of Budd Girl Dies in Electric Chair
A man who had gone six years without being identified was caught because he could not stop himself from putting his crimes on paper and mailing them to the mother of the child he had killed.