The Story Of Grace Budd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                   The story of Grace Budd is also that of Albert Fish, who, when paths collided, ended her life in this residence, known as Wisteria Cottage, located in Westchester, New York.  Grace is not the Bitch Of The Week; she is the victim.  Albert Fish, who should be accorded a higher position in Serial Killer History, for his depravity, is, hands down the winner of this week's Raving Queen Bitch Of The Week Award.

                                     He started out bad.  Born to a semi-respectable family in Washington D.C. on May 19, 1870, many of his relations were mentally ill.  His mother had auditory and visual hallucinations.

                                     His mother, Ellen, and father, Randall, were 43 years apart.  When Albert was born, Randall was 75.  Randall died at 80, when Albert was 5, so his mother placed him in St. John's Orphanage. Of course, over time, John began to enjoy the abuse, sometimes sporting erections during beatings.  The other boys laughed.  His depravity was just beginning.

                                      Four years later, his mother came and took him out of there.  It might have been a mistake.  Because, during this time he hooked up with some teen or young adult telegraph boy, who taught him all sorts of nasties--like drinking urine, and eating feces!  I know, EWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I would love to know the history of this young man; I bet he is an unacknowledged member of Serial Killer Legacy, whose crimes are not known.

                                         Albert arrived in New York City,  in 1890, working as a painter.   There had been crimes and victims over the years that had gone unnoticed.  One was the son of a Staten Island policeman, a Port Richmond boy named Francis McConnell  His parents reported him missing on July 24, 1924.  His body was later found, hanging from a tree, in a nearby woods.  He stripped the boy of some of his flesh, and was going to castrate him, when he heard noise, and stopped.

                                             Nice, huh?

Fish's "crowning achievement," if one can call it that, was his murder of Grace Budd, in the  house pictured above.  On May 25, 1928, Fish saw an ad by a young man, requesting to do farm work in the country.  It appeared in "The New York World," Sunday edition.  Fish decided to answer the ad, and visited Delia and Albert Budd, meeting Edward, at their home on 406 West 15th Street, in Manhattan.

He was immediately taken with Edward, who requested to bring his friend, Willie.  After meeting Willie, Fish, posing as a grandfatherly type, named Frank Howard, at 58, had intended to make both boys his victims, but when Grace walked into the room, all that changed.  As he would later say, recalling that moment, "I wanted to eat her."

Fish managed to ditch the boys, but, several days after this visit, returned and requested of Albert and Delia Budd to allow him to take Grace to his niece's birthday party in Manhattan on Columbus Avenue and 135th Street.  Delia was smart, and hesitated, but Albert persuaded her to let Grace go; it would do her good.  How sad and guilt ridden those parents must have been, the rest of their lives.  They never saw Grace again.

Columbus Avenue ends on 110th Street.  There was no such address.  Still feeling she was with a benign, grandfatherly sort, Grace accompanied her killer to a cottage in Westchester, called Wisteria.  He told her to play outside, until he called for her.  While Grace picked flowers, allegedly a "gift" for the "birthday girl," Fish hid in a closet upstairs, removing all his clothes, as he did not want them covered with Grace's blood.  Then he called Grace.

Imagine going upstairs, into a room, shutting a door, and seeing a depraved, naked man leap out of the closet and lunge at you!  Frightened, but smart, Grace screamed and ran down the stairs, but, even at 58, Fish was too fast for her.  He grabbed her, strangled her, stripped her, and then, over a period of nine days, proceeded to eat her body.   In 1934, he actually wrote a letter to the Budds, adding to their torment, detailing what he did to Grace, and what became of her.  His last words were his idea of graciousness, but get this--"I did not fuck her, though I could, had I wished.  She died a virgin."

Yeah, real comfort to grieving parents

Fish was eventually arrested in a rooming house at 200 East 52nd Street.  He denied nothing.  The trial began on March 11, 1935, in White Plains, New York.  This sicko actually admitted that while strangling Grace, he involuntarily ejaculated twice.  Murder for him was sexual.

None of the jurors felt Fish was insane, but deserved the death penalty for what he did, and he was given that sentence.  On January 16, 1936, he died in "the chair," at Sing Sing.  He was buried in the cemetery there.

  

Aside from the lifelong sadness of the Budd families, it was never known how many other families this had been done to, by Fish, as well.

I had vaguely recalled the name, but it never comes to the forefront of serial killers.   A friend mentioned Stephen King had based Fish's deeds for some of Pennywise, The Clown, but I wondered if he inspired Alice Sebold to create George Harvey, while writing "The Lovely Bones."  And certainly one can claim his influence on Hannibal Lecter.

Burn in Hell, you scum!      And may Grace and the others whose life you took find the peace and happiness that eluded them, on Earth!