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Speaker 5: Maybe you are now listening to True Murder, The most
Speaker 5: shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that
Speaker 5: have written about them. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Night Stalker BTK.
Speaker 5: Every week, another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
Speaker 5: and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with
Speaker 5: your host journalist and author Dan Zupanski, Good Evening.
Speaker 6: On December thirteenth, nineteen thirty four, Albert Fish was apprehended
Speaker 6: by Detective William King for the kidnapping and murdered of
Speaker 6: ten year old Grace Bud. Fish's defense attorney obtained the
Speaker 6: services of doctor Frederick Wordham for Fish's psychiatric examination. Doctor
Speaker 6: Wordham's files were ordered closed until two thousand and ten.
Speaker 6: Documents from Wordham's files, including confessions and writings by Albert Fish,
Speaker 6: are published here for the very first time in history,
Speaker 6: fully illustrated. Including confessions and other writings, includes never before
Speaker 6: seen documents handwritten by Albert Fish. Fish's own story of
Speaker 6: Weird Life, written by Albert Fish for the New York
Speaker 6: Daily Mere newspaper, from the files of doctor Wurdham, Fish's
Speaker 6: psychiatric examination and Rorschach test results Masks Have No Ears
Speaker 6: from doctor Frederick Wordham's book, The Show of Violence also
Speaker 6: includes court documents, correspondence, Grace Budd and Billy Gaffney, confessions,
Speaker 6: newspaper excerpts, photographs, and Fish's vile letters. That we're featuring
Speaker 6: this evening is Albert Fish in his own words, with
Speaker 6: my special guest, filmmaker and author John Barrowsky. Welcome to
Speaker 6: the program, and thank you very much for green to
Speaker 6: this interview. John Barowski, Hi, thanks.
Speaker 2: For having me on. And yeah, I think you know,
Speaker 2: Fish's case is definitely the most shocking. I mean, obviously
Speaker 2: these you know, serial killers are all pretty brutal, but
Speaker 2: to me personally, Fish is the most depraved, deranged and
Speaker 2: you know, just pretty much the one that would give
Speaker 2: me nightmares.
Speaker 6: Sure, we're going to find that out in the next hour.
Speaker 6: All about that from your fascinating book, Albert Fish in
Speaker 6: his own words. Now, just as the Indian in the introduction,
Speaker 6: we talked about that doctor Wurdham's files were ordered closed
Speaker 6: until twenty ten, So since nineteen thirty five till twenty ten,
Speaker 6: incredible amount of time. Tell us how you became in
Speaker 6: a position to know about this and why. Again, you've
Speaker 6: just alluded to why you would want to write this book,
Speaker 6: But tell us how you became in a position to
Speaker 6: write this book, and how you knew about the files
Speaker 6: being released in twenty ten. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 6: about that.
Speaker 2: Sure, Well, my film on Albert Fish was released be
Speaker 2: Leave around two thousand and seven, and you know, I
Speaker 2: had always been fascinated with the case. It was a
Speaker 2: follow up to my first film on HH. Holmes, America's
Speaker 2: first serial killer. And once again, after I had made Holmes,
Speaker 2: you know, no one had made a film on AHH. Holmes,
Speaker 2: and I was thinking of my second topic, and I
Speaker 2: heard about Albert Fish, of course, and thought, once again,
Speaker 2: why didn't anyone make the film up this guy? I mean,
Speaker 2: it's fascinating. These early true crime stories are extremely fascinating.
Speaker 2: And that's why when I created my documentary feature films
Speaker 2: there focusing on pre nineteen forties serial killers, usually because
Speaker 2: of the lack of forensics, how long they may have
Speaker 2: gotten away with these crimes. So after I finished the film,
Speaker 2: which there was a there was research available. While I
Speaker 2: was making the film, there were books on Fish and
Speaker 2: other information. And then of course from my film, I
Speaker 2: had interviewed experts and filmed some location footage of whatever's
Speaker 2: left since Fish and time period, and I had found
Speaker 2: out online that I had done researching, of course with
Speaker 2: doctor Wortham's files, and I had found out online that
Speaker 2: there were a portion of this files regarding Albert Fish
Speaker 2: that were sealed until twenty ten. So once twenty ten
Speaker 2: rolled around, of course I wanted to know what was
Speaker 2: in these sealed files, and there was a wealth of information. Everything,
Speaker 2: as you stated in the opening from Fish's Rorshach test,
Speaker 2: where interestingly enough but not surprising. Everything he basically saw
Speaker 2: on the ink blots was you know, an ass or
Speaker 2: a penis or things that he was fascinated by, you know,
Speaker 2: being into smm man, you know, cannibalizing museum children in
Speaker 2: the nineteen twenties in New York City. But there were
Speaker 2: also many other writings. There were confessions that Fish wrote
Speaker 2: in his own handwriting that I had never read before,
Speaker 2: and they had never been published. They were a little
Speaker 2: difficult to read because his handwriting was not easy to read,
Speaker 2: so I hired a transcriptionist to transcribe all of his letters.
Speaker 2: So throughout the book, there'll be a letter from Albert
Speaker 2: Fish and the transcription making it easy for readers to read.
Speaker 2: But when I published my books on true crime, I
Speaker 2: do like to release the original files from my research
Speaker 2: because many authors write books, you know, on serial killers,
Speaker 2: and they give their own opinion. Some of them even
Speaker 2: say they're factual and they're true crime books. But some
Speaker 2: of these books, I've found things that were created, which
Speaker 2: you know, through my research, I could never find where
Speaker 2: they found these items that they added to the books.
Speaker 2: So there I found out that their true crime books
Speaker 2: weren't one hundred percent true. So that's why again, when
Speaker 2: you're looking at original case files, you know, I don't
Speaker 2: think you get you know, more truth than that. Sure,
Speaker 2: sometimes you know, the confessions maybe lies, but you know,
Speaker 2: I really don't put many newspaper excerpts in my books
Speaker 2: because once again, you know, the further back you go,
Speaker 2: the newspapers are kind of like the National Inquirer, and
Speaker 2: you really can't put too much research emphasis, you know,
Speaker 2: on those they were sensational, you know, so and I figured,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, get these scans of you know,
Speaker 2: all of these documents and put this book together. So
Speaker 2: other researchs you know, could have all this material basically
Speaker 2: in one book without having to go to the Library
Speaker 2: of Condress or go to all these historical societies, you know,
Speaker 2: or between twenty and thirty dollars. You've got all this
Speaker 2: information in the book. And you know, some people may say, well,
Speaker 2: it's just the true crime case styles, but once again,
Speaker 2: you know, you can't find any other book that has
Speaker 2: these materials in there. You have to do research, request materials,
Speaker 2: paid for copies, and that's pretty expensive. Like my first
Speaker 2: book on AHH. Holmes and strange case of doctor at Holmes.
Speaker 2: You know, I had many of those books, you know, scanned,
Speaker 2: and you know I paid hundreds of dollars, you know,
Speaker 2: to have all that information, and you know you can't
Speaker 2: find especially like AH Holmes, some of those books were
Speaker 2: from you know, the late eighteen hundreds. It's pretty much
Speaker 2: impossible to actually find a copy of those. And through
Speaker 2: my diligent research, like for Homes, I had found the
Speaker 2: actual one of the actual original Homes title casebook and
Speaker 2: then Holmes' own story throwing two copies in the world
Speaker 2: that are still in existence, one at the Library of
Speaker 2: Congress and one at a Toronto library. So you know,
Speaker 2: again The whole idea is to share my research, you know,
Speaker 2: after you know I've made films on these serial killers.
Speaker 2: The last biography I did of a serial killer was
Speaker 2: Carl pans Ram, and that's going to be my next book,
Speaker 2: but it's going to focus on his time at Leavenworth
Speaker 2: because interestingly enough, when you read the only book that's
Speaker 2: available one only book that's available on Carl pans Ram,
Speaker 2: which was written by Thomas Gaddis, who also wrote The
Speaker 2: Birdman of Alcatraz and then Jim Long, when you read
Speaker 2: that book, the whole second half of the book was
Speaker 2: based on Robert Stroud's writings on Carl pans Ram. Because
Speaker 2: Robert Stroud, he wasn't the Birdman of Alcatraz, he was
Speaker 2: the Birdman of Leavenworth. He had the bird that Levenworth.
Speaker 2: So already that's not a true crime book, kido. And
Speaker 2: luckily for the Birdman of Eltcut Trash, Tom Gattis was
Speaker 2: smart enough to put in the front front of the
Speaker 2: book that some things were fictionalized. So Robert Stroud was
Speaker 2: right across the cells directly. He had two cells for
Speaker 2: all his birds, but he was directly across the cell
Speaker 2: from Carl pans Ram, so he observed everything and he
Speaker 2: wrote everything. The writers of the book Killer of Journal
Speaker 2: of Murder, they did not have access to the federal
Speaker 2: files which I had access to. So once again, there
Speaker 2: are reasons why I want to publish a book on
Speaker 2: pans around that love and Worth, which really won't conflict
Speaker 2: with their book because their book has all of pans
Speaker 2: Ram's writings in it. But I want to fill in
Speaker 2: a lot of that information of what happened at Levenworth,
Speaker 2: you know, the first federal pen country, and he was
Speaker 2: the first prisoner executed at a federal pen and pen country.
Speaker 2: So you know, again, we could go down on for
Speaker 2: hours on all these issues and there, you know, I'll
Speaker 2: I'll let you bring it back to the topic.
Speaker 6: Let's let's get to what you did find. And I mean,
Speaker 6: there is some information that I have read before, but
Speaker 6: let's talk about the information that is exclusive. And let's
Speaker 6: get back for those people that don't know about this
Speaker 6: Albert Fish's troubled life. Take us back to he was
Speaker 6: born in eighteen seventy in Washington, but you talk about
Speaker 6: eighteen seventy five, his life becomes very very interesting and
Speaker 6: tell us about his father's death and the orphanage and
Speaker 6: the effect of what he did see and experience in
Speaker 6: that orphanage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, the orphanage for Albert Fish was you know,
Speaker 2: kind of like the genesis for the rest the direction
Speaker 2: for the rest of his life. And I've seen this
Speaker 2: as I studied serial killers. I'm not a PhD expert.
Speaker 2: I'm a filmmaker. I did go to film school, but
Speaker 2: I've researched serial killers and I've also interviewed numerous forensic
Speaker 2: psychologists and experts on killers. So I do consider myself
Speaker 2: an expert on you know, serial killers and especially their
Speaker 2: history and the time they grew up in. And you know, personally,
Speaker 2: my belief is, you know, these serial killers are mainly
Speaker 2: created by their environments. You know, there's all these different
Speaker 2: beliefs of it could be genetic, it could be brain damage,
Speaker 2: it could be a head injury, you know, you know
Speaker 2: their triggers. It could be abuse. But you know, the
Speaker 2: formative years, especially between seven and twelve, when these many
Speaker 2: of these children see or experience things that could be traumatic,
Speaker 2: it doesn't necessarily have to be an abuse. But with Fish,
Speaker 2: it was twofold, so when he was in this orphanage,
Speaker 2: what they would do is to punish the children. They
Speaker 2: would strip the children naked, usually male, the male children,
Speaker 2: they would strip them naked and whip them on their
Speaker 2: bare behinds and force other children to watch this abuse
Speaker 2: going down. So through that Fish developed his SNM fantasies,
Speaker 2: and he even said it himself that at seven years
Speaker 2: old he had his first sex ceiling because he was
Speaker 2: turned on by that. He was turned on by watching
Speaker 2: these kids abused and whipped, and he was turned on
Speaker 2: when it was you know, given to him as well.
Speaker 2: So you know, you look at the rest of his
Speaker 2: entire life, it's no wonder that he's writing women and
Speaker 2: all these other people desiring for asking them to whip
Speaker 2: him and maybe he could do the same to them
Speaker 2: and going as extreme as possible, so, you know, and
Speaker 2: talking about Carl Panzram in a sense just to not
Speaker 2: go too far off topic, but you know, he was
Speaker 2: in a reform school and the same thing kind of
Speaker 2: happened to him. You know that I found a punishment
Speaker 2: slip from red wing reform school where he was at,
Speaker 2: and on that punishment slip it said that he attempted
Speaker 2: to escape and the punishment was has Sustainking well, he
Speaker 2: that was his whole life over and over again. He
Speaker 2: would break out of prisons. He broke into a prison
Speaker 2: to rescue another prisoner. He got in, but he was caught.
Speaker 2: He actually broke into a prison. You know, he would
Speaker 2: break out of these prisons. Then he you know, would
Speaker 2: be widthed and abused and tortured and electrocuted. And it's
Speaker 2: the same kind of thing. Pans Ram's whole life is
Speaker 2: on that one punishment slip. And that was the same
Speaker 2: thing with Albert Fish. So we see that how trauma
Speaker 2: and abuse could affect some of these children and maybe
Speaker 2: not affect others. There. Yeah, I'm sure there are many
Speaker 2: children we know. We know for a fact, you know,
Speaker 2: Kyl Panzram had a brother that turned out to be
Speaker 2: a police officer. You know, some children, don't, you know,
Speaker 2: go to these extremes, but some have that fagile mentality.
Speaker 2: And Albert Fish is wanted me.
Speaker 6: So what the thing is, what we passed over is
Speaker 6: that again this must have some psychological effect. But talk
Speaker 6: about his father dying at five years old, and then
Speaker 6: the reason why he's even in an orphanage in the
Speaker 6: first place seems odd to us looking at this Now
Speaker 6: why was he put in the orphanage of his mother
Speaker 6: was working, so why he was not actually an orphan
Speaker 6: So tell us the circumstances and tell us how long
Speaker 6: he was in here before he was again reunited with
Speaker 6: his family. We talked about some of the things he's
Speaker 6: learned in there, but the very first circumstances, how he
Speaker 6: got to the orphanage in the first place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some of his early you know, childhood is unclear
Speaker 2: to me. You know, I've researched his entire life, but
Speaker 2: maybe you could fill in some of that because I
Speaker 2: do remember he was sent to an orphanage and there
Speaker 2: were some issues with his family, and his family also
Speaker 2: had a religious you know, psychosis that he actually had
Speaker 2: as well, so there may be some of this genetic
Speaker 2: influence on him as well.
Speaker 6: Well. You talk about that there's seven relatives that and
Speaker 6: I don't know who made this assessment, And again I
Speaker 6: find it fascinating that this long ago that they were
Speaker 6: making the psychopathic personality diagnosis. I'm very very surprised by that.
Speaker 6: But they said that. You say in the book that
Speaker 6: there was seven relatives including or including fish that either
Speaker 6: had some noted yesl illness or psychosis or psychopathic personality.
Speaker 6: You talk about that his father died at five years old,
Speaker 6: his mother was working but still felt the need to
Speaker 6: put him in the orphanage. And you say he learned
Speaker 6: many of the deviations and paraphilias that he was afflicted by,
Speaker 6: we'll say, for lack of better term, were rooted in
Speaker 6: his stay at this institution here. When did he, as
Speaker 6: you write in a book, when did he get out?
Speaker 6: And what was his behavior like after this?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the writings in the book are actually
Speaker 2: like from there from doctor Wortham. You know. The only
Speaker 2: thing I may have writtain was the foreword, you know,
Speaker 2: so you know, I know eventually he was released, and
Speaker 2: you know he did marry and had children and grandchildren,
Speaker 2: so you know, there there was a period of time
Speaker 2: where he was obviously on his own, and even when
Speaker 2: he was with his wife, he had felt restricted where
Speaker 2: he was, you know, felt he wasn't able to do
Speaker 2: ultimately all the things that you know he truly wanted
Speaker 2: to do. And we'll get to that point later as well.
Speaker 2: But you know, eventually he did marry and supposedly, you know,
Speaker 2: his family said he never you know, harmed them or
Speaker 2: spoke you know, a bad word to them. He never swore,
Speaker 2: never made a hand to them. And you know that
Speaker 2: also fits in with his duality of serial killers where
Speaker 2: they can have a family and fool them at the
Speaker 2: same time they're doing these other devious acts.
Speaker 6: Previous stough to him being married that there was a
Speaker 6: he does get a run in with the law before that,
Speaker 6: and you talk about actually being examined a couple of
Speaker 6: times at hospital, so we'll have to go into when
Speaker 6: that is. He develops a job though, he has a
Speaker 6: trade that enables him and I guess enabled him to
Speaker 6: be able to do some of this, some of the
Speaker 6: murderous stuff he does and the violence that he does.
Speaker 6: What's that occupation that he eventually, even for a lifetime,
Speaker 6: develops this occupation that he undertakes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was a house painter, so you know, he
Speaker 2: was always traveling, always on the go, and additionally, he
Speaker 2: always had these empty spaces available to him to potentially
Speaker 2: bring his victims to do whatever he wanted. So very
Speaker 2: you know much of this fits in with the m
Speaker 2: serial killer traveling. He traveled all across the US US.
Speaker 2: You know, he had these places of opportunity and victims
Speaker 2: of opportunity. Many times at that time period he said
Speaker 2: he would target you know, young African American male children
Speaker 2: because no one cared about them, which is a sad truth.
Speaker 6: You say too, that that all along the way he
Speaker 6: developed the paraphilia of saddism and masochism, but also that
Speaker 6: he wanted to inflict pain as he he enjoyed hearing
Speaker 6: other people's pain, but he also enjoyed pain himself. To
Speaker 6: that end, we'll talk about the needles. But what did
Speaker 6: he first begin with simply in terms of inflicting pain
Speaker 6: on himself? And was there any we talked about his
Speaker 6: religiosity and the families, was there some connection there with
Speaker 6: that religiosity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was connection. You know. It was known that
Speaker 2: you know, one or more members of his family had
Speaker 2: that same type of extreme religious dementia, you know, and
Speaker 2: that was that may have been passed on to Albert
Speaker 2: fish where you know, as the years went by, you know,
Speaker 2: he took the Bible literally, you know, and he associated
Speaker 2: the you know, a communion with drinking the blood of
Speaker 2: Jesus and you know, tasting the body with the wafers,
Speaker 2: you know, and he enacted that in real life, you know,
Speaker 2: in a sense he thought that he was doing good
Speaker 2: by murdering these children before they were violated or raped
Speaker 2: by someone else and sending them straight to heaven. You know,
Speaker 2: he also associated very strongly with the story of Abraham
Speaker 2: and I that Abraham would kill his own child, you know,
Speaker 2: and he had part of the religious dementia. He said
Speaker 2: he would hear voices, you know, reading quotes from the Bible.
Speaker 2: He would see Jesus and you know, have these visions
Speaker 2: where he but toughsy things like you know, dash it's
Speaker 2: their heads against the stone. And you know, he would
Speaker 2: take Bible verses and put them in different orders kind of,
Speaker 2: you know, in a way to create this pattern of
Speaker 2: you know, almost you know, creating what he really wanted
Speaker 2: to do. So it was you know, and was he
Speaker 2: blaming it, We don't know, but I think it's you know,
Speaker 2: there if you look at his case and all his
Speaker 2: actions and especially his writings, especially as the Great Spud Letter,
Speaker 2: when at the end, you know, the last line what
Speaker 2: now you know, he obviously you know, kidnaps the girl,
Speaker 2: which you know he says he didn't because they let
Speaker 2: him take her, but you know, he murders her, cannibalizes her,
Speaker 2: but he makes sure that the last line of his
Speaker 2: letter that you wrote to her mother says I did
Speaker 2: not fuck her, which is very important because that's okay
Speaker 2: that he didn't do that. But what about murdering and
Speaker 2: cannibalizing her? You know, that's fine, you know, And again
Speaker 2: that goes in with you know, the whole sex before
Speaker 2: marriage and possibly saving this child before she was violated
Speaker 2: by somebody else, and in his mind it got completely twisted.
Speaker 2: And that is one of the most extreme things about
Speaker 2: Elberfish that again differentiates him from other serial killers. He
Speaker 2: committed all sorts of tortures on his body as penance
Speaker 2: for killing these children, you know, much like the Philagellons
Speaker 2: and the days of old who would whip their with
Speaker 2: themselves on their backs until they were bloody to absolve
Speaker 2: their sins. He did the same thing, but he took
Speaker 2: it to huge extremes. You know, his son one time
Speaker 2: saw him beating himself bloody with a paddle that Albertfish
Speaker 2: treated himself, where he took this paddle and hammered all
Speaker 2: these nails into the end of it, and he would
Speaker 2: beat himself with that bloody. Man, that's nothing compared to
Speaker 2: the other things that he would do because you know,
Speaker 2: with at A and M, you know, it's pain is
Speaker 2: only relative, so they have to keep up in the
Speaker 2: ante until it's even more extreme. Some of the most
Speaker 2: extreme things that he did was, according to Albert Fish himself,
Speaker 2: he would take a rose, you know, a rose, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, not the head of the rose, but you
Speaker 2: know the base of the rose. Yeah, yeah, with the
Speaker 2: thorns on it. And he said he would insert those
Speaker 2: into his penis with the thorns on those. And then
Speaker 2: he said he would also take a alcohol soaked gauze
Speaker 2: piece of gauze, insert it in the venus and light it.
Speaker 2: He stick needles under his fingernails. Eventually, when he was apprehended,
Speaker 2: he told the authorities what he would do to himself
Speaker 2: as penance for killing these children, but they didn't believe him,
Speaker 2: so they took him to the hospital and took an
Speaker 2: X ray of his abdomen and twenty nine needles showed
Speaker 2: up on the X rays. So in his abdomen he
Speaker 2: was living, you know, as a medical marvel. He didn't
Speaker 2: die and nothing happened to in his internal organs. But
Speaker 2: when you look at that X ray, some of these
Speaker 2: needles are a couple of inches or longer. I mean,
Speaker 2: you could see the eyes of the needles. It's just,
Speaker 2: you know, so again this man not only you know,
Speaker 2: love to hear the tortures and cries of children. That's
Speaker 2: what he got off on. You know, I don't believe
Speaker 2: he you know, raped every child. Some of these children
Speaker 2: he even set himself that, you know, he just wanted
Speaker 2: to torture them and hear their cries and screams, you know.
Speaker 2: And you know, you see that with other serial killers,
Speaker 2: they want to get a reaction from their victim. But
Speaker 2: that's what's most extreme about elber Fishes. You know, in
Speaker 2: addition to being the cannibal and the serial killer, he
Speaker 2: was also you know, into this masochism where he you know,
Speaker 2: couldn't have enough pain sit on himself.
Speaker 6: Let's talk about the marriage he has, and it seems
Speaker 6: like you could say, even at the trial, and again
Speaker 6: we're jumping ahead a little bit, but his daughters even testified.
Speaker 6: One of his daughters testifies that he was a great father,
Speaker 6: He was a good family man. They saw none of
Speaker 6: this violence, there was none directed towards them whatsoever. And
Speaker 6: so what we need to know is there is a
Speaker 6: major incident in here, not to say this is resultant
Speaker 6: in all the rest of this horror that he inflicts
Speaker 6: on society and everyone and the victims. But what happens
Speaker 6: in his marriage. He's married to this woman. They have
Speaker 6: six children. There again, they're not they're struggling. But one
Speaker 6: day he sees the dog and suspicious about the dog
Speaker 6: and maybe and then there's an attic in the home.
Speaker 6: So tell us what this inquisitive Albert Fish does and
Speaker 6: the dog and his family life with the six children
Speaker 6: we're talking some small young children and his wife of
Speaker 6: many years ten years or so.
Speaker 2: What happens?
Speaker 6: This is an incredible scene in your book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, when he when Albert Fish was with his wife,
Speaker 2: he had begun, you know, starting some of his senem fantasies.
Speaker 2: She wasn't really into them that much, so that's when
Speaker 2: he began putting hands and newspapers to try and get
Speaker 2: other women to participate in his fantasies, whether it was
Speaker 2: whipping him or him whipping them. The wife knew what
Speaker 2: his proclivities were. She knew, and and she just she
Speaker 2: wasn't into it. It wasn't her thing. So you know,
Speaker 2: that's how he you know, kind of began, and he
Speaker 2: may have been doing some of these you know senem
Speaker 2: fantasies with other people at that time. And you know,
Speaker 2: he started late in life. You know, many serial killers,
Speaker 2: you know, by the time there, you know, anywhere between.
Speaker 2: You know, I've known I'm young as what fourteen to
Speaker 2: you know, eighteen or in the early twenties, they're committing
Speaker 2: the serial killer killings. But you know, Fish really didn't start,
Speaker 2: you know, actual killings until you know, probably his forties
Speaker 2: and fifties, you know, which is unusual. That's another thing
Speaker 2: that's unusual about Albert Fish. So since his wife wasn't
Speaker 2: into these things, you know, Albert Fish goes to the attic,
Speaker 2: he was led there by the dog, and he finds
Speaker 2: another man up in the attic and this is the
Speaker 2: man that his wife has been cheating with him on
Speaker 2: and she had him in the attic of the house.
Speaker 2: And Albert Fish, you know, kind of meekly didn't even
Speaker 2: you know, do much about it, you know. And in
Speaker 2: the end what happened is his wife, Albert Fish, Albert
Speaker 2: Fish went with the children and took them to a
Speaker 2: movie and he came back. He came back home, and
Speaker 2: everything in the entire apartment was gone, everything, the wife
Speaker 2: was gone, furniture was gone, clothing was gone. I think
Speaker 2: he said there was only like a penny in the bathtub,
Speaker 2: or not even that. He said it was entirely empty.
Speaker 2: You know. So his wife was sick of everything he
Speaker 2: was doing. You know, she couldn't deal with it anymore,
Speaker 2: and she just up and locked the man away with
Speaker 2: with oping them. And that's Alberd Fish attributes that incident
Speaker 2: of his wife leaving him and the trauma that he
Speaker 2: experienced to what he said, you know, his world opened
Speaker 2: at that point. He was free to do whatever he wanted,
Speaker 2: which means, you know, even move for further towards his
Speaker 2: even more stadistic fantasies and not just these esson and play,
Speaker 2: but you know, moving into murdering and raping young children.
Speaker 6: Now, let's consider many of the stories of the true
Speaker 6: murder listeners will listen to that there is no bounds
Speaker 6: to what a killer will do with his own children
Speaker 6: if he's interested in children. However, you talk about Albert
Speaker 6: Fish after this the most traumatic event psychiatrically or psychologically
Speaker 6: in his life, what was the how did he deal
Speaker 6: with being a father and with no mother what was
Speaker 6: he really like in that regard to those children. And
Speaker 6: again as a result you see this one of the
Speaker 6: daughters testifying at his child trying to save his life.
Speaker 2: So yeah, his children testified that he was a father
Speaker 2: and a mother to them, that he took care of them,
Speaker 2: he provided for them, never abused them, never struck them,
Speaker 2: never raised a hand against them, and never uttered, you know,
Speaker 2: a foul language at all. But you know again that
Speaker 2: that plays in with the duality of a serial killer.
Speaker 2: Now see Albert Fish, most likely he was not on
Speaker 2: you know, the genius scale, say as H. H. Holmes was.
Speaker 2: But Albert Fish was a serial killer who was very
Speaker 2: sneaky and conniving. He was a little bit more of
Speaker 2: a connat. So I'm sure he was intelligent enough to
Speaker 2: under stand that if he were to do anything to
Speaker 2: his children, even if he wanted to, it would all
Speaker 2: be over. You know, he'd be discovered, and he wanted
Speaker 2: to continue doing what he was doing. So you know,
Speaker 2: these serial killers aren't just you know, monsters with you know,
Speaker 2: green flesh and horns on the head or just mumbling
Speaker 2: you know fools there. You know, many of them are
Speaker 2: you know, obviously intelligent enough to you know, be a
Speaker 2: con man and elber Fish, you know, and especially when
Speaker 2: he met the grace the Budge family, that's where he
Speaker 2: brought all his common skills, you know, came to a head.
Speaker 2: So you know, he he didn't harm his child and
Speaker 2: any of his children, and he raised them well, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean they saw strange things, they would say sometimes
Speaker 2: they you know, he'd want he'd want them to play
Speaker 2: horsey with him and jump on his back and hit
Speaker 2: him hard and is behind like he was a horse,
Speaker 2: you know. And there's a little that stuff too, you know.
Speaker 2: And his son did say he saw him beating himself
Speaker 2: with that board with the neil studded boord, but didn't
Speaker 2: do anything about it. But you know, you're you're talking
Speaker 2: about you know what early nineteen hundred psychiatries in its infancy.
Speaker 2: They probably didn't even know where to go, you know.
Speaker 2: And there was a point, as you mentioned, that Albert
Speaker 2: Fish was writing these fake checks and you know, and
Speaker 2: you know he was writing these nasty letters, and you know,
Speaker 2: he was arrested and he did have some psychiatric you
Speaker 2: know help, like at belw in some other places, but
Speaker 2: he was always released, you know, because again I think
Speaker 2: his con conning nature. He knew what to tell these psychiatrists. Again,
Speaker 2: maybe not a genius level, but definitely you know, you know, commm. Yeah.
Speaker 6: It's interesting too that it seems by reports that just
Speaker 6: by the virtue of again, like you say, the age
Speaker 6: and just the way he looked, that he looked like
Speaker 6: an innocent, old, harmless man.
Speaker 2: So that's the thing too, you know. Yeah, and you
Speaker 2: know he was you know, apprehended, you know when you know,
Speaker 2: he was in his like fifties, early sixties, so he
Speaker 2: looked like he was about ten or twenty years older.
Speaker 2: So if you saw Elver Fish standing on the corner,
Speaker 2: you'd want to help this kind of man across the street.
Speaker 2: That's what he looked like basically, And that's what the
Speaker 2: Butt family thought, that he wouldn't be able to harm
Speaker 2: a fly.
Speaker 6: Before we talk about the Bud family, and I wanted
Speaker 6: to segue into that what he did was his method
Speaker 6: of operation was that they would move constantly, because there
Speaker 6: were reports by these children. Eventually he worked as a painter,
Speaker 6: and then he had access to people for again a
Speaker 6: more innocent time of people were less suspicious obviously, and
Speaker 6: he had this certain look and of course he had
Speaker 6: six children. And also that's what he told the Bud
Speaker 6: family too. I listen, I'm a single dad. Again, would
Speaker 6: seem admirable, I have six children, and then that story.
Speaker 6: So so he did move around to not arouse suspicion,
Speaker 6: and when the heat was on, he moved around out
Speaker 6: of the area.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 6: Tell us about the circumstances of him meeting the Bud family,
Speaker 6: the girl Grace, and tell us about originally what the
Speaker 6: plan was and how it came to be that Albert
Speaker 6: Fish met the Bud family.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know you're talking about you know, nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty eight, you know New York decrestion era. You know,
Speaker 2: times were tough. Overpopulation was rampant. So Albert Fish knew this. So,
Speaker 2: hoping to find a victim, he placed an ad in
Speaker 2: the newspaper. In the old days, what would people do.
Speaker 2: They didn't have Craigslist or you know any of these
Speaker 2: other you know computer you know platforms to who plays
Speaker 2: ads on, so they would place an ad in the newspaper.
Speaker 2: So he did. And I actually found that ad and
Speaker 2: it's in my film, and you know, it was just
Speaker 2: you know, he he created a whole fake story. Of course,
Speaker 2: you know, said he was an elderly man and he
Speaker 2: owned a farm, and he's got money and he needs,
Speaker 2: you know, a young man to come out to his
Speaker 2: farm and help them with things, and he'll gladly pay
Speaker 2: this young man. So the Bug family was somewhat destitute,
Speaker 2: poor family. You know, they had, I believe it was
Speaker 2: three or four children and one of So the Bud
Speaker 2: family basically responded to this ad because Grace's brother, you know,
Speaker 2: was kind of this large, strapping, you know, young man,
Speaker 2: especially for his age, he was kind of large. Well,
Speaker 2: when Albert Fish arrived at the house or their apartment,
Speaker 2: actually their little tenement apartment, he saw the brother and
Speaker 2: realized that he could be overtaken by this kid. There's
Speaker 2: no way that you know, there's a limit that you know,
Speaker 2: Albert Fish could you know, strangle children. But you know,
Speaker 2: this was a big boy that he wouldn't be able
Speaker 2: to take, you know, basically advantage of us. So while
Speaker 2: he's there, he realizes that that he makes small talk
Speaker 2: with the Buds, he flashes cash. He made sure to
Speaker 2: bring cash to Flash so he could seem as if
Speaker 2: he was rich and on this firom, which he did.
Speaker 2: And so he basically calmed them. But then you know
Speaker 2: what he said, he said, you know what, I'm going
Speaker 2: to go. I'll come back another day and we could,
Speaker 2: you know, finish the talks and secure the deal. Because
Speaker 2: at that time, again he saw this young boy. But
Speaker 2: while he was there at the first visit, he saw
Speaker 2: their daughter, Grace Budd, who was ten years old. Now,
Speaker 2: Grace Budd had a short bob haircut. She kind of
Speaker 2: looked like a little boy, and so Fish became enamored
Speaker 2: by her. You know, she sat on his lap, and
Speaker 2: again he just looked like this kind grandfather that no
Speaker 2: one would suspect he would do anything or even be
Speaker 2: able to do anything if he had an opportunity to.
Speaker 2: So on the second visit, when Albert Fish came back,
Speaker 2: he had us all planned out. He said, well, you
Speaker 2: know what, I'm still going to take your son on
Speaker 2: my farm, but why don't I take your daughter, Grace
Speaker 2: because my granddaughter is having a birthday party for the
Speaker 2: kids and it's going to be great. And he told
Speaker 2: her it was at a certain intersection, and shockingly, the
Speaker 2: family let this stranger take their daughter away from them. Now,
Speaker 2: people always ask me, why why would he do Why
Speaker 2: would that family let him do this. You know, why
Speaker 2: would they allow the growth go. I think it was
Speaker 2: desperation because they knew eventually, let this happen, He's got money,
Speaker 2: He's going to take care of us later. That's how
Speaker 2: desperate the times were. People don't realize how when we
Speaker 2: have everything from cell phones and video games, the cars,
Speaker 2: you know, how bad it really was in early America
Speaker 2: and how difficult it was to survive. But that's why
Speaker 2: I think they allowed the daughter to go. There was
Speaker 2: a little repropoire, you know, with this man. But then
Speaker 2: guess what, they leave and she doesn't come back, and
Speaker 2: then they look up the street address that Albert Fish
Speaker 2: gave them and it didn't even exist. The intersection didn't exist.
Speaker 2: So that was pretty much it. And then after that
Speaker 2: there was even a fake trial for another man named Pope,
Speaker 2: where the mother, Delia Budd you know, said as a
Speaker 2: witness statement, you know, saw him in a lineup and
Speaker 2: said that's the man. But it was a wrong man.
Speaker 2: And that's why you can't rely one hundred percent on
Speaker 2: witnesses either. So they had this whole trial, only in
Speaker 2: the end to realize this wasn't Albert Fish, the man
Speaker 2: who took her daughter. So they still can't find the daughter.
Speaker 2: But there was tried and true detective work in this case.
Speaker 2: And that's what I love and fascinates me also about
Speaker 2: these early cases such as the detective in the home
Speaker 2: story and this detective, Detective King, that he was trying
Speaker 2: to find, you know, this little girl for years and years.
Speaker 2: So his idea came about knowing that you know, this
Speaker 2: killer would place ads in the newspapers. He said, well,
Speaker 2: you know, let's and this was about six years later,
Speaker 2: four or six years later after her abduction, they still
Speaker 2: never found her. So Detective King said, well, let's put
Speaker 2: an ad in the newspaper. And Walter Winchell, who was
Speaker 2: a gossip columnist, you know, in the in the newspaper,
Speaker 2: so maybe this killer read it. We'll mention something about
Speaker 2: Grace Budd again, you know. So Albert Fish did read this.
Speaker 2: So what he did was he was compelled to write
Speaker 2: a letter and send it to Grace Budd's mother, Delia,
Speaker 2: describing in detail of when he came to the apartment,
Speaker 2: how he took their daughter, where he took her, not
Speaker 2: in specific detail, but they took her out to the country,
Speaker 2: and that he basically strangled her and took her home
Speaker 2: and cannibalized her. And he told in detail how he
Speaker 2: made us stew and baked parts of her body. And
Speaker 2: this is a letter to her mother. Yeah. So, interestingly enough,
Speaker 2: here's the tried and true detective work. The envelope that
Speaker 2: was that the letter was sent in, there was you know,
Speaker 2: a location, a return address on the envelope. So after
Speaker 2: tracing that letter head back, they found out that someone
Speaker 2: was staying in this boarding house that had access to
Speaker 2: the actual envelopes. And they went and they saw some
Speaker 2: of these envelopes, and it just happened by circumstance that
Speaker 2: Detective King went to the owner of this boarding house
Speaker 2: and said, you know, there was an old man blah
Speaker 2: blah blah, do you know about this? And then the
Speaker 2: owner of the boarding house said, oh, yeah, he doesn't
Speaker 2: live here anymore, but guess what, he's going to be
Speaker 2: here in a day or two to pick up a check.
Speaker 2: So Detective King said, call me immediately when he's here,
Speaker 2: And sure enough he gets a call that Albert Fish
Speaker 2: is there. He walks in and sees this kind of
Speaker 2: old man sipping tea like nothing happened, and he apprehends him.
Speaker 2: You know, there's some different stories about the Elbert Fish
Speaker 2: put up a struggle or tried to kill himself at
Speaker 2: that point, but you know, again it's difficult to tell
Speaker 2: what happened to say, Elbertfish just went, you know, along
Speaker 2: with the detective kam no problem. So you know, this
Speaker 2: monster was caught. But then the world was really able
Speaker 2: to find out about all these horrors you know that
Speaker 2: this elderly cannibal inflicted because Albert Fish tells them what
Speaker 2: he did to little Grace Bud and they go up
Speaker 2: to h was called Osteria. It's upstate New York, and
Speaker 2: I actually found the house that he murdered her. And
Speaker 2: still there, the actual house that he murdered Grace Budd in.
Speaker 2: So he told them to go there, and the detectives went,
Speaker 2: and sure enough, in an out house, he found the
Speaker 2: skull of Greape Spud and there were some body parts,
Speaker 2: and you know, they realized that he was telling the
Speaker 2: true story. Even though they didn't have any evidence on
Speaker 2: any other children, that children that you know, he raped
Speaker 2: and or murdered, they knew there were probably many others,
Speaker 2: who knows, dozens hundreds because of all his travels We'll
Speaker 2: never know, but we do know he murdered grape Bud
Speaker 2: and that's what he was put on trial for and ultimately,
Speaker 2: you know, executed.
Speaker 6: Let's talk about the media response. You talk about, and
Speaker 6: this is not the first book that chronicles the sensationalistic
Speaker 6: media that occurred for the last sixty seven well, I'll
Speaker 6: probably always occurred. Really, I don't know when it was
Speaker 6: so ethical, we'll say, but let's put it this way
Speaker 6: that it was much more the sensation in the publications.
Speaker 6: What was the media response how far did it reach
Speaker 6: with this story in nineteen thirty five or after the
Speaker 6: rest of nineteen thirty four December.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the New York Daily News. You know, there's still
Speaker 2: somewhat kind of sensationalistic, like they were at that time period.
Speaker 2: But the New York Daily News, they covered it every
Speaker 2: day and they even paid fishes fish themself for his
Speaker 2: own you know autobiography slash confession that I know added
Speaker 2: to the book as well. But man, every day it was,
Speaker 2: you know, a cover of were wolves. They called him
Speaker 2: a werewolf of mysteria because he drank blood, and you know,
Speaker 2: the cannibal of New York and you know, all these
Speaker 2: names I mean, it was just and of course, you know,
Speaker 2: focusing on all the lower details, like you know, in
Speaker 2: their court room when you know the the children of
Speaker 2: the buzzs met the children of Fish, you know, and
Speaker 2: how they embraced each other and cried, and you know,
Speaker 2: because you know, we don't realize that. Yes, we know
Speaker 2: that families of the victims suffer, but you know, the
Speaker 2: families of the murderers suffer too, because you know, they
Speaker 2: they're finding out that their loved one is now a
Speaker 2: serial killer. And there is even a wider net that
Speaker 2: it casts. Recently, I interviewed Barry Vashelley for my TV
Speaker 2: show Serial Killer Culture TV, and he was John Wayne
Speaker 2: Gacey's childhood friend, and I had him on camera crying
Speaker 2: saying that he has PTSD, that why wasn't there anything
Speaker 2: he could have seen when you know they were friends
Speaker 2: and he has to live with this fact. So it
Speaker 2: affects many people, you know, and it was definitely a
Speaker 2: whole media sensation, you know, the fact that you know,
Speaker 2: he was into SMM and they found these bile letters
Speaker 2: that he would write to women. Plus they found you know,
Speaker 2: everyone's outrage that he was in the system and he
Speaker 2: was released. You know at least two or three times
Speaker 2: in mental hospitals and was released. Why did that happen?
Speaker 2: You know, these things still go on today, of course,
Speaker 2: but imagine back then how easy it was.
Speaker 6: You talk about too, and this is not unusual as well,
Speaker 6: is that these incredible serial killers are also affected by
Speaker 6: other people that they found very, very interesting and fascinating.
Speaker 6: So you talked about when he was arrested for the
Speaker 6: bud murder, they found photos of a man named Harmon
Speaker 6: from Germany. Tell us a little bit about what this
Speaker 6: Harmon from Germany hand over Germany, what his interests were,
Speaker 6: and how that certainly seemed to affect Fish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Fish was obsessed with Fritz Harmon, who was another cannibal.
Speaker 2: So when Fish read about Fitzarmon Frittarman, that most likely
Speaker 2: just added more to his fantasies of cannibalism and the
Speaker 2: desire to find out what it would taste to feel
Speaker 2: like to taste the flesh of a child. Was it
Speaker 2: really sweet? Was their ass really the sweetest part of
Speaker 2: the body. He wanted to do it and he acted
Speaker 2: upon that. So Frittarman in Germany at that time, which
Speaker 2: was a difficult time as well, would murder young boys,
Speaker 2: take pieces of their flesh and cannibalize himself. But he
Speaker 2: would also sell pieces of their flesh at the market,
Speaker 2: you know, as as just meet you know. And that's
Speaker 2: how difficult the times were at that, you know period.
Speaker 2: When I went through one of the most shocking things
Speaker 2: I discovered when I went through all of Wortham's file,
Speaker 2: there was a letter where Wortham wrote to someone else
Speaker 2: and saying Vish was fascinated by this character HH Holmes.
Speaker 2: I had no idea that. You don't hear that ever
Speaker 2: in any other writing. I've never heard that, but it
Speaker 2: was just to me having done a film on homes,
Speaker 2: you know. But again, you know, you see some of
Speaker 2: these serial killers have a fascination and want to be
Speaker 2: like some of their predecessors BTK. AHH Holmes was a
Speaker 2: hero to BTK. He wanted to be like him, and
Speaker 2: you know, and that's why I was part of that
Speaker 2: investigation into BTK. They subpoenaed my record of everyone in
Speaker 2: Wichita that bought my HH Holmes DVD, thinking that the
Speaker 2: BTK killer might have bought one, and you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's you know, it's fascinating. But then there are some
Speaker 2: of these serial killers that probably live their day to
Speaker 2: day life and don't know about this whole history of
Speaker 2: serial killers that it's just you know, an urge that
Speaker 2: they have to compelling ergs, they have to satisfy.
Speaker 6: Hmmm, well, there may be some, but I find that
Speaker 6: I think that they I don't think they always admit
Speaker 6: that their influence. I think they want to be an original.
Speaker 6: It's like musicians. Yeah, you know, their influencers are on
Speaker 6: their sleeves, but you don't. They're not going to give
Speaker 6: that away and they're not going to stay right off
Speaker 6: the Oh, by the way, you know, I nick this
Speaker 6: and I think that's true. So everybody wants to be
Speaker 6: an original, so I think, and I think certainly you
Speaker 6: can see that. Yet again, it's hard to it's hard
Speaker 6: to outdo HH Holmes and Albert Fish, but it seems
Speaker 6: like other people are at least doing it in other
Speaker 6: ways with numbers rather than.
Speaker 2: Maybe and yeah, and you know what, the further you
Speaker 2: go back, you know, after Jack the Ripper, and then
Speaker 2: you know, moving forward in time, you see you can
Speaker 2: see how each serial killer tried to one up the other.
Speaker 2: You know, Holmes confessed to whatever twenty six in the end,
Speaker 2: but then retracted. Then pans Ram said it was twenty one.
Speaker 2: You know, so around that time period, you know, a
Speaker 2: couple dozen was about the standard for you to gloat
Speaker 2: about whether you killed one or none, or you know,
Speaker 2: ten or a hunter. You know, they would say a
Speaker 2: couple dozen. But as you could see, you know, as
Speaker 2: we move forward in time, especially with like Henry Lucas
Speaker 2: some others and hundreds, now you know, yeah, whether or
Speaker 2: not we can crew.
Speaker 6: Let's you know, let's talk about doctor Worthham, because really
Speaker 6: this is the reason why we have all this information
Speaker 6: is because of this. So let's talk about the fascinating
Speaker 6: interviews he does with him, the assessments he does for court,
Speaker 6: and what he finds and what he writes later because
Speaker 6: as you say, there's a book published that he does
Speaker 6: a show of violence in nineteen forty nine Double Days,
Speaker 6: so this is a pretty big release at that time,
Speaker 6: and this trial was nineteen thirty five. So let's talk
Speaker 6: about doctor Wurdham and his examinations of Albert Fish and
Speaker 6: what Albert Fish said, and we talk about you talk
Speaker 6: about in this book six Confessions, and some of these
Speaker 6: details are well there's no more graphic detail than this,
Speaker 6: So tell us about this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh man, they were extremely graphic. But you know,
Speaker 2: what doctor Wortham did at that time period was sort
Speaker 2: of the groundbreaking, you know. You look at his study,
Speaker 2: the study of Peter Curtin in nineteen thirty in Germany.
Speaker 2: You know, these are the early you know, the early
Speaker 2: groundwork of future you know, forensic psychology basically of trying
Speaker 2: to figure out what makes the serial killer. You know,
Speaker 2: these were the you know, the early predecessors of the
Speaker 2: mind hunters, you know, which came about in the sixties
Speaker 2: and seventies. But you know, he had many conversations with
Speaker 2: Elbert Fish and if it wasn't for doctor Wortham, we
Speaker 2: may not have known all of these details, you know,
Speaker 2: because he did publish chapter in the Masks have no
Speaker 2: years where you know, that's like the most thorough and
Speaker 2: in depth you know, uh description of what Fish had
Speaker 2: told uh wordom there and reasons how and why would
Speaker 2: he did? You know, which were very important, you know,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's it's fascinating that we have that record.
Speaker 2: One of the things that you know struck me as
Speaker 2: amazing is at that time period, you know, they call
Speaker 2: them perversions, you know, these mental disorders, so doctor Wortham
Speaker 2: admitted that they actually had to they had to create
Speaker 2: new perversions for Albert Fish because that's you know, there
Speaker 2: he I think it was over a dozen, like thirteen
Speaker 2: or fourteen that when you read my book, there's the
Speaker 2: list of perversions at the beginning of the book, and
Speaker 2: that basically shows you he did everything. Drank urine, eight feces,
Speaker 2: drank blood, you know, sm m. I mean, anything imaginable
Speaker 2: you could think of, he did it. So they had
Speaker 2: to create some of those that weren't on the books
Speaker 2: at that time. Yeah. Yeah, And the biggest thing at all,
Speaker 2: you know, go ahead, no, go ahead, the you know,
Speaker 2: the whole myth of the electric chair shorting out, which
Speaker 2: people still want to believe because it is a cool myth,
Speaker 2: you know, it's this urban legend that you know, one
Speaker 2: newspaper may have reported that, and I was never find
Speaker 2: I was never able to find out which newspaper reported it,
Speaker 2: but it was said that one newspaper reported that Albert
Speaker 2: Fish shorted out the electric chair on the first attempt
Speaker 2: because he had all these needles in his fot. Well,
Speaker 2: it's just not true, you know. I found the book
Speaker 2: of the sin scene executioner, who pulled the switch, who
Speaker 2: wrote in his book nothing unusual happened. It was over
Speaker 2: a matter of minutes. You know, I interviewed an expert
Speaker 2: at the University of Wisconsin Electrical Department that would say,
Speaker 2: you know, the needles wouldn't have done anything. But yet
Speaker 2: people still want to believe it. They still post these
Speaker 2: things on the internet. And then any time I try
Speaker 2: to tell them the truth, they don't believe me. They
Speaker 2: don't want to hear the truth because it's such an
Speaker 2: interesting urban ment. So I just believe it.
Speaker 6: Be you talk about that there's that doctor Wurdham basically
Speaker 6: recognizes and determines and concludes that this is Grace Budd
Speaker 6: is not the only murder and cannibalistic event that he
Speaker 6: has participated in. And you also talk about in your
Speaker 6: book that they think that he's attacked at least one
Speaker 6: hundred children and he and at least he can he
Speaker 6: was convinced that there was more than that. There certainly
Speaker 6: was more than Grace Budd killed. Uh, tell us yea
Speaker 6: more about doctor Wurthham's conclusions and then and then tell
Speaker 6: us again, which is really he was hired by the defense.
Speaker 6: So tell us how in his estimation, why in his
Speaker 6: estimation that he's legally insane tell us about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, I mean we won't We'll never know,
Speaker 2: you know. And that's why I'm glad I found some
Speaker 2: more of these confessions in the files that were sealed
Speaker 2: Hill twenty ten, because you know, we had heard some
Speaker 2: of the Fish's confessions, but there are even more in
Speaker 2: here that I had never heard about prior to seeing these,
Speaker 2: you know, documents that were released after twenty ten, you know.
Speaker 2: And doctor Wortham said it was apparent, you know, that
Speaker 2: Albert Fish was insane, you know, by between the voice
Speaker 2: is that he heard the visions that he had, you know,
Speaker 2: which were both religious, you know, you know, in texture
Speaker 2: to the fact of all these perversions that he did,
Speaker 2: that he has to be insane. Sure, he could function
Speaker 2: on a day to day basis, but doctor Wortham said
Speaker 2: he was insane, you know. And he was found guilty
Speaker 2: and sentenced to be executed basically for revenge, you know,
Speaker 2: and that's a problem our society still has that you know,
Speaker 2: society wants you know, Tom de Flesh, you know, as revenge,
Speaker 2: and that's what we did with Albert Fish. We executed
Speaker 2: him when we should have put him in an insane asylum.
Speaker 2: And you know, the one interesting quote is from Fish's attorney,
Speaker 2: James Dempsey, where he said this, you know, ruling proves that,
Speaker 2: you know, witches are still burned in America. Basically that
Speaker 2: he was a target and he was found to be
Speaker 2: sane just so he could be executed or revenge of
Speaker 2: society for what he did to this little girl. And
Speaker 2: I mean, I understand the outrage, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: I understand that, But on the other coin, the other
Speaker 2: side of the coin, I think there might be something
Speaker 2: to learn from these people. And I feel as a society,
Speaker 2: how can we advance if we don't study them to
Speaker 2: try and figure out why they're doing these things.
Speaker 6: The sensationalistic wanting a pound of flesh. Media though, was
Speaker 6: what was their consensus about his sense?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well I think they also. I think they
Speaker 2: were trying to, you know, prove the fact that he
Speaker 2: was saying by you know, looking at the other side
Speaker 2: of the coin, by saying, well, you know, he obviously
Speaker 2: went to the Buds with this intention of kidnapping your daughter.
Speaker 2: It was pre planned, it was pre motivated, you know,
Speaker 2: So you know, that's always this this question of you know,
Speaker 2: sanity versus insanity, intent versus you know, is it just
Speaker 2: a crime of passion? Did you know a husband find
Speaker 2: out his wife's cheating and he hits her over the
Speaker 2: head and murders her. That's something different. So you know,
Speaker 2: when it gets, you know, into all these legalities, that's
Speaker 2: where it gets, you know, pretty complicated. And they, you know,
Speaker 2: they the newspapers, I believe, were trying to prove that
Speaker 2: point that you know, these were premeditated murders. And even
Speaker 2: though he had all these different snem fantasies and proclivities,
Speaker 2: he was still you know, a set mind of right
Speaker 2: mind that he you know, could get up, you could
Speaker 2: call himself. He knew what he was doing. He made
Speaker 2: these decisions consciously, and he should be executed. So there's
Speaker 2: always those two sides of the coin, and we still
Speaker 2: deal with that today. You know, that was Dahmer. You know,
Speaker 2: could he have been putting in the sane hospital or
Speaker 2: a prison, you know, that's the that's the thing. And
Speaker 2: interestingly enough, he's put in the prison where he's murdered.
Speaker 6: So the thing is, though, I understand, what if you
Speaker 6: set the standard at whether the defendant knows the difference
Speaker 6: between right and wrong. Then it's a high standard to overcome. Yes,
Speaker 6: it's hard to you know, hard to disprove that, to
Speaker 6: say well yeah, or to prove yeah, he didn't know
Speaker 6: right from wrong. When you see premeditation, you see planning, deliberation,
Speaker 6: and then trying to conceal their whereabouts and other such things.
Speaker 6: So that's the standard, because they do fear that it's
Speaker 6: a slippery slope that everybody can be considered, because you know,
Speaker 6: it's very interesting at this time in nineteen thirty five,
Speaker 6: and listen, I find fascinating is that despite the family saying,
Speaker 6: look at this guy was normal, he was a good father,
Speaker 6: and then he had this very very traumatic event with
Speaker 6: the mother leaving, taking all the furniture, moving out, with
Speaker 6: the border, leaving the young chure destitute. That this certainly
Speaker 6: would have been taken into consideration a mitigating factor, you know,
Speaker 6: But what they were also doing is that what I
Speaker 6: found fascinating, Doctor Wordam. Even though he had Fish's own
Speaker 6: confessions of prior murderous behavior. He talked about one time
Speaker 6: where he would have killed the child, but there was
Speaker 6: too many cars going by, so he really didn't get
Speaker 6: an opportunity with doctor Wurdham's conclusion that he certainly killed
Speaker 6: more people than Grace Budd and he certainly it was
Speaker 6: easy for him to conclude that there were maybe one
Speaker 6: hundred children attacked. And yet he still was in his book,
Speaker 6: in his writings, in his defense on the stand adamant
Speaker 6: that he was legally insane. I find that very very interesting,
Speaker 6: and also that he's saying that again, twenty five percent
Speaker 6: he said of the population was psychopathic in his mind,
Speaker 6: which I thought that blew my mind. Did somebody be
Speaker 6: talking about that in nineteen thirty five. That sounds like
Speaker 6: a pretty new concept.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. You know, I think he was definitely a
Speaker 2: forward thinker. You know, it was it. But again, you
Speaker 2: know we're talking about those infancies too, of the right
Speaker 2: and wrong, and you know, the serial killers, the infancies
Speaker 2: of serial killers. You know, really the world. Of course,
Speaker 2: serial killers existed before Jack the Ripper, but the world
Speaker 2: was introduced to them through the mass media of newspapers
Speaker 2: and then television, so you know, we didn't even know
Speaker 2: what these types of people were at the society. You know,
Speaker 2: we had seen them probably more and you know, on
Speaker 2: the frontier and things like that. But becoming a civilized
Speaker 2: society and then seeing there were these some people that
Speaker 2: could murder over and over again. I think people didn't
Speaker 2: know what to make of it. And these were these
Speaker 2: were the inceptions, the beginnings of the psychology, and you know,
Speaker 2: the law enforcement aspect and the legalities of dealing with
Speaker 2: these type of people would say, you know, it's fascinating.
Speaker 2: That's why I enjoyed these early cases because every angle
Speaker 2: you look at them, historical, forensic psychology, it's just fascinating.
Speaker 2: And a lot of these early criminals got away with
Speaker 2: it for much longer, you know, than you know, some
Speaker 2: of our modern ones, because of course video cameras, lack
Speaker 2: of DNA and prinsic you know, even finger printing, you know,
Speaker 2: was in its infancy.
Speaker 6: It's interesting too, when he talks about that part of
Speaker 6: his time on the stand, he said, listen, I just
Speaker 6: previously two months of this made out one hundred and
Speaker 6: sixty commitment papers for more than one hundred and sixty
Speaker 6: patients without any court hearing, he said, And he said
Speaker 6: many of them, he said, not as sick as Albertfish,
Speaker 6: and none of them as dangerous. Just to demonstrate he
Speaker 6: said that that Albertfish somehow had slipped through the net
Speaker 6: again to say, again, I'm surprised that there was that
Speaker 6: he thought there was that much of a safety net
Speaker 6: in psychiatry and in hospitals that time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, and that's the thing too, you know,
Speaker 2: elber Fish's cunning nature was obvious in that he could
Speaker 2: fool these psychiatrists to release them obviously, you know, because
Speaker 2: he knew what to say. So I think, you know,
Speaker 2: his cunning nature should have should have probably alone overridden fact.
Speaker 2: I mean, plus he could tell right mong but that
Speaker 2: should have overridden the fact that he had these essenm
Speaker 2: fantasies and you know, these other things that he was doing,
Speaker 2: you know, and he may have used the you know,
Speaker 2: and that's the thing too. In the end, we never
Speaker 2: know if these people are telling the truth. You know,
Speaker 2: when he was arrested, he could have made up the
Speaker 2: fact that he saw, you know, Jesus coming to him
Speaker 2: and he heard these things. You know, we don't know,
Speaker 2: you know, we don't know. It's they're very fascinating stories
Speaker 2: and you know, early glimpses into the mind of serial killers,
Speaker 2: you know. And of course Frederick Worthim went on to
Speaker 2: be hated by comic book lovers because he went on
Speaker 2: a whole high rade against the vault of horror entails
Speaker 2: from the crypt comic books, saying, these are diseasing the
Speaker 2: mind of our children and corrupting them. And you know,
Speaker 2: he caused those comic books basically to fold, so he
Speaker 2: became the poster boy. He eventually later he did apologize
Speaker 2: before his death, but people still, you know, have a
Speaker 2: lot of distaste for him. But you know, and that's
Speaker 2: another thing too. You know, we we even go through
Speaker 2: that now with these shooters and saying, wow, they're still
Speaker 2: doing it as these violent video games, these violent movies.
Speaker 2: But you know, studying Jesse Pomeroy, who is the subject
Speaker 2: of my next film. You know, in eighteen seventy four,
Speaker 2: he was fourteen when he murdered two little children. So
Speaker 2: what are you going to blame it on in eighteen
Speaker 2: seventy four. You can't blame it on radio, TV, movies,
Speaker 2: video games. But they blamed it on the dying novels.
Speaker 2: There's always got to be something those violent dying novels,
Speaker 2: you know, So again I think we got to start
Speaker 2: blaming it and looking at studying these people.
Speaker 6: You talk about doctor Wordham too, saying that when he
Speaker 6: was asked how many children he thought Albert Fish killed,
Speaker 6: he said, well, he said at least five, he said,
Speaker 6: one of the detectives said eight, at least And a
Speaker 6: judge of the Supreme Court who had been present when
Speaker 6: doctor Wurdham testified, said he had been informed that Fish
Speaker 6: was implicated in fifteen child murders.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, what do you think and yeah, something like
Speaker 2: Hja Tolms. Will never know. With Fish, I think it
Speaker 2: could have easily been several dozen children, easily minimum. But
Speaker 2: we'll never know. We do know the Belly Gaffney story,
Speaker 2: the story of you know, these two children, one of
Speaker 2: them was Billy Gaffney, and I filmed actually inside the
Speaker 2: same tenement building that they lived, and they were on
Speaker 2: the top floor and they were playing on the top floor,
Speaker 2: and the mother came out from the apartment. And you know,
Speaker 2: over Fish was the original stranger danger. There wasn't that
Speaker 2: type of thing in the nineteen twenty. It's in early
Speaker 2: New York. You know, these kids would play on the street,
Speaker 2: parents would be in their house or who knows where,
Speaker 2: the kids would just be doing their own thing. I mean,
Speaker 2: these were little children, you know, So the mother comes
Speaker 2: out of the apartment and he's one of the kids,
Speaker 2: her child but not the other one. Says, well, where's
Speaker 2: Billy Gaffney. And then the little boy pointed up to
Speaker 2: the fire escape leading to the roof and said, the
Speaker 2: Boogeyman took him. So Albert Fish was really the original
Speaker 2: Boogeyman as well. And I was in that tenement apartment
Speaker 2: hallway and saw that fire escape. It's in my film
Speaker 2: that he took him out of. Now, again, we can't
Speaker 2: prove that that. Albert Fish says that he took the
Speaker 2: boy and he took him to a secluded place by
Speaker 2: the breakers dump and started cutting parts of his body off,
Speaker 2: and you know all these things. So you know, just
Speaker 2: looking at that and the murder of cannibalism of Grace Bud,
Speaker 2: you could see how much more he could have done.
Speaker 2: And I would say minimum doesn't We'll just never know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely, you talk about the family was there when
Speaker 6: we have five of Fish's children, two daughters and three sons.
Speaker 6: There are also a few other people were also present,
Speaker 6: and the defense pleaded for commutation of the death sentence
Speaker 6: and confinement to a state institution for the criminally insane.
Speaker 6: But it's fascinating that all of those children, Again, it
Speaker 6: doesn't always happen. We're supportive, regardless of the world thinking
Speaker 6: that their father was a monster. They didn't back away
Speaker 6: from supporting them. And at that trial did they No.
Speaker 2: No. And it's interesting too. You know, sometimes families will
Speaker 2: turn their back, they may change their names, they may
Speaker 2: move away because they don't want to be associated with it,
Speaker 2: they don't want the bad press coverage, they just don't
Speaker 2: want to deal with it. Or you have some that
Speaker 2: will live in denial too. I mean, you know, whether
Speaker 2: or not Fish's children actually admitted and felt he did
Speaker 2: those things was one thing, you know. But you take
Speaker 2: the case of the guy that was in Indiana, Yeah,
Speaker 2: the Fox Hollow farm. I always forget his name, Herb Boummeister.
Speaker 2: Now you know Herb Baummeister. I think it was in
Speaker 2: the seventies or eighties. He was married and had children,
Speaker 2: and then he had a home called Fox Hollow in
Speaker 2: the country in Indiana, and he would go to gay bars,
Speaker 2: pick up young gay men, take them back to Foxhowe
Speaker 2: and strangle them, burger them and wind up throwing you know,
Speaker 2: their body parts, you know, in the woods behind it,
Speaker 2: and eventually that led to his apprehension because his children
Speaker 2: went out there and found these skulls and bones, and
Speaker 2: that's when the police were called. And you know, he
Speaker 2: took off and he ultimately, you know, committed suicide. So
Speaker 2: they never really found out exactly what happened. But to
Speaker 2: this day, his wife and children still say he didn't
Speaker 2: do those things. Not my husband, not our father. There's
Speaker 2: no way, even though there were all the evidence was there,
Speaker 2: the skulls, the bones. So it's very interesting, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, and that's one thing too, you know, you
Speaker 2: know how far does your love go? And you see
Speaker 2: in many of these cases too that you know, the
Speaker 2: parents or siblings, you know, they will stand byther side.
Speaker 2: I mean, that happened with Jesse Palmroy too. His mother
Speaker 2: was there and she tried to get him, you know,
Speaker 2: released or or you know, released from solitary at least,
Speaker 2: and she wrote letters and did whatever she could. It
Speaker 2: was probably her fault that he murdered the two little children,
Speaker 2: because she pleaded with the reform school to let them
Speaker 2: out early. They did, and of course at that time
Speaker 2: they didn't alert the authorities that he was released. So
Speaker 2: many he murdered two little children because the authorities thought
Speaker 2: he was still in reform school. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Well, you know I wanted to mention too before we go,
Speaker 6: is that I wanted to tell the audience too that
Speaker 6: do you have I love black and white photos, and
Speaker 6: you have some amazing black and white photos in here
Speaker 6: in your book and incredible source documents. Again, we talked
Speaker 6: about that at the beginning, how important that is, and
Speaker 6: I think that is important that people can see the
Speaker 6: actual document. These are source documents and letters Albert Fish,
Speaker 6: his handwriting, and again amazing black and white photos of everything,
Speaker 6: including even the electric chair. It is very, very a
Speaker 6: great edition. So I want to thank you very much
Speaker 6: for that. I also want to thank you very much
Speaker 6: for coming on and talking about Albert Fish in his
Speaker 6: own words. We talked. I mentioned that you're a filmmaker,
Speaker 6: and you did talk about a couple of films and
Speaker 6: other two prime books, and you deal with just the
Speaker 6: most serious of these serial killers with your films and
Speaker 6: with your books. For those people that might want to
Speaker 6: take a look at your other work, to have a website,
Speaker 6: Facebook page, how can they take a look at some
Speaker 6: of the other stuff. We just hinted that today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm pretty much all over the internet. My web
Speaker 2: page is just my name my website Joonborowski dot com.
Speaker 2: But if you even go to say Amazon Prime, all
Speaker 2: of my work is on there, as far as film
Speaker 2: and TV shows, So there's HJ. Holmes, Albert Fish, Carl
Speaker 2: panz Ram serial Killer Culture, which examines the contemporary culture
Speaker 2: of collectors and museums and artists and musicians fascinated by
Speaker 2: serial killers and why they are. And then I took
Speaker 2: that concept and created a TV show which is on
Speaker 2: Amazon Prime, serial Killer Culture TV, which is episodic, so
Speaker 2: each episode, the second season is coming out hopefully in
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks. I'm still working with Amazon to
Speaker 2: get that up, but then it will be twelve episodes.
Speaker 2: You know, each episode's focuses on, you know, like one
Speaker 2: is Gacy's Brain, another one is Peter Curtain's head at
Speaker 2: the Ripley's Museum in Wisconsin. So all fascinating topics. And
Speaker 2: then my books are on Amazon as well, the Albert Fish,
Speaker 2: ed Gen Dahmer's Confession, and the Strange Case of ah Tolms.
Speaker 6: Yeah, fascinating stuff. Very nice to speak with you, Thank
Speaker 6: you very much. John Vosky for this interview and congratulations
Speaker 6: on this amazing book. Albert Fish, in his own words,
Speaker 6: thank you very much. You have a great evening.
Speaker 2: Thank you having me on. Take care, good night,