Albert Fish was born in Washington DC in 1870. At the age of 5 he was to live in an orphanage. At the orphanage he took sexual excitement in being abused which fuelled his mind for his fascination with sado-masochism. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ At 7-years-of-age his mother took him out of the orphanage because she had obtained a job. Shortly after he had a severe fall off a cherry tree which caused a head injury from which he would have permanent problems with such as headaches and dizzy spells ( head injuries happen to many serial killers early in their childhoods). ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ At the age of twenty he moved to New York, by then he had been involved in masochistic-homosexual relationships. In New York he began raping children and participated in bizarre sexual acts. He committed his first murder in 1910 from which he mutilated and tortured his victim. From then on he indulged in torturing and killing children. In the 1920's Fish traveled across 23 US states painting houses, he seized this as a perfect opportunity to commit his perverted acts on children. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Fish also frequently read the bible and said that god-like voices had told him to kill. He also liked inserting needles into his body near the genitals; acts of pain sexually excited him. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ On 28 May 1928 a man calling himself Frank Howard made acquaintances with the Budd family. One day Mr. Howard asked if he could take Grace, their 10-year-old daughter, to a party. The Budds allowed him and they never saw their daughter or the old man ever again. The Mr. Howard was in fact the 58-year-old Albert Fish, who thought up the idea of killing Grace Budd so he could use her body for acts of cannibalism. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Six years later the Budd's received an anonymous letter from the murderer who admitted to killing Grace and afterwards cooked and ate her body. The police tracked the letter back to some apartments where they matched the writing of the letter to Albert Fish who was a tenant. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________