Albert Fish: Serial Killer Cannibal Who Ate Kids And Wrote To Their Parents About It (The Brooklyn Vampire)


(Unknown author/Wikimedia Commons)

Albert Fish was a gray man living in a gray world. Known as the Brooklyn Vampire, he was a cannibal, real-life Bluebeard, and child predator who created the template for the boogeyman. Not satiated by infanticide, Fish found a sick pleasure in telling the parents of his victims exactly how their children died. The life and crimes of Albert Fish are full of unadulterated depravity, and once you've spent time with this real-life monster, you'll never be the same.

A Monster Is Born

On May 19, 1870, Albert Fish was born in Washington, D.C. into less-than-ideal circumstances. Many members of Fish's family suffered from mental illness, including an uncle who was diagnosed with mania and a mother who regularly dealt with visual hallucinations. When Fish was five years old, his elderly father passed away, leaving Fish and his three siblings with no one but their troubled mother to care for them.

Consequently, she left them to the state, and during his time at various New York City orphanages, Fish was routinely beaten by his caretakers. When they tired of assaulting the children, they turned them against each other. Fish credited these experiences with warping his senses of pain and pleasure. In 1880, when Fish was 10 years old, his mother removed him from the orphanage and brought him home, but he was already too far gone.