Albert Fish: Serial Killer

Sometimes considered disgusting, cruel, terrible, or unforgivable, serial killers could arguably have a reason for their madness. Beaten as a child, raped, or even for left to die could spark what could soon become disastrous. Some serial killers do it for the fun of it, but for the most part they do it because of a poor childhood and upbringing. This is what some believe to be the reasons for the killings done by The Coed Killer, Edmond Kemper. After his conviction of killing ten people, prosecutors then found the real reason of the horrific murders. Seen as a gentle giant by some, Kemper was all but that.

In an article called “The Traits of A Serial Killer,” by Simon (2004), psychopaths are not “created” over night, but rather their behavior can be connected all the way to their childhood. What trauma a child experiences plays a major role in the rest of his or her life. A serial killer, most of the time,

Albert Fish is an American serial killer from the early 1900s who is linked to 15 murders. He also has molested over 100 children who were often young African American boys and mentally disabled children. Some of his most noted victims were Francis X. McDonnell, Billy Gaffney, and Grace Budd, but he was only convicted for the murder of Grace Budd. Following the typical characteristics of serial killers, Fish was a white male abused as an orphaned child. Eventually, he found that he gained sexual pleasure and satisfaction from these beating, which followed through to his personal life and killings when he would beat the bottoms of his victims as well as physically hurt them by cutting off pieces of their face. Albert had

Serial killers have plagued the world since before the 1500s. Theories have evolved over long periods of time for explanations as to why people begin killing. The earliest explanation was rooted in witchcraft and demonic possessions overtaking the person causing them to commit these acts of violence. Biological, psychological, and social theories have emerged over the years as society has developed and advanced. The latest theory suggests that the behavior of serial killers results as a combination of biological, psychological, and socialization factors. Despite the numerous theories trying to explain the phenomena of serial killing, no one knows exactly why or how seemingly normal people begin killing others. One of the most infamous serial killers was Donald Harvey. Harvey was a self-proclaimed “angel of death.” He murdered dozens of victims as a hospital aid. Due to Harvey’s difficult childhood and prolonged sexual abuse,  Donald developed a psychopathic-type personality disorder and killed dozens of victims.

In this world, there are people who are able to shoot, bludgeon, or torture a whole family and then sleep peacefully just hours after. Serial Killers have piqued the American public’s interest for generations. In the 1970s, for example, America was enthralled by the danger and fear of Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy, famous serial killers who killed a combined number of over a hundred people. Following suit of the popularity of serial killers, they have become ingrained in our culture through art, books, news, talk-shows, and movies. A famous example of this trend is in Flannery O’Connor’s ”A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, where the antagonist, The Misfit, brutally murders a family of six. O’Connor described The Misfit as a calm, polite, analytical, morally-confused, murderer with leadership skills and “strong white teeth.” This archetype, a person who can be perfectly calm while being aggressive and lacks a sense of right or wrong, has also been an interest of study in the medical field. The medical community has come together for patients that are described as lacking a moral conscious, naming their disorder psychopathy (Robinson). In Flannery O’Connor’s ”A Good Man Is Hard to Find” The Misfit exhibits signs of psychopathy, shown from his manipulating control over Bobby Lee and Hiram, and staying calm while he directly and indirectly kills six people.

Throughout time there has always been mentally disturbed people, but the problem is that they are on the streets and not in a psych ward. As you read this paper you will learn about some of the most infamous serial killers of the 20th century and the horrific atrocities they committed. We will go inside the mind of a serial killer and discover what drives them to kill people and also why some serial killers love to devour their victims, keep their limbs and even continue to preform sexual acts with them even after there are already dead.

Many serial killers are diagnosed with a mental disorder and others are considered to kill without a psychological motive. People who tend to commit crimes of injustice in the topic of murder usually have an underlying reason whether it is psychological or not. Serial Killers are in no way justified in the case of insanity. Eddie Leonski was a murderer who tried to justify his crimes with a plea of insanity but he wasn’t found clinically insane and was hung for his crimes in 1942. Eddie is always first considered as a United States Army Soldier before he is listed as a murderer. This Soldier was a loveable guy who had a lot of friends with him along the way of his rank. None of Eddie’s friends or fellow soldiers had ever suspected

Serial killers have fascinated the imaginations of people for a long time. One of the most notorious serial killers is Jeffrey Dahmer whose gruesome murders shocked the nation. Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer also known as Milwaukee monster was a notorious American serial killer and sexual offender in the 1980s and early 1990s. Between 1978 and 1991 Dahmer had murdered 17 men. His victims were usually raped, tortured, dismembered, and cannibalism was also involved. Jeffrey was a troubled child psychologically and his social skills had a lot to be desired. All the way through his childhood he was ignored and had queer fantasies of cadavers. In his adulthood this psychosocial status quo didn 't change and was in fact aggravated.

Albert Fish, an American serial killer, sadomasochist, and cannibal. His kidnappings and horrific acts throughout his life led him to be called by multiple nicknames. He was known as “the Gray Man,” “the Werewolf of Wysteria, “the Brooklyn Vampire,” “the Moon Maniac,” and most commonly “the Boogey Man.” Fish stated that he had “had children in every state,” stating around a hundred that he either molested or ate for his cannibal needs. That statement is not however true and still remains questionable as to what Fish meant. In multiple killings, he was a suspect in at least five during his lifetime. He confessed to three murders that police were able to track and was put on trial for the kidnap and murder of Grace Budd. Back in 1935 Fish befriended

How do the minds of serial killers function? What drives them to commit such violent and horrific crimes? For some serial killers their motive is based on either emotional or physical trauma they experienced throughout their lives. Although for one of America’s most infamous killers of the twentieth century, Jeffrey Dahmer both the physical and emotional traumas he experienced are what drove him to commit some of the most gruesome crimes America has ever seen.

Hamilton (Albert) Fish (1870-1936) was an American serial killer, child rapist, and cannibal. He was known as the gray man, the werewolf of wisteria, the Brooklyn vampire, the moon maniac, and the boogey man. Albert (born Hamilton) Fish came from a family seemingly stricken by mental illness, with six close relative in mental hospitals. At the age nine his father died, and Fish was sent to an orphanage. At that point Fish experienced bullying, and whippings from caretakers. It wasn’t until three years later that his mother took on a government job and was able to take him back. He began a relationship with another boy, where he was introduced to urine drinking and feces eating. In 1890 he moved to New York, where he became a prostitute and began raping young boys. At some point he became interested in penises themselves and began sexual mutilations. In 1917 Fish’s wife

Having the notoriety for being a vicious and uncivilized decade, the Roaring Twenties created just two serial killers: Earle Leonard Nelson – the serial strangler nicknamed the “Gorilla Murderer” – and the malevolently corrupted Carl Panzram. In the 1930s and 1940s, serial killers were few and far between. The cannibalistic pedophile Albert Fish and the anonymous psycho known as the “Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run” (aka the “Cleveland Torso Killer”) are the only known serial killers having a place with the Depression-era of America (Serial Killers Through History).

“ I should have gone into college and gone into real estate and got myself an aquarium...That’s what I should have done…”~ Jeffrey Dahmer ( The Milwaukee Cannibal). Many think that serial killers are insane, not realizing how much thought goes into their killings and picking their victims. They also do not realize how much Serial Killer have in common, all the way from their personality, family life to neurological traits. Yet a very crucial fact that people tend to overlook is the very definition of insanity” A mental illness of such a severe degree that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality” and although Serial Killer may have a very twisted reality but they know that stealing a innocent's life is wrong, hiding under the claim

On May 19, 1870 the child that would come to be one of the most disturbing serial killers in history was born. Hamilton Fish grew up in Washington D.C. in a working-class family. He seemed to have a normal life up until his father died when young Hamilton was five-years-old. In the aftermath of the death of the Fish family patriarch, the cost of raising Hamilton and his siblings became more than their mother could afford and the children were sent to orphanages. It was at the orphanage that young Hamilton discovered his proclivity for pain. Punishment within the walls of his new home was often doled out with whips and beatings. Eventually, Hamilton found he enjoyed not only being hurt but also seeing the other children abused, admitting that he loved to hear their screams. Nevertheless, Hamilton ran away every weekend in hopes of escaping the relentless abuse from his peers, who taunted him and made fun of his name by calling him Ham-and-Eggs. Fortunately, after three years his mother found employment with the government which paid enough for her to once again support her children. Upon his return home, young Hamilton begged his mother to change his name, citing the taunting he had received. She obliged by bestowing upon him the name of his deceased brother, Albert.

“The serial killer ‘is an entirely different criminal,’ ”The term serial killer is misleading on the ground that each murder is intended to be the last.” We see them as a figure of “the dark side of human potential,” but they believe they’re “on a heroic quest for the biggest score possible” They believe they are “the archetypal figure of impurity, the representative of a world which needs cleansing.” However, society knows that serial killers are not heroes, and they’re not cleansing the world. “The figure of the serial killer is violent impurity personified, and it is a construction that necessitates figures of violent purity to confront it.” While it can be argued whether having mental disorders should prevent a serial killer from being capitally punished, it is proven that many serial killers suffer from “paranoid schizophrenia, manic-depressive psychosis, or psychopathology.” It’s even said that “this crime is actually a form of disease. Its carriers are serial killers who suffer from a variety of crippling and eventually fatal symptoms, and its immediate victims are the people struck down seemingly at random by the disease carriers.” Serial killers usually have a stressor in their life that makes them start killing, and when they do “homicidal mania becomes ‘a necessity… linked to the very existence of a psychiatry which had made itself autonomous but needed thereafter to secure a basis for its intervention by gaining recognition as a component of public