Deranged (38 page)

Though Edward Budd had been present in the courtroom throughout the trial, his parents had not attended since the day of their testimony. Today, all three of them sat together on a bench not far from the defense table, listening expressionlessly as Dempsey summed up his case. Directly across the narrow aisle sat Fish’s six children, dry-eyed except for Gertrude, who clutched a handkerchief to her tear-streaked face.

Throughout the trial there had been virtually no communication between the members of the two families, though at one point, during a short recess, Gertrude had approached Edward Budd in the hallway outside the courtroom and tearfully apologized for her father’s dreadful crime.

Fish himself sat up during Dempsey’s summation and, for one of the few times since the start of the trial, actually seemed to be paying attention. When the lawyer made his final appeal, the old man lifted his gnarled hands in a small, pathetic gesture of supplication, then let them drop helplessly into his lap. Then, as Dempsey begged mercy for the poor, “defenseless” old man who sat before the jury, pleading for his life, Fish’s eyes filled with tears and he began to weep silently for himself.

In contrast to Dempsey’s impassioned summation, Gallagher’s was largely a cut-and-dried recap of the case. His tone suggested that the prosecution had no need for oratory, that the facts spoke for themselves, that no reasonable man, confronted with the evidence of Fish’s dreadful crime, could possibly fail to find the old man guilty.

Indeed, his most emotional comment was his first one. “Mr. Dempsey in his closing remarks asked you to remember certain things about the defenseless Mr. Fish,” he said, his voice turning harsh as he spoke the old man’s name. “Gentlemen, I want you to remember the defenseless little innocent Grace Budd as she kicked and screamed in the springtime of her life and said she would tell her mamma.”

Gallagher took time to answer Dempsey’s charges against Bellevue Hospital and Grace Budd’s parents, arguing that those accusations were simply “a smoke screen, an attempt on the part of the defense to kick up some dust here and throw it into your eyes to get away from the true issues of this case.”

Those issues could be stated very simply: Had Grace Budd been killed by Albert Fish and, if so, had the old man been in full possession of his senses at the time of the murder?

As for the first of these issues, Gallagher reminded the jury that he had “produced in this case an array of over forty witnesses to prove the People’s case” beyond “any doubt.” He then provided a step-by-step synopsis of the evidence, paying particular attention to the proof of the corpus delecti.

The second point, Fish’s sanity, had been established by the expert witnesses the state had put on the stand—a more trustworthy bunch, Gallagher suggested, than the trio who had testified for the defense. “I think so far as the array of alienists is concerned, ours showed a more friendly attitude, they told you from their own minds and hearts what this defendant told them, they did not shift about in the chair and quibble about little points.”

Acknowledging that Fish was “sexually abnormal”—a “conniving and scheming sexual pervert” who had “engaged in revolting practices with women and children”—Gallagher nevertheless insisted that Fish was not suffering from “a disease of the mind.” He scoffed at the idea that Fish had been motivated by a “divine command.” “There was no divine hallucination or divine command when he purchased this pot cheese can or these tools with which to carry out this nefarious plan. And when he sent the telegram there was not any divine command. And when he went there that day, there was no divine command to go to the house.

“Don’t put any stock, gentlemen, in this divine command business. That is merely a smoke screen again.” Every step of Fish’s crime spoke of “premeditation and design,” directed toward the fulfillment of a clear-cut goal—“to satisfy his own sexual gratification.”

“And so, gentlemen, the People leave this case in your hands, knowing that whatever you do, you will do the right thing by the People of this County, of this State, and by the defendant.”

On that flat, even perfunctory note, Gallagher brought his summation to a close.

Justice Close began his charge to the jury at precisely 1:50 P.M., immediately following the lunch recess. Standing beside his chair in accordance with local custom, he presented an orderly and lucid summary of the issues, explaining the six possible verdicts that might be rendered in the case, ranging from acquittal to first-degree murder as charged. He proposed a systematic way for the jurors to proceed in their deliberations and recited several relevant sections of the Penal Code, including the ones pertaining to the legal definition of insanity.

One section in particular “may have some bearing upon the evidence in this case,” the judge explained, then read it aloud to the jury. “A morbid propensity to commit prohibited acts, existing in the mind of a person who is not shown to have been incapable of knowing the wrongfulness of such acts, forms no defense to a prosecution thereof.”

It was a point that the judge clearly felt was worth repeating. “Well, now, gentlemen,” he stressed. “If you find that this man through his own perversion has so weakened his will that an irresistible impulse comes upon him to satisfy his sexual passions, that would not excuse him from the consequences of his act. He must have been suffering from such a defect of reason as not to know the nature and quality of his act or to know that it was wrong when he performed it, or he must answer for the consequences of his act.”

At 3:01 P.M., the judge completed his charge, dismissing the alternate juror, Thomas Madden, with the thanks of the Court. As the jury retired to begin its deliberations, a flock of newsmen surrounded Madden, who created a stir by declaring that the psychiatric testimony had been completely confusing to him. Had he been called on to take part in the final deliberations, he would have simply disregarded the opinions of the alienists and relied on his own judgment. As far as he was concerned, Fish was insane.

Taking an informal poll among themselves, the reporters came up with the same verdict.

At 6:00 P.M., the jury recessed for dinner at the Roger Smith Hotel, resuming their deliberations at 7:30. Slightly less than one hour later, at precisely 8:27 P.M., the twelve men filed back into the courtroom, having agreed upon a verdict.

John Partelow, the foreman, rose to deliver it.

“And how do you find the defendant, guilty or not guilty?” intoned the clerk.

“We find the defendant guilty as charged in the indictment,” Partelow declared solemnly.

The reporters hurried to the nearest phones to file the news. Albert Fish had been found guilty of murder in the first degree. The verdict carried a mandatory sentence of death in the electric chair at Sing Sing.

Fish, sitting with his hands folded tightly in his lap, slumped at the news, though he stood with his shoulders squared and his back straight as two guards led him up to the clerk’s table, where he delivered his pedigree in a soft but steady voice.

At Dempsey’s request, Justice Close deferred the formal sentencing until Monday morning at 10:00 A.M.

Fish’s children, waiting tensely in the hallway, heard the news from a reporter. The old man’s sons flinched but said nothing. Fish’s two daughters broke into violent sobs and were led from the courthouse by their husbands.

Mrs. Budds’s reaction was jubilant. “Good for him!” she exclaimed. “Just what I expected.”

Her son Edward concurred. “I’m glad of the verdict. It won’t bring Gracie back. But it was what he deserved.”

Only Mr. Budd seemed struck by the gravity of the verdict. “I had a funny feeling when I heard it,” he told reporters. “It hit the top of my head when I realized he would go to the electric chair. It put a tremor through me.” He paused for a moment, then echoed his wife and son. “But he deserves it. Insanity was the bunk!”

As guards led the dazed-looking Fish past a crowd of reporters and photographers, several of the newsmen shouted out to him, asking how he felt about the verdict. “I feel bad,” he murmured. “I expected Matteawan.”

Dempsey, too, was asked for his reaction. “The man is insane,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t conceive how twelve intelligent men in the face of this overwhelming evidence of perversion, which makes him an incredible pervert even among perverts, could decide he was sane.”

As it happened, the majority of the jurors wouldn’t necessarily have disagreed with Dempsey. Buttonholed by reporters on the sidewalk outside the courthouse, one of the jurors revealed that most of them had, in fact, thought Fish was insane. But they felt he should be electrocuted anyway.

Later that night, a report began to circulate that made its way into the next day’s papers. According to this story, Fish’s attitude toward the outcome of his trial had undergone a significant change once he’d had a chance to think it over. He still believed that the verdict “wasn’t right” and he felt especially sorry that “my family will have no one to guide them.”

But the more he considered the prospect of his own execution, the less unhappy about it he felt. Indeed, as Norma Abrams wrote in the Daily News, “his watery eyes gleamed at the thought of being burned by a heat more intense than the flames with which he often seared his flesh to gratify his lust.”

“What a thrill it will be to die in the electric chair!” Fish was quoted as saying. “It will be the supreme thrill—the only one I haven’t tried!”

35

“We do not even know if, when animals tear each other to pieces, they do not experience a certain sensual pleasure, so that when the wolf strangles the lamb, one can say equally well, ‘he loves lambs’ as that ‘he hates lambs.’” THEODOR LESSING

The tabloid headlines trumpeting the news of Fish’s sentence seemed to be the fitting climax of the long, lurid affair. But there were more shocks to come.

In the days following the end of the trial, Fish was back on the front pages as a result of several new confessions. To be sure, these confessions merely confirmed what the authorities had believed for months. But they were no less sensational for that.

The first took place on Sunday evening, March 24, in Warden Casey’s office, where—to a group that included Elbert Gallagher and his boss, District Attorney Walter Ferns—Fish admitted that he had, in fact, kidnapped and slain four-year-old Billy Gaffney in February, 1927.

The old man had already written out the details of that killing in a letter to James Dempsey—and if the atrocities Fish described in that letter were true, then, for sheer ghastliness and depravity, the Gaffney crime had surpassed even the Budd outrage.

“There is a public dumping ground in Riker Ave., Astoria,” the letter began. “All kinds of junk has been thrown there for years … I will admit the motorman who positively identified me as getting off his car with a small boy was correct. I can tell you at that time I was looking for a suitable place to do the job.” Then he proceeded to the specifics:

Not satisfied there, I brought him to the Riker Ave. dumps. There is a house that stands alone, not far from where I took him. A few yrs. ago I painted this house for the man who owns it. He is in the auto wrecking business. I forget his name but my son Henry can tell you, because he bought a car from him. This man’s father lives in the house. Gene, John, Henry helped me paint the house. There were at that time a number of old autos along the road. I took the G boy there. Stripped him naked and tied his hands and feet and gagged him with a piece of dirty rag I picked out of dump. Then I burned his clothes. Threw his shoes in the dump. Then I walked back and took trolley to 59 St. at 2 A.M. and walked from there home. Next day about 2 P.M., I took tools, a good heavy cat-o-nine tails. Home made. Short handle. Cut one of my belts in half, slit these half in six strips about 8 in. long. I whipped his bare behind till the blood ran from his legs. I cut off his ears—nose—slit his mouth from ear to ear. Gouged out his eyes. He was dead then. I stuck the knife in his belly and held my mouth to his body and drank his blood. I picked up four old potato sacks and gathered a pile of stones. Then I cut him up. I had a grip with me. I put his nose, ears and a few slices of his belly in grip. Then I cut him thru the middle of his body. Just below his belly button. Then thru his legs about 2 in. below his behind. I put this in my grip with a lot of paper. I cut off the head—feet—arms—hands and the legs below the knee. This I put in sacks weighed with stones, tied the ends and threw them into the pools of slimy water you will see all along road going to North Beach. Water is 3 to 4 ft. deep. They sank at once. I came home with my meat. I had the front of his body I liked best. His monkey and pee wees and a nice little fat behind to roast in the oven and eat. I made a stew out of his ears—nose—pieces of his face and belly. I put onions, carrots, turnips, celery, salt and pepper. It was good. Then I split the cheeks of his behind open, cut off his monkey and pee wees and washed them first. I put strips of bacon on each cheek of his behind and put in the oven. Then I picked 4 onions and when meat had roasted about 1/4 hr., I poured about a pint of water over it for gravy and put in the onions. At frequent intervals I basted his behind with a wooden spoon. So the meat would be nice and juicy. In about 2 hr. it was nice and brown, cooked thru. I never ate any roast turkey that tasted half as good as his sweet fat little behind did. I eat every bit of the meat in about four days. His little monkey was as sweet as a nut, but his pee-wees I could not chew. Threw them in the toilet.