Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America's Most Fiendish Killer Page 11

  Panting and sweating, his father had sat up and looked around wildly. The light from the streetlamp outside the bedroom window spilled across his face. His features were contorted with horror. Staring down at the tormented old man, Albert wondered what kind of dream could have produced such a look.

  He couldn’t begin to imagine.

  14

  The merciful man doeth good to his own soul: but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh.

  PROVERBS 11:17

  She haunted his dreams. In his sleep, she would rise from the depths and come at him, her small face twisted with terror and fury, her fingers curled into claws, her little girl’s voice shrill with her final cry. “I’ll tell mama!”

  He would wake in a puddle of sweat, heart racing, God’s own words ringing in his ears, demanding atonement, mortification of the flesh. He would leap from his sodden bedclothes, strip to his skin, and fetch his needles and thimble.

  He would squat, reach under, find the place, shove, shove harder, until it was all the way in. The torture was white-hot, agonizing, but the pain made him stiffen, and he would pull at himself savagely, seeing the girl’s face swim before him, hearing the booming voice inside his head: “O ye Daughter of Babylon!”

  Afterward, after his suffering, after his release, he would lie on the floor, breathing raggedly, savoring the burning soreness between his legs. Cleansed and clearheaded, he would be filled with a deep sense of his own justification. After all, hadn’t he rescued the girl from the ultimate violation? Her virginity had remained intact. And if the sacrifice had been unrighteous, would not the angels have intervened to save her, as Isaac had been saved?

  He thought about her all the time now. Not one of all the other children he had known in his life—how many had there been?—were like her.

  There had, of course, been many thrilling experiences since that June day. His marriages, to begin with. And the good times he’d had with little Mary Nichols and her family. He had such fond memories of the games they had played. “Sack of Potatoes Over,” “Buck, Buck, How Many Hands Up?” and the others. She was as dear to him as one of his own children. He still wrote to her whenever he could.

  But the Budd girl was different from the rest. Lying in bed sometimes, thinking back to that day and the frenzied week of pleasure that had followed, he could still recall her taste.

  On several occasions, he had made his son drive him back to the cottage. But the last time, remorse had overwhelmed him at his first glimpse of the place, and he had been unable to get out of the car. He was beginning to doubt that he would be able to take his secret to the grave.

  From time to time, a story about her would turn up in the newspapers. He searched their pages eagerly for these items. Whenever he encountered one, he tore it out and stored it with his other special clippings.

  Just this June—exactly six years since the incident—several interesting articles about her had appeared. He couldn’t help snickering at the stories, they were so far from the truth. Poor Mrs. Budd had had her hopes dashed once again. But he had learned an interesting fact from the articles: the Budds had moved to a new address, 135 West 24th Street. He wasn’t sure how or when he might use that bit of information. But he felt certain it would come in handy.

  Maybe he’d write to Mrs. Budd one of these days and tell her what had really happened to her daughter. At least that would spare her the pain of future disappointments. After all, she had treated him so nicely, inviting him to Sunday dinner, giving little Gracie permission to go with him to the party.

  The least he could do was let her know the truth.

  15

  The miserable have no other medicine But only hope.

  SHAKESPEARE, Measure for Measure

  On the afternoon of Thursday, May 30, 1934, a mighty armada—the entire U.S. naval fleet, “the united sea power of the nation”—steamed into New York City’s harbor. It was a stirring spectacle with eighty-one warships, including dreadnoughts, destroyers, cruisers, and aircraft carriers sweeping up the river in a twelve-mile procession.

  Overhead, a squadron of planes, 185 strong—“the sky talons of the American fighting eagle,” as the New York Daily Mirror proclaimed—roared above the fleet, wheeling and swooping in a breathtaking demonstration of aerial prowess.

  It was the most spectacular display of naval might in U.S. history. Nothing like it had ever been seen before, and the citizens of New York turned out by the hundreds of thousands to cheer the awesome pageant. From Coney Island to Yonkers, Sandy Hook to Hoboken, they thronged the shoreline and waterfront, shouting and cheering as the stately procession cruised past.

  From the forward gun turret of the heavy cruiser Indianapolis, anchored close by Ambrose Lightship, President Roosevelt reviewed the fleet with unconcealed pride. At the conclusion of the one-and-a-half hour review, he directed that three pennants be raised on the forward mast of the cruiser, spelling out in naval code the words “Well done.”

  For eighteen days, the men-of-war remained anchored in the harbor, drawing massive crowds of sightseers. On Sunday, June 3, more than a quarter of a million people turned out to see the ships. Half that number waited for hours in slow-moving lines for a chance to get aboard. Others viewed the fleet from nearby pierheads, sightseeing buses, or hired boats. Before that sun-baked day was over, nearly forty people had been felled by heat prostration, and a seven-year-old girl had drowned after tumbling over the side of a sightseeing boat. Her father, Arthur Hallowell, the captain of the boat, also perished when he plunged overboard in an effort to save her.

  Meanwhile, the city rolled out the red carpet for the men of the fleet. The officers and their wives were welcomed, wined and dined at receptions arranged by Mayor LaGuardia and Mrs. William Randolph Hearst. Special Sunday services were conducted at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. At the Episcopal Church on Fifth Avenue, Bishop Manning denounced pacifism as incompatible with Christian doctrine, a position shared by Cardinal Hayes, who deplored the “supreme folly” of “military unpreparedness.” From pulpits all over the city, speakers bestowed their blessings on the fleet and its men, though at least one dissenter decried the gathering of warships as nothing more than a show of “brute force.”

  While the officers mingled with the city’s social elite, 22,000 enlisted men swarmed ashore on overnight liberty. A thousand of them spent Sunday afternoon at the Polo Grounds, watching the Giants game as guests of the National League. Others headed directly to Times Square, Chinatown, and Coney Island, determined to make the most of their holiday.

  For the next two and a half weeks, the fleet was the biggest attraction in town, and the newspapers covered it accordingly, with daily features and dozens of photos of battleships, cruisers, teeming crowds of tourists (more than 1,400,000 people would eventually visit the fleet), and beaming “tars” enjoying the hospitality of the city.

  On Monday, June 4, the Daily Mirror ran a special section of photographs related 10 the fleet as it had every day since the warships put into port. There were shots of the battleship Colorado, of the sightseers lined up behind police barricades, of the blue-jacketed ranks posed at attention on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. And at the very top of the spread, there was a photograph of two young couples—a pair of smiling sailors and their smartly dressed dates—having their picture snapped on Riverside Drive by a “tintype man,” who was apparently instructing them to “watch the birdie.” All of them were obeying his directions, except for the girl on the far right, who was looking not at the tintype man but straight into the camera of the news photographer. She was a darkhaired teenager, wearing a full dress, a big-brimmed hat, and a charming half-smile.

  Millions of people saw this photograph when it was published on Monday. And one of these people was a well-meaning soul, a Brooklyn housewife named Adele Miller who, perhaps even more than most New Yorkers, had been engrossed by the drama of the Budd abduction. Contemplating the picture of the two young couples o
n Riverside Drive, this woman was gripped by an absolute certainty. She became convinced that the dark-haired girl staring back at her was none other than Grace Budd herself, grown into a teenager.

  Scissoring the photo from the paper, she drew an arrow pointing to the girl in the big-brimmed hat and in the margin above it wrote, “This is the girl, Grace Budd.” Then she stuck the photo in an envelope and sent it off to the Budd family.

  Though the Budds had been inundated with crank letters six years earlier, it had been a long time since they had received mail from a stranger, and they examined the clipping with keen interest. Grace’s mother found a magnifying glass and studied the dark-haired girl’s face. She showed the picture to her family and friends. No one could make a positive identification. But they all agreed that the girl in the picture did, in fact, look like an older version of Gracie.

  The following day, Mrs. Budd, accompanied by her husband, took the subway to the Missing Persons Bureau and showed the photograph to Detective King. Within twenty-four hours, the city’s papers were reporting that a girl, tentatively identified as the grown-up Grace Budd, had been spotted in a news photo in the company of two sailors from the fleet. The photo itself was reprinted along with the stories. For the first time in years, the Budds allowed themselves to feel a spark of hope.

  It didn’t take long for that spark to be extinguished. On Thursday, June 14, a sixteen-year-old named Florence Swinney of 541 East 150th Street appeared at the Morrisania police station in the Bronx and identified herself as the girl in the news photo. The other girl, she said, was her friend, Lillian Hagberg, and the two sailors were young men they had met in the city and spent the day with.

  That evening at around six o’clock, Deputy Chief Inspector Francis J. Kear climbed the stairs to the Budds’ apartment at 135 West 24th Street to break the bad news to the family. He found Delia Budd clearing the dinner dishes from the kitchen table. “That’s another hope gone,” Mrs. Budd said, sighing. Her husband simply stared into space and said nothing.

  At first, the Florence Swinney episode seemed to be just another dead-end lead in a six-year string of disappointments. But as it turned out, the stories about the mistaken identification of the dark-haired girl in the news photo would have dramatic consequences. For it was from one of these stories that Albert Fish learned the Budds’ new address. And armed with that information, the diseased old man would find himself impelled, six months later, to commit one last outrage against the Budds—an outrage that would finally solve the mystery of the missing girl’s fate.

  16

  “His Gossip of Today is the Headline of Tomorrow!”

  slogan for the Walter Winchell column “On Broadway”

  In the years since Albert Corthell had been captured and released, the police had been unable to come up with a single plausible suspect in the Budd kidnapping. Officially, the case was still open. But no one in the Bureau of Missing Persons had much faith that it would ever be solved. No one, that is, except William F. King.

  For over six years, King had continued to pursue the case. During that period, he had been involved in other investigations, including the search for Joseph Force Crater, the New York Supreme Court Justice whose disappearance in August, 1930, was one of the major mysteries of the Depression (and remains unexplained to this day).

  But King had never abandoned his hunt for the missing Budd girl and her elderly abductor. By the fall of 1934, he had traveled over fifty thousand miles on that quest, running down rumors, following dead-end leads, chasing phantoms. He had done everything possible to flush his quarry out of hiding.

  One of his ploys was to plant phony news items about the Budd case in the New York City papers. He didn’t want the public to forget about the case. Each time one of these stories appeared, the police would receive dozens of phone calls and letters from people who claimed to know something about the missing girl. None of these tips had ever panned out. But there was always the chance that someone might yet come forth with a key piece of information. The newspaper gambit was a long shot, King knew. But he was willing to give anything a try.

  The main outlet for King’s plants was Walter Winchell’s enormously popular gossip column, “On Broadway,” the pride of William Randolph Hearst’s brassy tabloid, the New York Daily Mirror. Winchell was unquestionably the most influential newspaper columnist of his time and on close terms with everyone from J. Edgar Hoover to the mobster Owney Madden. He was always happy to do the police a good turn.

  On November 2, 1934, the following newsflash appeared in Winchell’s column:

  I checked on the Grace Budd mystery. She was eight when she was kidnapped about six years ago. And it is safe to tell you that the Dep’t of Missing Persons will break the case, or they expect to, in four weeks. They are holding a “cokie” now at Randall’s Island, who is said to know most about the crime. Grace is supposed to have been done away with in lime, but another legend is that her skeleton is buried in a local spot. More anon.

  There was no factual basis at all for this story—no cocaine addict on Randall’s Island with inside knowledge of Grace Budd’s death. But by a strange turn of events, this fabrication would prove to be uncannily prophetic and come to be chalked up as another major coup for Winchell.

  17

  “I write as a habit—just can’t seem to stop.”

  ALBERT FISH

  Ten days after Walter Winchell reported an imminent break in the Grace Budd case a letter arrived at the home of the missing girl’s family. It had been mailed the previous night, November 11, from the Grand Central Annex post office in Manhattan and was addressed to Delia Budd.

  Though Mrs. Budd was functionally illiterate, she could make out her name—written in a neat, bold script—on the front of the envelope. Seating herself at the kitchen table, she carefully tore open the top of the envelope and removed the folded sheet inside. But she had trouble reading what the letter said.

  It was the one time in her life that her illiteracy proved to be a blessing.

  Her son Edward was at home, relaxing in his bedroom. Mrs. Budd called him into the kitchen and handed him the letter. The young man began to read it silently. Almost immediately, the color drained from his face.

  Mrs. Budd stared at him, alarmed. “What’s wrong?” she demanded “What does it say?” Edward Budd didn’t answer; he was already on his way out the front door.

  18

  The wicked is snared by the transgression of his lips.

  PROVERBS 12:13

  By 10:30 that morning, the letter was in Detective King’s possession.

  Over the years, King had read countless pieces of crank mail—inhumanly cruel letters full of vile taunts. But for sheer viciousness and depravity, nothing he had ever seen could begin to match the letter that Edward Budd had just delivered into his hands:

  My dear Mrs. Budd, In 1894 a friend of mine shipped as a deck hand on the Steamer Tacoma, Capt. John Davis. They sailed from San Francisco for Hong Kong China. On arriving there he and two others went ashore and got drunk. When they returned the boat was gone. At that time there was a famine in China. Meat of any kind was from $1—to 3 Dollars a pound. So great was the suffering among the very poor that all children under 12 were sold to the Butchers to be cut up and sold for food in order to keep others from starving. A boy or girl under 14 was not safe in the street. You could go in any shop and ask for steak—chops—or stew meat. Part of the naked body of a boy or girl would be brought out and just what you wanted cut from it. A boy or girl’s behind which is the sweetest part of the body and sold as veal cutlet brought the highest price. John staid there so long he acquired a taste for human flesh. On his return to N.Y. he stole two boys one 7 one 11. Took them to his home stripped them naked tied them in a closet. Then burned everything they had on. Several times every day and night he spanked them—tortured them—to make their meat good and tender. First he killed the 11 yr old boy., because he had the fattest ass and of course the most meat on it. Every part
of his body was Cooked and eaten except head—bones and guts. He was Roasted in the oven (all of his ass), boiled, broiled, fried, stewed. The little boy was next, went the same way. At that time, I was living at 409 E 100 st., near—right side. He told me so often how good Human flesh was I made up my mind to taste it. On Sunday June the 3—1928 I called on you at 406 W 15 St. Brought you pot cheese—strawberries. We had lunch. Grace sat in my lap and kissed me. I made up my mind to eat her. On the pretense of taking her to a party. You said Yes she could go. I took her to an empty house in Westchester I had already picked out. When we got there, I told her to remain outside. She picked wildflowers. I went upstairs and stripped all my clothes off. I knew if I did not I would get her blood on them. When all was ready I went to the window and Called her. Then I hid in a closet until she was in the room. When she saw me all naked she began to cry and tried to run down stairs. I grabbed her and she said she would tell her mamma. First I stripped her naked. How she did kick—bite and scratch. I choked her to death, then cut her in small pieces so I could take my meat to my rooms, Cook and eat it. How sweet and tender her little ass was roasted in the oven. It took me 9 days to eat her entire body. I did not fuck her tho I could of had I wished. She died a virgin.

  So monstrous was this letter that it was hard to conceive of the mind that could have produced it. Still, it had a strangely authentic quality. Though clearly de ranged, it was far more coherent than the foul ravings of most hate letters. And the details it described—the strawberries and pot cheese, for example—were completely accurate.