Editing Albert Fish (section)

==Additional crimes discovered after Fish's arrest==
===Francis McDonnell===
During the night of July 14, 1924, 9-year-old '''Francis McDonnell''' was reported [[missing person|missing]] after he failed to return home after playing catch with friends in [[Port Richmond, Staten Island]]. A search was organized, and his body was found—hanging from a tree—in a wooded area near his home. He had been sexually assaulted, and then [[strangulation|strangled]] with his [[suspenders]].<ref name="Schechter"/> According to an [[autopsy]], McDonnell had also suffered extensive lacerations to his legs and abdomen, and his left [[hamstring]] had almost entirely been stripped of its flesh. Fish refused to claim responsibility for this, although he later stated that he intended to [[castration|castrate]] the boy but fled when he heard someone approaching the area. McDonnell's friends told the police that he was taken by an elderly man with a grey moustache. A neighbour also told the police he observed the boy with a similar-looking man walking along a grassy path into the nearby woods.<ref name="Schechter"/>

Francis' mother, Anna McDonnell, said she saw the same man earlier that day, telling reporters, "He came shuffling down the street mumbling to himself and making queer motions with his hands ... I saw his thick grey hair and his drooping grey moustache. Everything about him seemed faded and grey."<ref name="Schechter"/> This description resulted in the mysterious stranger becoming known as "The Grey Man". The McDonnell murder remained unsolved until the murder of Budd.<ref name="Schechter"/> When several eyewitnesses, among them the Staten Island farmer Hans Kiel, positively identified Fish as the odd stranger seen around Port Richmond on the day of McDonnell's disappearance, [[Richmond County, New York|Richmond County]] [[District Attorney]] [[Thomas J. Walsh (New York politician)|Thomas Walsh]] announced his intention to seek an [[indictment]] against Fish for the boy's murder. At first, Fish denied the charges. It was only in March 1935, after the conclusion of his trial for the Budd murder and his confession to the killing of Billy Gaffney, that he confirmed to investigators that he had also raped and murdered McDonnell. When the McDonnell confession was made public, the ''[[New York Daily Mirror]]'' wrote that the disclosure solidified Fish's reputation as "the most vicious child-slayer in criminal history".<ref name="Schechter"/>

===Billy Gaffney===
On February 11, 1927, 3-year-old Billy Beaton and his 12-year-old brother were playing in the apartment hallway in [[Brooklyn]] with 4-year-old '''William "Billy" Gaffney'''. When the 12-year-old left for his apartment, both younger boys disappeared; Beaton was found later on the roof of the apartments. When asked what happened to Gaffney, Beaton said "the [[bogeyman]] took him." Gaffney's body was never recovered.<ref>Billy Gaffney's parents were Edward and Elizabeth Gaffney.</ref> Initially, serial killer [[Peter Kudzinowski]] was a suspect in Gaffney's murder. Then, Joseph Meehan, a [[motorman (rail transportation)|motorman]] on a Brooklyn [[tram|trolley]], saw a picture of Fish in a newspaper and identified him as the old man whom he saw February 11, 1927; the man had been trying to quiet a little boy sitting with him on the trolley. The boy was not wearing a jacket, was crying for his mother, and was dragged by the man on and off the trolley. Beaton's description of the "bogeyman" matched Fish.<ref>''The Charley Project'' page on [http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/g/gaffney_billy.html Billy Gaffney] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100101164117/http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/g/gaffney_billy.html |date=January 1, 2010}}. Retrieved January 26, 2010</ref> Police matched the description of the child to Gaffney.

Detectives of the Manhattan Missing Persons Bureau were able to establish that Fish was employed as a house painter by a Brooklyn real estate company during February 1927, and that on the day of Gaffney's disappearance, he was working at a location a few miles from where the boy was abducted. Gaffney's mother, Elizabeth Gaffney, visited Fish in Sing Sing, accompanied by Detective King. She wanted to ask him about her son's death, but Fish refused to speak to her.<ref>[http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring03/Rawlins/fishvict.htm " Albert Fish."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070429223347/http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring03/Rawlins/fishvict.htm |date=April 29, 2007}} ''The Life of a Cannibal''. Retrieved February 14, 2007</ref> However, Fish claimed the following in a letter to his attorney:<ref name="crimelibrary" />

{{blockquote|I brought him to the Riker Ave. dumps. There is a ''house'' that stands alone, not far from where I took him ... 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 the 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 home from there. Next day about 2 P.M., I took tools, a good heavy [[cat o' nine tails|cat-of-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&nbsp;– nose&nbsp;– [[Glasgow smile|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 [[wikt:gripsack|grip]] with me. I put his nose, ears and a few slices of his belly in the 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&nbsp;– feet&nbsp;– arms&nbsp;– 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 the 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&nbsp;– nose&nbsp;– 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 ate 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.<ref name="crimelibrary" />}}