The Brooklyn Vampire: How Albert Fish Became America's Boogeyman
10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories
Joe Kuner
4.8 • 614 Ratings
🗓️ 22 July 2025
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Some stories stick with you long after you hear them, and Albert Fish's case is one that refuses to let go. Born in 1870 into a family tree riddled with mental illness, Fish's early years were marked by abandonment, abuse, and the complete failure of every system meant to protect vulnerable children. What started as a troubled kid nicknamed "Ham and Eggs" at an orphanage became something far more terrifying.
We're diving deep into the psychology and crimes of the man who terrorized multiple generations with names like The Moon Maniac, The Boogeyman, and The Brooklyn Vampire. This isn't about sensationalizing evil - it's about understanding how someone becomes a monster, and more importantly, recognizing the warning signs that everyone around Fish missed or ignored.
From his disturbing relationship with Thomas Kedden to the heartbreaking case of 10-year-old Grace Budd, we'll explore how Fish's delusions evolved from self-harm to targeting the most vulnerable members of society. His trial raised questions about sanity, justice, and whether someone can be too mentally ill to face consequences for their actions.
This episode examines not only Fish's crimes but the societal failures that allowed them to continue unchecked. It's a conversation about mental health, childhood trauma, and the dangerous intersection of untreated illness and violent behavior. Fair warning - this case contains disturbing content involving children, but it's a story that needs to be told.
#AlbertFish #SerialKiller #TrueCrime #CannibalKiller #BrooklynVampire #GraceBudd #MentalHealth
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You know those childhood nicknames that follow you around? Well, one kid got stuck with ham and |
| 0:05.3 | eggs at an orphanage in the 1870s. It sounds harmless enough, right? But that same kid would grow |
| 0:12.0 | up to be the moon maniac, the boogeyman, the Brooklyn vampire. His real name was Albert Fish, |
| 0:18.6 | and by the time he was done, he'd terrorized multiple generations |
| 0:22.5 | with crimes so disturbing that his own lawyer refused to reveal his final written confession, |
| 0:28.9 | calling it the most filthy string of obscenities he'd ever read. |
| 0:33.1 | This is the story of how a troubled orphan became one of America's most notorious killers, |
| 0:38.3 | and why every warning signed along the way was either missed or ignored. |
| 0:43.3 | The During the late 1800s and early 1900s, one man succeeded in haunting multiple generations. |
| 1:14.5 | His actions were horrifying enough, but the names people gave him made it worse. |
| 1:19.5 | The Moon Maniac, the boogeyman, the werewolf of wisteria, the Brooklyn vampire. |
| 1:25.5 | Each title carried its own brand of terror. |
| 1:28.7 | Albert Fish entered the world on May 19th, 1870, and Washington, D.C. |
| 1:34.8 | His father had reached 75 years old when Albert was born, making him 43 years older than his mother. |
| 1:42.0 | Even by Victorian standards, that age gap was unusual. Today, it would |
| 1:46.5 | definitely turn heads. Albert was the youngest of four children who made it through childhood. |
| 1:52.1 | His siblings were Walter, Annie, and Edwin. He chose to go by the name Albert to honor a deceased |
| 1:58.4 | sibling. The name change also helped him escape the nickname that |
| 2:01.8 | followed him from the orphanage, ham and eggs. That moniker clung to him for years like a |
| 2:07.6 | persistent shadow. Fish inherited more than his father's name. Mental illness ran through his family |
| 2:13.9 | like a genetic curse. His uncle received a diagnosis of mania. |
| 2:18.3 | One brother landed in a state hospital. |
... |
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