Serial Rapists - Blog Posts

Mr. Cruel

August 18, 2021

Mr. Cruel is an unknown serial child rapist from Australia who was responsible for three attacks on young girls in the northern and eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria. He is also the prime suspect in the abduction and murder of another girl named Karmein Chan. 

Mr. Cruel is unidentified and all of his attacks and potential murder have been unsolved due to this. He was given the name by The Sun newspaper, after police had described a serial home invasion rapist in November 1987 as “super cool and super cruel.” At that time police believed the same person was responsible for three rapes: a woman in 1985, a girl in 1987 and another woman in 1987.

It is believed he began his attacks on August 22, 1987 in Lower Plenty where he had broken into a family home around 4am, armed with a knife and a gun. Mr. Cruel then tied the parents by their hands and feet and locked them in a wardrobe. He cut the phone lines, raped the 11 year old daughter and tied the son to a bed. 

The next attack occurred on December 27, 1988 in Ringwood where he broke into the back door of a house around 5:30am, again armed with a knife and a handgun. Mr. Cruel bound and gagged the parents in the home and demanded money. He took the 10 year old daughter, Sharon Willis and put tape over her eyes, a ball gag in her mouth and abducted her. However, Mr. Cruel never kept his victims for good. He later released Sharon 18 hours later and left her by Bayswater High School. 

The third attack by Mr. Cruel occurred on July 3, 1990 in Canterbury where he broke into a house at 11:30 pm and tied and gagged 13 year old Nicola Lynas. He covered her eyes with tape, disabled the phones and looked for money. He then took Nicola to another house and molested her for 50 hours before he released her at a power sub-station in a suburb known as Kew. 

On April 13, 1991, in Templestowe, a man who was armed with a knife abducted 13 year old Karmein Chan, who had actually gone to the same school as Nicola. Karmein was found about a year later with 3 gunshots to the head. No one knows for sure if Mr. Cruel was responsible for Karmein’s death, since he had never been known to kill any of his victims before. The case remains unsolved.

Though we are unsure of Mr. Cruel’s identity, police believe he is a very intelligent person who carefully planned out all of his attacks, probably having watched the families and the victims before attacking. Mr. Cruel has never left any forensic tracings behind, and had his face covered at all times during each attack. The above picture is the only sketch they have of him, given by Nicola, one of the victims. He was also described as having a soft-spoken voice, his behaviour was calm and not rushed as at one point he had stopped to eat a meal during one of the attacks. Mr. Cruel apparently would threaten to kill his victims with a large hunting knife or a handgun. 

There is a reward of $200,000 for any information on two of the abductions. In April 2016, police upped the reward from $100,000 to $1,000,000 for any information that could lead to the arrest and conviction of Mr. Cruel in the 1991 murder of Karmein Chan. 

It is believed that Mr. Cruel may have videotaped or taken photographs of his attacks and police believe that if he is still alive he probably has kept the tapes and photos, as well as collect child and maybe even swap child pornography. Police believe that he probably communicates with children using chat lines and collects porn through the internet. 

Mr. Cruel’s MO was always the same in home invasions and with the three attacks on victims, as these victims had all described their attacker in the same way. He would bathe all his victims carefully, with one of them saying it was almost “like a mother washing a baby.” During one attack, he had taken a second set of clothes from the victim’s home to dress her before he released her. In another attack, he had left the girl dressed in garbage bags so the police could not test her original clothing. 

Two of Mr. Cruel’s victims provided the police with details of the house they were kept while they were abducted. Both had been shackled to a bed with a rough neck brace and one told police she could hear planes landing, which police believe meant that the house was on one of the flight paths to Melbourne Airport. 

Police searched 30,000 homes and interviewed 27,000 suspects over the attacks, costing $4 million. There has been some evidence of the crime scenes that have been lost, including tape that was used to bind one of the victims. 

In April 2016, before the 25th anniversary of Karmein Chan’s murder, the Victoria Police released a 1994 dossier (nicknamed the Sierra files) to the Herald Sun newspaper which had details about the case that had never been released to the public before. The dossier, with the FBI, had contained information about 7 possible suspects. They had attempted to contact these suspects to varying degrees. The reward for any information has been increased to $1,000,000.

Albert Fish

March 30, 2023

***Trigger Warning: Lots of graphic nature and abuse of children***

Albert Fish was born Hamilton Howard Albert Fish on May 19, 1870 in Washington, D.C. to Randall and Ellen Fish. Randall was 43 years older than Albert’s mother Ellen, and was 75 years old when Albert was born. The pair had multiple children together, with Albert being the youngest. 

Albert began using the name Albert as a child, named after his dead brother so that his peers would stop calling him “Ham & Eggs” a childhood nickname he despised. 

Many of Albert’s family members suffered from different mental illnesses. Albert’s mother, Ellen, had what was known as “aural and/or visual hallucinations.” Albert’s father, Randall, had a heart attack and on October 16,1875 he died when Albert was only 5 years old. 

Ellen, being overwhelmed with her husband now gone placed Albert in the Saint John’s Orphanage where Albert was abused regularly. Albert would later begin to enjoy the pain he endured at the orphanage, the beginning of him experiencing sexual pleasure during pain or inflicting pain. 

In 1880, Ellen got a better paying job and was able to get her son back from the orphanage. In 1882, Albert had begun a relationship with a boy who introduced Albert to drinking urine and eating feces. Albert also began visiting public baths where he could watch young boys undress. 

Albert also began to write obscene letters to women who he would see their names in classified ads in the papers. 

In 1890, at the age of 20, Albert moved to New York City where he was a male sex worker and began to rape and molest boys, most of whom were under the age of 6. In 1898, Albert married a woman named Anna Mary Hoffman, who was 9 years younger than him. This was an arranged marriage Albert’s mother had set up. Albert and Anna had 6 children together: Albert, Anna, Gertrude, Eugene, John and Henry. 

In 1903 Albert was arrested for grand larceny and incarcerated in Sing Sing. Albert later said he had gone to a wax museum with a male lover once and became fascinated by the bisection of the human penis, which led to an obsession with sexual mutilation. 

In 1910, Albert met a man named Thomas Kedden. It was said that Thomas was intellectually disabled. The two began a sadomasochistic relationship, it is unclear whether Albert forced Thomas to do any of the acts. After 10 days, Albert took Thomas to an old farm house where he tortured him for two weeks, tying him up and cutting off half of his penis. 

Albert’s original plan was the kill Thomas and cut up his body. Albert feared he would be noticed if he tried to bring Thomas’ body back to his house, so he poured peroxide over the wound, wrapped it in a Vaseline-covered handkerchief, and left him $10. 

Albert never contacted or tried to contact Thomas again and does not know what happened to him after that. 

In January 1917, Albert’s wife left him for another man who had been boarding with them. Albert was then left to raise his children on his own, saying that his wife had taken almost everything they owned with her. 

Albert often began having auditory hallucinations, once wrapping himself in a carpet saying he was following instructions from John the Apostle. 

Albert began to self harm by embedding needles into his groin and abdomen areas. After he was arrested, the X-rays showed that Albert had at least 29 needles in his pelvic area. He would also hit himself with a nail studded paddle and would put wool covered in lighter fluid into his anus and light it up. 

It was never reported that Albert ever abused his own children physically, however it is said that Albert would encourage his children and their friends to hit him in the buttocks with the nail studded paddle. 

Around 1919, Albert had stabbed an intellectually disabled boy in Georgetown. Fish claimed he would go over intellectually disabled or African-American people because he did not think they would be missed. 

On July 11, 1924, Albert saw 8 year old Beatrice Kiel playing alone on her parent’s farm in Staten Island, New York. Albert offered the little girl money to come help him look for rhubarb. Beatrice was about to leave the farm when her mother chased Albert away. Albert later returned to the Kiel farm where he tried to sleep in their barn, but was discovered by Beatrice’s father. 

During 1924, Albert was suffering from psychosis and claimed God was commanding him to torture and sexually mutilate children. Three days after the Kiel’s, Albert murdered Francis McDonnell on Staten Island. 

Francis McDonnell

On July 14, 1924, 9 year old Francis McDonnell was reported missing when he did not return home from playing with friends. A search began and his body was found, hanging by a tree in a wooden area near his home. 

Francis had been sexually assaulted and then strangled with his suspenders. His left hamstring had been almost entirely stripped of flesh. Albert denied responsibility for this but did say he planned to castrate the boy but heard someone approaching so he ran off. 

Francis’ friends told police Francis had been taken by an elderly man with a grey moustache. A neighbour also claimed to have seen Francis with a similar looking man walking towards the woods. 

Anna McDonnell, Francis’ mother, said she also saw that man earlier in the day, claiming he had been coming up the street mumbling to himself and making motions with his hands. Anna said the man appeared faded and grey, this description eventually leading to “The Grey Man” nickname Albert was dubbed. 

Francis McDonnell’s murder went unsolved until Grace Budd. Albert denied the charges until March 1935, after the trial of Grace Budd’s murder, where he admitted to killing Francis and another boy, Billy Gaffney. 

Billy Gaffney

On February 11, 1927, 4 year old Billy Gaffney was playing in their apartment hallway with two other boys, ages 4 and 12. When the 12 year old left, the two smaller boys disappeared. 

The 4 year old, a boy named Billy Beaton was found on the roof of the apartments. Beaton said that the “bogeyman” had taken Billy Gaffney. Gaffney’s body was never recovered. A man named Joseph Meehan, a motorman on the Brooklyn trolley eventually recognized a picture of Albert, claiming that was the man he saw on the day Billy went missing. 

Meehan claimed the man had been trying to quiet a little boy on the trolley. The boy was not wearing a jacket and was crying for his mother. It was found that Albert had been working a few miles from the location Billy was taken at the time. 

Albert later confessed he had taken the boy, tied his hands and feet, and gagged him. He burned his clothes and left. The next day he went back with his tools and whipped Billy, cut off his ears, nose and slit his mouth from ear to ear. Albert also gouged out his eyes, and drank his blood. Albert cut off the head, arms, hands, legs and feet, and threw them in sacks with stones, throwing them into water. 

The rest of the boy Albert took home with him and ate. Billy’s mother travelled to Sing Sing to ask Albert about her son’s death but he refused to speak with her. Albert began to weep and asked to be left alone. After two hours of asking questions through his lawyer, Billy’s mother gave up and was not convinced he had killed her son. 

Grace Budd

On May 25, 1928, Albert saw an ad in the paper by a young man who wanted work. The young man was 18 year old Edward Budd, who lived at 406 West 15th Street. 

On May 28, Albert went to see the Budd family in Manhattan, claiming he wanted to hire Edward but was really planning to tie him up and mutilate him. Albert introduced himself as Frank Howard, a farmer from Farmingdale, New York. Albert told Edward he would take on him and his friend Willie, and would come back for them in a few days. 

Albert never showed up a few days later, sending a telegram that apologized to the family, setting up a new date for when he would return. 

When Albert came back, he met Edward’s little sister Grace, who was 10 years old at the time. Albert knew he immediately wanted to take Grace instead of Edward, so made up a story about going to his niece’s birthday party, asking Delia and Albert Budd if Grace could come along with him. 

Albert took Grace to an abandoned house, a house he had previously picked out for his next victim, before his plans changed and he took Grace instead. Albert murdered Grace Budd and claimed he ate her after as well.  

The police arrested a man named Charles Edward Pope on September 5, 1930 for the murder of Grace Budd after his estranged wife accused him. He spent months in jail and was his trial began on December 22, 1930. He was found not guilty. 

In November 1934, an anonymous letter was sent to the Budd family, claiming that whoever wrote the letter had murdered Grace and detailed how they had tortured her and then taken 9 days to eat her body. The letter did say that Grace had fought back, and that the writer, who was obviously “Frank Howard” had let Grace die a virgin. 

The letter eventually led police back to Albert Fish, who did not deny the murder of Grace Budd. He actually told police his original plan was to kill her brother, Edward. Albert claimed he had no intention of raping Grace, but when he was strangling her he had two involuntary ejaculations. 

This was used in trial to determine Grace’s kidnapping was sexually motivated, and it avoided the cannibalism. 

Albert’s trial for the murder of Grace Budd started on March 11, 1935. The trial lasted 10 days, where Albert pleaded insanity, claiming he heard God telling him to kill children. It was said that Albert was a “psychiatric phenomenon” and that there was no other individual in medical records who had this many sexual abnormalities. 

The jurors all believed that Albert Fish was insane, but they believed he should be executed anyway. So they found him sane and guilty and he was sentenced to death by electrocution. 

Albert Fish was executed on January 16, 1936, in the electric chair in Sing Sing. It was said that Albert had actually helped the executioner position the electrodes on his body before he died. He last words were, “I don’t even know why I’m here.” 

According to a witness, it took two jolts before Albert died, and rumours circulated that it was due to the needles that he had inserted into his body for years. These rumours turned out to be untrue, as it was claimed that many individuals in the electric chair take more than just one jolt to die. 

After Albert’s execution, his lawyer, James Dempsey said he had Albert’s final statement, which was multiple pages of hand-written notes that Albert had written hours before his death. When journalists asked Dempsey to say what Albert had written, he replied, “I will never show it to anyone. It was the most filthy string of obscenities that I have ever read.”