Albert Fish

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

By age 12, a telegraph boy introduced him to drinking urine and eating feces. Fish later moved to New York City, engaged in male prostitution, and began molesting boys under six. Fish began self-harming by embedding needles into his groin and abdomen; X-rays after his arrest revealed at least twenty-nine needles in his pelvic region.

Reader's Guide

Albert Fish's significance lies in the extreme and documented nature of his crimes, which included torture, mutilation, and cannibalism of children. His case highlighted the challenges of policing serial offenders in the early 20th century, as he evaded capture for years despite multiple arrests for lesser offenses. Fish's boast of having 'children in every state' and his claim of about 100 victims remain unverified, reflecting the uncertainty surrounding his true number of crimes.

Did You Know?

• Fish was also known by the nicknames the Gray Man, the Werewolf of Wysteria, the Brooklyn Vampire, the Moon Maniac, and the Boogey Man.
• His father was 75 years old when Fish was born and died when Fish was five.
• By age 12, a telegraph boy introduced Fish to drinking urine and eating feces.
• X-rays after his arrest revealed at least twenty-nine needles embedded in his pelvic region.
• Fish confessed to only three murders that police could trace to a known homicide, though he claimed about 100 victims.

From Longobucco to the Five Points

Francesco Ioele arrived in the world on January 22, 1893, in the small Italian village of Longobucco, the son of Domenico and Isabella Ioele. With an older brother John and two younger siblings, Assunta and Angelo, the family crossed the Atlantic around 1900, settling into American life. As a teenager, Ioele caught the eye of John Torrio, who drew him into the orbit of the Five Points Gang and set him on a path toward organized crime. When Torrio departed for Chicago in 1909, the young Ioele shed his Italian surname and rebranded himself as Yale. Despite a stocky, medium-statured frame, he developed a reputation as a formidable brawler and skilled thief. By 1910, at just seventeen, he and a wrestler friend named Bobby Nelson had terrorized a Coney Island pool hall, cracking cues and lobbing billiard balls at their opponents. His first brush with serious legal trouble came in October 1912, when he was arrested on suspicion of homicide.

Building a Brooklyn Empire

Yale embodied a new philosophy in organized crime: business over ego, a principle he shared with his mentor Torrio. Starting with basic racketeering, he seized control of Brooklyn's ice delivery trade through protection rackets and monopolies, then used those profits to open the Harvard Inn bar on Coney Island's Seaside Walk in 1917. The bar's collegiate name inspired his permanent adoption of the Yale moniker. His operation expanded into Black Hand extortion, a string of brothels, and restaurant food-service control. What made his gang distinctive was its multi-regional Italian composition and willingness to partner with other ethnic groups when profitable. At the dawn of Prohibition, he became one of Brooklyn's largest bootleggers. His sideline included a line of foul-smelling cigars packaged with his own smiling face, and he co-owned the Uliano & Yale funeral home on 14th Avenue, where his family lived across the street. When asked his profession, he dryly called himself an "undertaker."

The Prince of Pals and the Fist

Yale's personal life revealed a man of sharp contradictions. He married Maria Delapia, with whom he had two daughters, Rosa and Isabella, before separating and marrying a younger woman, Lucita, in 1927, who bore him a daughter, Angelina. He dressed in expensive suits and diamond jewelry, earning the nickname "Beau Brummell of Brooklyn." In his neighborhood, he was known as the "Prince of Pals," replacing a robbed delicatessen owner's lost cash and handing a fish peddler $200 with the advice to get a horse. Yet this generosity coexisted with brutal violence. He beat his younger brother Angelo so severely the boy ended up hospitalized. When two extortionists tried to shake down a popular hat-check operator, Yale knocked both unconscious. His capacity for cold-blooded killing was demonstrated in May 1920, when he traveled to Chicago and personally murdered gang boss Big Jim Colosimo at the behest of Torrio and Capone, who saw the older man as an obstacle to bootlegging profits. Chicago police suspected him but never formally charged.

The Assassin and the Target

Yale's willingness to travel and kill made him an invaluable asset to the Chicago Outfit. In November 1924, he returned to Chicago with John Scalise and Albert Anselmi, and together they entered the Schofield Flower Shop to gun down North Side Gang leader Dean O'Banion, another rival whose existence threatened the profits of Torrio and Capone. Yet Yale's own life was repeatedly threatened by rivals in Brooklyn. On February 6, 1921, he and two men were ambushed in Lower Manhattan after stepping from their car to attend a banquet; one bodyguard was killed, another wounded, and Yale sustained a severe lung injury from which he slowly recovered. Five months later, rival gunmen overtook his car on Cropsey Avenue in Bath Beach, wounding his brother Angelo and one of his men—an apparent retaliation for the June 5 killing of Ernesto Melchiorre at the Harvard Inn. Eight days after that attack, Yale's men gunned down Melchiorre's brother Silvio in front of his Little Italy cafe. A third attempt in July 1923 saw his chauffeur Frank Forte shot by gunmen who mistook him for Yale.