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The Boogeyman is real. But he might not be hiding under your bed, but rather walking down the streets of New York City in broad daylight. In 1924, a mother gave a police description of a man, gray hair, a mustache. He was muttering to himself. And many people thought he was just a harmless old guy, but he wasn't. His name was Albert Fish, a man so disturbing that he picked up nicknames like the Brooklyn Vampire, the Moon Maniac, and the one that every kid feared, the Boogeyman. And he wasn't some character from a story. He was real. And for decades, he haunted America, luring in children, killing them and even eating them. He wasn't born a monster. He was made from the trauma of orphanages that taught him to enjoy pain. To a broken mind that thought God himself was demanding blood. And by the time police finally caught him, he had been hunting children for over 40 years. So how does this happen? How does a boy from a Catholic orphanage become one of the most terrifying predators that America has ever known? Well, today we're going to be diving right into one of the more disturbing episodes we've done on this show, the Legend of Albert Fish. So sit back, relax if you can, and welcome to camp on October 17th. I'm an angel. See the wings. Don't miss the new comedy Good Fortune, starring Seth Rogen, Aiz Ansari, and Keanu Reeves. Critics rave. It's Evan sent me. Have a budget. Guardian angel kinda. Were very unhelpful. Good Fortune, directed by Aziz Ansari. What's up, people? And welcome back to camp. My name is Mark Gagon, and thank you for joining me in my tent, where every single week we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from around the world from all time ever. Thank you for joining me in this very tent. This is where we do it. I also just want to make a comment about the times. We are living in a crazy moment in American history and even in world history. And a lot of people are wondering, when is camp gonna talk about it? And the answer, probably never. That's not the purpose of the show. This show is for you and I to escape, to go down rabbit holes and wormholes that are tacitly connected to the happenings of the day, but more so to give us a break and a reprieve from this vicious news cycle that never relents trying to make you terrified all the time. So welcome to the campsite, right? We're disconnected from the world. We don't have to see all the crazy stuff, all right? Instead, we're just Gonna go back in history and look at one of the most disturbing cases of all time. Yeah, how about that as a break? That's when you know that the world is messed up and you're like, oh, man, I just need to listen to a serial killer and take my mind off things, you know? As always, I'm joined by my dear friend Christos. What's up, dude? What's up? No time. We have to talk about Albert Fish. Okay? So I just want to make that comment before we begin. There's a lot of crazy stuff going on out there. And this show, sometimes we talk about, you know, crazy serial killers, Sometimes we talk about, you know, aliens, sometimes we talk about history, whatever, okay? But one thing that I don't necessarily want to dive into at this moment is the craziness of the world, because you get enough of that out there already. So let's not be in 2025. Let's go back to 1924. There's a woman named Anna McDonald who talks to the police, and what she says to them will haunt investigators for years. She basically sees an old man with gray hair, gray mustache, walking down the street and just being generally pretty weird. What she didn't know is that she was describing a man who would soon abduct her child. This boy, unfortunately, which, again, I I as a father now, like, these stories are, like, so, like, grotesque to me that there's pro details in here that I'll skip. So, you know, if you're looking for gory details, this might not be the spot. This is more the psychology of the killers themselves. But basically, this boy, nine years old, was found, you know, in the woods near their home. He had been, you know, all sorts of terrible things have been done to him. He was killed. And what she didn't realize is that this killer would remain free for seven more years, continuing to kill people around New York. This guy, the Brooklyn Vampire, the Werewolf of Wisteria, the Boogeyman was known by many names, but only one of them was his actual. And it's Albert Fish. In order to understand the psychology, which is always the thing that's interesting to me. How do these people get made? Where do these monsters come from, right? Are they born this way, or is it bred into them? And Albert Fish, in order to understand him, we got to go to the back to the beginning. May 19, 1872. His mother, most likely schizophrenic, but there's, you know, sort of debated reports on this. She was regularly hearing voices and sort of seeing things that weren't exactly there. And she would talk to invisible people. But it wasn't just his mother. Seven of his relatives suffered from various forms of what they would call in the day, madness. What we know now is, you know, mental instability or psychological issues. And when he was just five, his father passed away unexpectedly, which left his mother, who was already unstable, basically unable to care for him. And that didn't last long. Right, because she didn't really care for him. He got sent to St. John's Orphanage in Washington. And that is where the damage began. As you can imagine, any orphanage in the late 1800s wasn't a great place. And St. John's was no different. It housed dozens of children in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions. And the food wasn't great and medical care was basically non existent. And the view, the staff basically just like, viewed kids as just like another person that they had to just, you know, file through. And there wasn't a ton of care. And there was a punishment system inside this orphanage that was very deliberate and used basically to like kind of psychologically restrain the children is that, you know, when kids would disobey, they then would be oftentimes beaten, or they'd be stripped in front of the other residents and whipped while the other children saw. And physically and psychologically these kids were effectively being tortured in this orphanage. And this was all this is basically run of the mill orphanage stuff back in the day. And it affected plenty of children. And Albert Fish was just one that had seems like the underlying issues to really have a negative psychological response. And he endured a ton of these sessions and he began acting out even more. And then more disturbing things happened in his youth. Instead of learning to fear this punishment, he began to trigger this bizarre psychological response that he found the punishment almost pleasurable. And when the staff noticed this, it led to additional humiliation and even more severe punishments. And he began looking forward to these beatings and he started to enjoy seeing the other children's other children getting beat. And this created a cycle that would create this dark, dark psychopathy basically in his mind. My suspicion is that you're getting such little attention and affection that basically your mind as a coping mechanism will take this attention you're getting, which is negative and punishment, and you flip it into being something positive and pleasureful just as a way to cope. And as a result, he created this warped relationship with pain that he started to see as pleasure. And Albert would later say that that place ruined my mind. His words exactly. Which sure, a serial killer is probably going to Try to shirk responsibility. But in this case, it's probably the case, right? So he goes through this entire orphanage system, never adopted, and then eventually released. And by the age of 20, he moves to New York city, where he began working in prostitution. But between clients, he started to basically find his actual obsession and perversion, which is looking for young boys on the street. Albert's approach was sort of methodical rather than just, like, impulsive. He would try to find and target young children and neighborhoods that he knew that he could exploit. And he would spend days or weeks trying to find, you know, homeless or near homeless kids that he could basically, you know, find his victims. And for decades, he was able to abduct and sort of assault, abduct and assault, you know, the most vulnerable of our society without raising a ton of suspicion. And then when Albert was 28, his mother kind of came back into the fold and actually set him up into a marriage with a woman named Anna Marie hoffman. And the couple ended up having six children. And despite that, Albert maintained relationships with multiple men throughout his marriage. His wife was either unaware or chose to ignore them for family stability. But that's when even more disturbing things continued throughout Albert's marriage. An interesting thing about Albert's psychology is that he didn't beat his own children. He did something far more strange, but he didn't actually beat them. He engaged in these games that were kind of designed to kind of, like, satiate his needs while also appearing to be, like, harmless activities. One of the games, he would, you know, get on his hands and knees while having one of the children sit on his back holding a long stick or, like, a hairbrush. And he would tell them to hold up a certain number of fingers behind his back and then guess how many they were showing. And if they guessed wrong, then they would hit him with a stick. And, of course, they. He always guessed wrong and continued to get hit by his children, which kind of triggered, like this, again, this perverted sort of pleasure in his mind. And he would also regularly serve his family like raw meat. And he claimed that it was more nutritious than cooked food. And it was during this time period in the early 1900s, that his fascination with these sort of, you know, taboo practices started to deepen. What's up, people? Let's take a break really quick, because I want to talk to the fellas. Let me ask you something. Are you stuck? Do you feel like you're struggling with work or relationships? Or maybe you're marri or just feeling like you're not like the, the dude you want to be. You ever just, you know, thinking to yourself, like, man, I should be farther along right now. I just get caught in these cycles where I just kind of lose self control. Well, here's the thing that nobody likes to admit. It is possible that porn might be part of the problem. Yes, I know I said the P word. Now look, I don't want to be overly moralistic here, okay? But if you're someone that struggles with pornography and you know, research has shown that regular porn users actually leaves men feeling more anxious and less connected and ironically less satisfied. And it creates a cycle that then you gotta be a little secretive about and you tell yourself like, I'll quit. And then you come back to the same cycle and now you're in a trap. Well, that's where Relay comes in. Relay is a therapist backed app with actual clinicians designed to help men quit pornography and actually feel better and get control of their lives. And the difference with Relay is that you're not doing it alone. With Relay, you basically join a small group of guys that are kind of on the same road. They're sharing accountability and encouragement and actual tools to help when triggers hit and you're feeling, you know, anxious. Anxious or alone. Relay helps you feel a little more connected and you can stay totally anonymous. But for the first time, you're not going to be in this battle alone. I mean, think of it like a gym membership, but with your brain and for your habits and for the future of your relationship maybe. Right? Thousands of men and their families are already seeing some change because the men, their lives are a little bit less stuck. So if you're feeling stuck, check out Relay. Don't wait another month to be the man that you want to be today. And you can break the cycle with Relay. So go ahead and use the code Gagnon G non for a 7 day free trial. If you feel like this thing has just got a grip on you that you're not able to, to let go, that is, join Relay. J O I N Relay R E l a y app/camp and use the code GAGNON for a seven day free trial. Don't put it off. Be the man you're supposed to be today. Today. Now let's get back to the show. So one day he visited a wax museum, like a museum with like all the wax figures with one of his male friends, ostensibly like a boyfriend or something. And the museum featured exhibits about different cultures and practices from around the world, including one that captured his imagination, which is something known as Penile sub incision. And this is an old practice that was performed by only a few Amazonian tribes and indigenous people around the world, mostly as, like, a ritual fertility practice. And Albert became obsessed with the display. And this became like an obsession of his. Of, you know, personal genital mutilation. And he would soon find this outlet in real life. And in 1910, Albert Fish met a young man that was traveling through Delaware named Thomas Kedden. And not a ton is known about Kedden, but Fish later said that he was able to manipulate him and describe their relationship as sadomasochistic, though we don't know how much consent there really was, if this was an actual sadomasochistic relationship or he was just exploiting this man. After about 10 days, the other Fish took Kedin to an abandoned farmhouse, and there he tied him up and used a pair of scissors to effectively mutilate him. Generally speaking, I don't want to get too graphic into the details here, but he describes the event later when speaking with investigators, that he says he'll never forget the look that he gave him. And originally, Fish claimed that he intended to kill Kedin and basically dismember him and eat him in some capacity. However, the weather was extremely hot, and he feared that this body would effectively spoil and start smelling up his home. So instead, he treated the wound and then gave a small amount of money and then basically just left him alive in the farmhouse. And after this, you would assume that Kedin would just go and tell the police or tell someone what happened, but he basically just disappears from historical record. He never reported Fish to the police. Fish never saw him again. And whether Kedin made it home or died from his injuries somewhere or was humiliated and traumatized from this event and just kind of drifted off into, you know, a different town, no one really knows. But what we do know is that in 1917, Albert's wife left him for another man, basically taking all their. All their possessions, and kind of left him to raise the children alone, which ultimately caused a psychotic break that pushed Albert Fish deeper into his already perverted and psychotic worldview. He started to experience severe auditory hallucinations and started to claim that he was speaking with God and getting divine commands from God. And these voices would instruct him to perform these violent acts, which Albert interpreted as religious duties that he had to fulfill. He would stand outside of his home screaming, I am Christ, while shaking his fists at the sky. And he became obsessed with this concept of atonement through pain. And he believed that suffering was necessary to Cleanse sins. And given the extent of his crimes, he apparently felt a tremendous amount of sin to atone for, which led him to develop insane methods of self torture. He began to insert sewing needles into his body. And after his capture, there's actually scans of his body where you can see the needle still buried underneath his skin. He also developed a habit of soaking cotton wool in lighter fluid and then inserting it into his body, into his rectum, and setting it on fire. And this practice caused severe internal burns and likely permanent damage to his body. Yet he continued it regularly as this sort of twisted atonement ritual that he had to do for his sins. And his aftercare of these wounds consisted of just rubbing peroxide and vaseline on the wounds. And Albert had also created what he called implements of hell. This is basically like different tools that he designed to torture himself, but then also other people. The centerpiece was a paddle with nails, which he would use to beat himself until he was bloody. And his collection also had knives and whips and other things that he found that basically he could use to torture himself and other people. And between 1917 and 1934, his crimes escalated from just assault, to torture, to murder, and then ultimately to cannibalism. And the exact number of victims during this period is still unknown, but investigators estimate it was around 100 victims. But Albert claims that the actual count was closer to 400, many of which were children. The first confirmed victim was a young boy in 1924 whose mother had actually provided the description to the police. And he had started watching this boy, Francis, and other children in the neighborhood, and was just waiting for the opportunity. And when Albert approached him, the boy tried to run, and Albert grabbed him and brought him to a secluded area. The next victim, it seems, was just three years later, a boy named Billy Gaffney in 1927, who's playing with a friend. And he was found on the building rooftop nearby. And he was still alive, terrified and unable to speak. And they were eventually able to investigate, and he just told them that the boogeyman had got him. Years after his arrest, Albert Fish confessed to abducting this boy, Billy. And in his own words, Fish described how he lured him in and that there was torturing, and he basically just abused this child. Just three years later, after the murder of Francis Albert, Fish struck again. He found two young children that were playing. He tied one of them up and left him on the rooftop. And police eventually found this boy and asked him what happened. And he said that the boogeyman had gotten his Friend. Years later, after his arrest, Albert Fish confessed to abducting this other boy, Billy, and basically described how he lured him in, tortured him, killed him, and then ate his body. And had specific details of this entire account. And according to him, he consumed his body and his remains were never found. There's more details to this that I will refrain from reading because it's honestly just disturbing to go through. And finally, there's Grace Bud, who is the final known victim, a 10 year old who would eventually lead to the capture and execution of Albert Fish. This happened in 1928 when he saw an advertisement in a New York newspaper that said, young man 18, wishes position in the country, Edward Bud, and put his address. Seeing an opportunity to claim what he thought would be a simple, easy victim, Albert wrote to Bud and his family and showed interest in hiring Edward for farm work. But here's the thing. He signed the letter as Frank Howard, so nothing could actually be traced back to him. Albert's initial plan was straightforward. He would gain the family's trust, take Edward away from the city and do the same thing that he had done previously. Abduct him and murder him. However, when Albert visited the Bud household and met the whole family, the plans changed completely. The Bud family was struggling financially, so they welcomed Albert with open arms, thinking that it would really benefit him. But Albert quickly recognized their desperation and started to exploit it. He returned to the Bud home a few days later with some strawberries and some cheese and claimed that they were from his farm and the family was falling deeper into the trap. Fish continued to build their trust, acting like he was just a farmer trying to help this young boy, Edward. But while the family believed that they had found a benefactor, Fish was shifting his attention to their 10 year old daughter. That afternoon, Fish made up a story saying that he needed to attend his niece's birthday party at his sister's home in the countryside. He then suggested that the daughter might enjoy coming along, promising that there'd be other children and plenty of fun. The Bud family, eager to please a man that they thought was, you know, a well to do farmer and could potentially change their lives, agreed to let her go. They watched from the doorway as she walked off and headed to the party. And this was the last time that they saw their daughter alive. Albert took Grace on a train, carrying with him, you know, the canvas, you know, basically wrapped into like a bundle. And instead of, you know, what he said was, you know, food and different things for the party were actually tools to murder her. When Grace failed to return to her family's home. That evening, her family got suspicious and immediately contacted the police. However, their investigation quickly came to an end because Albert had given them a completely false name. The Frank Howard that they were searching for led nowhere, and the police had no way to identify or locate Grace's abductor. The case received significant media attention due to her age and the mysterious circumstances around her disappearance, and the police conducted an extensive search of the city and the surrounding areas. Following numerous leads and tips from the public. But without any way to actually identify this perpetrator, the investigation gradually just went cold. Detective William King was assigned to lead the investigation into Grace's disappearance, and he interviewed the Budd family multiple times, trying to figure out every possible detail about this visitor. Police distributed flyers about Grace and her photograph throughout New York City and many of the surrounding states, and they checked passenger lists from trains leaving the city from the day she disappeared. They investigated similar disappearances in other jurisdictions, looking for patterns that might lead to a perpetrator. But they found nothing. And for six long years, the Budd family lived with uncertainty of not knowing what happened to their daughter. But on November 1934, the Budd family received a letter that would finally provide some of the answers while simultaneously destroying any of the remaining hope that they had. This was a letter written personally by Albert and contained explicit details about the abduction, what happened, and the murder. He began his letter basically explaining his obsession with cannibalism. My dear Miss Bud. In 1894, friend of mine shipped as a deckhand on the steamer Tacoma, Captain John Davis. They sailed from San Francisco to Hong Kong. On arriving there, he and two others went ashore and got drunk. When they returned, their boat was gone. At the time, there was a famine in China. Meat of any kind was one to three dollars a pound. The suffering was so great among the very poor that all children under 12 were sold to be cut up and sold for food in order to keep others from starving. A boy or girl was not safe. You could go in any shop asking for steak or stew meat. Part of the body would then be brought out and basically just described this nature of cannibalism that existed in this place, which is probably not even true, but it's part of his twisted mind. He went on the letter to explain detailed, I mean, extremely brutal details of what had happened to their. Their innocent daughter. And at first, investigators thought that the letter was another hoax. The family had received fake letters before, Many fake letters, including one claiming that she was still alive and she was, you know, somewhere unknown, which is even Just, I mean, more morbid that they, you know, people that were not even involved in this were so brutal that they were just giving the family false hope. However, this letter contained specific details that could have only been known by the actual abductor. And more importantly, the letter mentioned Albert's gift of strawberries and cheese to the family, details that had never been made public and would have been impossible for a hoaxer to know. And a major breakthrough came from an unexpected source. The envelope with Albert's letter had the printed logo of the New York Private Chauffeur Benevolent Association, a detail that Albert, I guess, had just overlooked. And so Detective King immediately recognized this and traced the logo to the association's headquarters on East 29th street, where he learned that a janitor named Lee Sikowski had recently taken some of the organization's envelopes when he moved out of a room at a nearby boarding house. King interviewed Sikowski, who explained that he had been living in a room on East 52nd street, but he had moved out several weeks earlier. When he left, he had taken some envelopes from his job at the chauffeurs association and left them behind in the room for whoever might move in next. King immediately went to the boarding house and spoke with the landlord. The next person to rent Sikorsky's room was an elderly man who matched the physical description that Anna McDonald had given of this gray looking man years earlier. And the landlord identified the man as none other than Albert Fish and even provided his current address. So on December 13, 1934, Detective King and several other officers went to Albert's residence to arrest him. And when they arrived, he didn't try to flee. Instead, he calmly invited them inside and immediately just began confessing to his crimes. It was as if he was, like, waiting for this moment and was almost relieved of his decades of violence and kind of just accepted that everything had finally caught up to him. Which, it just seems like there's a lot of serial killers and psychopaths that when they get arrested, they're just like, ugh, finally, like, you guys got me. Like, it took long enough. So upon his arrest, Albert confessed not only to Grace Budd's murder, but to. To a horrifying amount of other crimes spanning decades. And he provided detailed accounts that sickened even these hardened, experienced investigators who thought that they had basically seen everything in their law enforcement career until they met this guy. Albert seemed to almost, like, take pleasure in the details and shocking these interrogators with, like, the graphic nature of his descriptions and of his crimes. And during his confession, he revealed the full extent of his self torture practices. And when he told officers about these needles that were embedded in his body, they initially didn't believe that that was even possible. So they actually ordered an X ray which revealed 27 needles of various sizes embedded into his body. Some were even in his bladder, just floating. And he also confessed to the murders of Francis McDonald and Billy Gaffney and provided details that only the killer would have known. And the investigation revealed that Albert had been active as a predator for. For over four decades. So Albert's trial began on March 11, 1935, and it lasted about 10 days. And this became a massive media moment. The courtroom was packed with spectators and journalists and legal professionals who wanted to witness what many considered to be one of the most vile trials of the century. Albert pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity with his defense team, arguing that no sane person could ever have committed such horrific acts. And they pointed to his family history of mental illness and his bizarre religious delusions and just the sheer depravity of his crimes as evidence that he was legally insane. The defense brought in psychiatrists who testified about his mental condition. And they described his hallucinations and the self torture and his complete lack of normal human empathy. And one expert witness testified that Albert was clearly suffering from multiple severe mental illnesses that rendered him incapable of understanding right from wrong. The prosecution, however, argued that while Albert might indeed be mentally ill, he was still legally sane and capable of understanding the consequences of his actions. They pointed out that Albert had successfully hidden his crimes for decades, that he had planned them carefully, he had taken deliberate steps to avoid being caught. All evidence of a rational, cogent mind capable of understanding that what he was doing was wrong. It only took the jury four hours to find Albert sane and guilty of murder in the first degree. And then Judge Frederick Close sentenced him to death in the electric chair. In his final weeks on death row at Sing Sing Prison, Albert displayed the same disturbing lack of human emotion that had basically characterized his entire adult life. Rather than showing fear or having remorse about his execution or any of the things that he did, he just seemed genuinely excited about dying. Albert allegedly told prison guards, what a thrill it will be if I have to die in the electric chair. It will be a supreme thrill. The only one I haven't tried. Albert's execution was scheduled for January 16, 1936. And as the date approached, he seemed to grow once again more excited rather than scared. And prison guards even reported that he talked constantly about the electric chair and speculated about how Wild it'll be and what it'll feel like. And on the morning of his execution, he ate his final meal, a steak with fries and a salad and coffee. And when guards came to escort him to the execution chamber, he just walked calmly and even helped them adjust the straps that would eventually hold him in the chair. And at 1106, the electric chair was turned on. And according to official reports, it took two jolts of electricity to kill Albert Fish. Rumors claimed that the needles embedded in his body caused blue sparks to fly from the electric chair and created electrical problems during the execution. But these stories likely became part of the Albert Fish legend and are most likely urban myths with no factual basis. Albert fish was ultimately charged only with grace bud's murder, as prosecutors felt that they had the strongest evidence in that case. Other crimes that he confessed to, while equally horrific, lacked sufficient physical evidence to guarantee convictions beyond a reasonable doubt. His true victim count will probably never be known with certainty. But many of Albert's victims may have been classified as runaways or, you know, missing persons rather than murder victims because there's not enough conclusive evidence to actually pin them to him. For criminal psychologists, Albert fish remains a fascinating, deeply disturbing subject of study. His combination of hereditary sort of, you know, family mental illness, plus the severe childhood trauma and the gradual escalation of violence provides some insight into how serial killers develop and really where they come from. And the case also highlighted the complexity of determining legal sanity in cases that involve severe mental illness. Albert was clearly suffering from multiple psychological disorders, yet the legal system of his time found him competent to stand trial. I mean, if this happened today, would he be thrown in jail? Would it even go to trial? Would he just be put into a psychiatric hospital? I mean, ultimately, what we can be grateful for is that, you know, Albert Fish, the boogeyman, was dead and was finally caught. But his ghost never really went away. I mean, parents still warn their children about the old man who, you know, waits with a smile and offers candy and, you know, takes you and never brings you back. And many of these stories that, you know, you and I probably heard as kids about, you know, these creepy old men likely stemmed with Albert Fish. And although he's gone, the nightmare that he released onto the American public will probably never go away. And that is ultimately the story of Albert Fish. I mean, it's just. I don't know, like I said at the beginning, having a kid and then reading these things and, like, going through the research on this is just, like, so brutal. I mean, it's like, just Horrendous. And, I don't know, part of you wonders, like, I don't think, like, I'd like to be someone that's like, you know, all people can exist in our society, and, you know, it's. We just need to have mental health services to help them. You hear about Albert Fish, and you're like, you just need to get killed. Right? Like, it's just so brutal. And especially in a place like New York City, like, you think that someone would be around, someone would see it. I mean, granted, it was a different time. You know, it's like the middle of the Depression, but still, I mean, just so, so brutal. And I wonder, like, what happened to his kids. Like, I wonder if his kids are still alive now or if they're around. I mean, like, I wonder what they went through. I mean, just the. The legacy of, like, pain that this guy inflicted onto, you know, people is just, like, so brutal. And there's also something to be said that, like, you know, these orphanages back in this time were just, like, all also, like, awful and horrendous. Not to say that the orphanages are, you know, the only people at fault here, right? Because, you know, there's many people that went to these orphanages that didn't end up killing and, you know, eating a bunch of people. But you feel bad for all the kids that have to go through these orphanages that are just, you know, being beaten and, you know, dealing with just, like, these terrible atrocities that just, like, you know, little kids. I mean, it's just awful. Being a dad really makes you soft. Like, I just. I remember I. Before I have a kid, I'd read this and be like, is crazy. Anyway, who wants lunch? You know, like. Like, I can't. I can't get through this stuff anymore. I don't know, maybe I'm. Maybe I'm gay, but. What'd you find, Christos? Are the kids still alive? Yeah. So after his arrest, several of his children actually testified in court to support his insanity defense. Granted, they were young at the time. Right. Well, I mean, it's one of those things. Like, he's definitely insane, right? Like, I don't even know if that's, like, really disputed. Like, he's obviously insane. Is he too insane to stand trial? Like, that's ultimately what was decided in the court, but, like, this is obviously an insane person. Like, he can't be in with people. Like, he needs to just go away. Is that insanity, though? I. I don't know, like, the legal definition of what insanity is. I'm assuming it's like, oh, this person's, like, not able to be executed because, like, they're just not in our shared reality. And I do think that he had some consensus, right? He was able to plan and make these premeditated things and try to hide it. So, like, he obviously had had some level of thought where he was, like, deliberately trying to, you know, evade capture. But again, it's just like, he's like, if I'm. I'm like, it's not surprising me that his kids are like, no, he's insane, you know, and it doesn't seem like his kids were really abused by him, you know? Like, it wouldn't surprise me if they were, but it doesn't seem like there's anything from the record that would suggest that they were abused. So, I mean, what a tough spot for the kids, you know, because it's like, you love your dad. He's your dad. Like, biologically, you're predisposed to, like, liking him, and then you find out he's just the most vile human being that ever existed. And you're like, all right, well, just go to jail forever, but you don't need to kill him. Also, unsurprisingly, most of them tried to live quietly and distance themselves from their father's crimes. They avoided publicity, likely because of the shame and stigma. Yeah, I mean, I feel for the kids because they had nothing to do with it, you know? Like, six kids. Yeah. I mean, that's insane. I mean, just, like, atrocious. I don't know. I feel so bad for, like, the kids and the families. Like, it's just, like, so brutal. I mean, I don't know. And it's crazy now because, like, it's stories like that to, like, send kids, like, inside. Like, kids don't play outside anymore, and it's like, because of stories like this, then they go online, and then they're just, like, chronically online all day, which is, like, equally as bad. Maybe not equally, but also really bad. Just like, you know, everyone's like, oh, there's creepy old guys out there. Go online where every creepy old guy is. You know what I mean? Like, all the creepy old guys are on, like, Roblox chat rooms or something. I mean, it's probably safer to be outside because everyone's online now, so it's like, I guess you don't have to be as worried, you know? And it's also a good lesson, but, like, not in every case, because Albert Fish did, like, you know, attacked kids at random but there is something to be said that, like, a lot of times these things happen. Like, I think statistically it's someone you know, right? Like, if your kid's gonna be, like, abused or, like, abducted, it's like. Like someone that's close to the family. Like, nine out of 10 cases. So it's one of those things. Like, if you have kids, you're thinking of having kids. Like, just be aware of who's around, you know, like, if both you and your partner or if you're a single parent or whatever and you're working a lot. Like, just have an awareness of, like, all right, where are they? Do they have the tools to, like, tell me about creepy stuff that happens to them? Yeah, you just want to create a system where, like, your kids can trust you and they can discuss what's going on in their life. Or at the very least, like, just be, you know, you know, diligent about, like, who's around them. Like, more. Again, not to say it's not a threat, but, like, more often than not, I think statistically, it's like the Boy Scout leader. It's the guy at the church. It's the, you know, the PE coach. It's the, you know, football, whatever. Like, it's. That's normally where it comes from. So I don't know. It's just disturbing. Anyway, I don't think this is much of a reprieve from the craziness of the world, but at least you weren't thinking about how crazy the world was, you know? Anyway, thank you guys so much for tuning into another episode of Camp. I promise the next episode will be a little bit more fun. All right? It's the least we could do. Anyway, thank you all so much for joining me in my tent. We do these episodes every single week. And I will see you next time. So long, peace. What's up, people? Quick announcement. If you are a fan of Camp Gagnon or Religion Camp, I have great news because we are dropping History Camp. That's right. This is the channel. We're going to be exploring the most interesting, fascinating, controversial topics from all time throughout all history. Right. You probably know about Benjamin Franklin, I don't know, Thomas Jefferson, Nikola Tesla, interesting figures from history and you probably learned about in school. And they were pretty boring. But not here. No. As you know, I was raised by a conspiracy theorist. So I'm going to be diving deep into all of the interesting, strange, occult, and secretive societal relationships that all of these famous, influential men from our shared past have. So if you're interested, please go ahead and subscribe to the YouTube channel. It will be pinned in the description as well as the comments. And if you're on Spotify, this doesn't really apply to you, but these episodes will be dropping as well. Just go ahead and give us a high rating because it really helps the show.