The Devil's Dozen by Katherine Ramsland Page B

to find. In fact, he had intended to castrate the Budd boy, and had even tried to castrate himself.
    Wertham did not quite believe one of the claims Fish made, but could not deny its veracity. In his drive to feel pain, Fish actually shoved needles into the area of his groin between the anus and scrotum, and according to X-ray evidence, over two dozen were still there. It seemed astounding that a man would do this, but Fish had many different religious delusions that involved being a martyr. He claimed he had performed a similar act on some of his victims. In fact, he had roamed the country and estimated he had sexually abused over one hundred children in twenty-three states.
    Wertham noted that Fish admired the work of a notorious killer from Germany, Fritz Haarmann, the “Hanover Vampire,” who had been convicted in 1924. Fish had a number of clippings about the man in his possession, so Wertham looked into the case. Haarmann was a butcher with a low IQ and a record of commitments to a mental institution. During the 1920s, he would find wayward young men, invite them home for a meal, force sex on them, and then murder them. He teamed up with a male prostitute, Hans Graf, who could better lure the boys. Together, over a period of five years, they trapped and killed an estimated fifty young men. They were finally stopped after someone found skeletal remains in a canal. Since Haarmann lived nearby and had been arrested before, investigators searched his home. They found clothing from several missing boys, as well as bloodstains on the walls. Under arrest, Haarmann confessed.
    He referred to his victims as “game” and described how he grabbed them as they dozed after a large meal or intense sexual activity, and while sodomizing them would chew into their necks until the head was nearly severed (or so reports said). As he tasted their blood, he achieved orgasm. He would then dissect bodies and remove the organs. He’d also cut the flesh from their bodies, eat some or store it under his bed, and sell the rest as butchered meat. He claimed the obsession was too great for him to overcome. Armed with grisly evidence for twenty-seven of the murders, investigators ensured Haarmann’s conviction and he was sentenced to be beheaded. Moments before the blade fell, Haarmann announced that this was his “wedding day.” It sounded exactly like Fish himself—the kindred soul for whom he was searching.
    To Wertham’s astonishment, Fish had been committed to Bellevue twice since the kidnapping, but no one had spotted his demented fantasies as a danger to anyone. He was also picked up in New York City several times for impairing the morals of a minor, yet no one connected him to the high-profile case of Grace Budd. To sum it up, Wertham wrote, “However you define the medical and legal borders of sanity, this certainly is beyond that border.” By his estimate, Fish had killed as many as five children and had intended, or tried, to kill a few more. Wertham heard figures from officials as high as fifteen, but these numbers were not corroborated.
    Fish entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, and was transported to Westchester for a first-degree murder trial. At this time, Bruno Richard Hauptmann was being tried for the Lindbergh kidnapping, and was convicted. Once that trial concluded, the New York media turned its attention back to the Fish proceedings. They soon had the drama they were looking for, and the Daily News even ran a five-part series that was supposedly Fish’s depraved memoir.
    Just before the trial commenced in March 1935, Fish used a sharpened fish bone from a bowl of soup to cut his chest and abdomen. However, his injuries were not serious. The guards wondered if he was trying to commit suicide, but he refused to reveal his motive. Some who had talked with him believed he was merely searching for a way to inflict pain. Alienists had already examined Fish to support or refute his plea of insanity. Fish had