PLEADING INSANITY? YOU MUST BE CRAZY

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, there's nothing better than taking some time for you. You might want to while away the hours cramming long needles in the space between your anus and scrotum. Or, if that doesn't tempt you, you might want a mouthful of your own crap, washed down with hot, salty urine. Still no takers? Anybody even hear voices? Anybody?

If there's one thing about Albert Fish that seems painfully obvious, it's this: He was nuttier than squirrel shit. What else can you say about a man who was a pedophile, a sadist, and a masochist? What other conclusion can you draw about a man whose obsessions included castration, cannibalism, coprophillia, urophillia and piquerism?

I'll save you the trouble of going to Wikipedia to find out what those last three mean. In short, Albert was obsessed with feces, urine, and stabbing (both himself and others). His favorite method of flagellating his own body involved a paddle filled with nails. He would often beat himself into a bloody mess.

He is well deserving of his nickname. He is the real, honest to goodness Boogeyman.

He first realized he was a few rounds short of a clip when he was still a child. After his father died, his mother put him in an orphanage where he was beaten unmercifully. So were all the other children. The difference was Albert liked the beatings. He enjoyed them so much they gave him erections. This gave the other children hours of entertainment at Albert's expense. It probably did wonders for his self esteem in the process.

It was much later, after his wife had left him, when Albert began to hear "angels" telling him to dash out the brains of children. That would have been cruel enough. Crueler still was what he actually did to them. He beat them for hours. He cut off ears. He extended smiles up the sides of faces. He removed noses, heads, limbs and anything else that would come off. He sucked the blood from their punctured stomachs. Then, he feasted on them for days, taking great pains to make the preparation process long and involved, lengthening the experience.

Once, for good measure, he wrote a letter to the family of one of his victims.  Grace Budd's mother couldn't read, so her son had to read the letter detailing the awful things Albert had done. This ultimately proved to be his downfall.

When Albert Fish had his day in court, Captain John Stein asked why he had written the letter. Albert didn't know. He supposed he "just had a mania for writing."

When asked why he had done such a horrible thing to young Grace, Albert said, "You know, I never could account for it."

His legal defense entered an insanity plea. It seemed like a sure fire way to keep him from being executed. Most normal people wouldn't mind seeing Albert take a nice long dirt nap, but doctors and psychiatrists would likely have wanted the chance to examine him further. He was, after all, a perfect storm of mental illness. A run-of-the-mill psychopath is just plain boring in comparison.

Quick show of hands, anybody think the Boogeyman isn't crazy?

If you raised your hand, you are of the same opinion as the United States government. That's right, folks. Legally, Albert Fish is perfectly sane and completely responsible for the atrocities he committed.

Confused?

You see, in order to be criminally insane in the U.S.A., you must be unable to distinguish between right and wrong. Note that it doesn't say you have to care. It doesn't say you have to feel guilty about it afterwards. To be sane, you merely need enough competence to know, deep down inside somewhere, that what you're doing will be frowned upon by others, if not yourself. It doesn't matter if your mother abandoned you. It doesn't matter if you were abused. It doesn't matter if the ghost of Adolf Hitler possessed you. It doesn't even matter if the fabric of time tore in half and you were kidnapped by ray gun-wielding slime creatures that hypnotized you and sent you back.  

By its very nature, the legal definition of insanity will exclude nearly every serial killer in history. If you have no idea what you're doing is wrong, you won't take steps to cover it up. Therefore, you won't ever get the chance to become a serial killer.

Allow me to make a few clarifications. Technically, a serial killer has killed more than one victim. Those killings must have occurred at more than one time. A spree killer might have a shot at the insanity plea because their crimes take place all at once. Any sort of premeditation, however, will likely prove their sanity. Their sanity, in turn, will prove their guilt in the eyes of the law.       
Upon learning of his verdict and his sentence, a Daily News reporter wrote that Albert's "…watery eyes gleamed at the thought of being burned by a heat more intense than the flames with which he often seared his flesh to gratify his lust." He supposedly thanked the judge for that method of execution. On January 16, 1936, Albert Fish was executed. His final words were, "I don't even know why I'm here."            
Crazy as he was, it took the jury less than an hour to determine Albert was sane and guilty. If this man was judged to be sane, there seems to be little hope for anyone relying on an insanity defense. To plead insanity… well, that's just plain crazy.