How Was Albert Fish Caught?

Albert Fish was caught through a forensic document trace. In November 1934 he sent an unsigned letter to Delia Budd, the mother of ten-year-old Grace Budd, who had been missing since June 1928. The envelope bore a small embossed hexagonal emblem — the monogram of the New York Private Chauffeurs' Benevolent Association. Detective William F. King of the NYPD traced the emblem to the association's 627 Lexington Avenue office within forty-eight hours, identified a former member who had signed letterhead stock out of the premises, followed him to a Manhattan rooming-house, and on 13 December 1934 arrested Albert Fish there. Thirty-two days had passed between the letter's arrival and the arrest.

The letter that reopened the case

The Budd case had been cold for six years, five months and eight days when the letter arrived. On 11 November 1934 — six and a half years after the abduction — Fish posted from Manhattan an unsigned letter describing in confessional detail what he had done to Grace Budd at Wisteria Cottage in June 1928. Delia Budd, who was illiterate, had the letter read aloud by her son Edward and passed it to the NYPD Missing Persons Bureau the following morning. The investigation was reopened that same day.

The content of the letter was, in practical terms, a confession. But a confession from an unsigned sender, mailed anonymously from a city of seven million people, was not itself an identification. Detective King — a career NYPD investigator who had been assigned to the Budd case at the original 1928 reporting and had kept the file active — focused not on the letter's content but on its envelope.

The hexagonal emblem

The envelope Fish used was ordinary white business stock of the kind sold at any New York stationer, but the flap on the back carried a small embossed hexagonal emblem, about three-eighths of an inch across. The hexagon contained three tiny letters: N Y P C B A. Fish had evidently tried to conceal the emblem by covering it with ink, but the impression remained legible. King photographed the emblem and sent prints to the major city directories and trade associations.

Within forty-eight hours the emblem was identified as the monogram of the New York Private Chauffeurs' Benevolent Association, a small trade body for private car-drivers based at 627 Lexington Avenue. King visited the association's office on 4 December 1934 and requested access to its records. The secretary confirmed that the emblem appeared on stationery stock kept on an open shelf in the association's reading-room, and that members sometimes took sheets home for personal correspondence. The shelf was accessible to any member and to the janitor.

Detective William F. King's investigation

King interviewed each of the association's 400 members over the following seven days. One member — a chauffeur named Lee Sicowski — volunteered that he had taken a small quantity of letterhead stock from the reading-room at some point in the previous year and had left it at his rooming-house at 200 East 52nd Street, in an unlocked trunk in a shared upstairs hall. Sicowski had since moved out of the rooming-house. The trunk, King discovered, was still there.

The landlady of 200 East 52nd Street, Mrs Frieda Schneider, confirmed that the upstairs hall remained accessible to current and former tenants and that an elderly lodger named Albert Fish had stayed in the house on and off since the summer of 1934. Fish was not present when King visited on 10 December. King left a note asking Fish to come to the police station. Fish returned to the rooming-house on 13 December. He was arrested in the front hallway at approximately 10:40 p.m. on that same date. The Albert Fish arrest page documents the booking in detail.

Timeline: from letter to cuffs

• 11 November 1934 — Fish posts the letter from Manhattan.
• 12 November 1934 — Letter arrives at the Budd apartment, 406 West 15th Street. Delia Budd takes it to the NYPD that morning. The case is reopened.
• 13–14 November 1934 — Detective King examines the envelope and identifies the hexagonal emblem.
• 15–16 November 1934 — The emblem is matched to the New York Private Chauffeurs' Benevolent Association.
• Late November 1934 — King interviews association members; Lee Sicowski identifies the trunk at 200 East 52nd Street.
• 10 December 1934 — King visits the rooming-house; Fish is out. King leaves a note.
• 13 December 1934, 10:40 p.m. — Fish returns and is arrested in the front hallway.

The thirty-two days between the letter's arrival and the arrest is one of the shortest resolution times on record for a cold case of that period.

What happened after the arrest

Fish was transported to Police Headquarters at 240 Centre Street for questioning that same night. Over the following forty-eight hours he signed an eleven-page confession statement covering the Budd case, and — under further questioning — volunteered details of the 1924 abduction of Francis McDonnell and the 1927 abduction of Billy Gaffney. He was transferred to Westchester County custody on 17 December and charged with first-degree murder in the Budd case.

The Westchester County trial opened on 11 March 1935. Fish was found guilty on 23 March and sentenced to death. He was executed at Sing Sing on 16 January 1936 at 11:06 p.m., aged sixty-five. For the full record of the other cases that emerged during the 1934–1935 investigation, see the consolidated Albert Fish crimes page and the individual victim dossiers on the Albert Fish victims page.

Further reading on the Albert Fish arrest

For the full archival record of the arrest itself, see the Albert Fish arrest page. The Budd letter page has the full text and envelope reproduction. The Albert Fish biography places the arrest in the context of the wider life record. For the primary sources this account draws on — Detective King's 1934 case notes, the Westchester County Court transcript (1935), and the Fish confession statement — see the sources page.

Last reviewed: 19 May 2026 · Editorial team: Bureau of Historical Research · Sources: NYPD Missing Persons Bureau case file (1928–1934), Westchester County Court transcript (1935), Deranged (Schechter, 1990), The Cannibal (Heimer, 1971), New York Times 14 December 1934.