Editing Albert Fish (section)

===Francis McDonnell===
During the night of July 14, 1924, 9-year-old '''Francis McDonnell''' was reported [[missing person|missing]] after he failed to return home after playing catch with friends in [[Port Richmond, Staten Island]]. A search was organized, and his body was found—hanging from a tree—in a wooded area near his home. He had been sexually assaulted, and then [[strangulation|strangled]] with his [[suspenders]].<ref name="Schechter"/> According to an [[autopsy]], McDonnell had also suffered extensive lacerations to his legs and abdomen, and his left [[hamstring]] had almost entirely been stripped of its flesh. Fish refused to claim responsibility for this, although he later stated that he intended to [[castration|castrate]] the boy but fled when he heard someone approaching the area. McDonnell's friends told the police that he was taken by an elderly man with a grey moustache. A neighbour also told the police he observed the boy with a similar-looking man walking along a grassy path into the nearby woods.<ref name="Schechter"/>

Francis' mother, Anna McDonnell, said she saw the same man earlier that day, telling reporters, "He came shuffling down the street mumbling to himself and making queer motions with his hands ... I saw his thick grey hair and his drooping grey moustache. Everything about him seemed faded and grey."<ref name="Schechter"/> This description resulted in the mysterious stranger becoming known as "The Grey Man". The McDonnell murder remained unsolved until the murder of Budd.<ref name="Schechter"/> When several eyewitnesses, among them the Staten Island farmer Hans Kiel, positively identified Fish as the odd stranger seen around Port Richmond on the day of McDonnell's disappearance, [[Richmond County, New York|Richmond County]] [[District Attorney]] [[Thomas J. Walsh (New York politician)|Thomas Walsh]] announced his intention to seek an [[indictment]] against Fish for the boy's murder. At first, Fish denied the charges. It was only in March 1935, after the conclusion of his trial for the Budd murder and his confession to the killing of Billy Gaffney, that he confirmed to investigators that he had also raped and murdered McDonnell. When the McDonnell confession was made public, the ''[[New York Daily Mirror]]'' wrote that the disclosure solidified Fish's reputation as "the most vicious child-slayer in criminal history".<ref name="Schechter"/>