On February 11, 1927, four-year-old William Gaffney vanished from the hallway outside his family's apartment in Brooklyn, New York. He had been playing with two neighborhood boys, aged three and twelve. The older boy went into his apartment for a short time, and when he came back, both William and the three-year-old were gone. The three-year-old was soon discovered alone on the roof of the building.
When asked about William's whereabouts, he told a chilling story of a "boogey man" who had taken him. The young witness described the "boogey man" as a slender, elderly man with gray hair and a gray mustache.
Initially, investigators were skeptical of the three-year-old's account and believed William had simply wandered off and gotten lost. They conducted thorough searches of nearby factory buildings and local canals, but found no trace of the missing boy. This led them to conclude that William had, in fact, been abducted. Another serial killer active in the same area and time, Peter Kudzinowski, was considered a suspect in William's disappearance.
A significant development in the case came from a streetcar motorman named Joseph Meehan. Later on the day of William's disappearance, Meehan noticed an elderly man with a young boy on his trolley. The boy, who was not wearing a coat or hat despite the cold weather, was crying and saying he wanted to go home to his mother. Meehan later identified the child as William Gaffney. He recalled the man dragging the crying boy off the streetcar.
The case remained a baffling mystery for years until the -arrest of Albert Hamilton Fish in 1934 for the murder of ten-year-old Grace Budd. Fish, a serial killer, child molester, and cannibal also known as the "Gray Man" and the "Brooklyn Vampire," was apprehended after sending a letter to Budd's mother detailing her daughter's murder. After his arrest, Joseph Meehan saw a newspaper photograph of Fish and identified him as the man he had seen with William on the streetcar years earlier. The three-year-old's description of the "boogey man" also matched Fish.
Following his conviction for the murder of Grace Budd, for which he was sentenced to death, Albert Fish confessed to killing William Gaffney. He provided details of the abduction and murder to his lawyer. Although he was not prosecuted for William's murder, his confession and the identification by Meehan led authorities to consider the case closed. William Gaffney's body has never been found.Last Seen: Feb 11, 1927
