Albert Fish

Eventually, Dempsey had a chance to attack the prosecution alienists. Dr. Charles Lambert, after a three-hour interview with Fish," pronounced him a "psychopathic personality without a psychosis."

Dempsey asked Lambert, "Assume that this man not only killed this girl but took her flesh to eat it. Will you state that that man could for nine days eat that flesh and still not have a psychosis?"

Lambert answered, "Well, there is no accounting for taste, Mr. Dempsey."

Dempsey persisted: "Tell me how many cases in your experience you have seen people who actually ate human feces."

"Oh, I know individuals prominent in society... one in particular that we all know who used it as a side dish in his salad," Lambert remarked casually.

Dempsey had better luck with one of the other defense alienists, who could see signs of psychosis in Fish's behavior.