The Sad life of “Lobster Boy” GRADY STILES

Birth : 26 June, 1937, Pittsburgh, PA USA

Death : 29 November 1992 (age 55 years), Gibsonton, Florida, USA

Grady Franklin Stiles was an American freak show performer and murderer. His deformity was the genetic condition ectrodactyly, in which the fingers and toes are fused together to form claw-like extremities. Because of this, Stiles performed under the stage name “Lobster Boy”. In 1978 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Stiles shot and killed his oldest daughter’s fiancé on the eve of their wedding, as Stiles did not approve of him. He was brought to trial, where he openly confessed to killing the man and was convicted of third-degree murder. He was not sent to prison as no state institution was equipped to care for an inmate with ectrodactyly. Stiles was instead sentenced to house arrest and fifteen years probation.

In the labyrinthine corridors of human existence, there exist tales that defy the boundaries of comprehension, stories that unravel the very fabric of reality and expose the raw, unvarnished truths that lie beneath. Grady Franklin Stiles was such a man - a figure whose life unfolded like a dark, twisted narrative, his destiny intertwined with the jagged edges of fate.?

Born into a world that greeted his arrival with a mixture of awe and revulsion, Grady bore upon his flesh the unmistakable mark of his genetic inheritance - a condition known as ectrodactyly, which rendered his hands and feet as gnarled appendages reminiscent of a crustacean’s claws. It was a deformity that marked him as an outsider, a freak of nature condemned to walk the margins of society.

Yet, for Grady, his deformity was not merely a physical affliction, but a mantle that he wore with a peculiar sense of pride - a badge of honor that set him apart from the mundane masses that populated the world around him. Under the glare of the spotlight, he became “Lobster Boy,” a spectacle to be gawked at and marveled over, his grotesque appearance transformed into a source of fascination for the curious onlookers who thronged to witness his performances.

But behind the fa?ade of the carnival lights and the painted smiles, Grady harbored a darkness - a shadow that lurked within the recesses of his soul, waiting to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting world. In the autumn of 1978, in the hushed streets of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that darkness would find its expression in a single, fateful act - a tragedy that would forever stain the pages of his story with the indelible mark of bloodshed.

On the eve of his oldest daughter’s wedding, as the air hung heavy with the promise of new beginnings, Grady’s world was plunged into turmoil by the arrival of a suitor whom he deemed unworthy of his beloved child’s affections. In a fit of rage born of paternal pride and possessiveness, Grady reached for the cold steel of a weapon - a weapon that would seal the fate of the young man who dared to challenge his authority.

In the aftermath of the violence, Grady stood before the unforgiving gaze of the law, his hands stained crimson with the blood of his daughter’s betrothed. In a courtroom devoid of mercy or compassion, he spoke the words that would seal his fate - a confession uttered with a chilling calmness that sent shivers down the spines of all who bore witness to his descent into darkness.

Convicted of third-degree murder, Grady faced a punishment that bespoke the cruelty of a world ill-equipped to comprehend the complexities of his existence. With no state institution willing to accommodate a man such as he, Grady was sentenced to a fate perhaps more cruel than any prison cell - house arrest and fifteen years of probation, his every move monitored and scrutinized by the watchful eyes of a society that saw him only as a monster.

And so, Grady Franklin Stiles, the Lobster Boy, became a prisoner of his own deformity - a captive of the very condition that had shaped his destiny from the moment of his birth. In the end, his tale serves as a cautionary reminder of the fragility of human nature, a stark testament to the depths of darkness that lie dormant within us all, waiting to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting world.

Never Go Back

Avoiding prison had made Lobster Boy cocky. One of the lines he began to give to his family was, “I killed before and got away with it, I can do it again.” The former apple of his eye, Donna, became the focus of his rage, and when she was seven months pregnant, he clubbed her out of her wheelchair, resulting in her having an emergency C-section to deliver her daughter. Misty was born without legs and ectrodactyly in her hand, officially becoming the sixth generation of the family to have the condition.

His first wife Mary inexplicably agreed to remarry him, despite knowing he was a brutal, drunkard abuser. She later explained her love for her ex-husband drove her back into his arms, and that he had promised her his drinking days were over. They remarried in 1989, but he quickly fell off the wagon and Mary reported: “Two weeks later, he was back to the same old Grady.”

Getting Away With Murder?

When Grady Stiles went to trial for the murder of Jack Layne in 1979, a media frenzy ensued. During his trial, which included him calling circus friends such as the Bearded Lady to the stand as witnesses, Grady Stiles demonstrated no remorse and openly admitted his guilt. He smugly pointed out there was absolutely no way to imprison him as no prison in the country was equipped to handle his many disabilities. He also noted that that confining him to prison would be a cruel and unusual punishment as he had already been diagnosed with acute liver cirrhosis from his bottle of whiskey a day habit and emphysema from years of smoking three packs of Pall Mall cigarettes a day.

Breaking Point

In October 1992, the Stiles family came off the road after months of touring and settled in their winter quarters in Gibsonton, Florida, a.k.a. Showtown. Lobster Boy would park his wheelchair in the Showtown Bar and drink double shots of Seagram’s Seven Crown for hours on end which, coupled with his invincible sense of being above the law, made him more abusive than ever. He’d lie in bed taunting his family about how he was going to kill them all; he often sexually abused Mary, choked her with his claws, or smothered her with a pillow. He once woke her holding a butcher’s knife to her throat.

Mary said her husband’s violent streak worsened. The beatings he regularly doled out to her and her mentally disabled son, Glenn, became more and more severe until things reached critical mass one night in November 1992.

Just three years after she remarried him, Mary and her son Glenn allegedly came up with a plan to get their own back on their abuser by paying a neighbor to kill him. At just 17 years old, sideshow performer Chris Wyant was a mere boy, but a boy with gang contacts. He had a friend buy him a semi-automatic Colt firearm, and Mary supposedly gave him $1,500 to carry out the deadly deed.

After Mary made sure Grady would be home alone, Chris Wyant walked into the Stiles trailer to find him sitting in his underwear, watching TV and drinking iced tea. Wyant shot him in the back of the head over and over at point-blank range, and at age 55, Lobster Boy was dead.?

Extracted from Freaks - A Night at the Circus by Uwe DIEGEL. Available worldwide on Amazon https://a.co/d/5Mmo3t