Grady Stiles, also billed as Lobster Boy, was born in 1937 and lived in the circus town of Gibsonton when his family wasn’t on tour. His father was part of the freakshow circuit, adding his kids with ectrodactyly to the act.
For more than a century, this peculiar condition had afflicted the Stiles family. This rare deformity makes hands look like lobster claws, as the middle fingers are either missing or fused to the thumb and pinky.
While many saw this condition as a handicap, for the Stiles family it meant opportunity. As the family grew and had more children with unusual hands, they developed a circus of their own.
The Lobster Family became a carnival staple throughout the early 20th century. Grady was born into the freakshow business like the rest of his family, but case was more severe: in addition to his hands, it also affected his feet so he could not walk.
He used a wheelchair, but also learned to use his upper body to pull himself across the floor with impressive strength.
He married a carnival worker named Mary and had several children together, introducing the ones with ectrodactyly to showbusiness.
Grady drank and was known to be very abusive, using his claw-shaped hands to choke his wife. When Grady’s daughter, Donna, fell in love with a young man that he didn’t approve of, he demonstrated his fatal temper.
On the eve of the wedding, Grady picked up his shotgun and killed his daughter’s fiance in cold blood.
Although he admitted to the murder, he was only given 15 months probation since the jails were not prepared to deal with his disability.
Because Grady had evaded prison, he had a sense of being above the law, and thus the beatings became more severe. His wife finally reached her breaking point. She paid her 17-year-old neighbor $1500 to kill Grady.
He did.
In the end, Lobster Boy was so disliked that no one would volunteer to be his pallbearer.
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