From the moment he was born, Grady Stiles entertained audiences around the United States as the sideshow performer “Lobster Boy.” But behind the scenes, Stiles’ life was one of turmoil, alcoholism, and even murder. That all came to an end one night in the fall of 1992, when a killer entered Stiles’ Florida home and shot him to death. In the days that followed Grady Stiles murder, investigators quickly unraveled a conspiracy plot to kill Stiles, which had been set in motion by his wife, Mary Theresa, and his stepson, who’d hired a teenage carnival worker to commit the murder. After a lifetime in the spotlight because of his physical deformity, it was Grady Stiles’ death that brought him the ultimate fame, but what had he done to earn such a brutal end?Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!ReferencesAllen, William. 1978. "Her dad faces trial in fiance's slaying." Pittsburgh Press, October 6: 4.Associated Press. 1994. "Defense: Abuse led wife to hire husband's killer." Miami Herald, July 13: 24.Florida Department of Corrections. 2014. Corrections Offender Network. March 5. Accessed April 30, 2025. https://pubapps.fdc.myflorida.com/OffenderSearch/detail.aspx?Page=Detail&DCNumber=532246&TypeSearch=IR.Ireton, Gabriel. 1979. "'Lobster Man' guilt in kin's fiance death." Pitsburgh Post-Gazette, February 23: 3.Jackson, Orval. 1994. "Judge rules self-defense must include admission." Tampa Tribune, July 15: 20.—. 1994. "Wife of 'Lobster Boy' guilty." Tampa Tribune, July 28: 1.Lester, John. 1992. "Legless carny slain at his house." Tampa Tribune, December 1: 7.Maryniak, Paul. 1979. "Deformed slayer gets probation." Pittsburgh Press, April 30: 1.—. 1979. "Performer's slay trial goes to jury." Pittsburgh Press, February 22: 2.Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . 1978. "Legless man charged in slaying." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 28: 7.Rosen, Fred. 1995. Lobster Boy: The Bizarre Life and Brutal Death of Grady Stiles Jr. New York, NY: Pinnacle.Stay in the know - wondery.fm/morbid-wondery.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: Who is Grady Stiles Jr.?
Electrodactyly ran in the Stiles family as far back as the 1840s. That's crazy. In some cases, it'll occur in both the hands and feet. But in Grady Stiles' case, it only occurred in his hands, the senior. So... When the couple's third child, Grady Jr., was born, no one was really surprised to discover that this child had inherited the condition, which was present in Grady Stiles Jr.
's hands and feet. Oh, okay. Now, according to author Fred Rosen, the Stiles family had always... not really listened to the advice of doctors who warned against having children because of the likelihood of them inheriting this condition. Because especially when it's of the hands and feet, it leads to a very difficult life, you know? Yeah, right.
And according to Rosen, their attitude was, quote, hell, if a child was born a freak, it was the child's problem, the child's and God's. Oh, okay. That's one way to look at it. Which is like, what an outlook. That's your problem, little baby. Yeah, a child that didn't ask to be brought into this world. Like, that's fucked up in a way I can't describe. In fact, Grady Jr.
's sister, Sarah, had also inherited their father's condition, but it only affected one arm and one leg. Years into her adulthood, actually, Sarah had her non-functional leg amputated and replaced with an artificial limb. Unlike his sister, Grady's affliction was far worse than even their father's and prevented him from being able to walk. He had to rely on a wheelchair for mobility. Okay.
Now, at the time of his birth, the Stiles family was living in relative poverty in Pittsburgh's North Side. They were barely getting by on the wages they were getting from the carnival circuit. And for Grady, early life was a challenge, to say the very least. Again, you feel really bad for young Grady. Yeah, he was given a lot to deal with. A lot to deal with right out the gate. Yeah.
With his father constantly on the road with the sideshow, there was no one around to normalize his condition, really. Oh, yeah. which was a problem. And so he was treated as a spectacle whenever his mother took him out of the apartment, which is, that must be very difficult. Fortunately, just a few years after he was born, they did relocate to Gibsonton, which is a small town in central Florida.
And this is very interesting. In the decades that had preceded them moving there, this had become a popular place to move for retired circus workers. Oh. And those who were seeking refuge during the off-season of the circus and the carnival. So due to the large number of performers in town, they had also, the local administration had also established very, like, unusual zoning laws.
And this allowed the residents to keep elephants, tigers, and other large exotic animals on their property. Damn. Which would solve the problems also of boarding the circus animals. Right. But for young Grady, this kind of solved the problem of him feeling like an outcast.
Because now he's hanging out with a bunch of circus workers and sideshow workers and the kids are sideshow workers and a bunch of exotic animals. Yeah, he fits in. He's not weird. Like, he's just one of them. But it didn't do anything to solve their financial issues. That's about right.
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Chapter 2: What challenges did Grady face growing up?
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, circuses like Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey were so popular around the country, particularly during the Depression and war years. You know, when a family could expect a day's worth of entertainment for a very small fee and just to take them away from all the reality that was going on. Exactly, reality.
Yeah.
In fact, Fred Rosen said, in those days, the carnival was indeed a family. In those days, people joined up for the duration. They stayed with the same carnival through thick and thin. They were there for each other. The fat man, the bearded lady, the rustabouts, and the strippers. It just became like a kind of, you know, it's like American Horror Story freak show.
Yeah.
How they become like a family, you know. Yeah. In the present, it would obviously be very illegal for parents to just take their kids out of school and be like, you're working at the circus. For good reason. But under the circumstances and given his experiences in a, you know, quote-unquote ordinary community, Grady Jr.
was honestly happier with the sideshow than he had been just in Pittsburgh going to school. Well, that's good. Not only was his family able to just be together all the time, but he also loved performing. And he liked being in the spotlight. Like, it... He was okay with it. Seemed to feed him. Like, he really liked it.
And when they weren't on the road, they retired to Gibsonton, and there he was treated as just any other child in town. So he wasn't dealing with that bullshit, you know? And he was able to live a relatively normal childhood among other children of circus workers. Yes. Like, their normal. I was going to say, a different kind of normal. What they saw is that.
Despite the acceptance he found in Gibsonton and his ability to, you know, help the family by working at the sideshow circuit, Grady Stiles' life was definitely one of hardship. It's not like he was just coasting through. He had a lot to deal with. And it wasn't long before this kind of hardship that was just kind of hardwired inside of him was leading to a lot of bitterness.
Because again, it's not like he was treated nicely by everyone he came in contact with. You know what I mean?
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Chapter 3: How did Grady's family dynamics affect his life?
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Now, while things started out fine in the relationship, Teresa soon found herself in a relationship with yet another abusive man. For more than a year, she suffered verbal, physical, and emotional abuse at her piece-of-shit husband's hands. She was beaten with his fists. She was pushed down the stairs while she was pregnant with their child.
And at one point, he even threw a pot of scalding coffee at her. What a fucking monster. And finally, he just, because, you know, he was a piece of shit in every way, he just grew tired of the relationship and he didn't really want to be a father. So Jerry Plummer took off, leaving Teresa to raise their daughter, Debra, on her own. She's probably much better off.
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Chapter 4: What was Grady's relationship with Teresa like?
is worried about his parents in Pittsburgh because they're in poor health. Yeah. And he's in Florida. So he started renting an apartment in the city so he could check on them and be around them. The apartment was a huge financial strain on them, obviously, because it's just another expense. So to help support them in the off-season, Grady Jr.
began performing in a one-man show to make extra money when they weren't on the road. The work allowed him to support himself and his wife, but this additional work, plus the stress of traveling back and forth to Pittsburgh, and the unexpected tragic deaths of two children... That's a lot on your plate.
It brought out a meanness in Grady that Teresa said she had never seen even the slightest hint of before. Oh, no. She was like, this came out of nowhere. He didn't deal well with stress and grief. A lot of people say...
That the death of a child can change a relationship, and it really depends on, one, the strength of the relationship to begin with, and things that are lying dormant in the people that are experiencing it. So obviously something was lying dormant in Grady Stiles that's just brought it all out.
So the bitterness, the frustration, the rage, and what he saw as his constant misfortune, it led him to start drinking heavily. which only exacerbated the anger. And before long, he was directing it all at Teresa.
Oh, no.
According to Fred Rosen, Grady was a good provider. However, when he was drinking, Grady started beating Teresa, taking care to keep his blows to her body so no one would see the bruises. Wow. And to me, that is diabolical. That is diabolical.
Because you know what you're doing is wrong. And you're not even just... To have the wherewithal to think... Like that clearly while beating someone.
I shouldn't do it somewhere that someone can see. Yeah. That's fucked up. That's dark. In 1963, Teresa gave birth for a third time. And this time the baby would not only survive, but also manage to not inherit Grady's condition. Okay. The healthy birth of their daughter Donna was a relief to Teresa, who obviously already experienced two traumatic births and traumatic deaths.
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Chapter 5: What led to the tragic end of Grady Stiles Jr.?
And that's where the safe space gets snipped for a minute. Because then she has no safe space. Because your mother shouldn't be asking you to do this. Yeah.
I also think it's probably – and I'm sure people listening feel this way. It's so – again, I can't understand, but I can have empathy. But it is hard to have empathy in a situation like this. Oh, my God, yeah. I haven't even gone through something similar to that. Exactly. At all. But like – When somebody wrongs their child and you're a child who's been wronged, you're just like, God damn it.
Well, that's the thing.
And I have like, I always have to pull myself back a little bit because I get real fucking mad when people mistreat their kids. Well, because you. And I'm not even a mistreated kid. No. I think of my kids.
You think of your kids? And like, frankly, like just for everybody who thinks that me and Elena have a weird relationship, Elena's my protector. Like genuinely, like you're people's protector and the other people in your life who have gone through similar things, you're their protector. So you're like, don't wrong them. I'm like, I'm going to fuck you up if you are this kid. That's the thing.
So that's why you feel that way because you're the safe space.
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Chapter 6: What were the consequences of Grady's actions?
Chapter 7: How did Teresa try to escape Grady's abuse?
Chapter 8: What role did the carnival play in their lives?
At the same time, he adapted to his condition really well and had learned to use his hands in like a claw-like fashion. So he could hold objects, he could write, he could do other like very complex tasks with his hands. Okay. Which... When you look at it, you're like, wow. That's amazing. At this point, you're like, good for you, man. You really took lemons and you made lemonade out of them.
Good for you. Now, by the early 1950s, Grady Sr., his father, had decided it was going to be much more lucrative for the family to go into business for themselves. And they struck out on their own. Now, around this time, 17-year-old Grady Jr. married his first wife, Deborah Brady. That was in a small ceremony in Tampa, Florida.
Now, unfortunately, that was only going to last about a year before they divorced. And Grady ended up just really focusing on the business for a little while. He's a horrible husband, just to put that out there. It lasted a year. I'm not surprised by that. I don't know. Based on what we find out later. Marriage to him was not a fun time. Ugh.
Now, Grady didn't have to wait long to find love again, though. In the spring of 1959, during a stop in Trenton, New Jersey, Grady met Mary Teresa Herzog, who went by Teresa. Okay. One of the carnival's newest ticket booth workers, and instantly, they were in love. Now, by the time she'd met Grady Stiles, 21-year-old Teresa's experiences with men had been universally bad.
So when she was, this is awful, when she was six years old, Teresa's mother divorced Teresa's father and remarried a monster named Frank Tyler, who would go on to sexually abuse her for years. Oh, that's terrible. Frank Tyler. Piece of shit. Yeah. Given the terrible conditions of her home life, Teresa would, like, lose herself in carnivals. Yeah.
You know, it was just, like, one of those things, like... Escaping reality. Yeah, it really was. It reminded me of, like, a movie we just watched for Scream, Where the Devil Roams. Mm-hmm. One of the characters in that talks about how his father was abusive when he was younger and he would escape to the circus just to get out of that reality. Right. Which is just so sad. Yeah, it is sad.
Teresa, so she found refuge in these carnivals and circuses that would travel and they would come to her small Vermont town in the spring and summer months. Okay. She later said, the carnival fascinated me. I guess it fascinated most young people. I thought the lights and the excitement were just great. Yeah.
Now, in a bid to get closer to the carnival and really, like, just envelop herself in it, she began working as a ticket taker during the summer. Then when she turned 18, she joined up with the circus on a full-time basis and finally got away from her stepfather for good. Good. Fuck that guy. Yeah. Before long, she met and fell in love with one of the rustabouts, Jerry Plummer. Not Grady Stiles.
Not Grady. And soon they were married.
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