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Grady Stiles, Jr. was the 4th generation of Stiles family members born with ectrodactyly, a family trait from the 1840s that caused their fingers and toes to fuse into claws. Grady’s father was already part of a freak show with a traveling carnival, so Grady began performing early as the Lobster Boy.

Stiles and his two youngest children performed as the Lobster Family as an adult. But Stiles was an abusive alcoholic who beat his wife, so this was no happy family. On the eve of his oldest daughter’s wedding in 1978, he shot and killed her husband-to-be, an 18-year-old kid whom Grady disliked because he had called him a freak.

Grady confessed, saying the kid had attacked him, and was convicted of third-degree murder. The trial was quick and included witness testimony from a carnival “fat lady” and a bearded woman. Because no institution was equipped to deal with his condition, however, he was sentenced to house arrest and fifteen years probation.

In 1992, Stiles’ wife Mary and her son Harry Glenn Newman, a “human blockhead,” hired sideshow performer Christopher Wyant to kill Stiles for $1,500.

Wyant shot the 55-year-old man multiple times in the back of the head while he was watching TV in his trailer.

Stiles was so disliked that only ten people came to his funeral. It was noted that no one volunteered as pallbearers, and his coffin was adorned with a bouquet with a banner that read “From your loving wife.”

Records from Mary’s prison incarceration note that she had a tattoo on her buttocks that read “Grady Stiles Jr.”

Lobster Boy’s son, Grady Stiles III, was born with ectrodactyly and is a sideshow performer today. He and his sister Cathy made a television appearance 2014 on the AMC series “Freakshow” to talk about their father.

• Contains 1 oz. Troy of .999 Fine Silver
• Obverse: Famous image of Grady Stiles, with “THE LOBSTER BOY” above.
• Reverse: “FAMOUS CIRCUS SIDESHOW ACTS” on a circus tent background with the hallmark across the lower circumference.