<div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>One of the world's most notorious circus performers was murdered by a hitman on November 29, 1992.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>On the carnival circuit, Grady Stiles Jr was known as "Lobster Boy" because of a rare condition that made his hands and feet look like claws.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>At home, Stiles was a violent abuser who would drink a bottle of whiskey every day.</span></div></div><div><div id="adspot-mobile-medium"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Stiles had ectrodactyly, a genetic condition that fused his fingers and toes together. </span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>As a star on the "freak show" circuit, Stiles would show off his abnormalities, which he had inherited and passed on to his children.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>When not on the road, he lived in a trailer in Gibsontown, Florida, a town known as a winter home for countless circus performers.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>It was there that he would bully his family, who lived in terror of him.</span></div></div><div><div class="OUTBRAIN" data-reactroot="" data-src="//www.9news.com.au/world/today-in-history-november-29-what-happened-on-this-day-grady-stiles/726d043e-10d0-4983-a4e5-ef379ed75f81" data-widget-id="AR_5"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>In 1978, he murdered his daughter's fiance on the eve of the wedding.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>He was found guilty of third-degree murder, but he wasn't sent to jail because no facility could care for a man with his condition.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Instead, he was sentenced to house arrest.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Terrified of his death threats and constant abuse, his wife, Mary Theresa Stiles, decided he needed to die.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>She asked her oldest son, Henry Glenn Newman III, to find a hitman to kill him. </span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Newman, a child from a previous marriage, specialised in driving nails into his nostrils in the family circus sideshow act.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>He hired 19-year-old classmate Christopher Wyant to kill Stiles.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Wyant shot Stiles three times as he watched TV on the sofa in his trailer.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>He was paid $1500 for the murder.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>It did not take police long to connect the dots and arrest all those responsible.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Stiles' wife, Mary, spent six years in jail on a manslaughter conviction. </span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Wyant was jailed for 15 years before being released on probation.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Newman was given a life sentence and died behind bars in 2014.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Four years after his murder, Stiles' face was used as the cover for Australian band Silverchair's album 'Freak Show'.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/today-in-history" target="" title="For more from our Today in History archive, click here."><strong><span>For more from our Today in History archive, click here</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/how-to-follow-9news-digital/29855bb1-ad3d-4c38-bc25-3cb52af1216f" target="_blank"><strong><em><span>DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP</span></em></strong></a><strong><em><span>: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app 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