Stiles was the fourth generation of his family to be born with the malformation. For the Stiles family, this condition spelled opportunity rather than handicap, as they had performed in circuses since the 1800s. Born in Pittsburgh in 1937, Grady joined his father's established "freak show" circuit.
Beyond his circus career, Stiles had a dark side marked by violence and alcoholism. In 1978, he shot and killed his daughter's 19-year-old fiancé, Jack Layne, on the eve of their wedding. Stiles disapproved of the engagement and gunned down Layne on the family's front porch. Despite the cold-blooded nature of the crime, he was convicted only of third-degree murder and sentenced to 15 years probation, as no prison could accommodate his disability.
His violent behaviour continued throughout his life with systematic abuse of his family. Stiles was verbally and physically abusive to everyone in the community and random strangers, constantly hitting, choking, and head-butting people out of anger. He would use his upper body strength to violently throw himself on the floor, then use his claw-like fingers as weapons to choke, beat and slam his wife and children in the face, often targeting their eyes.
When he returned to drinking, all three children and his wife Mary were beaten with belts and threatened with murder, with Stiles telling Mary, "I'm going to kill you but the timing's just not right."
In 1992, Teresa, together with her son from a previous marriage, Harry Glenn Newman Jr., hired a seventeen-year-old sideshow performer named Chris Wyant to kill Stiles for $1,500 (equivalent to $3,361 in 2024). As Stiles smoked a cigarette on the sofa while watching the video Monkey Boy, Wyant entered his home with a semi-automatic pistol and shot him in the head twice, killing him. Stiles was reportedly widely disliked in his community, so much so that only 10 people came to his funeral, and nobody volunteered as a pallbearer to carry his coffin.
Stiles' son, Grady Stiles III, disputes the claim that Mary Teresa had him murdered. According to him, his mother, Mary Teresa, and father were arguing. Mary Teresa had said 'Something needs to be done.' Teresa's son overheard this, and went to a neighbor and repeated those words. Mary Teresa was convicted of manslaughter; Harry Newman Jr. was convicted of first-degree murder and received a life sentence, and Wyant was convicted of second-degree murder and received a 27-year sentence....
