Charles Albright was a middle aged man, well educated, friendly, and successful.
At 57 years old he became the terror known as The Eyeball Killer.
Albright was born in 1933, and adopted at three weeks old.
Though Albright himself would never know the truth, he was told that his mother was a very
talented law student with a bright future ahead of her- until she secretly married another
student and got pregnant.
Her wealthy father demanded she annul the marriage and give up the baby for adoption,
or else he would cut her off from the family.
His adopted mother, Delle, was an extremely doting and overprotective mother.
Despite her obvious love for Albright, she had a dark side to her loving nature.
She'd constantly change his clothes, up to three times a day, to keep him clean, and
terrified that he would catch polio by touching things he shouldn't, she took him to a hospital
Delle's punishments could be a bit extreme as well.
Once she made him sit in a dark room as punishment for chewing on her tape measure, and when
he refused to nap she'd physically time him to his bed.
While the punishments never turned into full-blown abuse, they definitely flirted with it.
Delle took extra caution to teach Albright good manners and be polite, a trait he would
carry his entire life.
She also made sure that he was respectful of women, specially trying to instill in Albright
a politeness in reference to sex, as she compared his father's constant desire for sex as 'greedy'
and disrespectful.
As he grew older, she chaperoned him on every date he went, and even phoned his date's parents
to reassure them that Albright would be on his best behavior.
Delle also placed a strong emphasis on Albright's education, forcing him to practice the piano
for 30 minutes a day before the school bus showed up.
She also took it upon herself to teach him everything she could about math, reading,
and writing, to the point that he was actually bumped up two whole grades in elementary school.
All this type of pressure so early in life would take decades to manifest.
Another thing Delle taught young Albright however was the act of taxidermy, via mail-order
course.
She helped him find dead animals to practice on, and taught him how to use a knife to cut
a skull open, a spoon to scoop out the brains, and forceps to pluck out the eyes.
Albright would remember these lessons well late into his 50s- specially the eyes part.
Albright however started developing troubling behavior early in his teens.
At 13 he had already been arrested for petty theft and aggravated assault.
He had developed a penchant for low-yield criminality, seemingly in an act of rebellion
against his overprotective mother.
Even back then though someone knew the trouble that was brewing in that young man's head,
as his probation officer who would later become a psychologist, remarked, “He could divorce
reality sufficiently from his value system, so that he could tell you something false
and at the time actually believe he was telling you the truth.”
Upon leaving home, Albright was engaging in more serious criminality, and in his first
year of college he was arrested for being part of a burglary ring that had broken into
three stores.
His overprotective and ever-doting mother begged the court to let her act as his lawyer,
and after he was sentenced, begged to let her do the time in his stead.
The judge however would decline the offer, and Albright would spend his 18th birthday
in jail.
Out of jail and determined to make a new start for himself, Albright would excel in college-
but remained a class clown the entire time.
One particular prank however would have chilling implications many years later.
After a friend of his broke up with his girlfriend, known to have very pretty eyes, Albright found
all the photos of her his friend had tossed in the trash and cut out the eyeballs.
He replaced the eyeballs in the photo of his friend's new girlfriend with the old girlfriend's
and then plastered the cut-out eyeballs in various places around the frat house.
Everyone thought it was hilarious, nobody could see the warning portent of the twisted
monster inside.
Albright would flirt with the idea of going to medical school, but did terrible on his
entrance exams.
Instead, he married his college girlfriend and got a job in Arkansas as a high school
teacher.
There was only one problem- Albright had lied about his qualifications and even forged them.
The scam had involved Albright gaining access to official school district records and altering
them, and was eventually discovered when the school he claimed to have graduated from realized
he was lying.
He was however very well liked by the students and the staff, so in order to save themselves
and him public embarrassment, the school district quietly dismissed him.
Instead, Albright pleaded guilty to fraud and received a single year's probation.
Albright and his wife moved, and started over.
She got a job as a teacher, and Albright went on a never-ending series of random gigs.
He worked as a designer for an airplane manufacturer, as an illustrator for a patent company, a
carpenter, and even made his own baseball bats.
Albright even got his beauticians license and got a job as a hair stylist at a salon.
It was there that he would convince a friend to pay him $250 to draw his wife's portrait-
after claiming he was a distinguished artist.
For weeks Albright avoided turning in his finished work, always commenting that he was
almost done but there was one specific detail that needed all his attention.
Tired of the excuses, the friend eventually went to Albright's house and discovered the
painting.
It indeed was very beautifully done, almost life-like in its realism.
But there was one thing missing.
Right there on his wife's face were two white voids where the eyes should be.
Albright's first victim would be found in december of 1990.
Mary Pratt, a well-known prostitute in south Dallas, was found naked except for a t-shirt
and bra.
Her face and chest was badly bruised, as Ablright had beaten her before shooting her in the
head.
Police figured it was a john that had turned bad- it wasn't unusual for prostitutes in
the area to be beaten by their clients or pimps.
However, Mary had been well-liked and known in the neighborhood.
With no witnesses, no murder weapon, and no clues though, the police had nothing but a
cold trail on their hands.
About the only clue to the killer's identity would be when Mary's body was autopsied.
Albright had shut Mary's eyes after leaving her, and as the coroner opened Mary's eyelids,
she was horrified to discover the eyes were missing.
It wasn't a hack job either, Albright had expertly and very deftly cut out each eyeball
so as to not cause damage to the surrounding tissue.
This earned Albright the distinction of having his case shot up to the FBI, who immediately
placed him in a national database, identified only by his unusual and grotesque predilection
for cutting out eyeballs.
2 months later, Albright stuck again.
His second victim, Susan Peterson, was discovered on the same road where Mary Pratt's body had
been dumped.
She too had been found nearly naked, and she too was a well-known local prostitute.
Peterson too had been beaten, then shot in the head, chest, and stomach.
When the coroner performed his customary autopsy, he too was shocked to discover the missing
eyeballs.
Once more the eyes had been taken with extreme care, leaving no damage to the surrounding
tissues at all.
The police were fearful of drawing attention to the case, as it would put pressure on the
killer to change his killing grounds and ruin the police's chances of catching him.
However, with no information to go on, it was decided that it was best to warn the community
and open up a tip line.
The missing eyes however were kept secret, until finally leaking to the press.
For now all the cops had to go on was that they were dealing with a man with great surgical
skill, and that he was a well-known client of the women he had murdered, judging by the
ease of his executions.
They set up sting operations with undercover agents, and noted the plates of every car
used by local johns, then ran them against a national database of criminals with unusual
records.
It all amounted to nothing, and Albright remained out of the police's radar.
For now.
On March 19th, the body of Shirley Williams was discovered a half block away from a local
elementary school.
Williams too had been a well-known prostitute, but she worked in a completely different area-
Albright had felt the police heat and changed hunting grounds, exactly as the police feared
he would.
It had been children who found William's naked body, crumpled up against a street curb.
She was found with facial bruises and a broken nose, with the cause of death being a gunshot
through both the top and back of the head.
This time however Albright had been in a rush- he had left behind the broken tip of an exacto
knife which he was using to perform the surgeries.
When news of the third killing went public, prostitutes in the local area fled to other
places- some left the city entirely.
Brenda White, a longtime veteran of the streets, however refused to leave.
One night, Albright pulled up to her in a white station wagon, and she climbed in.
She told him to drive to a local motel, but he refused, saying instead he had a private
spot elsewhere.
Alarm bells began to ring in White's mind, as she never allowed new johns to take her
anywhere but the local motel.
She insisted Albright let her out of his car, and he became furious.
The quick-thinking White however sprayed Albright in the face with mace and rushed from the
vehicle, leaving Albright howling in pain and screaming that he would kill all the hookers.
Re-telling her story to two police detectives warning her to stay off the streets, it got
the detectives to thinking about other stories prostitutes had been saying.
One was that of another prostitute known for making up stories- Veronica Rodriguez.
She too had said that she had been attacked by a man matching the description provided
by Brenda White.
Further, she claimed that a truck driver, Axton Schindler, had actually saved her from
the attack.
Suspicious, police dug into Axton Schindler's background, and discovered that his property
was owned by Fred Albright- the now deceased father.
They also discovered, however, that Fred Albright owned a house in the vicinity of where the
first two killings had taken place.
The name Albright stuck in the officer's heads though, until one of them recalled a strange
tip he had received over the phone.
A woman who refused to identify herself had called in and said that she was friends with
Mary Pratt, who had introduced her to a new boyfriend of hers.
The boyfriend was very nice and polite, but Pratt told her that he had a fascination with
eyes- and that she had found a box of X-acto blades in his attic.
The story had remained completely forgotten, until deputy Walter Cook happened to remember
it while going over the case.
Albright's photo was shown to his victims, with one immediately identifying him and the
other shaking in fear as she got to his photo, taking days to gather the courage to identify
him to police.
At two thirty in the morning of March 22nd, a SWAT unit smashed into Charles Albright's
home.
His flabbergasted wife stumbled out of bed in her night robe, screaming in terror as
the police dragged the defeated and silent Albright away in handcuffs.
At trial, the evidence was largely circumstantial- Albright had taken great pains to avoid leaving
any clues behind.
In the end, the jury found Albright guilty only of Shirley Williams' murder- however
they recommded, and received, a life sentence.
Today, Albright remains in prison, with no possibility of parole, but when asked about
the missing eyeballs he remains steadfast that he never once cut out their eyeballs.
Instead he insists the police did that themselves in order to hype up their case.
Now go watch 13 Terrifying Serial Killers You've Definitely Never Heard Of, or click
this other video instead!