On December 13, 1990, Dallas Police responded to a gruesome scene in far south Dallas. [14], The American documentary series Forensic Files documents the Albright case in the episode titled "See No Evil", originally aired June 14, 2001. He was then caught stealing hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise from a hardware store and received a two-year prison sentence. List of serial killers in the United States, "Charles Fredrick Albright | Texas Prison Inmates | The Texas Tribune", "Crime History: Charles Albright, "The Eyeball Killer," Terrorizes Texas Sex Workers - CrimeFeed", Dallas Notorious Killer Of Prostitutes Has Died In Prison, "Charles Albright The Eyeball Killer From Texas", "Investigation Discovery show spotlights Oak Cliff serial killer - Oak Cliff", "Dallas History's Notorious Killer Of Prostitutes Has Died", "HBO | Autopsy 5: Dead Men Do Tell Tales", "Autopsy 5: Dead Men Do Tell Tales (TV Movie 1998)", "Eyes Are My Prize | Evil, I | Investigation Discovery GO", "Mark of a Killer: An Eye for Murder (Season 1, Episode 3)", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_Albright&oldid=1135791484, American people convicted of child sexual abuse, American prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment, Crimes against sex workers in the United States, Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Texas, Violence against women in the United States, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 26 January 2023, at 21:53. Delle Albright would make Charles wear dresses and play with dolls. Moreover, when police showed Schindler's and Albright's photos to dozens of sex workers, none recognized Schindler, but many recognized Albright. People born on Thursdays are generally a fun to be around, which means Thursday's babies get to be the life of the party. He later claimed that he was innocent but had pled guilty to avoid "a hassle. Albright was initially charged with the murders of four women, all found shot in the back of the head and with their eyes removed. He created his fictitious bachelor's and master's degrees using stolen documents and forged signatures. The 57-year-old man was a former high school science teacher who owned a few pieces of property around Dallas and targeted prostitutes, ending their lives brutally with a shot to the head and mutilation. When the body was autopsied, the coroner made an even more startling discovery; the eyes had been skillfully removed from their sockets. One night, as Charles's teammate was looking at a picture of his new girlfriend, he noticed something odd. They also discovered Nazi literature, books about serial killers, and several dolls with missing eyes. Known as "The Eyeball Killer," Charles Albright was a low life who terrorized Dallas, Texas, in the early '90s by murdering sex worker. Cresswell, Stephen. He served less than six months before being released. In another investigation, they found that Fred Albright had also owned property on the street named Cotton Valley. Once it was time to put the finishing touch on his work, the eyes, Charles would go to his local taxidermy shop to pick out the perfect pair. Apparently, he was also known among the local prostitutes to have an infatuation with eyes. She was 84. "Charles Albright," she said. She did reveal that the man she was with one night became violent and hit her in the head with a gun, briefly knocking her out. For the doll, see Julie Albright (doll). Please logout and login again. [16][17], The Investigation Discovery network reported the manhunt for Albright in the Evil, I episode "Eyes Are My Prize", which aired on August 27, 2013.[18]. He started dating an English major, Bettye Hester and planned to marry her. The killer, Lollar said, was probably Axton Schindler, who conveniently skipped town the week of the trial. At age 13, he was already a petty thief and was arrested for aggravated assault. When Charles Albright was 36, he conned his way into teaching high school science in Crandall. John Matthews from the Dallas Police Department knew Peterson and took it upon himself to investigate her murder. Albright had two talents taxidermy and painting. Instead, she let him use buttons; psychologists later theorized that essentially being forbidden from using eyes played a part in forming Albright's criminal pathology. Eventually, an ETSU official told the principal at Crandall that Albright had never graduated from the college. https://artandseek.org/2021/03/18/why-is-there-a-giant-eyeball-in-downtown-dallas-we-take-a-look/#:~:text=The%20Eye%20is%20the%20work,Nasher%20Sculpture%20Center%20in%202014.&text=The%20piece%20is%20modeled%20after%20his%20own%20eyeball. Charles Albright, known as the "Texas eyeball killer" was natural born killer. On December 18, 1991, the jury deliberated and found him guilty only of the murder of Shirley Williams. When he arrived at the Williams murder site, he directed the medical examiner's field agent to see if the body's eyeballs were intact. Each had been shot and had her eyes removed. While there were many unanswered questions regarding Schindler's involvement in connection to Albright, there was nothing to tie him to the case except an empty .44-caliber bullet box behind his house in Cotton Valley, which Albright could have dropped himself. In 1981, while visiting some friends, he sexually molested their 14-year-old daughter. That's the man who saved me from the killer!" A Warning. Texas Monthly notes that Delle Albright showed her young son how to properly use a scalpel to cut the eyes out of dead birds. She sometimes dressed him in girl's clothes. When the Dallas police arrived on the scene, one of the officers immediately recognized Mary Pratt since she was a veteran prostitute who worked at the Star Motel in Oak Cliff. The officers could not shake White's story from their minds, and they thought back to Veronica Rodriguez's rambling talk about being attacked in south Dallas. During this time he began to befriend and gain the trust of his neighbors. She led officers to a secluded field near Fort Worth Boulevard, where Charles used to take her for sex. He continued on this way, committing a series of crimes and getting away with probations here and there. Charles dedicated hours to perfecting his taxidermy pieces, making sure they looked as life-like as possible. The Dallas Ripper trial began on December 2, 1991. The family reported him, and Charles pled guilty to "knowingly and intentionally engaging in deviate sexual intercourse." In 1985, Albright fell in love with a woman named Dixie Austin. "It's always a miscarriage of justice," he told the press, "when an innocent man is convicted.". This crime landed him in jail for a year, causing him to drop out of college. Her eyes were shut, and her chest and face were severely bruised. Charles Albright was born in Amarillo on August 10,1933. Susan Peterson,another young prostitute, was dumped on the same street Mary Pratt was, outside the Dallas city limits in DeSoto. Albright was charged with the three Eyeball Killer murders as well as an unsolved 1988 murder of Rhonda Bowie, a prostitute who was stabbed to death, though her eyes hadn't been removed like those of the previous victims. Lollar was stunned; he thought he would get his client acquitted. The field agent flipped open both eyes and confirmed they were missing. (+1000 XP) Learned from reading . Lacking evidence, the prosecution relied heavily on the hair evidence that linked Albright to the three murders. He had an extensive criminal record that included theft and molestation. Dr. Peacock immediately knew whoever removed her eyes had skilled surgeon-like precision. On March 19, 1991, another prostitute namedShirley Williamswas found dead, this time from the Avalon Motel, a few miles away from the Star Motel. When he was three months old, he was adopted by Delle and Fred Albright. The Cinemaholic writes that Albright's mother introduced him to taxidermy. This case is as monstrous as it sounds. The autopsy on Williams' body revealed that the surgery had been rushed. He began dating someone else and had tossed out all the photos he had of his ex-girlfriend. Born on February 6, 1981, Bulford was the son of Lloyd, who was a taxidermist, and Trish Bulford. With her help, he breezed through school and skipped two grades. In 1968, he forged excellent credentials from the Arkansas State Teacher's College and used them to become a high school teacher, but was sentenced to probation for forging official records two years later. People. He invited her to live with him in the home he had inherited from his father Fred when he passed. As he grew older, his mother would drive Charles around on all his dates and lecture him about how "greedy" his father Fred was with sex, claiming he grabs her in the bedroom when she is wearing her bra and panties. The very neighborhood where the first two bodies were disposed. In downtown Dallas, at 1601 Main St, a 30-foot tall bloodshot blue eyeball is plopped down in the middle of the grass. Charles Frederick Albright was born in Amarillo, Texas, on August 10, 1933. Patrolling the area, officers Matthews and Smith spied a black sex worker named Brenda White. On October 20, 2016, the true crime podcast My Favorite Murder discussed the case on its 39th episode "Kind of Loco. In 1981, his mother Delle had died, Charles was 48. Charles enjoyed this new hobby. But, she let out a gasp once she opened Pratt's eyes. On March 22, 1991, a team of tactical officers burst through the front door of Charles Albright's home on 1035 Eldorado in Oak Cliff, a dark station wagon in his driveway. He undertook pre-med training but failed to complete it. Manage all your favorite fandoms in one place! "Julie" redirects here. The publication notes that Albright yearned to purchase fake eyes for his taxidermied birds. However, they found hair consistent with Shirley Williams's on his blankets and in his vacuum. Albright - a self-identified "pragmatic idealist" who coined the term "assertive multilateralism" to describe the Clinton administration's foreign policy - drew from her childhood experiences. On March 23, 1991, Albright was arrested and charged with three counts of murder. Six hairs on the blanket matched Williams', three pubic hairs on the blanket and a head hair on the raincoat matched Albright's. According to another sex worker, Shirley had been last seen wearing jeans and a yellow raincoat; and she had gotten into a car after getting high on drugs. Suppose she could positively identify him as the attacker. (1991 File Photo / David Woo) Albright's trial began on Nov. 18 . In Finland and Sweden, that number is 80% to 90% more than four out of every five . [6], Mary Lou Pratt, 33, a Caucasian well-known sex worker in the Oak Cliff neighbourhood of Dallas, was found dead, [7] wearing only a t-shirt and bra. The eyes had been removed with such surgical precision that there was no tissue, and the upper and lower eyelids were left unobstructed. His biological mother put him up for adoption, and at three weeks old, Fredrick and Delle Albright took him home from the orphanage. Another white woman was found vulgarly displayed, mostly nude, with her breasts exposed and shot in the head and chest. Whenever his aunt was around, she would give him dolls and make him wear dresses. He pled guilty and received probation for this crime but later claimed he was innocent and only pled guilty to avoid a hassle. "A change came over his face," she recalled. For the first time in its history, the DA was going for a murder conviction based only on hair and fiber evidence. Price William however married Kate Middleton, with green eyes. He rented out the home in Cotton Valley to a fast-talking truck driver named Axton Schindler, while Charles and Dixie moved into the old family home in Oak Cliff. Westphalen and his partner Stan McNear stood close by. Unfortunately, the gun wasn't a match to the one used in the murders. "The Eyeball Killer", a.k.a. They uncovered a string of thefts, burglaries, forgeries, and a charge of sexual intercourse with a child. Charles Albright's Childhood. Charles Albright was born in Amarillo, Texas and was adopted as the only child of Fred and Delle Albright. A few days before, she said a trick pulled alongside her, and she got into his dark station wagon. The eyes followed you around the room. However, sometimes his adoptive mother went to extremes. Reports came in about a lady who had been murdered and half way nude. Education: The education details are not available at this time. Several days after Albright's arrest, the forensic lab reported that hairs found on the bodies of the dead sex workers matched hair samples taken from Charles's head and pubic area. According to Texas Monthly, Charles Albright's friends and loved ones were shocked and devastated by his arrest. The American criminal has been alive for 32,710 days or 785,048 hours. Pick out the picture of the guy who assaulted you, and we will get him and put him in jail, where he can't hurt you." The series aired on NBC from September 22, 1958, to 1960 and on ABC in 1960-1961. By this time, he was married to Bettye, and they had one daughter together, leading a seemingly everyday life. Born in Amarillo, Texas, Charles Albright was adopted from an orphanage by Delle and Fred Albright. He is incarcerated in the John Montford Psychiatric Unit in Lubbock, Texas. Albright claimed later that he was innocent of the accusation but pled guilty to avoid a hassle. Born and raised in Texas, Charles Albright was the adopted child of Fred and Delle Albright. `` when an innocent man is convicted. `` into teaching high school science in Crandall year causing! 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