Naman Shrestha
In Lifetime’s ‘Searching for a Serial Killer: The Regina Smith Story,’ we get a dramatized and detailed account of the killings committed by Charles Albright, also known as “The Eyeball Killer,” in Dallas, Texas. As Ted Cole essays the role of the serial killer in the crime mystery film, his brilliant performance allows the viewers to get a slight idea about the real-life Charles, who wreaked havoc from the late 1980s to 1991. Naturally, questions about the actual serial killer and his victims are raised in the minds of the viewers.
Charles Albright Had Troubles With the Law Since His Teenage Years
On August 10, 1933, in Amarillo, Texas, a future suspected serial killer, Charles Frederick Albright, was born. His biological parents gave him away to an orphanage, from where he was adopted by Delle and Fred Albright. Growing up in a strict household, he had his first run-in with the law at the age of 13 when he was taken into custody for aggravated assault. By the time he was 16, he had failed to complete a pre-med training course after graduating high school. Around the same time, he spent about a year in prison for being in possession of two handguns, a rifle, and stolen petty cash.
Once he was released from jail, Charles majored in pre-med studies at Arkansas State Teachers College, from where he was expelled after stealing multiple items. Following his expelling, he got into forging multiple important documents and even made himself fictitious degrees. After marrying his college girlfriend and giving birth to a daughter, his forgery was caught, and he suffered the consequences. Soon, his marriage fell apart, and the couple got divorced in 1974. In the following years, he was constantly caught in trouble. For instance, in the early 1980s, he was convicted of sexually molesting the 14-year-old daughter of one of his friends.
Soon after he met Dixie Austin and fell in love with her, Charles Albright became involved in a series of brutal murders. While Dixie would support him financially, he used to tell her that he delivered newspapers in the early mornings. Between October 1988 and March 1991, the bodies of four different women in separate incidents surfaced. Since all of them had a couple of things in common — the fact that they were sex workers and had their eyes removed by the killer — the police believed that all three murders were connected and committed by a single perpetrator.
Charles Albright Allegedly Claimed Four Victims in the Dallas Area in the Span of Three Years
The string of murders began in October 1988 when the body of Charles’ first alleged victim, a 30-year-old sex worker named Rhonda K. Bowie, was discovered with multiple stab wounds. The next reported victim of the Eyeball Killer was a 33-year-old sex worker named Mary Lou Pratt. She was found dead in Dallas’ Oak Cliff neighborhood in December 1990. Upon further inspection, the police found out that not only was she shot in the head with a .44 Magnum, but her eyes were also removed surgically.
Just a couple of months later, the body of another sex worker, Susan Beth Peterson, surfaced near the same area where Mary was found. Another similarity between the two victims was that even Susan’s eyes had been removed surgically. In March 1991, Charles Albright claimed another victim, Shirley Williams, an African-American sex worker. Her body was discovered by a waitress near an elementary school in Dallas, Texas. When the investigators inspected the body and the crime scene, they noticed that even her eyes were missing, just like the previous victims. Thus, the media began dubbing Charles Albright as “The Eyeball Killer.”
Charles Albright Was in the Middle of His Life Term When He Passed Away
As the detectives put together the evidence from the crime scenes, they were led straight to Charles Frederick Albright, who was taken into custody on March 22, 1991. Apart from being charged with the murder of Shirley Williams, he was also arrested for murdering Rhonda Bowie, Mary Lou Pratt, and Susan Peterson. Although the evidence against him was circumstantial, he stood trial for the killings on December 13, 1991. Initially, the hair found at Shirley’s crime scene matched the defendant’s hair. However, according to the results of DNA testing, the hair belonged to a dog.
Still, on December 18, 1991, the jury returned with a guilty verdict for Charles and convicted him only of the murder of Shirley Williams. The charges he faced for the murders of other women were later dropped because the prosecution did not have enough evidence to prove the same, though he is still considered to be the prime suspect in the cases. The judge ordered him to serve a life imprisonment sentence without the possibility of parole for his crimes. In August 2020, Charles Albright was serving his sentence at the John Montford Unit in Lubbock, Texas, when he passed away at the age of 87.
Read More: Louis Craine: Who Were His Victims? What Happened to Him?
