What happened to The Eyeball Killer Charles Albright?

A killer with an unusual liking for eyeballs that terrorized the streets of Texas, here's the lifestory of Charles Albright.

Also known as 'The Eyeball Killer', Albright was convicted of murdering one woman and suspected of killing two others in 1991. After being found guilty, he was incarcerated at the John Montford Psychiatric Unit.

Trigger warning: This article contains information about graphic violence

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Who was Charles Albright?

Charles Albright was born in Amarillo, Texas and was adopted as the only child of Fred and Delle Albright. When he was young, he was doted upon and often dressed in girl’s clothes. He was impulsive from a young age and would manage to escape the yard behind where his mother worked, only to ask people passing by to lift him over.

As soon as he received his first gun, Charles began shooting small animals like squirrels and rabbits, and wanted to become a taxidermist. With his mother Delle's help, he learned to skin and stuff them with the animals he shot but later grew bored of them.

As a teen, he helped his mother out with her real estate business.

However, in 1946 he was convicted of aggravated assault. In 1951, he was sentenced to prison for theft and receiving stolen goods, for which he served 6 months. Charles came into the spotlight in the early 90s when he was accused of murdering and surgically removing the eyes of several prostitutes working in Dallas, Texas.

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What did he do and what happened to him?

Charles Albright was a seemingly normal man who was known to be charming and underemployed. He often babysat the neighborhood kids. Throughout his adult life, he went back and forth between his straight and criminal life. Nothing about him was suspicious until he started targeting prostitutes. The case that put him in the spotlight was the brutal death of Mary Lou Pratt in 1990.

While homicides were very common in Dallas during that time, it was the nature of these deaths that startled the investigators. All these women that were killed brutally were missing their eyes. Removed with surgical precision, the murderer who removed these women’s eyes would have had to have extremely deft training in anatomy. His killings started with Mary Lou Pratt and then continued with Susan Beth Peterson and Shirley Williams, all shot in the head.

After realizing the pattern, the police began interviewing prostitutes in the downtown Dallas area and through Veronica Rodriguez, the police identified Charles Albright. It was also later revealed that a deputy had heard from someone on the tip line about a man who was was obsessed with eyes and had a large collection of X-ACTO blades.

Police arrested Charles Albright on March 22, 1991. During a search of his home, they found a stash of X-ACTO knives, a copy of Gray’s Anatomy, and almost a dozen books on true-crime and serial killers. Hair fibers found in his truck also connected him to all three murders, however, the murder weapon/s and the missing eyeballs were never found.

Charles Albright's trial began in late November 1999 and prosecutors were ultimately forced to dismiss charges against him for the Pratt and Peterson murders. However, he was found guilty of murdering Shirley Williams and sentenced to life in prison.

Charles was ultimately incarcerated at the John Montford Psychiatric Unit in Lubbock and died at the West Texas Regional Medical Facility in 2020.