Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Eyeball Killer” Charles Albright Pt. 1

Episode Date: May 16, 2022

As a child, Charles Albright developed a penchant for eyes while learning taxidermy. But his most dangerous trait was always his charm. Able to talk his way out of trouble, he rarely suffered any consequences for his actions. How far could his talk take him? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this episode, listener discretion is advised. This episode contains discussion of murder and sexual assault. Extreme caution is advised for listeners under 13. Edward Hicks knocked on his colleague's door. He'd paid Charles Albright for a portrait of his wife, but he was sick of waiting. It had been months, and all Charles would say was that the painting wasn't ready. Now, Edward was starting to think he'd been swindled. After a few tries, Charles finally opened the door, and Edward asked to see the painting.

Charles smiled wide and invited Edward in. Of course he could see it, he said, but it was still a work in progress. The portrait was in the living room. It wasn't huge, roughly three feet by six, but it was shockingly realistic. The colors were rich. Edward's wife's hair glistened, and her skin was lifelike. Everything about the painting was beautiful, and it was beautiful. first glance, it looked like it was finished. But then, Edward noticed them. The eyes.

The eyes weren't just unfinished. They weren't there at all. There were two startling white holes where they should have been. Charles explained that he wanted to get them just right. There was something strange about the way the painting was propped up in the room, as if it were finished. It was almost like Charles preferred his subject that way. Everything perfect, except for the eyes. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. This is Serial Killers, a Spotify original from Parcast.

Every episode, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today, we're taking a look at Charles Albright, also known as The Eyeball Killer. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify.

In today's episode, we'll cover Charles rise from a coddled young child to a charismatic, talented adult, one with a disturbing penchant for eyes. Next time, we'll follow the case of the eyeball killer as investigators puzzle over his gruesome crimes. Then we'll see how Charles finally comes undone. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Bonnie and Clyde, the Lonely Hearts Killers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. These are infamous criminal duels, but you don't need to break any laws to find your perfect business partner because you have Shopify. It's the commerce platform that can help you with literally everything,

website design, marketing, shipping, and more. So start your business today with the best partner, Shopify, and get that. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash killers. That's Shopify.com slash killers. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecru. Whether you're hiring for a role or searching for a killer, the hunt can be exhausting. When detectives looked and searched to find any kind of evidence to find the person they were looking for, like Jack the Ripper, the Golden State Killer, the Unit Bomber. It's tedious work to find what you're looking for. So, if you're hiring, I've got news for you.

You can skip the lengthy investigation and the tiresome process of sorting through hundreds of resumes. just use ZipRecruiter. Try for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash killers because not only does ZipRecruiter have the technology to match you with potential candidates quickly, it also just added a new feature that pushes candidates who are qualified

and interested in your role to the top of the list. They can even tell you why they're interested, making it easier for you to get a sense of who they are. Cut through the standard and get to the standouts with ZipRecruiter. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And now, you can try it for free.

At ZipRecruiter.com slash killers. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash killers. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice.

Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. You may have heard of Leonardo da Vinci, painter, sculptor, architect, scientist, the original Renaissance man. He could do just about anything.

While he's best known for his portrait of, the Mona Lisa, Da Vinci was also a famed anatomist. He constantly studied how the body functioned, was always drawing it, trying to understand life. You might even call him obsessed. However, few know about Da Vinci's darker side. Early in his career, he sketched concept machines for the military, multiple barreled guns and chariots fitted with blades. The drawings were frightening, gruesome even, with death on every page. But thankfully, Da Vinci's work took a turn toward the artistic instead. But looking at these drawings, you can't help but wonder, what would have happened if Da Vinci

had constructed these weapons? What if a man in love with anatomy had wanted to kill? The answer to that specific question lies in the life of Charles Albright. And interestingly enough, it starts with another kind of obsession. Del Albright wanted a child, yearned for one. In 1933, she was well on the way to a picture-perfect suburban life in North Texas. Her husband Fred ran a grocery store out of their house, while she taught elementary school. They weren't rich, but they were comfortable. And they were unable to get pregnant, which meant adoption was their only option. That August, Del and Fred brought home a three-week-old orphan named Charles.

Del was so grateful for her child, she did everything she could to keep him safe and healthy. but her methods were extreme. Del believed goat's milk was better than cows, so she kept a goat in the backyard. If Charles didn't drink his milk, she spanked him. If he didn't nap, she'd tie him to the bed. Afraid he'd get polio from touching something dirty, she took him to a hospital and showed him children in iron lungs.

She kept her baby boy under constant supervision. There was only one time Charles' mother wasn't watching him, and that was when she worked at the store. It was at the front of the house, so Del would leave Charles in the backyard to play while she was busy. Only three-year-old Charles wasn't interested in his toys or climbing trees. Even as a toddler, he might have felt suffocated under Dell's control. Left in the backyard alone, he plotted his escape. From through the fence, he'd watch customer after customer walk by, waiting for his opportunity.

He was still small and hard to see, so he pulled a box up to the gate, stood on it and waved his arms, asking people to lift him over. Somehow it worked. A passerby helped him out, leaving Charles free to roam. Del was likely furious and frustrated. When she figured out how he'd gotten out, she'd tied a rope to him so he couldn't reach the fence. Charles was trapped. Yet this did little to quell Charles' impulsive spirit. Once at church, he was sitting behind a girl with long, beautiful red curls. He wanted to touch and play with them, so he found a pair of scissors

and cut a lock of the girl's hair. The girl screamed, and people gathered around to tell Charles what he'd done was naughty. His mother was likely mortified and angry, but Charles didn't think it was such a big deal. After all, it was just a piece of hair. At this point, Del was well aware

she had a rambunctious young boy on her hands. Controlling him through force wasn't working. so instead she took a different strategy. She directed his energy towards being productive. She made him practice piano and drilled him in arithmetic and reading. She also told him his birth mother was a successful lawyer, possibly hoping to motivate him. And it worked.

Charles became so bright, he skipped two grades. Del also taught him how to hunt, and Charles loved it. He brought back small animals like rabbits and birds for his mother to cook for dinner. likely due to his time hunting, Charles became more interested in anatomy and eventually took an interest in the art of taxidermy. Wanting to do things the right way, Dell enrolled 11-year-old Charles in a mail-order course. Then she made a deal with the neighbor who raised pigeons. Charles would clean their cages, and in exchange, the neighbor would give him a test subject. Charles took the bird home to his mother to begin his first lesson. How to kill. His heart beat with excitement as he pulled

it out of the cage. He held it close, keeping the wings tucked, as Del put a chloroform soaked rag over the bird's head. Then they waited. After a few minutes, Charles felt the bird's heart stop. Its body went limp. It was dead. Charles might have felt a thrill in that moment. He discovered what it was like to have power over another being, something he surely didn't feel under Del's strict rule. In killing the pigeon, he had control. With the bird dead, Del showed him how to cut away its skin so as not to break the feathers. They opened the tiny body, scraped out the organs and brain, then carefully removed the eyes from their sockets. Del taught him to go slowly and make clean cuts. He couldn't cheat.

Next, they stuffed the bird until it began to look almost alive again, plumped full with cotton. Soon, all that was left to do was replace the eyes. Normally, in taxidermy, you'd use glass eyeballs from a specialty store, but Dell was exceptionally frugal and didn't want to pay for them. So she told Charles he couldn't have eyes until he was good enough at his craft. She then pulled out a box of cheap sewing buttons. He pulled out two slightly mismatched dark ones and followed Dell's instructions. When he was finished sewing them into the sockets, he put his pigeon in a cabinet in the living room, but it never looked quite complete. It looked blind. Charles continued to stuff and preserve small animals, and it was clear that he had

a knack for the art form. But it was those eyes he really wanted. He often visited the shop to stare at the glass eyes. In his dreams, he fantasized about collecting them. But this obsession might have been more than just an interest in his new hobby. It might have stimulated a parapheria concerning eyeballs. Vanessa is going to take over in the psychology here and throughout the episode. As a note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or a psychiatrist, but we have done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. As we've mentioned before, a parapheria is a condition in which a person experiences intense, sexual urges involving atypical objects or situations. Dr. John Money writes that parapherias often begin in early childhood, but fully developed by adolescents.

Interestingly, they can be caused by difficult childhood experiences both sex. and non-sexual. It's possible that Charles derived enormous pleasure from the art of taxidermy and intense anger at his mom's refusal to buy the eyes. As he entered puberty, these combined feelings might have set the stage for an almost sexual obsession with eyes. Yet if Charles was developing a sexual appetite, his mother was determined to prevent it. As he got older, Dell lectured him on proper behavior around women. She told him not to be like his father, who she said was, quote, greedy for sex. The way she said it probably made Charles feel guilt

about any sexual impulses he'd been having, especially if he had them while performing taxidermy. He eventually abandoned the hobby, perhaps ashamed of his feelings. But still, Charles didn't know where to put all of his energy. At school, he shot off rubber bands in classrooms and set fire to a teacher's dress. His classmates found him funny,

and this got him attention he probably enjoyed. But to the administration, he was a problem that needed to be dealt with. When the school called Del in to ask her to do something, she refused and said it was their job to deal with his behavior, not hers. This was a big turn from a mother who'd previously worked hard to parent him. Dell might have been suffering from parental burnout, something researcher Moira Mikolajak describes as being characterized by a sense of parental ineffectiveness. No matter what Del did, her spirit.

son always seemed to cause some sort of problem. Mikolajach explains that this feeling can result in parental neglect and have adverse outcomes for the children. Charles continued bad behavior might have been the byproduct of a society that was tired of dealing with him, because as far as we know, the administration did little to discipline the teen, giving him tacit permission to test the limits even more. In high school, Charles stole a watch, then claimed innocence, even offering to help the police recover it. Another time, he broke into a church, then told the police that it had all been a mistake. Even when he was caught doing the wrong thing, he was learning how to make excuses

or lie his way out of trouble. On both occasions, he was charged, but because he was a juvenile and the crimes were minor, nothing went on his record. He seemed innocent enough. Andell, rather than discipline him, she usually defended him. So by the time Charles went to college in the fall of 1949, he was used to doing whatever he wanted and getting away with it. As a freshman, Charles continued his high school antics by joining a student burglary ring. He and friends stole many cases of goods and even purchased two handguns and a rifle. In March of 1950, Charles walked into a dry goods store where he saw $380 in an open safe. Perhaps wanting to impress his friends, he snatched the cash, but was eventually caught by the police.

When the cops found the other stolen goods in his room, Charles tried to charm his way out of it. He claimed he hadn't taken anything, that he was simply holding everything for a friend. He was innocent, he promised. But Charles wasn't a little kid anymore. He was 17, almost a grown man. So this time, the court didn't let him off the hook. They sentenced him to more than a year in prison. Charles spent his 18th birthday at a correctional facility in Huntsman's.

Bill, Texas. Yet for him, this was less of a setback and more of an opportunity. He knew he was intelligent and believed he had so much potential, so he spent his time in prison developing his charisma and honing leadership skills. By the time he was released, he was determined to prove his worth to the world, to live up to what his mother had wanted for him all along. Coming up, Charles' troubling behavior raises laughs instead of red flags. What could be more shocking than uncovering the deep, dark secrets behind history's biggest stories? Realizing that everything you thought was true was a lie. Hi, it's Carter from the podcast series Conspiracy theories.

Every Monday and Wednesday, take a closer look at the blurred line between fact and fiction and discover that there may be more to the so-called truth than you think. From the government's link to Bigfoot and the otherworldly secrets of the Vatican, to the grateful dead's role in the spread of LSD, and more. On conspiracy theories, we leave no stone unturned and no skeptic unheard. Some may just be outlandish claims. Others may make you rethink everything. Follow the Spotify original from Parcast conspiracy theories.

Listen free only on Spotify. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th.

Tickets on sale now at Yamavatheater.com. Only at Yamava Resort and Concord. Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. UN must be 21 to enter. In September of 1952, 19-year-old Charles Albright told his probation officer that he was ready for a fresh start, that he wanted to put thieving behind him. He was going to be a better person, becoming the outstanding citizen he was supposed to be. With that in mind, Charles re-enrolled in school, this time at Arkansas State Teachers College.

He got decent grades in some things. painting, languages, and sciences, and liked to boast about how smart and talented he was. He told his classmates he was planning on going to medical school to become a surgeon. He didn't, however, disclose his poor grades in his other classes, and he wasn't as interested in improving those as he was at cultivating his reputation. Over time, his popularity grew, and he started dating a beautiful girl named Betty Hester, which likely increased his status on campus. But dating Betty had other benefits, too.

She worked in the college president's office and had keys to most rooms on campus. Charles was already well-liked, but figured he could be even more so. Using Betty's keys, he stole test answers from the office and handed them out to other students, and they loved him for it. Nobody batted an eye at the ethics of the move. Charles wasn't a felon. He was just a class clown. He liked entertaining other people.

He was generous. He wasn't a thief. This encouragement probably reinforced a lesson Charles had been learning all his life, that he could get away with things, even when his pranks erred on the side of creepy. At one point during college, a friend of Charles, we'll call him James, was dating a girl with beautiful eyes, eyes that Charles was always complimenting. When James broke up with her, he threw out all his photos of her. James soon got a new girlfriend, but Charles was fixated on those pictures.

those eyes. He saw his chance for a joke. He pulled the photos out of the trash and cut out the eyes. Then he glued them onto a photo of James' new girlfriend. Out of his handiwork, he attached more cutouts to the ceiling of James' room and pasted them to the walls of the men's bathroom. Everywhere James looked, his ex's eyes followed. This might have been the first escalation of his parapheria with eyes. It also suggests that Charles may have derived

pleasure from defiling pictures of women, a disorder referred to as salaromania. Yet at the time, nobody thought this creepy prank signaled any kind of problem. Instead, the other boys found it hilarious. There was good old Charles again, always the jokester. There was no recourse, no consequences. It was just a joke. So Charles continued to fool around, seeing what else he could get away with. In the spring of 1954, he amused his friends by stealing school property, like he had before. He swiped his football coach's golf clubs, school books, and even aquariums. It was another silly antic, only this time he got caught. Police eventually found the stolen goods, and as a result, Charles was expelled.

But the college didn't press charges. They didn't want the embarrassment of having the story in the papers. Charles was a popular guy around campus. Any outcry could look bad for them, so Charles evaded jail time again. However, the expulsion was a major setback in his plans. His dreams were slipping away. He wouldn't be a biology researcher. He couldn't go to med school.

He didn't want to start over, nor did he seem to understand what the big deal was. All he knew was that he'd been robbed of the chance to show off his intelligence. Perhaps wanting something to show for his college years, he married Betty Hester. and together they had a daughter. But any happiness they might have had didn't last long. He soon became frustrated in his marriage, and in 1965, they separated. Settling down with the family wasn't the way to feel successful and admired.

Not for Charles. So he came up with a different plan. Instead, he went back to Texas. Perhaps in an attempt to save their marriage, Betty and his daughter went with him. But Charles went back to his old ways, In a move reminiscent of his high school days, he snuck into the offices at East Texas State University. There, he forged transcripts and gave himself a master's degree in biology.

He wrote that he was working on a second in counseling and guidance and getting a Ph.D. Charles took these bogus transcripts to a high school in Crandall, a small town outside Dallas. They'd been looking for a science teacher all summer, and Charles pitched himself. The principal was impressed with his credentials. and offered him the job. He didn't think to check the official records. And why would he? Charismatic and likable, Charles seemed trustworthy enough. When he started his new job in the fall of 1969, the students were fascinated by him. Charles was everything they aspired to be. Charming, worldly, smart, attractive. He spoke Latin and surrounded himself with fancy things, a green corvette and

lizard print shoes. He was smart and. and athletic. He could identify any insect he saw, and he coached the football team. Some of his female students even wrote him love letters. Charles was surrounded by admirers. After only about a year, however, an official at East Texas State kept seeing Charles' name pop up in the school records. It was puzzling. They'd never met a Charles Albright. But apparently he was a master's student and a PhD candidate. Confused, they called up Cradle High School's principal to tell him something very important. The documents were fake. Charles was swiftly fired and also charged with theft and forgery, but as usual, he tried to talk

his way out of it. He told school officials how he'd felt lying had been his only choice. If they'd known about his record, he never would have been allowed to teach. He hinted at how unfortunate that would have been for them, given how popular he'd been at the school. Under the spell of his charisma, the school officials relented. Charles had been beloved by all, and he seemed truly sorry. They agreed to keep the scandal out of the papers. And in keeping with Charles' other digressions, the court gave him only a year's probation and a small fine. In this instance, Charles might have been the beneficiary of the Halo effect, something we've mentioned on this show before.

His attractiveness and charm would have made him also appear trustworthy, repentant, and undeserving. of harsh punishment. This is something many psychologists have studied in criminal trials. For example, a 1980 study by researcher John E. Stewart found that the more attractive a defendant was, the less severe the punishment for the crime. It's likely that Charles' charm and good luck allowed him to get away with much more than he should have and left him free to move on with his life. Sometime in the early 70s, Charles moved back to Oak Cliff with Betty and his daughter. But moving to Charles' childhood neighborhood didn't solve any problems in their marriage. They divorced in 1975.

However, that just meant that Charles was free from any responsibilities and could do anything he wanted. So he tried out a wild variety of careers, airplane designer, baseball hat maker, even bullfighter. It was clear he wasn't interested in a nine to five, but he was honing an interest in something else. Women, specifically, their body. At some point, Charles got his beautician's license and landed a job at a local salon. He styled women's hair and called himself Mr. Charles, captivating his clients. While there, he told another stylist he was also an artist and that a painting of his had won a prize at the Texas State Fair.

The stylist, whom we'll call Edward Hicks, hired Charles to paint a picture of his wife and paid him $250. Charles worked on the painting for weeks and weeks. When Edward requested to see the progress, he was alarmed to see that Charles had painted everything except the eyes. And when he asked when Charles would finish the painting, Charles said only when he was ready to, as if he were Da Vinci painting the Mona Lisa.

Months later, the portrait was finally finished, and Edward went to see it. The eyes were absolutely perfect. The pupils and lashes were lifelike and mesmerizing. It was uncansely. like Charles had spent his entire life studying them. Charles likely considered himself a Renaissance man of sorts, and to be fair he seemed capable of anything he put his mind to.

He built his own cabinets. He cooked gourmet dinners for friends, spoke fluent French and Spanish. He was even celebrated at his church, where he sang solos and essentially acted as an assistant priest. But painting, hair cutting, and singing weren't his only gifts. He'd continued to make. master the criminal arts and the art of getting away with it. In 1979, he was caught shoplifting perfume, but still the same punishment. And in 1980, he stole a saw

from a local hardware store. He tried to claim that he'd been cheated by the store, that they'd failed to repair his own saw, and this was his idea for restitution. This time, he was sent to prison, but only given a six-month sentence. Like when Charles was younger, these charges were charges had little effect on his public persona, and like in his childhood, his mother continued to defend him. After he was jailed in 1980, Del told everyone that he'd taken a temporary job in Florida, but she couldn't protect him forever. Sometime in 1981, Del Albright passed away. It was a sudden death, and while we don't know exactly how Charles felt about the loss, we know that soon after Charles sought out his

birth mother. That's when Charles learned that she wasn't a lawyer like Del had told him for years. She worked in a hospital. This was a major turning point in Charles' life. His adoptive mother was dead, and his birth mother didn't match the image of the successful lawyer he'd had in his head. It's possible this upheaval stirred up a tremendous amount of anger in Charles. He also might have felt finally released from his mother's watchful eye and the shame she'd instilled in him over sex. And this combination of things might have led him to seek the kind of sexual gratification and power he'd never had before. At church, he courted a family, we'll call the Millers, and grew particularly close with their nine-year-old daughter, whom will call Sally. He often brought them food, then sat talking, regaling them with stories.

On Christmas, he even dressed up as Santa and wrapped presents for the kids. His actions, however, weren't all altruistic. In February of 1981, he seconded. sexually assaulted Sally. When Sally's mother publicly accused Charles, he claimed they had the wrong guy. Like when he'd been accused of theft in college, he said it was a mix-up and that somebody else had assaulted the girl, not him. Unfortunately, Mrs. Miller had difficulty getting anyone to believe her.

Everyone at the church found Charles generous, kind, and jovial. The thought of him sexually assaulting a young girl just didn't fit. But Mrs. Miller didn't let up and made sure Charles faced Charles. When the case went to trial in March of 1985, the 51-year-old pleaded guilty, claiming he wanted to spare the church of the scandal. In exchange for his plea, Charles was sentenced to probation yet again. This time it was ten years, but the punishment did little to tame his belief that he could talk his way out of anything. By this point, Charles had gotten away with theft. He'd gotten away with sexual assault.

He really could do anything he wanted, and he likely enjoyed it. and he likely enjoyed the power and influence he'd felt over his young victim, the power he'd had over another's body, and he wanted more. Coming up, Charles Charm takes a deadly turn. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin, way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full moon.

Just tell the manager you'll serve. So, instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Kayak, got that right. Now back to the story. By the fall of 1985, 52-year-old Charles Albright was all alone. He divorced his wife and his mother had passed away.

He was left without a doting female figure in his life and the kind of attention he seemed to crave. On a trip to Arkansas for a wedding, he saw exactly the kind of woman he wanted, a pretty, a demure widow by the name of Dixie Austin. Charles pursued Dixie, lavishing her with compliments. He took her out to dinners and regaled her with stories, showing off his knowledge of art and science. He was kind and sweet and easily swept her off her feet. Dixie fell for Charles and gave him plenty of attention. For a few months, they dated long distance, but Dixie wasn't the only woman Charles was courting. He lavished attention on plenty of women, sometimes right under Dixie's knows. To those women, it never seemed like he was interested in sex, just talk, but he flirted

nonetheless. As far as we know, he wasn't sleeping with them. He complimented shop girls, brought roses to grocery store workers, and gave presents to women all over Oak Cliff. Often they were gifts he'd stolen, a habit left over from his schoolboy days. Dixie seemed blissfully unaware of Charles' attention towards other women, and things only grew more serious between them. Then in 1986, Charles' father passed away, which might have inspired him to seize the moment. Not long after he asked Dixie to move in with him. Of course, Dixie said yes, she loved him. When she first arrived at Charles' place in Oak Cliff, there were a few things that seemed off.

Women's clothes lying around the house and female friends calling at odd hours. But Dixie didn't seem to care at all. To be fair, those sorts of things could conceivably be explained away by someone. one as charismatic as Charles. But other things probably should have raised red flags, like the Nazi memorabilia he kept in the house, including a portrait of Adolf Hitler, possibly painted by Charles' skilled hand.

If Dixie did notice those things, she either didn't care or she bought whatever excuses Charles made. Even when he asked her to support the two of them, she didn't seem phased. He didn't have a steady job and claimed he had no money, which was blatantly untrue. true. His father had left him a number of rental properties in the city and his childhood home. Despite what he told Dixie about his finances or affection, Charles certainly hadn't stopped

giving other women attention or gifts. In fact, he even started paying for their company. It's unclear when exactly Charles began to frequent Dallas's Red Light District, which was just a few miles away from his house. By the mid-1980s, he was already considered a regular, but just as he'd with Dixie, he was mostly sweet to the women. According to the sex workers who knew him, Charles was a good trick. He almost always paid extra. With some, he didn't even ask for sex, just their company. He took them out to eat and had lengthy conversations. He helped bail one woman out of jail. To a woman who had two young children, he often gave extra cash. As far as we can tell, there wasn't any indication that Charles was violent. Not yet anyway.

In fact, it was mostly the opposite. He was generous and kind with women, almost too kind. Researchers might call this benevolent sexism, a form of sexism often rooted in the idea that men should be chivalrous and always take care of women. But though on the surface this might seem sweet, it may not come with good intentions. Benevolent sexism can be rooted in the idea that women are inferior

and that men inherently hold power over them. Charles likely held this point of view, and while this often gave him a chivalrous attitude, he eventually wanted to exercise his power. By the late 80s, the benevolence disappeared, and he became violent. In the fall of 1989, a sex worker named Edna was working at a hotel when Charles asked her and one other woman, Sue Peterson, for a double. Charles offered them $80, but warned them he was into S&M. The women agreed to the date, and he followed them into a room. Charles tied Edna to the bed first and told her to scream while he beat her for upwards of a half hour. Then he turned his attention to sue, hitting her and demanding oral sex. After he was

done, he paid them and let them go. Charles didn't reserve his violent tendencies for sex workers only. Around the same time, he pursued a teenaged employee of a mall clothing store, whom will call Lily. She was young and down for some fun, so he was young. he impressed her with gifts, lent her his car, and even offered one of his rental properties to stay in. Having Lily in his home was advantageous. Charles could go over any time for sex, and he did, day or night. The teen got a little nervous after finding a few things in the home, stolen goods, guns, and exacto knives. But Charles spun stories about a stolen car ring and a credit card scam, which seemed to assuage her worries.

To Charles, this was a green light to kick things up a notch. According to Lily, he started bringing over marijuana and cocaine, things to loosen them up. Then he started testing Lily's limits, asking if she'd be down to have sex with some of his friends. Then, the sex got violent. It's unclear what actually transpired between the two of them, but eventually Lily got a nagging feeling that wouldn't go away. She suspected that Charles didn't just.

want to be rough with her, he wanted to kill her. Scared for her life, she moved out. Aside from Lily, it was primarily sex workers who saw red flags in Charles' behavior, but many didn't think much of it. Violence, unfortunately, came with the job. So no one ever reported Charles for anything he did that wasn't above board. But by the late 1980s, there were cracks showing in Charles' personal life. Dixie didn't see them or chose not to, but a few teens. teammates on his softball team recalled seismic mood swings. If he made a bad play, he'd be depressed. If he didn't get to play, he'd turn angry,

but then you'd talk to him and he'd be the same old, kind, generous Charles. After one particular game, Charles came the closest he ever did to showing his true colors. A few of his teammates were standing around when a woman drove by. They quip that she might be a sex worker and jokingly suggested Charles pursue her. But Charles didn't laugh. Radiating anger, he said he hated sex workers, though his choice of words was much more derogatory. He said that he'd kill them if he could. His teammates were shocked.

They knew he could be touchy, but most had never seen him explode in such an odd manner. Still, they laughed it off. Charles explained that it was a touchy subject for him, saying his mother was a sex worker, which left many of them confused. If that was true, it seemed strange that he'd hate sex workers. Charles was likely talking about his birth mother here, but there's no evidence she was a sex worker, so why did he lie? It's unclear, and why did he hate sex workers so much, even though he frequently hired them?

It's possible that Dell's early lessons on suppressing sexual impulses caused Charles to feel shame about what he was doing and resent the sex workers he hired. But whatever the case, Charles had admitted a desire to kill, which might have been exactly what he was thinking about on the night of December 12, 1990. It's hard to pin down exactly what happened that evening, and we can't say for sure that Charles was involved. Most of the story we have comes piecemeal from a 26-year-old sex worker named Veronica Rodriguez. Veronica was a regular on Jefferson Boulevard, the main drag where sex workers picked up clients.

She struggled with drug dependency and reportedly had some brain damage, but that didn't keep her from picking up clients. She'd been arrested so frequently that the officers that worked Oak Cliff knew her well. Peace together, Veronica's version of the story was this. On that particular night, she was out with a friend of hers, 33-year-old Mary Pratt. Unlike Veronica, Mary was shy and quiet. She preferred to stand on a corner waiting rather than flagging down clients. At some point, a John stopped to pick them both up. Then he drove them far from town. The man took the women out to a field where he laid out a blanket so they could have sex. Again, the details of what came next are a little fuzzy. Based on Veronica's account and the coroner's analysis,

the man raped Veronica but did not rape Mary. At some stage, he attacked Veronica as if trying to kill her, but she fought back and ran for her life. She found a drainage ditch and hid in a concrete pipe. She heard the man looking for her, but it was dark out and the area was covered in weeds. We don't know how long she hid, or how long the man searched for his escaped prey. But eventually, the attacker gave up, giving Veronica the chance to climb out of the ditch and get to safety. Meanwhile, the attacker turned his attention back towards Mary Pratt. We don't know exactly what happened next, but at some point, the attacker pulled out a gun and shot her in the back of her head.

Just before dawn, he threw Mary into his car and drove back into Dallas, near where Charles, near where Charles lived. He stopped in a small, poor neighborhood and laid her on the side of the road as if arranging an art piece. Then he removed her bottoms and pulled up her shirt, so her breasts were exposed. Then the attacker did one more thing,

something that would become his signature. He used some sort of scalpel to cut out each of Mary's eyeballs. He did it cleanly and methodically as if he had surgical experience. According to experts, this would have taken quite some time, possibly an entire hour, definitely long enough that he could have been caught.

An FBI profiler later said this indicated the killer was incredibly arrogant. He might have even considered himself godlike. When the attacker was finished, he left Mary on the ground and drove away, likely taking her eyes with him. The next morning, Mary's body was found by two local teenagers. Her eyes closed. When the authorities arrived, they didn't think too much of the murder, as they couldn't see what was behind the lids. It was sad, but it was a rough neighborhood.

Sex workers were often the victims of violence and abuse. Given that their clients were almost always strangers, pinpointing her attacker would be difficult. They could only hope the killer wouldn't attack again. While police taped off the crime scene, Charles Albright was likely slipping back into bed with Dixie. She would have assumed he was coming home from his current job delivering papers. She likely turned over and gave him a good morning kiss. If Charles had killed Mary Pratt just a few hours earlier, Dixie had no idea. It was just one more of Charles Albright's many secrets.

Thanks again for tuning into serial killers. We'll be back soon with Part 2 on Charles Albright, where we'll cover subsequent murders and watch him get sloppy. For more information on Charles Albright, amongst the many sources we used, we found The Eyeball Killer by John Matthews and Christine Wicker, extremely helpful to our research. You can find more episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify.

We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers is a Spotify original from Parcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound design by Juan Borda, with production assistants by Ron Shapiro, Trent Williamson, Carly Madden, and Joshua Kern. This episode of serial killers was written by Stacey Nemick,

with writing assistance by Joel Callan, fact-checking by Anya Bayerley, and research by Brian Petrus and Chelsea Wood. Serial killers stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson. Want to hear something spooky. Some Monster, it reminded me of Bigfoot. Monsters Among Us is a weekly podcast featuring true stories of the paranormal. One of the boys.

started to exhibit demonic possession. Stories straight from the witnesses' mouths themselves. Something very snake-like lifted its head out of the water. Hosted by me, your guide, Derek Hayes. Somehow I lost eight whole hours. Listen now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up, getting ready for bed, is brutally beaten and killed.

Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids, arrest and then strikes again. I'm Global News crime reporter Nancy Hicks. You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not crime beat. Search for and follow the award-winning podcast crime beat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.