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Button Eyes and Bloodshed: The Tale of the Eyeball Killer · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

0:42
Speaker 1: Charles was born in Amarillo, Texas, on August tenth, nineteen
0:47
Speaker 1: thirty three. His biological mother dropped him off in an orphanage,
0:51
Speaker 1: where he was later adopted by Fred and Dell Albright.
0:55
Speaker 1: It said that Dell Albright was a fiercely protective and
1:00
Speaker 1: somewhat overbearing mother. She ruled the household with an iron fist,
1:05
Speaker 1: and for the young Charles there was very little reprieve
1:08
Speaker 1: outside of the household as well. Dell was a school
1:11
Speaker 1: teacher and took an avid, almost over zealous approach to
1:15
Speaker 1: Charles's education. Through her tutoring and encouragement, Charles managed to
1:21
Speaker 1: skip two full years and ended up graduating from high
1:24
Speaker 1: school when he was only fifteen years old. But before
1:28
Speaker 1: Charles would achieve this great accomplishment, there was trouble brewing
1:32
Speaker 1: on the horizon. Rumors suggested that when Charles was still
1:36
Speaker 1: an infant, he would be left in the care of
1:38
Speaker 1: an equally overbearing aunt. She would make him wear dresses
1:42
Speaker 1: and take away his toys, leaving him only dolls to
1:45
Speaker 1: play with, and when Charles turned into a teenager, he
1:49
Speaker 1: was given his first gun. From then on, one of
1:52
Speaker 1: the ways Charles would pass the time was to go
1:54
Speaker 1: out hunting for small animals like squirrels and rabbits. He
1:58
Speaker 1: then enjoyed bringing them home home, where he would try
2:01
Speaker 1: his hand at stuffing and preserving them. Far from outraged
2:05
Speaker 1: by her son's new pastime, Dell jumped right into encouraging
2:09
Speaker 1: him to pursue it as a career. The young Charles
2:12
Speaker 1: was easily persuaded, and now he had it in his
2:15
Speaker 1: head to become a taxidermist. He and Dell would spend
2:19
Speaker 1: hours together in the evenings taxidermy ing Charles's kills. And
2:24
Speaker 1: I feel like I made up a word just now,
2:26
Speaker 1: but we're gonna stick with it. It's also said during this
2:29
Speaker 1: time that the Albrights could not afford to buy the
2:31
Speaker 1: glass eyes usually used in preserving animal remains, and so
2:36
Speaker 1: Dell would tell Charles to use buttons or other household
2:40
Speaker 1: items instead. Many people believe that it's this childhood moment
2:44
Speaker 1: that later inspired and cemented Charles's fascination with eyes. At
2:50
Speaker 1: the tender age of only thirteen years old, Charles was
2:54
Speaker 1: arrested and charged with aggravated assault. He was already known
2:58
Speaker 1: to locals and law enforce for being a petty thief,
3:01
Speaker 1: but they believed short stay and detention center would set
3:05
Speaker 1: this young delinquent straight, and for the most part, seemed
3:09
Speaker 1: to do the trick clearly. Bright and talented for his age,
3:13
Speaker 1: Charles then graduated from high school early, as I mentioned,
3:16
Speaker 1: and enrolled in North Texas University because remember, he was
3:20
Speaker 1: only fifteen when he made it to college, making him
3:24
Speaker 1: possibly the youngest student to attend that year. Not that
3:27
Speaker 1: management at the university knew that themselves. However, Charles had
3:32
Speaker 1: forged his documentation when applying to North Texas, another crime
3:36
Speaker 1: that would litter his criminal record for the rest of
3:39
Speaker 1: his life. They didn't know he was fifteen. At school,
3:43
Speaker 1: Charles began taking pre med training in order to become
3:46
Speaker 1: a doctor and a surgeon. He did well in these
3:49
Speaker 1: classes and seemed to have a natural skill and talent
3:52
Speaker 1: for his chosen profession, but he would never finish this degree.
3:57
Speaker 1: Charles was expelled only a year later when police caught
4:00
Speaker 1: him with stolen money and, perhaps more importantly, stolen firearms.
4:06
Speaker 1: Charles had two handguns and a rifle in his possession
4:09
Speaker 1: when the police arrested him that day, and this time
4:12
Speaker 1: they wanted Charles to take the warning even more seriously.
4:15
Speaker 1: He spent a year in jail. His crimes and conviction
4:19
Speaker 1: brought to light his true age and his criminal background,
4:23
Speaker 1: and North Texas University would not let him back. When
4:26
Speaker 1: he was released. Undeterred, Charles then enrolled in pre med
4:30
Speaker 1: training in Arkansas State Teachers, college teachers and other students
4:36
Speaker 1: at the school remembered Charles to be an excellent student
4:39
Speaker 1: and an active participant in several school clubs and activities.
4:43
Speaker 1: Maybe Charles just needed some time to mature before stepping
4:46
Speaker 1: into the world of academics, and maybe it was too
4:49
Speaker 1: good to be true. To support himself on this journey,
4:53
Speaker 1: Charles had a number of odd jobs, like being a
4:55
Speaker 1: baseball bat manufacturer, a carpenter, a hairstylist that point, and
5:00
Speaker 1: even a bullfighter, but he couldn't leave behind the thrill
5:04
Speaker 1: of petty thievery. Yes, I said, bullfighter, and during his
5:08
Speaker 1: year in college, Charles broke into the girl's dormitory and
5:11
Speaker 1: stole naked pictures of them. Other friends and roommates would
5:15
Speaker 1: later recall seeing some of these pictures hanging up on
5:17
Speaker 1: Charles's wall. He had cut out the eyes from one
5:21
Speaker 1: photo and glued them onto another when he was nineteen.
5:26
Speaker 1: He then befriended a girl named Betty Nestor. Friendship blossomed
5:30
Speaker 1: into a relationship, which then turned into marriage only a
5:35
Speaker 1: year later, but not before Betty had given Charles an
5:37
Speaker 1: important set of keys. Betty worked at the Arkansas State
5:42
Speaker 1: Teachers College, and so she had a set of keys
5:45
Speaker 1: that would let her in and out of the building
5:47
Speaker 1: in order to do her job. With Betty firmly in
5:50
Speaker 1: his back pocket, Charles now had the keys to the
5:53
Speaker 1: castle he often broke in and stole from the school,
5:56
Speaker 1: but it didn't take staff members very long to figure
5:59
Speaker 1: out what was going on. Charles was called in possession
6:03
Speaker 1: of stolen equipment and was expelled. The school didn't press charges,
6:08
Speaker 1: but it was clear that his run in the academic
6:10
Speaker 1: world had come to an end. Almost unbelievably, the threat
6:15
Speaker 1: of spending more time in jail didn't stop Charles or
6:18
Speaker 1: put him on the right track. He and Betty had
6:21
Speaker 1: just had a daughter when Charles found himself on the
6:24
Speaker 1: wrong side of the law again. At this point, he
6:27
Speaker 1: was still in his early twenties. When he let himself
6:29
Speaker 1: into the college building for the last time, he stole
6:32
Speaker 1: all the documentation needed to falsify a degree and he
6:36
Speaker 1: forged his own papers. According to these documents, Charles now
6:40
Speaker 1: not only had a bachelor's degree, but a master's as well.
6:44
Speaker 1: A local high school believed they were lucky to hire
6:47
Speaker 1: someone as qualified as Charles. Albright was pumps about this
6:51
Speaker 1: new success. Charles began forging checks, but he was quickly
6:55
Speaker 1: found out. His new job and his fictitious degrees went
6:59
Speaker 1: up in smoked and Charles was placed on probation. Seeing
7:03
Speaker 1: the riding on the wall, Betty packed up and left
7:06
Speaker 1: with their daughter. They weren't officially divorced until nine years later,
7:10
Speaker 1: but it was clear that Betty was done with Charles,
7:13
Speaker 1: being one of the worst thiefs ever. He was then
7:15
Speaker 1: caught stealing again from a hardware store, and this time
7:19
Speaker 1: the value of his stolen goods ranged in the hundreds
7:22
Speaker 1: of dollars. He was sentenced two years behind bars, but
7:26
Speaker 1: only served around six months before he was released again.
7:30
Speaker 1: This time around, Charles really seemed to make a change.
7:33
Speaker 1: He made friends with neighbors and became active in his
7:36
Speaker 1: local community. Slowly but surely, the people around him began
7:40
Speaker 1: to trust Charles. Some of them even asked him to
7:44
Speaker 1: babysit their children. Gone was the petty thief and burgeoning criminal.
7:49
Speaker 1: Charles Albright was now a man who had turned over
7:52
Speaker 1: a new leaf. That was until nineteen eighty one, when
7:55
Speaker 1: his adoptive mother, Dell, passed away. This was a blowed
8:00
Speaker 1: Charles to begin with, but then after a visit with
8:02
Speaker 1: his biological mother that same year, Charles seemed to become unhinged.
8:08
Speaker 1: While visiting with some friends, Charles molested their fourteen year
8:12
Speaker 1: old daughter. Some reports say that the girl was actually
8:15
Speaker 1: nine years old at the time of the assault. The
8:17
Speaker 1: former friends pressed charges, and Charles pleaded guilty. He received probation,
8:22
Speaker 1: but later went on to say that he was innocent
8:24
Speaker 1: and had only pled guilty to avoid quote the hassle
8:28
Speaker 1: of going to court. Maybe it was this conviction for
8:31
Speaker 1: child molestation. Maybe it was his growing fascination with collecting
8:35
Speaker 1: eyes from dolls and photographs, which he was still doing.
8:39
Speaker 1: But in nineteen eighty four, when Charles applied to become
8:42
Speaker 1: a leader in the Boy Scouts of America, his application
8:45
Speaker 1: was denied. It was a year after that that Charles
8:48
Speaker 1: met Dixie. The two quickly moved in together, with Dixie
8:52
Speaker 1: taking on the line's share of the expenses. Even though
8:55
Speaker 1: Charles had just come into one hundred thousand dollars worth
8:58
Speaker 1: of inheritance from the death of Fred Albright. He also
9:02
Speaker 1: claimed he had a job working on a paper route,
9:05
Speaker 1: but this was a lie that Charles used to cover
9:07
Speaker 1: up the fact that he was visiting prostitutes in the
9:10
Speaker 1: early morning hours. And then someone began attacking local sex workers.
9:16
Speaker 1: The first was ron de Bowie, a thirty year old
9:19
Speaker 1: woman who worked around Oak Cliff. Her killer had stabbed
9:22
Speaker 1: her over twenty times. Then there was Mary Lou Pratt,
9:26
Speaker 1: a thirty three year old woman who was known to
9:28
Speaker 1: work around oak Cliff. She was found lying on her back,
9:31
Speaker 1: wearing only a T shirt and her bra, but they
9:34
Speaker 1: had both been pulled up to reveal her breasts. She
9:37
Speaker 1: had been shot in the back of the head and
9:38
Speaker 1: her eyes had been removed with what the coroner later
9:42
Speaker 1: determined to be almost surgical precision. Susan Peterson, a twenty
9:47
Speaker 1: seven year old woman, was found on the exact same
9:49
Speaker 1: streets that Mary Lou had been killed on. Her T
9:53
Speaker 1: shirt had been pulled up to reveal her breasts as well,
9:56
Speaker 1: and she had been shot three times, once in the chest,
9:59
Speaker 1: once the the top of her head, and once in
10:02
Speaker 1: the back. Her eyes had also been removed. Then there
10:07
Speaker 1: was Shirley Williams, who has found naked on the streets
10:10
Speaker 1: near an elementary school. Her face had been beaten and
10:13
Speaker 1: she'd been shot twice, once through her face and once
10:17
Speaker 1: through the top of her head. Her eyes had been removed.
10:22
Speaker 1: Shortly after that, a woman came forward and told investigators
10:25
Speaker 1: that Mary Luke Pratt's had known Charles Albright, who was
10:29
Speaker 1: known locally to be obsessed with eyes. Several other sex
10:33
Speaker 1: workers approached the police to complain that Charles had started
10:37
Speaker 1: to become violent with them. Charles was arrested that very
10:41
Speaker 1: same day, and a search of his home uncovered the
10:44
Speaker 1: same type of condom that had been found at Shirley
10:47
Speaker 1: William's crime scene. This discovery, testimony from sex workers, and
10:52
Speaker 1: the fact that several dolls in Charles's home had their
10:55
Speaker 1: eyes removed where all the prosecution needed to hear to
10:59
Speaker 1: take Charles to court. There, they told the jury that
11:03
Speaker 1: hair samples were covered at Shirley's crime scene were a
11:05
Speaker 1: match to Charles. It turned out through later testing that
11:09
Speaker 1: these hairs had actually belonged to a dog, but by
11:12
Speaker 1: then it was already too late. Charles was sentenced to
11:16
Speaker 1: life without parole and died behind bars in twenty twenty
11:20
Speaker 1: at the age of eighty seven. That is ten minute
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Speaker 1: email as I got man, I've got it. Hi, I've
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Speaker 1: I'm curious are you married. If not, would you consider
12:13
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Speaker 1: I'm about to say, this is in no way a
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Speaker 1: reflection on you or your email. It's more a problem
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Speaker 1: I have with the term settling down and It's not
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Speaker 1: people that you hear use the term settling down when
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Speaker 1: on a rant. I am buckle up because no, I'm
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Speaker 1: not married, But then I'm not unsettled. Do you know
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Speaker 1: what I mean? People say settling down, you get married,
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Speaker 1: you settle down. I'm settled. I'm not married, but I'm settled.
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Speaker 1: What does that even mean? And you can be unsettled
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Speaker 1: and also be married. Take for example, the killer in
13:08
Speaker 1: today's story, Charles Albright, was married for a while and
13:12
Speaker 1: was killing whole people, cutting out their eyeballs. He's completely
13:17
Speaker 1: unsettled and married. I'm unmarried and settle Does that make sense?
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Speaker 1: I don't know why the term settling down is always
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Speaker 1: joined together with marriage. It doesn't. I don't understand. But JP,
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13:49
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