LUBBOCK (1080 KRLD)- One of the most notorious killers in Dallas history has died in prison. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice says Charlie Frederick Albright died at the West Texas Regional Medical Facility in Lubbock. He was 87.
Albright was arrested for the murders of three prostitute in late 1990 and early 1991. The women were each shot to death and had their eyeballs cut out. He was brought to trial in 1991 and convicted of one of the murders. He was sentenced to live without parole.
“He was kind of a renaissance man. He could sing…he sung at churches and stuff. He played piano and organ. He painted. And oh, by the way, he might have been the one who killed prostitutes and cut their eyeballs out” said Brad Lollar, Albright’s defense lawyer.
Lollar, who works as a capital murder public defender, said he knows when a defendant committed a crime, and he always felt uneasy about Albright’s case. Prosecutors used circumstantial evidence, bolstered by the testimony of other prostitutes. Part of the circumstantial evidence had recently caught the attention of investigators, who wondered whether they sent the wrong man to prison.
Albright’s case was a national sensation. A medical examiner said each of the prostitutes had their eyes removed “with surgical precision.”
During the 1991 trial over the death of prostitute Shirley Williams, prosecutors presented the testimony of a hair comparison expert who said hair samples found in Albright’s car matched hair samples from Williams, said Lollar. At the time there was no DNA testing. But recently, the Dallas County District Attorney’s office and the Public Defender’s Conviction integrity units have sent hair samples from the case were submitted to a lab.
“The laboratory who was doing the DNA testing came back and says these are not human hairs. These are dog hairs” said Lollar.
There is no evidence to show that Albright suffered from COVID 19, said Robert Hurst, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Lollar will always remember Albright as a fascinating individual, who left an uneasy, lasting impression that involved his wife Nan, then an attorney, now a judge.
Lollar was in a courtroom holdover cell talking to Albright when his wife entered the room. Lollar said he introduced Nan to Albright. “And he takes one look at her and says ‘Oh you have beautiful eyes.’ Oh geez!” said Lollar.