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Rookie police officer Regina Smith had been on her beat with the Dallas Police Department for two months in December 1990 when Mary Pratt was found dead on a road in South Dallas. The 33-year-old had been beaten and shot in the head. Her death sent shockwaves through the area as she was a well-known veteran sex worker in the Oak Cliff area.
With no fingerprints or forensic evidence, investigators had little to go on. The case took a grim turn during Pratt’s autopsy when it was discovered that both her eyeballs had been removed with surgical precision.
Months later, in February 1991, Susan Peterson’s body was discovered on the same street as Pratt. Like Pratt, the 27-year-old sex worker was shot in the head and her eyeballs were missing.
It became evident that Dallas had a serial killer roaming the streets.
Investigators believed the suspect worked in the medical field and had a penchant for Caucasian sex workers.
“The FBI was sending out profiles after the second murder because the fear in Dallas was getting more real every day the killer was loose. Everyone was hoping we would catch him,” Smith says.
Smith recalls being “in a heightened state of awareness” as Dallas faced the crack epidemic and record-high murder rates. She kept her ear to the ground, alerting the sex worker community while interviewing those who claimed the suspect was a regular customer who turned to murder.
“We treated everyone as human beings. The fact they were prostitutes did not diminish the importance we put on investigating each murder,” she says.
Weeks after Peterson’s murder, Shirley Williams’ nude body was found on a curb near an elementary school. She was also shot—but her eyeballs were sloppily removed. Williams was Black and 45, considerably older than the two white victims.
Williams’ slaying would’ve been a huge setback for homicide detectives—if not for Smith, who urged them to consider the information she compiled while patrolling Dallas’ streets. Her persistence led authorities to Charles Albright, a 57-year-old john, who was eventually charged with the three murders.
Albright was dubbed the “Eyeball Killer” despite only being convicted of Williams’ death. Albright died in prison in 2022, maintaining his innocence and refusing to reveal the location of the victims’ eyeballs.
Smith, now a retired lieutenant, spoke with A&E True Crime about the Eyeball Killer and the unanswered questions that stuck with her throughout her 26-year career.
How was investigating this gruesome, complex case as a new cop?
I’d been on the street for approximately a year and some months. I graduated from the police academy and was placed in the highest crime area in Dallas—Oak Cliff. I was exposed to quite a bit of isolated crime. I’d already experienced death and murder for the first time. I quickly adapted, but it was still a very unusual and scary time because I was a rookie and was just really getting exposed to crime.
It was mortifying to have known some of those prostitutes—making arrests and trying to help them reestablish their lives. To see them murdered was one of the scariest feelings that another human being can experience because of the gruesome way they were killed.
The victims’ eyes being removed was not disclosed to the public. Why?
That was a call made by the homicide division after the first murder. The information was sketchy, even to us. Me and my partner didn’t immediately get full [clarity regarding] what happened to her. When they disclosed [the eyeball removal] to the supervisors at the Southwest Division, it was relayed to [my partner] and me because it directly affected us, because it was our walking beat. It wasn’t our decision; it was the homicide division’s protocol in some cases not to disclose all the pertinent information while investigating.
The media put it out there, especially after [Peterson] was murdered and her eyeballs were removed in the same manner [as Pratt]. That’s when the fear became palpable for not only the police department but for the whole city of Dallas. There was speculation about who with surgical skills could go undetected. The police department [wanted] my partner and me to put out our feelers and canvas the area to get as much information as possible.
What crucial evidence did you discover that led investigators to Albright?
We had been telling homicide since the night after Mary Pratt’s murder, [witness] Veronica Rodriguez had a big scar on her head and neck. We were about to arrest her for prostitution, and she said, ‘You know I saw Mary get killed.’
Some prostitutes lie to avoid getting arrested. We arrested her many times before, but I took notes on everything she was saying, and [my partner] and I immediately relayed that information to the homicide division. When Susan Peterson was killed, we let them know [again] what Veronica had said because she never deviated from her story. I made another arrest with her that was significant because she was with a [customer] in a truck. She told me, ‘Don’t arrest him, he’s the one that saved me the night Mary got killed.’ I took his information and relayed it to the homicide division.
After the third murder, [of Williams], I laid this out in front of homicide. I had taken copious notes of other girls telling us the different experiences they had. We had one prostitute, Brenda White, who told me she had a trick who went bad on her and she maced him to get out of the car. She described him to me, and I went to the jail with that description and the information from Veronica Rodriguez.
I put the information into the jail system and got Charles Albright’s criminal record and a photograph that fit who Brenda White said she had to mace. We’d been telling homicide over and over, and they did not listen to us. So we went in person, and I showed them my notes.
By the end of that day, homicide, along with SWAT, arrested Albright. [My partner] and I were also there. It was unusual to have rookie officers with them.
After Shirley Williams’ murder, you learned by chance about a tip that supported the information you presented to homicide. How did that happen?
After [speaking with] Brenda White, we went to the constable’s office…because they had [access to more records] than Dallas police. I was entering the information from Brenda White into the system when a constable sitting behind me said [he had a related tip from] an informant who wanted to stay anonymous. [The informant] said she used to date Albright, and he has a fetish for knives.
By now, I’ve already got his home address because I used the computers at the constable’s office and got Charles Albright’s tax records. That’s how I knew what to pull up at the jail because of the previous information from Veronica Rodriguez and Brenda White.
You and your partner transported Albright to the homicide division after his arrest. What was his demeanor?
As a courtesy, [the homicide department and SWAT] allowed us to be there during the arrest. After SWAT took over, they brought him to me and asked if he was the killer. I said yes. Then they allowed [me and my partner] to take him to homicide.
It was a bone-chilling feeling [being] in his presence. He had a stone-cold face. He didn’t plead or say ‘I’m not guilty.’ [My partner] had little conversation with him in the backseat while I was driving. He had a very coldhearted, stoic, inhuman type of feeling around him. When I looked into his eyes, he had a blank, cold stare.
After we got to jail, homicide detectives opened the door to let him in. I grabbed him by his arm and [my partner] was about to grab his other. Suddenly, [Albright] jumped away from me so hard and gave me the meanest, cruelest look. When I looked at his eyes, I saw evil in him.
Do you think Albright had more victims than the three investigators linked him to?
It was made clear to us by homicide and the FBI that someone like him doesn’t begin murdering at 57. Even though the eyeballs were removed in the three murders, there were other murders of prostitutes that he could have been guilty of but could not be proven. The consensus was they thought there were many more.
The only reason he was convicted [of Shirley Williams’ murder] is because of the evidence I found in the field: a yellow raincoat Shirley was last seen wearing by another prostitute who gave it to her. [The other prostitute] saw her get in the car with her regular, who she called ‘Pappy.’ I found that raincoat in the field where they said they did their tricks. That raincoat contained a squirrel tail hair—the same type found in a vacuum cleaner in Charles Albright’s home after his arrest.
What do you believe happened to the victims’ eyeballs?
[Albright] never said what he did with them. He had several storage places and a barn we searched with the FBI. It was filled with jars of pickled newts, frogs, lizards and snakes. I felt like those eyeballs were in one of those.
I always felt he was pickling the eyes, putting them in the formaldehyde or whatever substance was in those glass jars. Because the barn was near where the two girls were found in the rural part of Dallas County. They went through all of those jars, but they could not find them.
What sticks with you about this case decades later?
I wanted to give the families closure. Their daughters were killed in such a vicious manner. I tried my best throughout my career to find the evidence…to find the eyeballs.
After I retired, I tried to reach Albright to see if he would reveal [where the eyeballs were]. By that time, he was already in the hospice part of the prison. Although he had agreed to see me, people could not visit him in the prison’s hospital.
I wanted to ask him, ‘Why did you do it? What did you do with those girls’ eyes?’ We will never know because he took that secret to his grave.
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