Charles Albright - Early Life

Early Life

Charles was adopted by Delle and Fred Albright, from an orphan's home. His mother, a schoolteacher, was very strict and overprotective of Charles. She accelerated his education, helping him to skip two grades. When he got his first gun as a teenager, he would kill small animals. His mom would help him stuff them due to his interest in becoming a taxidermist. His mother was unable to afford the true glass eyes used in taxidermy, so he used buttons instead.

His criminal career started early. At age 13, he was already a petty thief, and was arrested for aggravated assault. At age 15, he graduated from high school and forged his way into North Texas University. At age 16, the police caught him with some petty cash from a cash register, two handguns and a rifle. He spent a year in jail. After his release he attended Arkansas State Teacher's College and majored in pre-med studies. Found with stolen items, he was expelled from the college before graduation but not prosecuted. Unfazed, he simply falsified his degrees, stealing the right documents, forging signatures, and giving himself fictitious bachelor's and master's degrees.

He married his college girlfriend and they had a daughter. His wife was a teacher, but he failed to hold a job for long. He continued to "cheat" by forging checks and claiming false credentials, and he was caught in his deception while teaching at a high school, but he always managed to get probation for his illegal acts. In 1965, he and his wife separated, finally divorcing in 1974.

Albright was caught stealing hundreds of dollars' worth of merchandise from a hardware store and received a two-year prison sentence. Yet he served less than six months before he was out again. In this time he began to befriend and gain the trust of his neighbors; so much so, that he was even asked by local residents to babysit their children, including future radio broadcaster Arnie States. In 1981, after his mother died, while Albright was visiting some friends, he sexually molested their nine-year-old daughter. They reported him and he was prosecuted. He pled guilty and received only probation. He later claimed that he was innocent but had pled to avoid a hassle.

In 1985, Albright met a woman named Dixie, in Arkansas. He invited her to come live with him and it wasn't long before she was paying his bills and supporting him. Charles took a 'paper route' in the early morning, apparently to visit prostitutes without raising his wife's suspicion.