Various biological factors can cause criminal behavior in an individual. They include genetic influence, family history, and psychosocial aspects. Charles Albright’s family history is believed to have significantly influenced his engagement in serial killing. An analysis by Coyle et al. (2015) illustrated that Charles fitted the diagnosis of someone with an antisocial personality disorder. This illness made him commit criminal acts.
Additionally, Charles has had several encounters in court for breaking the law, such as stealing and forgery (Bedford et al., 2012). His numerous offensive acts showed an individual with antisocial disorders.
Besides, Charles was adopted at a very young age. The child was brought up by a strict and frugal mother. She was overprotective of him, depriving him of the freedom to socialize and boost his social skills. His mother also did everything to get him off any charges against him. So, she encouraged him to commit more criminal acts as he had someone to stand up for him.
The Role of Fantasy in the Life of Charles Albright
Fantasy played a significant role in Charles’ life and, specifically, his engagement in serial killing. One of the most outstanding aspects of Charles’ fantasy is his admiration of taxidermy. This passion was part of his motivation to kill and remove the victim’s eyeballs.
According to Coyle et al. (2015), Charles developed a fantasy concerning eyes after his adoptive mother failed to pay for replacement eyeballs while training him in taxidermy. These lessons began when he was around 13 years old. He would shoot animals, remove their eyeballs, and preserve them. However, his mother forced him to sew buttons in the eyes instead of getting him replacement eyeballs. This approach made the finished product less appealing.
When Charles mastered his taxidermy skills, he yearned for actual eyeballs to achieve the desired results. Therefore, he became obsessed with human eyeballs, so he would kill his victims, especially women, and remove these parts of body.
Early fantasies in Charles’ childhood became the central focus of his adulthood. They acted as his way of encountering the world and validating his actions, increasing his chances of practicing the fantasies. Notably, his mode of victim selection and committing the murders illustrated an individual obsessed sexually with women and their eyeballs (Rogers, 2020).
Charles would distort pictures of women while still at college by cutting out some parts, such as their eyes. For instance, he cut out all eyes in several pictures of a woman who had broken up with his friend and taped them in the friend’s room.
These actions portrayed Charles acting on his sadistic fantasy. This ideation increased his risks of committing these crimes in the future as part of the resultant sexual act. Consequently, Charles’ longtime fantasies made it easier for him to murder female victims and remove their eyeballs.
Victimology (Correlation of Risk Ratio)
Based on the cases linked to Charles Albright, his primary victims had some similarities, such as all being female prostitutes. In his first case, the victim was a 35-year-old white woman who worked as a prostitute. The same trend followed for the second and third victims, prostitutes aged 27 and 42 (Bedford et al., 2012).
In addition, they also lived in the same locality in Dallas (Bedford et al., 2012). According to Coyle et al. (2015), several prostitutes in Dallas knew Charles as he frequently visited them. When interviewed, most of the prostitutes said that Charles was a violent client towards them. He would also beat some prostitutes to experience sexual pleasure and threaten to kill them if they crossed him.
Charles targeted female prostitutes as his victims out of his hatred for them, which is linked to his life history. According to Coyle et al. (2015), his biological mother was a prostitute, which made him hate all prostitutes, although he would frequently visit them.
Charles also had developed some paraphilia towards women and their eyeballs, which was one of the reasons the criminal targeted them. Additionally, his victimization of women can be traced back to the abuse he experienced as a child by being forced to wear girls’ clothes rather than dress like a boy and having to play with dolls.
Modus Operandi (MO) and Signature Aspects of Charles Albright
Most serial killers have unique operating techniques and calling cards when committing murder. Similarly, Charles Albright also had his unique ways of committing murder crimes, which involved the removal of his victims’ eyeballs.
Coyle et al. (2015) linked Charles’ module operandi to his sexual fantasies and explained that he would meet his gratification only when he completed the modus operandi. Specifically, Charles would shoot his victims using a 44-caliber handgun and then remove their eyeballs, after which the criminal would satisfy his sexual fantasies by experiencing an orgasmic ending. He mainly targeted female prostitutes.
Charles’ signature of having committed the crime was illustrated by the appearance of the crime scenes and disposal of the victims’ bodies. According to Coyle et al. (2015), he disposed of his victim’s bodies in the open areas where they would be easily seen with their top clothes pulled up to expose their breasts or even with no clothing. He also left drawings of smiley faces at the crime scenes as his signature. Charles also maintained that he was innocent of every case made against him.
References
Bedford, V., Bishop, M., Allen, J. L., Blanks, L., Bartholomew, A., & Spangler, A. (2012). Charles Albright: “Eyeball Killer, Dallas Ripper, and Dallas Slasher”. Department of Psychology, Radford University. Web.
Coyle, J., Ross, K. F., Barnard, J. J., Peacock, E., Linch, C. A., & Prahlow, J. A. (2015). The eyeball killer: Serial killings with post-mortem globe enucleation. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 60(3), 642-647. Web.
Rogers, J. (2020). Factors That Influence Violence and Homicidal Ideation Among Serial Offenders (Doctoral dissertation, Walden University).