Who was Susan Peterson? Sex worker fatally shot with eyes removed by Charles Albright

SUSAN Peterson was a sex worker who was murdered by the Eyeball Killer. 

The fight to bring Susan’s killer to justice is dramatized in the new Lifetime movie Searching for a Serial Killer: The Regina Smith Story.

Susan’s tragic death

Susan was a 27-year-old sex worker who was found dead on the same street of one of the Eyeball Killer’s previous victims Mary Lou Pratt.

She was found by police after the murder had taken place and it was concluded that she had been shot.

Her death, in Oak Cliff Texas, made the police aware that they were dealing with a serial killer. 

Both Susan and Mary had been murdered in a particularly gruesome manner.

Their eyes had been carefully removed by their murderer who clearly had extensive surgical knowledge.

Another prostitute named Rhonda Bowie had been murdered before Mary and Susan, but she did not have her eyes removed. 

A rookie cop caught the killer

Susan’s killer was finally brought to justice thanks to the efforts of a rookie cop named Regina Smith.

She uncovered evidence which put Charles Albright behind bars for the murder of a fourth sex worker named Shirley Williams, but the evidence was not enough to connect him to Rhonda, Mary and Susan’s murders.

Despite this, he remains the prime suspect in their murders. 

Albright died in prison in 2020, decades after his arrest in 1991.

Albright’s dark past

It was eventually discovered that Albright had an obsession with eyeballs that had developed after he began to practice taxidermy as a teenager. 

He was introduced to the practice by his adoptive parents in Amarillo, Texas.

Albright was highly intelligent as a teenager and graduated early from high school, but was expelled from university for being in possession of stolen cash, a rifle and two handguns.

Albright was also found to have sexually assaulted the daughter of one of his friends before he began his murderous rampage.