sleepwalker 33.sle.002 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Sometimes when I look back over my early life, I wonder how I missed them: gaps of time as long as nine hours, bumps and bruises, odd dreams and ideas. All of them idly wondered about, but never considered for any length of time. They never struck me as abnormal, since they had been going on from my earliest memories. This was simply just how life was and I learned to adapt to it.

As a young child, I knew there were “monsters” that visited my room at night. I didn’t like them and I developed a fear of the dark. When I would try to tell my parents about the “monsters,” they would ridicule me and tell everyone what an “overactive imagination” I had. Embarrassed, I learned not to talk about the events that were happening to me. Around the age of 10, the fear of the dark grew to the point where I begged for a nightlight. Even with it on, I would lie awake terrified that someone was in my room. Eventually, I very carefully began asking classmates about their own nights, expecting to hear similar stories. I found that most slept peacefully, which surprised me. I don’t think I realized until that point that some people just don’t have these odd occurrences in their lives.

It was during this time that my mother decided I was a sleepwalker, even though no one had ever observed me actually sleepwalking. She would wake in the night and find me in odd places, such as downstairs or in the cellar. Since she was an extremely light sleeper, she could not understand how I could pass in front of her room without waking her. At first, I was always in trouble for this kind of behavior because she felt I was being “sneaky”. The sleepwalker “diagnosis” was a relief in a way, because it excused some of the behavior I had been punished for in the past. However, it was not something that she relied on consistently and she would continue to punish me on and off until I was in my late teens.

At the age of 12, I woke up in the front yard with the doors to the house locked up tight. I can remember the feeling of hopelessness as I realized I had no explanation for my situation and that this would be a major transgression in my parent’s eyes. I sat for at least a half an hour against the tree in the yard crying and not having any idea of what I should do. Finally, I had to ring the doorbell and face the consequences. Needless to say, my father was shocked to see me when he answered the door and never quite accepted my story of sleepwalking. As I recall, I was grounded for weeks, amongst other things. Still, I didn’t wonder or think too much about these incidents. They happened time and again, and in very many ways, it was just a part of life. I can’t think of any period of time when events like this did not happen to me. Why question something that has been going on your entire life?

circumstantial 33.cir.002 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Mary Beth was in prison. She told the police that she knew Albright and she didn't much care for the memory. On December 13, the same night on which Mary Lou Pratt had been killed, Mary Beth had been standing outside a motel. Suddenly a man had grabbed her and put a knife to her throat, forcing her into a car and slapping her in the face. She'd tried to struggle, but had been unable to fight him. She remembered that he had driven her out to a field and thrown her onto a blanket there. He kept hitting her and punching her.

Then, she said, he'd opened a case and she'd seen that it held a collection of metal cylinders with sharp pointed blades attached to them. He'd reached for one and used it to cut open her blouse. He then discarded the blade and got another one to make another cut. At that point, she had passed out from fear, and when she came to, he was gone.

With this story, investigators believed they could find more, so they set about interviewing other prostitutes in the area. Tina, who had beautiful eyes, also had a story to tell. She said that she'd once dated Albright. For the most part, he'd been polite and good to her until the last time they'd gone out. They'd been in his truck and he'd treated her quite a bit rougher than usual. She'd run from him then, and had seen him again on the night that Shirley had died. Albright had driven by them, and Tina had gotten into another car, so she did not actually witness Albright pick Shirley up, but when she got back, Shirley was gone. She showed the police the field where Albright had often taken her, and a search turned up an old blue blanket, some condoms, and a crumpled yellow raincoat like the one that Shirley had been wearing the night she'd disappeared. It had blood on it. That was a significant find.

This was just more circumstantial evidence, to be sure, but the more the better. Especially when it was this specific. How many people wore these yellow slickers?

In addition, Willie Upshaw, to whom Albright had written a number of checks, and who was serving time for the illegal possession of a firearm, said that Albright had another .44-caliber weapon that the police had not found. They discovered that he'd purchased it in his father's name. Unless they found the weapon, they could prove nothing, but its absence was suggestive. Upshaw had also been with Albright on the day in March when his car had broken down, and it was his contention that Albright did have a car the night Shirley was killed. (In addition, the police search had turned up several stolen cars, so Albright could easily have used one of those.)

There was a sufficient amount of information and evidence to move forward toward a grand jury hearing.