Family Serial Killer Poisons Three with Arsenic
How Charles Albanese ended up on death row.
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The early life of Charles Albanese
Charles Michael Albanese on June 13th, 1937. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, to a well-off entrepreneur Michael Albanese, Sr., and his wife Née Kolasinski. Family members stated that Charles was a “spoiled brat” growing up who had big dreams for his future.
However, Charles was also known to do as little work as possible and was considered incredibly lazy. Sometime in the mid-1960s, after Charles married his first wife and had three kids, he worked as a car salesman for Nord Mototrs Inc.
Charles committed his first come on February 1st, 1965. He broke into the home of a 61-year-old bus driver with an unknown accomplice. Together they stole $160 from the man (Emmet Farrell) but were caught roughly one week later. A neighbor had witnessed the crime, wrote down his license plate number, and gave it to the police.
After being arrested, Charles was indicted by a grand jury for one count of armed robbery and multiple counts of auto theft. Charles had committed the auto theft under the alias “Charles Romaine”. He was sentenced to five years probation and his wife had the good sense to divorce him shortly after. His ex-wife took the kids and moved out of state to Wisconsin to get away from him.
Sometime after that, Charles married his second wife but just like the first not much is known about their relationship. While being legally married to his second wife, he went on to “marry” his third wife Virginia Mueller. They married in Las Vegas in 1972 during the month of September. A year after their marriage, his second divorce was finalized.
His second wife appeared to be very bitter over the relationship. She filed two complaints against him for not paying over $1,400 in child support in 1977 and another for non-support in Chicago in 1980.
Charles seemed to be having a great time in his third marriage. They have two daughters together and lived in a nice neighborhood in Spring Grove, Illinois. Charles made about $60,000 a year and had a reputation for flaunting his wealth to the community. The family would go on annual tropical beach trips and…
