Skull, Bones and the Wallet of a Missing Nurse Found at Former Queens Airport

Missing Persons photo of Richard "Max" Albright

When Richard "Max" Albright's last 'Google' search was checked in the fall of 2021, his wife said it indicated he was looking up a museum in Flushing. The location was just a few miles from their apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens. Surveillance showed the 69 year old nurse, a longtime employee at the Hospital for Special Surgery, making a left turn outside their building on Junction Boulevard on October 14, 2021. His feet were bothering him, and he was wearing sandals. Albright was never seen again.

Richard “Max” Albright leaving his building in Jackson Heights, Queens on October 14, 2021.

On Monday evening, September 29th, Queens detectives called Albright's wife, Cathy, and told her they believed they had found his remains after nearly four years. Surveyors working on a city project in College Point discovered a skull, leg, and hip bone in the wetlands of the former Flushing Airport. But there's a real mystery as to why--and how--Richard "Max" Albright ended up there.

80-acre city lot where skull, leg and hip bones of missing nurse, Richard “Max” Albright, were recovered.

The lot is located across 20th Avenue from a big shopping center that includes a Target store. Cathy Albright said her husband's wallet was found, too.

"The detective asked 'Did we shop at Target or Costco?' " Cathy Albright recounted.

Richard Albright’s remains were found across the street from a large shopping center.

By Thursday, Albright said an assistant district attorney in Queens was questioning how the lumbering Albright, who stood 6 foot 3 and needed medication after several heart surgeries, managed to navigate heavy, cement boulders that blocked the lot to get inside.

"He was deep inside that fence," Cathy Albright told me on the phone Thursday afternoon.

Albright's wife said she only recently learned Max was carrying a "wad of cash" when he visited his brother in Tennessee the day before he disappeared.

She wonders if he was followed from Target or another store in the shopping center.

"He would have had to walk 20 minutes over boulders to get to this location," Cathy Albright said.

There was no evidence Max's credit cards were ever used after he vanished, except for one purchase of a 30-day Metro card, according to a private investigator.

Albright's wife had notified me thirty minutes after police called her on Monday, because I had followed her on the #7 subway train in 2021, when she carried 'missing' posters and pleaded for information about her husband, who used to travel on the line to his nursing job in Manhattan.

Cathy Albright in 2021 entering Junction Boulevard subway station, about a month after her husband vanished.

YouTube story (PIX11) I did 4 years ago in November 2021, after Richard “Max” Albright disappeared.

But the NYPD is not formally announcing that Richard "Max" Albright is dead, because his skull, hip and leg bones have to be examined by pathologists at the Office of Chief Medical Examiner. Albright's wife said her husband had had double knee replacement, and she said the leg that was recovered in College Point indicated the person had knee surgery.

The couple had met at a Texas newspaper where they both worked and were married 23 years before Max vanished. When they moved to New York City, Max had changed careers and took up nursing.

Cathy had called all 61 hospitals in New York City after Max didn't come home, but no one had a "John Doe" that matched his description. When I interviewed Cathy in the first month after Max's disappearance, she recalled how one detective wondered if her husband had voluntarily left home.

"Are you sure he doesn't have a girlfriend?" Cathy said the investigator asked.

Cathy's reply was this: "He's such an honest person, he wouldn't even know how to be shady."

Cathy Albright had long believed Max suffered a medical episode while out. Now she's concerned he might have met foul play.

The site where the skull and bones were discovered is being developed by the city for three thousand new homes and 60 acres of public 'green space.'

Now it's also the site of a potential criminal investigation.

Aerial shot of 80-acre lot where Richard Albright’s wife said a skull and bones were found, along with Albright’s wallet. (Credit: New York City Office of Economic Development).