Mystery: What Happened to Richard Albright?

Richard “Max” Albright, a nurse, went missing from Queens, NY on October 14, 2021.

He was a beloved nurse at the Hospital for Special Surgery, tending to patients who needed hip, back, and knee operations.  But Richard "Max" Albright vanished without a trace on a Thursday morning three years ago.  He was 69 years old when he disappeared.

Now, another October is going by with no clue of his fate.

Albright's wife, Cathy, was so distraught when he went missing in 2021 that she rode the # 7 subway train near their home in Jackson Heights, Queens over and over again, carrying posters and appealing to fellow commuters for help.

"I'm desperate to get him home," Cathy Albright said back then with a quavering voice, standing in the middle of a subway car with tears running down her face.  The couple had met in Amarillo, Texas and were married more than twenty years.  Richard Albright had grown up in South Africa, the son of missionary parents.  

Albright was last seen shuffling out of his apartment building on Junction Boulevard in Jackson Heights at 10 a.m. on October 14, 2021.

Surveillance footage showed the 6'3" Albright, wearing a dark jacket, tan pants, and sandals, reaching the sidewalk on Junction Boulevard in Jackson Heights and then hesitating, almost appearing confused.  He looked left and right, before deciding to turn left and walk toward Northern Boulevard.  The super of the building told us in 2021 Albright was "a very quiet person" who used to simply come and go every day to work.

But detectives wondered if Richard Albright had a secret life his wife didn't know about, asking Cathy Albright questions like "Are you sure he doesn't have a girlfriend?"

"He is such an honest person, he wouldn't even know how to be shady," Cathy Albright insisted, when we interviewed her in 2021 for PIX11 News.

Cathy Albright said she had called all 61 hospitals located in the five boroughs of New York City, asking if any "John Does" had been admitted.  But none of them had seen her "Max".

Detectives did check Richard Albright's computer and google searches to learn of his activities in the last minutes and days before he disappeared.  He apparently looked up information about a museum in Flushing he wanted to visit and took at least one bus on the day he went missing.  Police learned he had purchased a 30-day Metro Pass.  Unfortunately, Albright's phone died on the day he vanished.

Three years later, the X, social media account for NYPD Missing Persons is still posting Albright's picture, along with the surveillance image of the nurse leaving his building in 2021.  The mystery of what happened to Richard "Max" Albright endures, hard as it is to imagine an older man of 6'3" vanishing with no trace of him in all that time.

If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Richard Albright please contact NYPD Missing Persons at: (212) 694-7781