Aileen Wuornos

There are some who have a difficult time believing that a woman could delve into the depths of depravity, so far as to become an actual serial killer.  But history can prove those skeptics wrong.  And one only needs to look at our case today and see the downward spiral that changed Aileen Wuornos from a victim herself, into one of the most famous female serial killers in US History.

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Transcript

There are some who have a difficult time believing that a woman could delve into the depths of depravity, so far as to become an actual serial killer.  But history can prove those skeptics wrong.  And one only needs to look at our case today and see the downward spiral that changed Aileen Wuornos from a victim herself, into one of the most famous female serial killers in US History.

Diane Wuornos, was fourteen years old when she married, 16-year-old Leo Dale Pittman, on June 3, 1954. The couple gave birth their first child, Keith, who was born on March 14, 1955. Aileen Carol Pittman became their second child when she was born in Rochester, Michigan, on February 29, 1956.  After less than two years of marriage, and two months before Aileen was born, Diane filed for divorce.

Aileen Wuornos never met her father, as he was incarcerated at the time of her birth. Leo Dale Pittman was diagnosed with schizophrenia and later convicted of sex crimes against children; he committed suicide by hanging himself in prison on January 30, 1969. In January 1960, when Wuornos was almost four years old, Diane abandoned her children, leaving them with their maternal grandparents, Lauri and Britta Wuornos, both struggling with substance abuse problems, the couple legally adopted Keith and Aileen on March 18, 1960. By the age of 11, Wuornos began engaging in sexual activities at school in exchange for cigarettes, drugs, and food. She had also engaged in sexual activities with her brother. Wuornos said that her alcoholic grandfather had sexually assaulted and beaten her when she was a child. Before beating her, he would force her to strip out of her clothes. In 1970, at age 14, she became pregnant, having been raped by an accomplice of her grandfather. 

Wuornos gave birth to a boy at a home for unwed mothers on March 23, 1971, and the child was placed for adoption. A few months after her son was born, she dropped out of school at about the same time that her grandmother died of liver failure. When Wuornos was 15, her grandfather threw her out of the house, and she began supporting herself as a sex worker and living in the woods near her old home. 

On May 27, 1974, at age 18, Wuornos was arrested in Jefferson County, Colorado, for driving under the influence, disorderly conduct, and firing a .22-caliber pistol from a moving vehicle. She was later also charged with failure to appear. 

In 1976, Wuornos hitchhiked to Florida, where she met 69-year-old yacht club president, Lewis Gratz Fell. They married quickly; and the announcement of their nuptials was printed in the local newspaper's society pages. However, Wuornos continually involved herself in confrontations at their local bar and went to jail briefly for assault. She also hit Fell with his own cane, leading him to gain a restraining order against her within weeks of the marriage. She returned to Michigan where, on July 14, 1976, she was arrested in Antrim County and charged with assault and disturbing the peace for throwing a cue ball at a bartender's head. 

On July 17, her brother Keith died of esophageal cancer and Wuornos received $10,000 from his life insurance. Wuornos and Fell annulled their marriage on July 21 after only nine weeks.  In August 1976, Wuornos was given a $105 fine for drunk driving. She used the money inherited from her brother to pay the fine and spent the rest within two months buying luxuries including a new car, which she wrecked shortly afterwards. 

On May 20, 1981, Wuornos was arrested in Edgewater, Florida, for the armed robbery of a convenience store, where she stole $35 and two packs of cigarettes. She was sentenced to prison on May 4, 1982, and released on June 30, 1983. On May 1, 1984, Wuornos was arrested for attempting to pass forged checks at a bank in Key West. On November 30, 1985, she was named as a suspect in the theft of a revolver and ammunition in Pasco County. 

On January 4, 1986, Wuornos was arrested in Miami and charged with car theft, resisting arrest, and obstruction of justice for providing identification bearing her aunt's name. Miami police officers found a .38-caliber revolver and a box of ammunition in the stolen car. On June 2, 1986, Volusia County deputy sheriffs detained Wuornos for questioning after a male companion accused her of pulling a gun in his car and demanding $200. Wuornos was found to be carrying spare ammunition, and police discovered a .22 pistol under the passenger seat she had occupied. 

Around this time, Wuornos met Tyria Moore or Ty for short, a hotel maid, at a lesbian biker  bar. Aileen was 30 and Ty was 24.  They moved in together, and Wuornos supported them with her earnings as a sex worker. On July 4, 1987, Daytona Beach police detained Wuornos and Moore at a bar for questioning regarding an incident in which they were accused of assault and battery with a beer bottle. 

On March 12, 1988, Wuornos accused a Daytona Beach bus driver of assault. She claimed that he pushed her off the bus following a confrontation. Moore was listed as a witness to the incident.  

Aileen and Ty were together for 4 years and in that time Ty was the center of Alieen’s world, the first person and possibly only person she had ever loved during her life.

After this series of incidents, Wuornos went on to murder seven men within a period of 12 months.

Wuornos' first victim was a convicted rapist whom she claimed to have killed in self-defense. Richard Charles Mallory, age 51 was killed on November 30, 1989, he had been an Electronics store owner in Clearwater, FL. Wuornos claimed she was sodomized and brutally beaten after being driven to an abandoned area for sexual requests. Two days later, a Volusia County deputy sheriff found Mallory's abandoned vehicle. On December 13, his body was found several miles away in a wooded area; he had been shot several times, two bullets to the left lung were found to have been the cause of death. 

This would also be the only murder that Ty would confess to knowing about.  That evening after Aileen has killed Mallory she and Ty were sitting on the floor of their living room, watching TV and Aileen turned to Ty and said, “I have something to tell you, I shot and killed a man today.”  Ty said that she didn’t want to know any more. 

Aileen’s second victim was David Andrew Spears, age 47.  He was a construction worker in Winter Garden, FL. He was declared missing as of May 19, 1990, and on June 1, 1990, his naked body was found along U.S. Route 19 in Florida in Citrus County. He had been shot six times by a .22 pistol. 

Third was, Charles Edmund Carskaddon, age 40, he was killed on May 31, 1990, he had been a Part-time rodeo worker. On June 6, 1990, his body was found in Pasco County. He had been shot nine times with a .20 caliber weapon. The body had been wrapped in an electric blanket and was badly decomposing when found. Witnesses saw Wuornos in possession of Carskaddon's car, and Wuornos had also pawned a gun identified as belonging to Carskaddon. 

Fourth was Peter Abraham Siems, age 65, a retired merchant seaman. In June 1990, Siems left Jupiter, Florida, for Arkansas. He was not seen for over a month.  On July 4, 1990, Wuornos and Moore abandoned Siems' car, a 1988 Pontiac Sunbird, after they were involved in an accident. Witnesses who had seen the women driving the victims' cars provided police with their names and descriptions, resulting in a media campaign to locate them. Police also found some of the victims' belongings in pawn shops and retrieved fingerprints matching those found in the victims' cars. Wuornos had a criminal record in Florida, and her fingerprints were on file. 

Troy Eugene Burress, age 50 was victim number 5.  Troy was a sausage salesman from Ocala, FL. On July 31, 1990, he was reported missing. On August 4, 1990, his body was found in a wooded area along State Road 19 in Marion County. He had been shot twice. 

Victim number 6 was, Charles Richard "Dick" Humphreys, age 56, killed on September 11, 1990, a retired U.S. Air Force Major, former State Child Abuse Investigator, and former Chief of Police. On September 12, 1990, his body was found in Marion County. He was fully clothed and had been shot six times in the head and torso. His car was found in Suwannee County. 

Number 7 was, Walter Jeno Antonio, age 62, a trucker, security guard, and police reservist. On November 19, 1990, Antonio's nearly naked body was found near a remote logging road in Dixie County. He had been shot four times. Five days later, his car was found in Brevard County. 

When Ty heard that she and Aileen were wanted, she moved to Pittston, Pennsylvania to live with her sister.

On January 9, 1991, Wuornos was arrested on an outstanding warrant at The Last Resort, a biker bar in Volusia County, FL. Police located Moore the next day in Scranton, Pennsylvania. She agreed to elicit a confession from Wuornos in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Moore returned with the police to Florida, where she was put up in a motel. Under police guidance, she made numerous telephone calls to Wuornos, pleading for help in clearing her name. Three days later, on January 16, 1991, Wuornos confessed to the murders. She claimed the men had tried to rape her and she killed them in self-defense. 

A year later, on January 14, 1992, Wuornos went to trial for the murder of Mallory; although previous convictions are normally inadmissible in criminal trials, under Florida's Williams Rule the prosecution was allowed to introduce evidence related to her other crimes to show a pattern of illegal activity. And just to clarify this, the Williams rule in Florida allows that, “relevant evidence of collateral crimes is admissible at jury trial when it does not go to prove the bad character or criminal propensity of the defendant but is used to show motive, intent, knowledge, modus operandi, or lack of mistake.”  On January 27, 1992, Wuornos was convicted of Mallory's murder with help from Moore's testimony. At her sentencing, psychiatrists for the defense testified that Wuornos was mentally unstable and had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder. Four days later, she was sentenced to death. 

On March 31, 1992, Wuornos pleaded no contest to the murders of Humphreys, Burress, and Spears, saying she wanted to "get right with God". In her statement to the court, she said, in part: "I wanted to confess to you that Richard Mallory did violently rape me as I've told you; but these others did not. [They] only began to start to." On May 15, 1992, Wuornos was given three more death sentences. 

In June 1992, Wuornos pleaded guilty to the murder of Carskaddon. In November 1992, she received her fifth death sentence. 

The defense made efforts to introduce evidence that Mallory, her first victim and the first case she received the death penalty for, had been tried for intent to commit rape in Maryland and that he had been committed to a maximum security correctional facility that provided remediation to sexual offenders. 

Records obtained from that institution reflected that, from 1958 to 1962, Mallory was committed for treatment and observation resulting from a criminal charge of assault with intent to rape and received an overall eight years of treatment from the facility. In 1961, "it was observed of Mr. Mallory that he possessed strong sociopathic trends". The judge refused to allow this to be admitted in court as evidence and denied Wuornos' request for a retrial. In February 1993, Wuornos pleaded guilty to the murder of Antonio and was sentenced to death again. No charges were brought against her for the murder of Siems, as his body was never found. In all, she received six death sentences. 

Wuornos told several inconsistent stories about the killings. She claimed initially that all seven men had raped her while she was working as a sex worker but later recanted the claim of self-defense, citing robbery and a desire to leave no witnesses as the reason for murder. During an interview with filmmaker Nick Broomfield, when she thought the cameras were off, she told him that it was, in fact, self-defense, but she could not stand being on death row—where she had been for ten years at that point—and wanted to die. 

Assessed using the Psychopathy Checklist, Wuornos scored 32/40. The checklist evaluates individuals on a 20-item list of antisocial and interpersonal behaviors, with each item being scored at zero, 1 or 2 and thus a maximum score of 40. Depending on location and research perspective, scores above 25 or 30 are consistent with a diagnosis of psychopathy. 

Wuornos was incarcerated at the Florida Department of Corrections Broward Correctional Institution death row for women, then transferred to the Florida State Prison for execution. Her appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was denied in 1996. In a 2001 petition to the Florida Supreme Court, she stated her intention to dismiss her legal counsel and terminate all pending appeals. "I killed those men," she wrote, "robbed them as cold as ice. And I'd do it again, too. There's no chance in keeping me alive or anything, because I'd kill again. I have hate crawling through my system...I am so sick of hearing this 'she's crazy' stuff. I've been evaluated so many times. I'm competent, sane, and I'm trying to tell the truth. I'm one who seriously hates human life and would kill again." While her attorneys argued that she was not mentally competent to make such a request, Wuornos insisted that she knew what she was doing, and a court-appointed panel of psychiatrists agreed. 

In 2002, Wuornos began accusing prison matrons of tainting her food with dirt, saliva, and urine. She said she had overheard conversations among prison personnel "trying to get me so pushed over the brink by them I'd wind up committing suicide before the execution" and "wishing to rape me before execution". She also complained of strip searches, tight handcuffing, door kicking, frequent window checks, low water pressure, mildew on her mattress, and "cat calling ... in distaste and a pure hatred towards me". Wuornos threatened to boycott showers and food trays when certain officers were on duty. "In the meantime, my stomach's growling away and I'm taking showers through the sink of my cell." Her attorney stated that "Ms. Wuornos really just wants to have proper treatment, humane treatment until the day she's executed." He added, "She believes what she's written." 

In the weeks before her execution, Wuornos gave a series of interviews to Broomfield and talked about "being taken away to meet God and Jesus and the angels and whatever is beyond the beyond". In her final interview, she once again charged that her mind was "tortured" at BCI, and her head crushed by "sonic pressure". Food poisonings and other abuses worsened, she said, each time she complained, with the goal of making her appear insane, or to drive her insane. She also turned on her interviewer: We are going to play part of this interview for you know.  I want to warn you that the portion we are going to play is toward the end of the interview and Aileen is very aggravated also this interview takes place less than 24 hours before she is executed.  This also contains some extremely foul language; listener discretion is advised.

Her final on-camera words were:

Dawn Botkins, a childhood friend of Wuornos, later told Broomfield that her verbal abuse was directed at society and the media in general, not at him specifically. 

Wuornos's execution took place on October 9, 2002. She declined her last meal which could have been anything under $20 and opted for a cup of coffee instead. Her last words were, "Yes, I would just like to say I'm sailing with the rock, and I'll be back, like Independence Day, with Jesus. June 6, like the movie. Big mother ship and all, I'll be back, I'll be back." She died at 9:47 a.m. She was the tenth woman in the United States and the second in Florida to be executed since the 1976 United States Supreme Court decision restoring capital punishment. 

Wuornos's body was cremated and her ashes were spread beneath a tree in her native Michigan by her childhood friend, Dawn Botkins. Wuornos requested that Natalie Merchant's song "Carnival" be played at her funeral. Merchant commented on this when asked why she permitted "Carnival" to be played during the credits of the documentary Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer:

When director Nick Broomfield sent a working edit of the film, I was so disturbed by the subject matter that I couldn't even watch it. Aileen Wuornos led a tortured, torturing life that is beyond my worst nightmares. It wasn't until I was told that Aileen spent many hours listening to my album Tigerlily while on death row and requested "Carnival" be played at her funeral that I gave permission for the use of the song. It's very odd to think of the places my music can go once it leaves my hands. If it gave her some solace, I have to be grateful. 

Broomfield later speculated on Wuornos' motive and state of mind:

I think this anger developed inside her. And she was working as a prostitute. I think she had a lot of awful encounters on the roads. And I think this anger just spilled out from inside her. And finally exploded. Into incredible violence. That was her way of surviving. I think Aileen really believed that she had killed in self-defense. I think someone who's deeply psychotic can't really tell the difference between something that is life threatening and something that is a minor disagreement, that you could say something that she didn't agree with. She would get into a screaming black temper about it. And I think that's what had caused these things to happen. And at the same time, when she wasn't in those extreme moods, there was an incredible humanity to her. 

Aileen also wrote an autobiography which is a great read if you would like a more intimate look into her life.  It is titled: Monster: My True Story.  Aileen’s story was made into a movie in 2003, in this movie version the character of Ty was replaced by a character named Shelby Wall, played by Christina Ricci.  Ty has reportedly been very litigious and protective of her reputation, so the movie director created a new character to avoid any potential law suites from Ty.  Charlize Theron played Aileen Wournos in the movie, for which she was nominated and won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role.  It’s a good movie, but I would not watch it for a true historical presentation of this case.

Whether Aileen was a victim of circumstance and mental illness or she was just a cold-blooded serial killer is a secret we can now only decide for ourselves.  One good thing she did during her tumultuous life, was giving up her baby for adoption and making that adoption a closed adoption, so maybe her son was able to have a normal life and maybe he will never know who his monstrous mother was.  I’m John Dodson, and this has been The Secret Sits, Audio Engineering by Gabriel Dodson.  Original Artwork provided by Tony Ley.