Aileen Carol Wuornos (born Aileen Carol Pittman) (February 29
1956 – October 9 2002) was an
American convicted serial killer who was
sentenced to death by the state of Florida in 1992.
She ultimately received five additional death sentences. Wuornos admitted to killing seven men, in separate incidents, all of
whom she claimed raped her (or attempted to) while she was working as a prostitute. She was put to death via lethal injection on
October 9 2002.
The early years
Aileen Carol Wuornos was born in Rochester, Michigan, to Diane Wuornos and Leo
Dale Pittman. Her father, whom she never knew, was a child molester who served time in
Kansas and Michigan mental hospitals. He
hanged himself in 1969 while in prison. Wuornos' mother, Diane, married Pittman when she was 15
and had two children. Aileen Wuornos's older brother, Keith, was born in 1955. Diane divorced Pittman less than two years into
their marriage, a few months before her daughter was born. She abandoned her two children in 1960, leaving them in the care of
their Finnish-born grandparents Lauri and Britta Wuornos, who raised them in Troy, Michigan. Lauri and Britta legally adopted the two children.
Wuornos claimed that her grandfather physically and sexually abused her as a child and her grandmother was an abusive
alcoholic. In Lethal Intent, Sue Russell wrote that Wuornos was whipped with a belt by her grandfather. At the age of twelve, Wuornos and
her brother Keith discovered that Lauri and Britta were not their biological parents.
Wuornos became pregnant at the age of fourteen. She also claimed to have had sex with multiple partners at a young age,
including her brother. Upon giving birth to her child at a Detroit maternity home on March 23
1971, she was banished from her family home and disowned by the community. The child was put up for
adoption soon after birth. Wuornos was forced to take shelter in an abandoned car in the woods. Soon after she was sent to a home
for unwed mothers.
Britta Wuornos died in July 1971 (officially of liver failure, although Diane later
accused Lauri of killing her). After their grandmother's death, Wuornos and her brother became wards of the court.
Still at school, she began to work as a prostitute. She began using the alias Sandra Kretsch in May 1974. She was jailed in
Jefferson County, Colorado for
drunk driving, disorderly conduct, and firing a .22-caliber pistol from a
moving vehicle. An additional charge of failing to appear in court was also filed when she left town ahead of her trial.
She returned to Michigan, where on July 13 1976, after an
incident in which she threw a cue ball at a bartender's head, she was arrested in
Antrim County and charged with assault and
disturbing the peace. She was also served outstanding warrants for driving without a license and drinking in a motor vehicle. She
was fined $105.
On July 17 1976, her brother Keith died of throat cancer and Wuornos acquired $10,000 from his life
insurance. Wuornos subsequently paid the $105 fine that was imposed upon her on August 4
1976 and squandered the remaining money within two months on luxuries that included a new car,
which she later wrecked.
In late September of 1976, Wuornos hitchhiked to Florida where she met 76 year old yacht club president named Lewis Fell. They
married in 1976 and the news of their nuptials was printed in the local newspaper's society pages. However, Wuornos continually
involved herself in confrontations at their local bar and was eventually sent to jail for assault. She also hit Fell with his own
cane which led him to get a restraining order against her and an annulment of their marriage. They had been married for 6
weeks.
The middle years
On May 20, 1981, Wuornos was arrested in Edgewater, Florida, for armed robbery. She was consequently sentenced to prison on May 4, 1982 and released on June 30,
1983. On May 1, 1984 she was sentenced
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 pistol and
ammunition in Pasco County. At this time, Wuornos had begun borrowing the alias
Lori Christine Grody [2] from her stepsister (grandparents' daughter) in Michigan. In December 1985, eleven days later, the
Florida Highway Patrol cited Lori Grody (Wuornos) for driving without a valid
license.
On January 4, 1986 Wuornos was arrested in Miami under her own name and charged with grand theft auto,
resisting arrest, and obstruction by false information. Miami police had found a .38-caliber revolver and a box of ammunition in
the stolen car. On June 2, 1986 Volusia County deputies detained Lori Grody (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 a .22 pistol
was discovered beneath the passenger seat she occupied.
Wuornos, now using the alias Susan Blahovec [3], was ticketed for speeding in Jefferson County, Florida just a week later. A few days after the Jefferson County incident,
Wuornos met twenty-four-year-old Tyria Moore at a Daytona gay bar. They soon became
lovers. Moore quit her job as a motel maid and allowed Wuornos to support them with her
prostitution earnings. They went from motel to motel and sometimes slept in an old barn. In July 1987, Daytona Beach police had detained Moore and Susan Blahovec (Wuornos) for questioning on suspicion
of hitting a man with a beer bottle. On December 18 that same year, Florida highway patrol
cited Wuornos for driving on the interstate highway and possessing a suspended driver's license.
On March 12, 1988, under a new alias, Cammie Marsh
Green [4], Wuornos accused a Daytona Beach bus driver of assault. She claimed that he had pushed her off the bus following
an argument. Moore was listed as a witness to this incident.
On July 23, 1988, Moore and Wuornos (using the Susan Blahovec
alias) were accused by their Daytona Beach landlord of vandalizing their apartment. He claimed that they had ripped out the
apartment's carpets and painted the walls dark brown without his permission.
In November 1988, Susan Blahovec (Wuornos) launched a six-day campaign of threatening calls against a Zephyrhills supermarket, following an altercation over lottery tickets.
By 1989, Wuornos seldom traveled without a loaded pistol. She worked the bars and truck stops, supplementing her income from
prostitution. She allegedly began to talk with Moore about the many troubles in her life. By this time, Moore and Wuornos were
running into more financial problems.
The later years
The victims
Wuornos' first victim was store owner Richard Mallory in Palm Harbor, Florida,
whom she murdered on November 30, 1989. Of the additional six
victims, only five were found. Her other identified victims were:
- David Spears, June 1, 1990
- Charles Carskaddon, June 6, 1990
- Peter Siems, July 4, 1990 (car found, body never found)
- Troy Burress, August 4, 1990
- Dick Humphreys, September 12, 1990
- Walter Jeno (Gino) Antonio, November 19, 1990
Apprehension and sentencing
Wuornos was eventually identified when she and Moore were involved in an accident while driving a victim's car. They rejected
help from bystanders even though Wuornos was bleeding. They ran from the scene. Later their police sketches were shown on tv and
Moore took off to Pennsylvania to live with her sister. The police tracked her down and they made a deal: if she would testify
against Wuornos she would be granted immunity. Moore agreed and came back to Florida where the police set her up in a motel room.
She wrote a letter to Wuornos who was in custody for a parole violation. After numerous calls and Moore threatening to kill
herself, Wuornos caved in and said:"You do what you gotta do. I'm not gonna let you go to jail. If I have to confess, I will".
She made a full confession on January 16th of that same year. Wuornos cited self-defense for Mallory's murder, maintaining that
he had raped her. She was convicted for his murder in January 1992 with help from Moore's testimony. When Wuornos was found
guilty of the murder of Richard Mallory, she exclaimed to the media:"I was raped, I was tortured. They had the steering wheel,
they had a picture of the steering wheel with the scratches on it, it was broken. That was the proof that I was tied to the
steering wheel. I cannot believe that this has happened". In the meantime, Moore had made several book and movie deals, selling
her story to the highest bidder. So did 3 detectives on the case who later resigned.
In November of the same year, Dateline NBC reporter Michele Gillens uncovered that Mallory had served ten years for violent rape in another state. Nevertheless,
the judge at that time wouldn't admit that in court as evidence and Wuornos was never given a re-trial.
On March 31, 1992, Wuornos pleaded no contest to the murders of Dick Humphreys, Troy Burress, and David Spears, saying she wanted to "get
right with God". She did that because her adoptive mother Arlene Pralle told her so and her attorney (hired by Pralle) was too
inexperienced to handle a multiple murder trial. Before Wuornos' trial he was known as Dr. Legal. In her statement to the court,
she averred "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". In June 1992, she pleaded guilty to the murder of Charles Carskaddon and received her fifth death
sentence. In February of 1993, she plead guilty to the murder of Walter Gino Antonio. No charges were brought against her for the
murder of Peter Siems, since his body was never found. In all, she received six death sentences.
Wuornos told several inconsistent stories about the killings she had committed. She admitted to killing seven men, in separate
incidents. She claimed initially that all seven had raped her while she was working as a prostitute. Later, she recanted the
claim of self-defense. While Nick Broomfield was interviewing her and she thought the cameras were off she told him that it was
definitely self defense in Mallory's case but she had no other choice that to go for the death penalty. She claimed she could
never handle being in prison for the rest of her life. When Broomfield asked:"Was it self defense?" she answered:"Yes, and so
were some of the others but I can't tell anybody, ever so I have to go for the death penalty".
During the trial, she was adopted by Arlene Pralle and her husband, after Pralle had a dream in which she was told to take
care of Wuornos. According to Pralle, Jesus told her to write to Wuornos and so she did. What Wuornos didn't know was that Arlene
was asking money for interviews. Broomfield paid her $ 25,000.00 for an interview. Part of it went to Steven Glazer. Wuornos'
appeal to the Supreme Court was denied in 1996. The relationship
between her and Pralle was not to last because Wuornos began to suspect that Pralle was only there for the publicity and the
money. Wuornos told Nick Broomfield in an interview that Arlene Pralle and her then
lawyer Steve Glazer were even telling her ways to kill herself in prison.
Execution
After her first death sentence, Wuornos often said she wanted "it all to be over." In 2001 she announced that she would not
issue any further appeals against her death sentence. She petitioned the Florida Supreme
Court for the right to fire her legal counsel and stop all appeals, saying "I killed those men, 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."[1] Some argued that she was in no state for them to honor such a request.
Florida governor Jeb Bush instructed three psychiatrists to give Wuornos a fifteen-minute
interview, from which all three judged her mentally fit to be executed. The test
for competency requires that the psychiatrists are convinced that the condemned person both understands that he or she
will die, and also understands for which crimes he or she is being executed.
Wuornos later started accusing the prison matrons of abusing her. She accused them of tainting her food, spitting on it,
serving her potatoes cooked in dirt, and her food arriving with urine. She also accused them of overhearing conversations in
"trying to get me so pushed over the brink by them I'd wind up committing suicide before the [execution]" and conversations
"wishing to rape me before execution." She also complained of strip searches, being handcuffed so tightly that her wrists bruised
any time she left her cell, door kicking and frequent window checks by matrons, 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 the eight
officers are 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," and "If the allegations don't have any truth to them, she's clearly delusional. She believes what she's written".
[5]
During the final stages of the appeal process, she gave a series of interviews to Broomfield. In her final interview, shortly
before her execution, she claimed that her mind was being controlled by "sonic pressure" to make her appear crazy, and that she
would be taken away by angels on a space ship.[2] When
Broomfield attempted to get her to speak about how she had earlier claimed to have killed her victims in self-defense, Wuornos
became livid, cursed Broomfield and terminated the interview. Broomfield later met child hood friend Dawn Botkins of Wuornos',
who told him, "She's sorry, Nick. She didn't give you the finger. She gave the media the finger, and then the attorneys the
finger. And she knew if she said much more, it could make a difference on her execution tomorrow, so she just decided not
to."[3]
It is uncertain what Wuornos's last meal was. Some sources stated that she declined the traditional last meal, which could
have been anything she wanted for under $20, and instead was given a cup of coffee.[4]However, Nick Broomfield's documentary stated that she was given a last meal of KFC fried chicken and
french fries, almost identical to that of serial killer John Wayne Gacy Jr's last meal.[6]
Her last words were "I'd 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 mothership and all. I'll be back."
Post-mortem
After her execution, Wuornos was cremated, and her ashes were taken by her childhood friend
Dawn Botkins to her native Michigan and spread beneath a tree.
She had requested that Natalie Merchant's song "Carnival" be played at her funeral.
Natalie Merchant commented on this when asked why her song was 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.
Wuornos was the tenth woman in the U.S. to be executed since the reintroduction of the death penalty in 1976 and the second
woman ever executed in Florida.
Broomfield later stated:
- 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."[5].
Publicity
Within weeks of her arrest, Wuornos had engaged agents to sell the rights to her story as well as three of the law enforcement
agents who were tracking her down. Inaccurately touted as "the first female serial killer," Wuornos' life has been documented in
numerous books and portrayed in several films and television shows.
- Books: Lethal Intent (2002), ISBN 0-7860-1518-7, by Sue Russell
- Documentaries: Nick Broomfield directed two documentaries:
Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer
(1992), and Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer
(2003). Broomfield conducted the last media interview with Wuornos on the day before her execution.
- Movies: The 2003 movie Monster, starring
Charlize Theron and Christina Ricci, tells
Wuornos' story from the moment she met Selby Wall (based on Wuornos' lover and four-year companion, Tyria Moore) until her first conviction for murder. For her performance as Wuornos, Theron received the
Academy Award for Best Actress. This award was given on what would have
been Wuornos' 48th birthday, although this was not mentioned in Theron's acceptance speech. Theron donned prosthetic teeth, wore
spray-on freckles and gained thirty pounds to play Wuornos.
- Television: 1992 made-for-television movie Overkill: The Aileen Wuornos Story, starring Jean Smart as Wuornos, was first broadcast in 1992. Wuornos has also been featured on 60 Minutes, A&E, and Court
TV. A character similar to Wuornos appeared in an episode of Law &
Order.
- Music: Diamanda Galás, who calls Wuornos "a huge hero"[6], dedicated to her the song Iron Lady on the album Malediction and
Prayer. In 2006, Bitch released the sympathetic song Aileen Wuornos on the album
Make This/Break This. Also, Portland punk band Harum Scarum sampled a quote from Wuornos' documentary preceding the song
"Systematic Death" on their debut record Mental Health (Tribal War Records). The album jacket contains articles and editorials
about Wuornos.
- New York-based metalcore band It Dies Today's song "Sixth Of June" was based on
Wuornos' last words. The song can be heard on their album called "Sirens."
- Detroit rapper Obie Trice, referenced Wuornos in his song "Wake Up" from his second album
Second Round's on Me, with the line "They say he was a monster from
birth, so/ Fuck it, I'll just Aileen Wuornos them hoes."
- Japanese Doom metal band Church of Misery, known mainly for most of their songs
being about serial killers, have a song themed around her entitled "Filth Bitch Boogie". It appears on their second album "The
Second Coming" on DiwPhalanx Records and also has a music video.
- An operatic adaptation of Wuornos's life events premiered at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on June 22–24,
2001. Entitled Wuornos, the opera was written by Composer/Librettist Carla Lucero, Conducted by Mary Chun, and produced by the
John Sims Center for the Arts in San Francisco.
References
External links
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