Aileen Wuornos
Aileen Carol Wuornos, (February 29 1956 – October 9 2002) was an American killer who was sentenced to death by the state of Florida in 1992. Wuornos admitted to killing seven men, in separate incidents, all of whom she claimed had raped her while she was working as a prostitute. She was executed in 2002.
Early years
The majority of the following text comes from Marlee MacLeod's biography on Aileen Wuornos from CrimeLibrary.Com
Parents
To characterize Aileen Wuornos' start in life as a poor beginning is truly an understatement. It was an awful beginning from the time she was born February 29, 1956 as Aileen Carol Pittman. One of the few good things in her young life, ironically, was that her biological father, Leo Dale Pittman, never got to know her. Pittman was a psychopathic child molester who hanged himself in prison in 1969.
Terry Manners in Deadlier Than the Male: Stories of Female Serial Killers describes what kind of psychopathic violence Pittman was capable of:
- "When his grandfather died of throat cancer, his grandmother spoilt him even more, baking him cakes and giving him money. In his teens he returned her love and kindness by beating and abusing her. One of his favorite games was to tie two cats together by their tails and throw them over a clothesline to watch them fight."
Her mother, Diane Wuornos, married Pittman when she was 15 and bore him two children in Rochester, Michigan. Aileen's older brother, Keith, was born in 1955. Diane divorced Pittman less than two years into the marriage, a few months before Aileen was born. Diane was afraid of Pittman and with good reason.
Grandparents
Diane found the responsibilities of single motherhood unbearable and in 1960 she abandoned Aileen and her brother Keith, who were then adopted by their maternal grandparents, Lauri and Britta Wuornos in 1960.
The Wuornoses raised Aileen and Keith with their own children in Troy, Michigan.
Sue Russell in Lethal Intent writes that Aileen was whipped with a belt by Lauri:
- "When she was made to pull down her shorts and bend over the wooden table in the middle of the kitchen, when the doubled-over belt flew down onto her bare buttocks, little Aileen railed against her father, petrified and crying noisily. Sometimes she lay face down, spread-eagled naked on the bed, for her whippings."
Lauri and Britta did not reveal that they were, in fact, the children's grandparents. Aileen discovered the truth at around age twelve, information which did not help an already troublesome situation. Lauri Wuornos drank heavily and was strict with the children; when Aileen and Keith discovered their true parentage they rebelled.
Aileen later told police that she had sex with Keith at an early age, but acquaintances doubt the story and Keith is unable to speak for himself, having died of throat cancer in 1976. At any rate, Aileen was clearly having sex with someone, for she turned up pregnant in her fourteenth year, delivering her son at a Detroit maternity home on March 23, 1971. The son would later be adopted.
In July of the same year Britta Wuornos died, supposedly of liver failure. Diane, Aileen's biological mother, believed that Lauri killed her. However, Sue Russell points out that another of Britta's daughters believed that after the stress that Aileen and Keith put Britta through with truancy, pregnancy, etc. that she had started to drink heavily again. The night of Britta's death, she was having convulsions. If there was culpability on the part of Lauri, it was in not calling an ambulance in time because he didn't have the money for it.
According to Michael Reynolds in Dead Ends, Aileen, known to friends as Lee, dropped out of school, left home and took up hitchhiking and prostitution.
Husband
In the next few years, Keith died of throat cancer at the age of 21, Lauri committed suicide, and Aileen headed for Florida. Manners writes that when Aileen was twenty, she was hitch-hiking when a wealthy 69-nine-year-old yacht club president named Lewis Fell picked her up. He fell in love with her instantly. When they married in 1976 the news was actually printed in the society pages. This was a real stroke of luck for her, but she was too wild and destructive to understand when she had it good. She treated Fell badly, got into bar fights and was sent to jail for assault. Needless to say, in a month or so after the marriage Fell realized his mistake and had the marriage annulled.
Girlfriend
For the next decade, Aileen lurched from one failed relationship to another, engaging in prostitution, forgery, theft and armed robbery. Along the way, she tried to commit suicide. Emotionally and physically, she was a mess from the drinking and doping and self-destructive lifestyle. When she met 24-year-old Tyria Moore at a Daytona gay bar in 1986, Aileen was lonely and angry and ready for something new.
For a while it was great. Ty loved her and didn't leave her; she even quit her job as a motel maid for a while and allowed "Lee" to support her with her prostitution earnings. Their ardor cooled, though, and money ran short—still, Ty stayed with Lee, following her from cheap motel to cheap motel, with stints in old barns or in the woods in between.
Murders and arrest
A storeowner in Palm Harbor, Florida named Richard Mallory took a ride with Wuornos on November 30, 1989, and became her first victim. Five subsequent victims were found; one other is still missing. Wuornos was eventually identified when she and her girlfriend Tyria Moore had an accident while driving a victim's car. She was apprehended a few months later.
Wuornos cited self defense for Mallory's murder, maintaining that he had attempted to rape her. She was convicted for this first murder in January of 1992. In November of the same year, Dateline NBC reporter Michele Gillens uncovered that Mallory had served 10 years for violent rape in another state.
Trials and appeals
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 Ms. Wuornos. Despite Pralle's help, her appeal to the United States Supreme Court was denied in 1996.
Publicity
Within weeks of her arrest, Wuornos had engaged agents to sell the rights to her story, and so had three of the law enforcement agents who had been tracking her down. Wuornos's life has been documented in numerous books, and portrayed in several films and television shows.
- Books: Lethal Intent (2002), ISBN 0786015187, by Sue Russell
- Documentaries: Nick Broomfield directed two documentaries about her: 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, tells Wuornos' story from the moment she met the first person in her life who showed some kindness towards her (based on Wuornos' lover and four-year companion, Tyria Moore, known as Selby Walls in the film) until her first conviction for murder. For her performance of Aileen, Charlize was rewarded with the Oscar for "best actress in a leading role". This award was given on what would have been Aileen's birthday, a fact not mentioned anywhere in Theron's acceptance speech.
- Television: 1992 made-for-television movie Overkill: The Aileen Wuornos Story, starring Jean Smart as Wuornos, was first broadcast in 1992. Aileen Wuornos has also been featured on 60 Minutes, A&E, and Court TV.
Execution and last words
After her first death sentence, Wuornos often said she wanted it all to be over. In 2001 she began fighting to be executed as soon as possible. She petitioned the Florida Supreme Court for the right to fire her legal counsel and stop all appeals, wording her request so as to forestall any objection: "I'm one who seriously hates human life and would kill again."
Wuornos was executed by lethal injection (which she requested instead of the electric chair) at 9:47 a.m., Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2002. Her last words:
- 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.
After her execution, she was cremated and her ashes were taken to her native Michigan, and spread around 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 run during the credits of the documentary "Aileen Wuornos: The 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."
Aileen Wuornos was the tenth woman in the U.S. to be executed since the reintroduction of the death penalty to the U.S. in 1976, and the second woman in Florida to be executed.
External links
- About Lethal Intent
- FAQ about Wuornos's life and the 2003 film.
- CourtTV.Com In-depth: Aieen Wuornos
- The Crime Library: Aileen Wuornos (includes extensive details on Aileen's younger years)
- Monster- The Official Motion Picture Website
- Biography of Aileen Wuornos. Site by Andrea Aherns, who has done extensive work on serial killers.