The Serial Killer Aileen Wuornos

Born on the twenty ninth of February in the year nineteen fifty-six, Aileen Carol Wuornos killed 7 men in Florida in nineteen eighty-nine and nineteen ninety and was a serial killer. Her claims include that her victim s either made attempts of raping her or raped her as she worked in the field of prostitution. She was convicted and received a death sentence although she also made claims that all of her homicides were done in self defence. The Florida State gave her a death sentence for 6 of the murders by lethal injection on the ninth of October in the year two thousand two.

Birth

Born in Rochester, Michigan under the name Aileen Carol Pittman, Wuornos’ mother was fifteen when she married her dad. Her mother Diane Wuornos divorced her father 2 months before the birth of Aileen. Leo Pittman, her father, was someone she had never met. At the time of her birth, he had been in incarceration. In the year nineteen sixty nine, Pittman had hung himself in prison after getting a conviction of sex crimes committed on children. At the age of almost 4, Aileen’s mother Diane left her and all the siblings under the care of grandparents on the maternal side, Britta and Lauri Wuornos who had adopted Aileen and her brother Keith legally on the eighteenth of March in nineteen sixty. At nine years of age, Wuornos in school had engaged in activities that were sexual in exchange for food, drugs and cigarettes. With her brother, she also exchanged activities that were sexual. Her claims were that her grandfather who was an alcoholic had beaten her when she was a child and had assaulted her sexually. He would force her to strip off her clothes before beating her, she claims. At the age of thirteen in the year nineteen seventy, she became pregnant after getting raped by her grandfather’s friend. At a home for mothers who were unwed, she gave birth and the child had been put up for getting adopted. Wuornos had became a school drop out after the birth of her baby and at about the time of the death of her grandmother due to failure of the liver. At the age of fifteen, she got thrown out of the house by her grandfather and she started living in the woods near her previous house to support herself in prostitution.

Florida

In the year nineteen seventy-six she arrived in Florida hitch hiking and met the sixty-nine year old president of the yacht club named Lewis Graz Fell. That year they became married and in the society pages of the local newspapers, their nuptials were printed. At the local bar, however, Wuornos kept getting involved in one confrontation after another eventually landing in prison for assaults. Her husband also got a restraining order to protect himself from her after she hit him with his own cane. She went back to Michigan where on the fourteenth of July in nineteen seventy-six, she was arrested in Michigan’s Antrim County and charged with assaults for peace disturbance after throwing cue balls at the head of a bartender. On the seventeenth of July, Keith her brother died of cancer of the oesophagus and from his life insurance she got ten thousand dollars. After only nine weeks, Fell and Wuornos annulled their marriage.

Robbery

In nineteen eighty-one, in Edgewater, Florida, Wuornos was arrested for convenience store armed robbery where she stole 2 packs of cigarettes and thirty-five dollars. On the fourth of May she was sentenced to prison and released on the thirtieth of June in nineteen eighty-three. Almost one year later she was arrested for making attempts to passé checks that have been forged at a Key West bank. Later she was named as a Paseo County theft suspect of ammunition and a revolver. Later, in Miami she was arrested and charged with resisting arrest, car theft and justice obstruction for giving an ID bearing the name of her aunt. The police officers of Miami found a revolver that was a .38 calibre and an ammunition box in the car that was stolen. Later, sheriff deputies in Volusia County Florida caused Wuornos to be detained so she could get questioned after a companion who was male accusing her of demanding two hundred dollars after pulling a gun in his car. Later, they found a pistol that was .22 plus spare ammunition under the passenger chair she sat on.

It was also this time at a Daytona gay bar that Wuornos met a hotel maid named Tyria Moore. The pair started living together and with her earnings from prostitution, Wuornos supported them. On the fourth of July, police in Daytona Beach detained the pair for questioning at a bar with regard to the incident and they were accused of battery and assault with a bottle of beer. On the twelfth of March in the year nineteen eighty-eight, they accused a bus driver in Daytona Beach for assaulting. She claimed that after a confrontation, she got pushed off a bus.

Victims

Her victims include fifty-one year old Richard Mallory, who was her 1^st victim that she was said to kill defending herself. Forty three year old David Spears was next who was a Florida construction worker. Charles Carkaddon, forty years old was shot nine times with a weapon of small calibre. Sixty-five year old Peter Siems’ body was never found. Fifty year old Troy Burress had been twice shot. Fifty-six year old Charles Dick Humphreys was the former Chief of Police and was shot 6 times in the torso and head. Sixty two year old Police Reservist Walter Jeno Antonio was shot four times on the nineteenth of November in the year nineteen ninety.

Inconsistent

About each of the killings, the stories that Wuornos told were inconsistent. Initially she claimed that all of the 7 men had committed rape on her while she worked in prostitution but then later the self defence claim was recanted. At a time when she thought the camera was off in an interview with Nick Broomfield, filmmaker, she told him that self defence was in fact the truth but had been on death row for twelve years and could no longer stand it. She said that death was something she wanted.

Execution

On the ninth of October in two thousand two, Wuornos was brought to the chamber of death and for her last meal her request was a black coffee, single cup. At nine forty seven in the morning, EDT, Aileen Wuornos met her demise. In America, she was the 10^th woman in the country to go through execution since the ban was lifted by the Supreme Court in nineteen seventy six on capital punishment. In Florida, she was the second woman executed ever. The body of Wuornos went through cremation and beneath a tree her ashes were spread by Dawn Botkins in her Michigan native location. The song Carnival by Natalie Merchant was the song she had requested for her funeral song.

Films

The Monster theatrical film starred Christina Ricci and Charlize Theron, telling the story of Wuornos from the time she was a child to her first conviction of murder. For her performance as Aileen Wuornos, Theron had won an Academy Award for Best Actress in the year two thousand three. In years previous in nineteen ninety-three, Overkill: The Aileen Wuornos Story, the television movie tarred Park Overall and Jean Smart.

Published

In two thousand twelve, Daphne Gottlieb and Lisa Kester published and edited a letter collection that Wuornos wrote to Dawn Botkins, her friend, during the time of her stay on Death Row for ten years.