Aileen Wuornos was born on February 29, 1956 in Rochester, Michigan. She was the second child of Leo and Diane Pittman. According to Biography.com, Aileen’s parents had a troubled marriage. Her father, Leo Pittman, was convicted of child molestation while her mother, Diane, was a 14-year-old who couldn’t care for their two children. Due to his crime, Leo Pittman went to jail after being found guilty of raping a seven-year-old.
As a result,
Diane took on the responsibility of raising Aileen and her brother as a single parent.
Diane decided that it was too difficult, so she gave Aileen and her older brother Keith’s belongings to Lauri and Britta Wuornos, Aileen’s parents. Diane never claimed the two again. Consequently, Lauri and Britta adopted Aileen and Keith as their own children (“Biography.com”). During her childhood, Aileen faced a challenging situation characterized by severe abuse from her alcoholic grandfather, Lauri Wuornos. Childhood friends remember seeing him discipline her by beating her with her pants down over a chair. Additionally, Wuornos’ grandmother, Britta, was absent from her life due to battling alcoholism.
Aileen and Keith were the only ones who endured abuse. Britta and Lauri had two additional children living with them at that time. Aileen, who was 11 years old, became somewhat rebellious, often exhibiting an extremely volatile temper, causing people to liken her to Dr. Jekyll and Hyde. This behavior may have originated from the abuse she suffered from her grandparents, although its precise source remained unidentified (Russell 21). Wuornos also began participating in prostitution as a means of obtaining money, cigarettes, and alcohol.
In Troy and Rochester, Aileen experienced a recurring cycle of being pursued by young individuals only to be rejected. Her strong desire for popularity led her to engage in paid sexual activities as a means to obtain money for clothes and shoes, hoping that this would help her make friends. The act of acquiring money gave her a sense of superiority over others, which made her feel empowered. When she was 14 years old, she became pregnant and decided to give her baby up for adoption. Aileen claimed that she was sexually assaulted by one of her grandfather’s acquaintances, although other sources suggest that it was actually her older brother Keith who fathered the child. While she was pregnant, Aileen’s grandparents sent her to a specialized facility designed for unmarried mothers.
After giving birth, she returned home but was no longer allowed to live there. With nowhere else to go, Aileen sought shelter in the woods near her old neighborhood in Rochester, Michigan, and stayed there intermittently for a period of 2 years. During this time, she resorted to prostitution in order to sustain herself (Broomfield DVD). In the early 1980s, her brother Keith passed away due to esophageal cancer and left Aileen $10,000 from his life insurance policy. Utilizing this money, she relocated to Florida and eventually wedded Lewis Fell, a retired affluent president of a yacht club who was then 70 years old.
This could have potentially marked the end of Aileen’s career as a prostitute, but her uncontrollable temper prevented that from happening. The marriage ended nine weeks later after Fell claimed that Wuornos struck him on the head with his cane because he refused to give her any money to spend (Broomfield DVD). Wuornos began accumulating arrests for various crimes such as public intoxication, writing fraudulent checks, and physical assaults. Additionally, she adopted several different aliases including Sandra Kretsch, Susan Lynn Blahovec, Cammie Marsh, and many others (Ventura 132). Despite continuing to work as a prostitute, Aileen found her ideal partner in Tyrie Moore after encountering numerous men throughout the years. She believed she had finally found her soulmate and was willing to go to great lengths to keep her. However, Aileen and Tyria struggled to make enough money to sustain themselves solely on Aileen’s earnings from prostitution. It was during this time that Aileen developed a comprehensive plan in order to maintain Tyria’s presence in her life.
On interstate 75, Wuornos decided to engage in illegal activities. Her plan involved luring unsuspecting individuals, referred to as johns, and transporting them to a hidden location where she would then kill them and steal their money. Additionally, she would also take their cars without realizing that this would serve as incriminating evidence against her. Consequently, she successfully evaded police capture for a considerable amount of time. It is believed that Wuornos did not premeditate her first murder; instead, she claims to have acted out of genuine fear for her own safety. Richard Mallory became the initial victim of this terrifying pattern when Aileen enticed him into a transactional sexual encounter after he picked her up on interstate 75 in Florida in 1989.
Wuornos committed multiple murders in Florida during 1990. In May, she killed David Spears, aged 43, in Citrus County. Shortly after, the body of Charles Carskaddon, 40 years old, was discovered in Pasco County. Another victim, Troy Burress, 50 years old, went missing and was found dead by the Marion County police on August 4th of that year. Retired Air Force major, police chief, and Florida child abuse investigator Charles “Dick” Humphreys was also found dead in Marion County on September 12th. Humphreys’ body bore gunshot wounds to his head and torso and was fully clothed.
Peter Siems’ remains have never been discovered, although his vehicle was located. Despite the court’s attempt to convict Wuornos of his murder, the lack of evidence prevented a successful prosecution. Walter Antonio’s body was found on November 19, 1990 in Dixie County, Florida, bearing four gunshot wounds to the back and head (Capital Punishment). At the trial’s conclusion, it was determined that Wuornos should receive a death sentence by means of lethal injection. A prerequisite for being sentenced to death was possessing a sound mental state, which Aileen Wuornos clearly did not have—she was insane. Before reaching their decision, the state consulted Dr., a psychiatrist who was an expert in the field.
According to Bernard, Aileen was diagnosed with both borderline personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder. He recognized the influence of her upbringing on her development and argued against her receiving the death penalty. However, the court decided differently, resulting in Aileen Lee Wuornos being executed via lethal injection at Florida State Prison on October 9, 2002, at age 46. Following her death, numerous books and two feature films have been created based on her life. One of these films is “Monster,” featuring Charlize Theron who won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Aileen Wuornos.
