When did it all go down? Technically, Aileen became a liquidator on December 1, 1989, when 51-year-old electronics store proprietor Richard Mallory picked her up on I-75 and together they drove off into the forests to meet an unsure destiny.
But when did the homicidal animal that was Aileen Wuornos come to be? She began prostituting herself at the age of 9, without so much as an assault charge related to her profession for 24 years while working the streets. Yes, she was a thumbing cocotte that became famous for slaying and robbing seven of her Johns, but what was it in her that snapped? What caused her transformation from a hooker into a murderer?
There have been various docudramas made about Aileen that focused on everything from the damaging effects of her mobile upbringing and lack of parental guidance, to her numerous slayings over the course of slightly more than a year, to her loss of sanity in prison while she sat on Death Row for over a decade.
While the question of “nature vs. nurture” will always be somewhat of a mystery, Aileen’s childhood was a recipe for nothing short of a dark adulthood.
In the docudrama “The Real Monster Aileen Wuornos – Serial Killers,” Aileen is described as having had an “exceptionally, deeply impaired history.” This included child sexual abuse, abandonment by her parents, physical abuse at the hands of her grandfather, becoming “hypersexual” and selling sexual favors for cigarettes at the age of nine.
Born on February 29, 1956, to Diane Wuornos at the age of 16, Aileen was given up to her grandparents to be raised and did not get to know either of her biological parents. Perhaps one of her greatest blessings, and unfortunately so, is that she never got to know her biological father. Leo Dale Pittman was a sick and sadistic man.
“One of his favorite games was to tie two cats together by their tails and throw them over a clothesline to watch them fight.” He hung himself while in prison in 1969 for molesting a young boy. As a child, Aileen was reported to have explosive fits, and many of the neighborhood kids were afraid of her.
Her grandpa was physically abusive: “When she was made to pull down her trunks and bend over the wooden table in the center of the kitchen, when the doubled-over belt flew down onto her bare buttocks, young Aileen railed against her father, terrified and shouting loudly. Sometimes she lay face down, spread-eagled and bare on the bed, for her beatings.” (9).
When she was only 13 years old, she got pregnant—at one point, she claimed that her older brother Keith was the father. She was sent to a home for unwed mothers, and after having her baby boy, she gave him up for adoption (4). After this, she was kicked out of the house and forced to live on the streets, sleeping in the woods during winters in Michigan. By the age of 16, the severe conditions proved to be too harsh to endure, and she began hitchhiking down to Florida (2).
When she was 20 years old, she met a man named Lewis Fell while hitchhiking along the highway (2). This man could have been her ticket to a better life, a ticket down a much different path than the one she ultimately chose. He was a 69-year-old president of a yacht club who fell in love with her immediately.
They were married in 1976, the news of which was even printed in the society pages (9). Unfortunately for Aileen, their marriage only lasted one month. She was unable to give up her wild and reckless ways. She treated Fell awfully, would get into bar fights, and was even sent to prison on assault charges. After Lewis Fell realized his mistake, he had the marriage annulled (9).
Another possible turning point in Aileen’s life came a decade later when she met 24-year-old Tyria Moore in 1986 at a Daytona Beach gay bar when she was 30 years old (4). This relationship was the one that Aileen chose to catch and hold onto with all that she had.
They seemed to have a very loving and committed relationship; Aileen fondly referred to Tyria as her wife on a regular basis (3). The two women were together for over three years when one day Aileen returned to the motel room which they rented, but this time she had a car with her that she claimed she borrowed from a friend (5).
From December 1, 1989, to November 19, 1990, Aileen was responsible for the deaths of seven men, all of whom were her clients (7): Richard Mallory, December 1, 1989; Dick Humphreys, May 19, 1990; Charles Carskaddon, May 31, 1990; Troy Burress, July 30, 1990; Peter Siems, September 11, 1990; Walter Antonio, November 19, 1990; and David Spears, May 19, 1990.
David Spears was the only man she was not convicted of killing. She carried a gun with her at all times; the murder weapon was a .22 caliber pistol, a small gun generally carried by women and intended for self-defense. During her many trials, the recovered pistol, which Aileen had dumped in a river, was forensically matched to four of her victims (5).
Aileen’s modus operandi was consistent across all of her offenses. She would pick up workforces as a hitchhiker, normally along I-75. Once in the vehicle, she would state a sob narrative about wanting to save up money to direct to her kids (she had no dependents) and ask if there was anything she could do for them in exchange for a small amount of cash.
She and the john would then drive off into the forest and agree on what services they wanted and what the price would be. In interviews, she said she could normally make approximately $100 to $200 a day as a prostitute.
Her first victim was Richard Mallory on December 1, 1989, and she claimed self-defense because he raped her. “Something has permanently snapped inside Wuornos, and her once-suppressed rage at workforces is unleashed. The rest of her killings could be seen as paranoid responses to the rape.
” While on trial for his murder, her graphic testimony about being raped and tortured was not enough to convince the jury. She claimed that her hands were tied together and bound to the steering wheel, and Mallory took out a Visine bottle and said, “We’re going to clean you up.”
He then squeezed the bottle and inserted it into her rectum. It was at this point that Aileen realized the bottle did not contain Visine, but rubbing alcohol, which burned. She then claimed that Mallory squirted the bottle up her vagina and into her nose.
It is plausible that Mallory raped Aileen; he was discovered to have had a record of rape and assault, although this information was not allowed in her trial. Initially, Aileen claimed all the murders were in self-defense, but throughout her years on trial and on Death Row, she changed her story many times, going back and forth between self-defense and the need to eliminate witnesses to her robbing the victims.
Tyria Moore, who was once the great love of Aileen’s life, was ultimately the one to turn her in, both deliberately and accidentally. On July 4, 1990, Tyria was driving one of the cars stolen from a murder victim with Aileen in the passenger seat. They were in an accident and rolled the car off the road into someone’s front yard. After the crash, they were seen by witnesses cleaning blood off themselves.
The witnesses called the police, and the reports of the two women were on the news in no time. After the police began closing in, Tyria fled to Pennsylvania to be with her family. It was not difficult for the police to track down Tyria, nor was it difficult to convince her to collaborate in bringing Aileen Wuornos down.
In a method conversationally known as a “honey trap,” the police, with Tyria’s cooperation, tapped her phone while talking to Aileen in prison and coached her on what to say to get Aileen to confess to the murders. While on the stand testifying against her former lover, Tyria pointed out Aileen to the courtroom as the person responsible for the murders, and Aileen knew it had to be done.
“Her connection to Ty (her girlfriend, Tyria Moore) was her only source of humanity. Her sole focus was on her friend and protecting her. She showed absolutely no concern for herself or her own fate.” (5).
“On November 7, 1991, Aileen was adopted by a wayward, born-again Christian woman named Arlene Pralle (4). Arlene claims that she and her husband were watching the news when they heard about Aileen’s trial and that something in her eyes spoke to them because she can ‘read people’s eyes.’
They became pen pals with Aileen (3), and it was not long before the adoption was official. Arlene convinced her newly adopted daughter to fire her public defender and hire a man by the name of Steve Glazer (2). Arlene and Steve became quite the pair, using Aileen’s misfortune to their advantage in any way they could. For the next three murder trials, Arlene and Steve convinced Aileen to plead no contest. Arlene said she needed to come clean, that this was her only chance at salvation.
Even the judge thought this was odd, that she would not have any defense presented. But when she was sentenced to death for these murders, Aileen was enraged. She yelled at the judge, ‘May your wife and kids be raped. Right in the ass… I’ll be up in heaven while y’all decomposing in hell.'”
“After the three new murder convictions, Arlene was interviewed by Nick Broomfield, the director of the two documentaries ‘Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer’ in 1992 and ‘Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer’ in 2002. She was asked why she told her daughter to plead no contest.
Her response was chilling: ‘God has forgiven her for what she’s done, and our state has the death penalty, so why not go for it? I mean, laugh! She could be home with Jesus in a matter of a few years! She’d be much better off in Heaven. I mean, if I had the choice, I’d rather be up there, but God has not chosen for me to go. But I mean, Lee (Aileen) has an open door here.’ (3).”
“Arlene and Steve worked closely with Nick Broomfield while he was working on his 1992 documentary, but then they refused to talk to him unless Aileen was paid. Arlene was demanding $25,000 (3). Nick was confused because the Son of Sam law prohibited criminals from profiting from their crimes.
After a lot of negotiating, Arlene, Steve, and Nick settled on a fee of $10,000, $2,500 of which was to go directly to Arlene and another $2,500 to go to Steve. At this point, Arlene begins referring to Steve as her agent, and even after being paid, she refuses to talk unless Steve is present.
Steve has been accused by other attorneys of ‘greasing Lee’s (Aileen’s) way to the electric chair’ and saw him as unfit to represent her (3). Later, Arlene claims to have never received the money, even though the exchange is on camera for the world to see.”
Nick went to speak to Aileen about all of the dither over the money. She claimed that now she could see how Arlene and Steve were money hungry from the beginning. Aileen said they convinced her to plead guilty to the remainder of the slayings because all the film production companies would be unable to do a movie without the tests, and if she wanted to prevent people from profiting from her offenses, she needed to plead guilty.
While she was in prison, Arlene and Steve even suggested to Aileen different ways to kill herself. And while Aileen thought the camera was turned off, she confided in Nick that all the violent deaths were in self-defense, and the only reason she said otherwise is that she is tired of the parody of the tribunal visual aspects and the political corruptness of the constabulary. She was afraid if people knew it was self-defense, there would be more appeals and tribunal dates, and she did not want to deal with that anymore.
While Aileen was overly paranoid about many pathetic things, the talk about film trades was not one of them. Sheriff Don Moreland was found out to have been discussing film trades with various production companies. Three more men, Captain Benninger, Sgt Munster, and Major Dan Henry, were working with Tyria in discussing film trades.
Some people speculate that Tyria’s cooperation with the police regarding the film trades may be why she was never charged as an accessory to any of the slayings. Aileen believes that the police knew about her killing all along and purposefully let her get off with one slaying after another specifically to make her into a consecutive slayer so that they could profit from the film trades that would follow.
There was never a proper investigation into any of the claims about crooked bulls, but several law enforcement officers did step down from their positions after being accused of selling out for film trades.
Days before her execution, Nick Broomfield went to interview Aileen’s biological mother, Diane Wuornos. At this point in time, mother and daughter had not seen each other in over 25 years. Nick explained to Diane everything that was going on with her daughter and wanted to discuss her childhood to see if Diane knew of anything that could have suggested that Aileen would turn out the way she did.
She explained to Nick that Aileen was a blunt rear of barrel birth, meaning that she was born bottom first instead of headfirst. This is a dangerous position, and the delivery was difficult; Diane thinks Aileen may have suffered some type of brain damage during birth. She did not even know that Aileen lived in the forests after having her baby.
Aileen was sentenced to death by lethal injection on October 9, 2002 (4). She passed on her final meal and asked for coffee instead. 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 mother ship and all. I’ll be back” (5). There is no doubt that Aileen is “a horribly tragic figure, and her mental state was one of progressive deterioration” (5). But to this day, people still speculate as to the true motivation behind her killings: was she a inhuman killer who hated men and was all too eager to kill them whenever the opportunity presented itself? Or was she a rape victim fending for her life in a dangerous profession?
References:
- “Monster. Frequently Asked Questions.” IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. May 2014.
- Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer. Dir. Nick Broomfield and Joan Churchill. Perf. Aileen Wuornos and Nick Broomfield. Lafayette Films, 2003. DVD.
- Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer. Dir. Nick Broomfield. Perf. Aileen Wuornos, Nick Broomfield, Steve Glazer, and Arlene Pralle. Lafayette Films, 1992. DVD.
- Aileen Wuornos (Damsel of Death). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz3oyxqX6Fk. Biography, 2013. YouTube.
- The Real Monster Aileen Wuornos – Serial Killers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81C1zyvCBiY. 2013. YouTube.
- Holden, Stephen. “Monster (2003) FILM REVIEW; A Murderous Journey To Self-Destruction.” The New York Times. N.p., 24 Dec. 2003. Web. May 2014.
- “Aileen Carol Wuornos #805.” Aileen Carol Wuornos #805. N.p., n.d. Web. May 2014.
- “The Crimes.” Crime and Investigation. N.p., 2014. Web. May 2014.
- Macleod, Marlee. “Aileen Wuornos: Killer Who Preyed on Truck Drivers.” A Poor Beginning — — Crime Library. N.p., n.d. Web. May 2014.
