Aileen Wuornos

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Aileen Wuornos
Background information
Birth name: Aileen Carol Pittman
Alias(es): Susan Lynn Blahovec, Lee Blahovec,[1] Cammie Marsh Greene, Lori Christine Grody
Born: February 29, 1956(1956-02-29)
Rochester, Michigan
Died: October 9, 2002 (aged 46)
Cause of death: Lethal injection
Penalty: Death
Killings
Number of victims: 6-7
Span of killings: November 30, 1989 through November 19, 1990
Country: U.S.
State(s): Florida

Aileen Carol Wuornos (born Aileen Carol Pittman; February 29, 1956 – October 9, 2002) was an American serial killer who was convicted and 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 either raped or attempted to rape her while she was working as a prostitute. She was put to death via lethal injection on October 9, 2002.

Contents

[edit] The early years

Aileen Carol Wuornos was born in Rochester, Michigan to Diane Kathleen Wuornos and Leo Arthur Pittman. Her maternal grandparents were of Finnish descent. Pittman, whom she never knew, was a child molester who served time in Kansas and Michigan mental hospitals. He died by hanging, presumably self-inflicted while in prison at Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing, Kansas on January 30, 1969. Wuornos' mother Diane was 15 years old when she married Pittman on June 3, 1954. Two children were produced during their marriage; Keith was born in 1955 and Aileen in 1956. Less than two years into their marriage and just a few months before Aileen was born, Diane divorced Pittman. Diane abandoned the two children in 1960. She left them in the care of their maternal grandparents, "Lauri" Jacob Wuornos and Aileen "Britta" Moilanen. Lauri and Britta legally adopted the two children and brought them into their Troy, Michigan home.

Wuornos said that her grandfather physically and sexually abused her as a child and her grandmother was an abusive alcoholic. In the book Lethal Intent, Sue Russell wrote that Wuornos was whipped with a belt by her grandfather. At the age of 12 Aileen and her brother Keith discovered that Lauri and Britta were really their grandparents, not their biological parents. Aileen claimed to have had sex with multiple partners, including her own brother, at a young age. She became pregnant at the age of 14. 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. Wuornos was forced to take shelter in an abandoned car in the woods before being sent to a home for unwed mothers.

Britta Wuornos died in July 1971 (officially of liver failure, although Aileen's mother Diane later accused Lauri of killing her). After their grandmother's death, Wuornos and her brother became wards of the court. She began to work as a prostitute while still in school. 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 before her trial.

In 1976, Wuornos hitchhiked to Florida, where she met 76-year-old yacht club president Lewis Gratz Fell. They married that same year, 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, leading him to get a restraining order against her.

She returned to Michigan. She was arrested in Antrim County and charged with assault and disturbing the peace on July 13, 1976 following an incident in which she threw a cue ball at a bartender's head. She was also served outstanding warrants for driving without a license and drinking in a motor vehicle. She was fined $105. On July 17, her brother Keith died of throat cancer and Wuornos acquired $10,000 from his life insurance. Wuornos and Fell also divorced on July 21, having been married only six weeks. Wuornos then paid the $105 fine which had been levied on August 4, and within two months squandered the remaining money on luxuries including a new car, which she later wrecked.

[edit] 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. By this time Wuornos was "borrowing" the alias Lori Christine Grody[2] from her aunt/stepsister (her grandparents' daughter) in Michigan. In December 1985, 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 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,[2] was ticketed for speeding in Jefferson County, Florida just one week later. A few days after the Jefferson County incident Wuornos met 24-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 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 of Cammie Marsh Greene[2] Wuornos accused a Daytona Beach bus driver of assault. She claimed that he pushed her off the bus following an argument. Moore was listed as a witness to this incident. On July 23, 1988 Moore and Wuornos (under the "Susan Blahovec" alias) were accused by their Daytona Beach landlord of vandalizing their apartment. He claimed they had ripped out the apartment's carpets and painted the walls dark brown without his permission. In November 1988 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 in the bars and truck stops to supplement her income from prostitution. By this time Moore and Wuornos were running into more financial problems.

[edit] Murders

[edit] The victims

Wuornos' first victim was store owner Richard Mallory in Palm Harbor, Florida, a convicted rapist whom she claimed she killed in self-defense on November 30, 1989. Of the additional six victims only five were found. Her other identified victims are:

[edit] 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 and ran from the scene. Their police sketches were later broadcast on television. The police tracked Moore down in Pennsylvania, where she had retreated to live with her sister, and they made a deal; if she would testify against Wuornos, Moore would be granted immunity. Moore agreed. The police provided her a motel room in Florida. 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 16 of that same year. Wuornos cited self-defense for Mallory's murder, maintaining that he had raped and sodomized her. She was convicted for his murder in January 1992 with help from Moore's testimony. When she was found guilty of the murder of Mallory, Wuornos 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". Meanwhile, Moore had made several book and movie deals selling her story. So did three detectives on the case, who later resigned.

In November 1992, Dateline NBC reporter Michele Gillen uncovered that Mallory had served 10 years for violent rape in another state. The judge refused to allow this to be admitted in court as evidence, and Wuornos was never given a retrial.

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". During the trial she was adopted by Arlene Pralle 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 did not know was that Pralle was taking money for interviews, including one with Nick Broomfield, who paid her $10,000. Part of the money went to Wuornos' erstwhile lawyer, Steven Glazer, whom Pralle hired. Wuornos' appeal to the Supreme Court was denied in 1996. The relationship between Wuornos and Pralle was not to last; Wuornos began to suspect that Pralle was only there for the publicity and the money. Wuornos told Broomfield in an interview that Pralle and Glazer were even telling her ways to kill herself in prison. They also advised the no contest plea because Glazer, known before Wuornos' trial as "Dr. Legal", was too inexperienced to handle a multiple murder trial. 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 1993 she pleaded guilty to the murder of Walter Gino Antonio and was sentenced to death again. No charges were brought against her for the murder of Peter Siems, as his body was never found. In all, she received six death sentences.

Wuornos told several inconsistent stories about these killings. 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. She later recanted the claim of self-defense. During an interview with Broomfield in which 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 than 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".

[edit] 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."[3] 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 15-minute interview. All three judged her mentally fit to be executed. The test for competency requires the psychiatrist(s) be 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 claimed overhearing conversations about "trying to get me so pushed over the brink by them I'd wind up committing suicide before the [execution]" and "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, 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 specific officers were 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".[4]

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.[5] When Broomfield attempted to get her to speak about her earlier claims to have killed her victims in self-defense, Wuornos became livid, cursed Broomfield, and terminated the interview. Broomfield later met Dawn Botkins, a childhood friend 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."[6]

The contents of Wuornos' last meal are uncertain. Some sources state 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.[2] However, Broomfield's documentary stated that she was given a last meal of KFC fried chicken and french fries[7]

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."

[edit] Post-mortem

After her execution, Wuornos was cremated. Her ashes were taken by Dawn Botkins to her native Michigan and spread beneath a tree. She 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 United States 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."[8].

[edit] Publicity

Movie poster for Monster.
Movie poster for Monster.

Within weeks of her arrest Wuornos' lover Tyria Moore, as well as three of the law enforcement agents who were tracking her, had engaged agents to sell the rights to her story. Wuornos' life has been documented in numerous books and portrayed in several films and television shows inaccurately touted as "the first female serial killer".

  • Books:
  • Documentaries:

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. Theron received the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Wuornos on what would have been Wuornos' 48th birthday, though this was not mentioned in Theron's acceptance speech. Theron donned prosthetic teeth, wore spray-on freckles and gained 30 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.
  • Music:
  • Diamanda Galás calls Wuornos "a huge hero"[9] and 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.
  • 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 Sirens.
  • An operatic adaptation of Wuornos' 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 Jon Sims Center for the Arts in San Francisco.
  • The Japanese stoner metal band Church Of Misery wrote a song about Aileen Wuornos called "Filth Bitch Boogie" which appears on their 2004 album The Second Coming.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Aileen Wuornos: Killer Who Preyed on Truck Drivers - The Crime Library on truTV.com
  2. ^ a b c d Aileen Carol Wuornos. The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney. Retrieved on 2007-11-13.
  3. ^ Zarrella, John (2002-10-15). Wuornos' last words: 'I'll be back'. CNN. Retrieved on 2006-08-12.
  4. ^ Wilson, Catherine (2002-07-13). Aileen Wuornos says prison guards abusing her. News Chief. Retrieved on 2007-11-13.
  5. ^ Broomfield, Nick. Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (Film Summary). Retrieved on 2006-08-12.
  6. ^ Fuchs, Cynthia (2004-02-12). A Lot of Illegalness Going On. PopMatters. Retrieved on 2006-08-12.
  7. ^ More Monster Meal Musings. Dead Man Eating. Retrieved on 2007-11-13.
  8. ^ Transcript interview Nick Broomfield on Paula Zahn NOW. Voxant (2004-02-26). Retrieved on 2006-08-12.
  9. ^ Interview with Diamanda Galas. Terrorizer Magazine. Archived from the original on 2005-02-05. Retrieved on 2006-08-12.

[edit] External links