Aileen Wuornos shattered the myth that serial killers can only be men, in a spree of murders
that took place over a single year. This is the true story of female serial killer Aileen
Wuornos.
Aileen Carol Wuornos, known as Lee to her friends, was born on February 29, 1956, in
Rochester, Michigan. Wuornos spent the first decade of her life believing that her grandparents,
Lauri and Britta Wuornos, were her birth parents. In truth, Aileen and her brother Keith were
the children of Lauri and Britta's daughter Diane. In 1953, Diane, then just 14, married
17-year-old Leo Pittman. Ten months later, their first child, a boy they named Keith,
was born.
Pittman, bent on controlling his young wife's life, forbade Diane from leaving home while
he worked a variety of jobs, ranging from gardening to making chrome car bumpers. Pittman
was also a petty thief who graduated to more serious crimes. Arrested for auto theft, Pittman
was given the choice between jail time and enlisting in the Army. He left for basic training
in 1955. With Pittman away, Diane, who was already pregnant with Aileen, filed for divorce.
When Aileen was two, Diane Wuornos abandoned her children, leaving them in the care of
friends. Lauri and Britta Wuornos soon adopted Aileen and Keith and rarely spoke of Diane.
Leo Pittman never had any contact with his daughter.
According to author Sue Russell in her book Lethal Intent, Lauri and Britta Wuornos cultivated
an appearance of decency and propriety in their suburban community of Troy, Michigan.
The son of Finnish immigrants, auto-worker Lauri was a firm disciplinarian, which was
a typical trait of 1950s fathers.
However, life for Aileen and Keith in their grandparents' home was anything but ideal.
For Aileen in particular, it was a nightmare. Aileen suffered frequent beatings from her
grandfather. At 14, Aileen Wuornos became pregnant. Although never positively identified,
it has been alleged that the father was a friend of her grandfather. Expelled from the
family home, Aileen gave birth in a home for unwed mothers in Detroit, and the child was
put up for adoption.
Following the birth of her child, 15-year-old Aileen Wuornos was allowed, if not accepted,
back into her family's home. The pregnancy had embittered an already volatile Aileen.
Resigned to life in a loveless home, Aileen initially complied with her grandparents'
rules, but lingering resentment soon drove her away again. Having returned to high school,
Wuornos dropped out after a few months. Soon after, she wound up in a juvenile detention
center. While detained, Wuornos became adept at the game of pool. Later in life, Wuornos'
skills with a cue would serve her well as a shrewd pool hustler.
After her stint in juvenile hall, Aileen again returned to the Wuornos home, but after several
attempts at running away, her grandfather forbade her to return. Homeless, Aileen Wuornos
turned to prostitution and theft to support herself. Sleeping in the woods and in abandoned
cars by night, she spent her days hitchhiking, drinking, and using drugs. Neighbor Jean Kear
told author Sue Russell,
"She was unloved, unwanted, and always in the way, and I think it gave her one hell
of a chip on her shoulder."
By the age of 18, Aileen Wuornos had graduated from truancy, petty theft, and shoplifting
to burglary and more serious crimes with greater consequences. As detailed by Michael Reynolds
in his 2004 book Dead Ends, Wuornos' adult rap sheet outlined the life of a violent troublemaker
on her way to becoming a career criminal.
In 1974, Wuornos was picked up by the police in Jefferson County, Colorado. Using an alias,
Wuornos was charged with disorderly conduct, driving under the influence, and firing a
pistol from the window of a moving vehicle. Two years later, she was arrested again, this
time by Antrim County, Michigan, police for simple assault and disturbing the peace. At
that time, she was also wanted for consuming alcohol in a vehicle and driving without a
license.
On May 20, 1981, Aileen Wuornos was arrested for the armed robbery of a convenience store
in Edgewater, Florida. That crime landed her in a Florida prison for a year. Nevertheless,
Wuornos was back to her criminal ways by 1984, when she was arrested for passing forged checks.
Arrests for grand theft auto, illegal weapons possession, weapons theft, and multiple instances
of assault and battery marked Wuornos' police record throughout the 1980s. Wuornos would
attempt to use a number of aliases to cover her tracks.
Aileen Wuornos had a string of failed and abusive relationships with men. A marriage
to a wealthy man three times her age ended after a month. Wuornos claimed he beat her
with a cane. To Wuornos, men were only good for the quick cash she needed to survive.
In the spring of 1986, Wuornos at last found the love she had spent a lifetime looking
for when she met Tyria Jolene Moore at the Zodiac Bar in South Daytona. As documented
in Michael Reynolds' Dead Ends, Moore was a regular at the Zodiac. A native of Ohio,
Moore had fled her small, conservative hometown in search of more gay-friendly environment
in Florida at 26.
Wuornos and Moore hit it off immediately. From their first meeting, they were inseparable.
With Moore's encouragement, Wuornos increased her illegal solicitation to keep the pair
in a rough but comparatively comfortable lifestyle of long-stay hotel rooms, booze, and drugs.
"That's enough to rent a hotel for the whole week. We can party, hang out."
Wuornos would state at her trial,
"It was love beyond imaginable [...] Earthly words cannot describe how I felt about Tyria."
Nevertheless, at some point in their three-year relationship, the couple had exhausted any
remaining spark of romance. By the end, they had become little more than hard-living traveling
companions. It would be Moore's testimony in exchange for immunity from prosecution
that would help convict Aileen.
Aileen Wuornos killed for the first time on November 30, 1989. Wuornos' first victim was
Richard Mallory, the 51-year-old owner of a Palm Harbor, Florida TV repair business,
who picked Wuornos up near Daytona Beach.
According to Sue Russell, author of Lethal Intent, Wuornos and Mallory enjoyed some pleasant
conversation as they headed for Daytona Beach in Mallory's 1977 Cadillac. At some point,
Wuornos admitted she was a prostitute and asked Mallory if he could help her make a
little money. After discussing price, Mallory and Wuornos drove to a secluded, wooded area,
where Wuornos shot Mallory four times. After relieving Mallory of his ID and cash, she
covered his body with a discarded piece of red carpet. Wuornos then drove Mallory's car
home. She would tell her girlfriend Ty that she had made a lot of money on the road and
that "some guy" had loaned her his car.
The facts of what transpired between Wuornos and Mallory are unknown, and Wuornos claimed
that she fired in self-defense.
Aileen Wuornos' next victim was David Spears, a 43-year-old construction worker. Spears'
body was discovered June 1, 1990, in Citrus County, Florida, after being shot six times.
According to Dead Ends author Michael Reynolds, Spears' autopsy report revealed that two shots
had been fired into his back, indicating he was attempting to escape.
The next victim was 40-year-old highway worker and rodeo rider Charles Carskaddon. Wuornos
shot him nine times in the chest and stomach. The body of 50-year-old salesman Troy Burress
was discovered next, shot twice in the chest.
On September 12, 1990, authorities discovered the body of Charles "Dick" Humphreys, 56,
in Marion County, Florida, a retired Air Force major and former Alabama police chief. Retired
merchant marine Peter Siems' body was never found. He disappeared after leaving his home
near Jupiter, Florida, for New Jersey. Siems' 1988 Sunbird was found in June 1990. Witnesses
placed Wuornos and Tyria Moore near the vehicle before its discovery.
Wuornos' last known victim was 62-year-old Walter Antonio. Shot four times in the back
and the back of the head, the location of Antonio's wounds helped upend Wuornos' claims
of self-defense.
Ty Moore had grown uneasy with Aileen Wuornos' increasingly erratic behavior. The unusual
stolen items Wuornos was bringing home for the couple to fence at pawn shops unnerved
her. Where were the electric razors, toolboxes, briefcases, guns, fishing gear, and watches
coming from? Moore had her suspicions, but they were too horrible to contemplate.
When they wrecked a stolen Pontiac Sunbird on a wooded road in Florida, a panicked Wuornos
had warned Moore to run because they were driving a "murdered man's car." It was only
a matter of time before the law came down hard on Wuornos, and Moore wanted no part
of it. She certainly wasn't going down as an accessory to any crimes. Finally, in November
1990, Moore told Wuornos she was leaving Florida to see her family in Ohio.
Meanwhile, the authorities were linking the seven murders. It was apparent that they were
dealing with a serial killer or pair of serial killers, and, to their shock, they were likely
women. Police sketches of the women appeared on local and national TV. Soon after, Volusia
County police traced items belonging to victim Richard Mallory to a Central Florida pawn
shop. The receipt for the stolen merchandise bore Wuornos' thumbprint.
On January 9, 1991, Aileen Wuornos was arrested at a Port Orange biker bar called The Last
Resort. Using an outstanding warrant for an earlier Colorado weapons charge, the police
were forced to keep any mention of murder charges under wraps until they could find
Ty Moore. As detailed in Dead Ends, investigators from Florida located Moore in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Assured that she was not under arrest, Moore explained that Wuornos had told her about
killing Richard Mallory. At first, she didn't believe Wuornos, but the incident with the
wrecked, stolen car further aroused her suspicions about Wuornos' activities. Claiming that she
feared for her life, Moore neglected to alert the authorities.
Back in Florida, investigators convinced her to help them get a confession from Wuornos.
Moore would write a letter to Wuornos requesting that she call her at a nearby motel. On January
14, 1991, Wuornos phoned Moore from jail. Investigators would be present to secretly
record the calls and coach Moore. After 11 tense and tearful conversations over three
days, Moore was able to convince Wuornos to confess to the killings.
At 10:14 AM on January 16, 1991, Aileen Wuornos met with Sergeant Bruce Munster and arresting
officer Larry Horzepa in an interrogation room at the Marion County jail and confessed.
"And he said I did the most horrendous crime in the whole wide world."
Throughout her trial, Aileen Wuornos declared that each murder was an act of self-defense.
Maintaining that the victims had solicited her for sex and then attempted to rape her,
Wuornos claimed she shot her victims to save her own life. The case, as presented by her
defense attorneys, painted Wuornos as a troubled woman with borderline personality disorder
and an IQ of 81. Despite their best efforts, the defense was unable to use Wuornos' mental
state and capacity to save her from a death sentence. The prosecution constructed a portrait
of a calculating, man-hating killer who, under the guise of being distressed and stranded,
lured seven innocent men to their deaths. Wuornos received a total of six death sentences.
"The cops, the judges, the lawyers, they were all male."
As depicted in Nick Broomfield's Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer, Aileen Wuornos'
final days on Florida's death row were marked with paranoia. Wuornos professed her hate
for men, the police, and the legal system, while alternately maintaining and denying
that she killed in self-defense. On October 9, 2002, Wuornos' death sentence was carried
out. Wuornos said in her final statement,
"I'd just like to say I'm sailing with the Rock, and I'll be back. Like Independence
Day with Jesus, June 6, just like the movie, big mothership and all. I'll be back."
The first woman profiled as a serial killer by the FBI, Aileen Wuornos was a source of
constant fascination for the media. Wuornos is the subject of news articles, tabloid TV
programs, books, documentaries, and a made-for-TV movie. In 2003, Wuornos' story was told in
the dramatic film Monster, starring Charlize Theron. Theron's spot-on portrayal of Wuornos
garnered her the 2004 Academy Award for Best Actress.
If you or someone you know is struggling with domestic abuse, please call or chat online
with the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.