All serial killings are horrendous, and a waste of human life. But when victims are simply thrown away or discarded and were killed for seemingly no reason at all, the story becomes more saddening.
Aileen Wuornos / Picture Credit: 60 Minutes Australia on YouTube
Who was Aileen Wuornos?
Wuornos was a serial killer who killed at least six men, but stated that it was due to ‘self-defence’.
She made her living as a sex worker on Florida highways.
She killed her first victim in 1989, and went on to kill at least five more men.
Despite having her sanity questioned, Wuornos was killed by lethal injection after being on death row for 10 years. She died in October, 2002.
Early years
Wuornos was born on February 29th, 1956, in Rochester, Michigan.
Her childhood was traumatic, to say the least.
Her father killed himself while he was serving prison time for child molestation. Her mother abandoned her and her brother, Keith, leaving them with their grandparents.
However, Wuornos’ grandmother was a raging alcoholic and her grandfather was a horrifyingly violent man.
Wuornos would later state that her grandfather sexually abused her, and she had sexual relations with her brother.
She fell pregnant in her early teens, and the baby boy was given up for adoption once he was born.
During adolescence, she was forced out of her home and lived in the woods.
Vagabond living
Having previously been a ward of the state (a child who is temporarily or permanently in custody of a public/private agency, through action of the juvenile court), Wuornos would hitchhike and engage in sex work to survive.
She was arrested in the mid-70s for assault-related charges and disorderly conduct.
She eventually settled in Florida, where she met a wealthy man named Lewis Fell.
The pair married in 1976, but Fell annulled the marriage soon after as Wuornos was arrested again.
A decade later, having been involved in several additional crimes, Wuornos met 24-year-old Tyria Moore in Daytona, Florida. The pair began a romantic relationship.
The murders
Wuornos told conflicting stories about her killings, sometimes claiming that she killed in self-defence of rape, other times admitting to trying to rob the men – it seemed that her story would change depending on who she was talking to.
She would also state in interviews that her crimes were not as bad as everyone said they were. She said that she could've done much worse than what she did...
Her first victim was a man named Richard Mallory. He was 51 and a convicted rapist, and had finished his prison term years earlier.
When Mallory met Wuornos, in November 1989, she shot him several times before dumping his body in a junkyard and ditching his car.
In May 1990, she struck again, this time killing 43-year-old David Spears by shooting him six times and stripping him naked.
Five days after Spears’ body was discovered, police found remains of another victim, 40-year-old Charles Carskaddon, who had been shot nine times and was thrown onto the side of the road.
In June of 1990, 65-year-old Peter Siems disappeared on a drive from Florida to Arkansas. Witnesses later claimed to see two women, matching Wuornos and Moore’s descriptions, driving Siems’ vehicle.
Wuornos' fingerprints were later recovered from the car, and from several of Siems’ belongings, which were found at pawn shops. This is what led to her capture.
To avoid prosecution, Moore made a deal; in mid-January 1991, she elicited a phone confession from Wuornos, who took full and sole responsibility for the murders.
Trial and execution
During her trial, Wuornos asserted that she had been raped and sexually assaulted by Mallory, and killed him in self-defence.
Despite Mallory spending 10 years in prison for sexual assault, this was not revealed in court.
She stated that the killing of the other victims was also in self-defence, although she later retracted these statements.
On January 27th, 1992, a jury found Wuornos guilty of first-degree murder for the Mallory case, and received the death penalty.
Over the following months, Wuornos pleaded guilty to the murders of the other men whose murders she was charged with.
She received a death sentence for each plea.
Outside of court, Wuornos admitted to killing Siems, whose body was never recovered.
After spending a decade on death row and having three psychiatrists deem her fit to understand the death penalty and the reasons for its implication, Wuornos was killed by lethal injection on the morning of October 9th, 2002.
Her reported 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.”
Wuornos’ remains were cremated and scattered by a tree in her home-town.
Written by Melissa, who you can follow on Twitter @melissajournal
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