Aileen Wuornos, the manhunter

Aileen Wournos became America’s most famous serial killer. The fame was, without a doubt, deserved.

He never showed remorse for the murders he had committed, claiming self-defense. The reality is that Aileen’s life was never easy from her very birth.

Childhood and adolescence

Aileen Carol Wuornos was born on February 29, 1956 in Rochester (Michigan, United States), as Aileen Carol Pittman, her real name.

Her mother Diane abandoned her six months after giving birth and her father Leo was imprisoned for pedophilia. Aileen, her sister Laurie and her brother Keith were sent to live with their grandparents, Lauri and Britta Wuornos, who adopted the children in 1960.

A horrible childhood

His lifelong friend, Dawn Botkins, would say in a later documentary that she watched as Aileen was severely beaten by her grandfather, even knowing that there were witnesses. Additionally, she was rumored to be the biological daughter of her grandfather, who was said to have abused her and her mother.

Arguments, fights and beatings were a constant in that family. One of the many episodes would leave marks on her skin for life: his grandmother burned his skin with flammable liquid.

When she was nine years old, Aileen Wuornos began working as a prostitute.. At fourteen years old, she gave birth to a baby who would be put up for adoption and, after being kicked out of home, she went to live in the forest.

The hope of a better life

Some time later, Aileen would undertake a period of traveling throughout the country in search of work. Eventually, she would end up working as a prostitute. Little Aileen had grown into a woman, but She was wild, poorly educated and with a violent character that intimidated.

She married yacht club president Lewis Gratz Fell, whom she divorced shortly after. His entrances and exits from prison would be continuous for vehicle theft, resistance to authority, obstruction of justice, threats with a firearm, and a long etcetera.

Finally, would start a relationship with Tyria Moore, a woman he met in a local gay bar and with whom he would fall in love. The couple would undertake a series of criminal adventures under false names.

Spiderwoman

Aileen Wuornos was baptized by the authorities as Spider Woman, due to her aversion to men and her taste for wearing black leather clothing.

His best friend was a 22 caliber pistolwhich he carried for protection, as he claimed, but which he used for another purpose when one day he pulled the trigger and could not go back.

sowing corpses

It all began when her life met that of Richard Mallory, a 51-year-old truck driver who spent hours driving on the highway and who had been accused of sexual assault. According to Aileen’s version, That meeting was not like the previous ones with other of his clients.and accused Richard Mallory of sexually assaulting her anally.

Aileen shot him three times in the chest with the gun., subsequently wrapped his body in a rug and abandoned him. He left no clues, so the investigation did not have much progress either.

A year later, the remains of David Spears were found, 43 years old, murdered by six shots. While the identification was being carried out, just five days later, a third body was found with nine impacts; specifically, that of Charles Carskaddon, 40 years old.

Regarding the fourth body, identified as Peter Siems, 65, several witnesses claimed that he had taken two women who were hitchhiking into his car. Aileen Wuornos’s fingerprints would be found on her door handle.

Two robot portraits of Aileen Wuornos and Tyria Moore were released. Their subsequent arrest would also be helped by the fact that both were selling various valuable items belonging to the victims in different pawn shops.

a serial killer

More bodies would appear. Everything would stop when she, after being arrested, Tyria pointed out Aileen Wuornos as the sole author of the murders. In this way, they found the whereabouts of Aileen, who was drunk in a car.

The truth is that Aileen Wuornos had become a serial killer. He did not regret it, as detailed in the documentary Aileen Wuornos: The selling of a Serial Killer (1992), regarding one of the murders: “He deserved it, I feel sorry for his relatives, but what I did was defend myself.” .

during the interrogation admitted to having murdered seven menand he apologized that he had done it in self-defense.

In 1992 he appeared before the court, and on June 30 of that same year was sentenced to death for the proven murder of three men.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqXMa6YCiYQ

Sentence

During his stay in prison, would give several controversial interviews. At times, his story can give us the feeling of being a fictional story; However, it is terrifyingly real. What remains of Aileen Wuornos are all her statements where truth and lies probably intermingle.

There are those who, far from defending his actions, do point out that perhaps Aileen was the victim of a dysfunctional and horrible past, and the accumulated anger led her to act in the worst way.. The reality is that Aileen Wuornos met the end of her life at 9:45 a.m. on October 9, 2002, executed by lethal injection at the age of 46, after 12 years on Florida’s death row.

If there is a movie related to the life of a serial killer, it was Monster (2003), marked by the great performance of Charlize Theron, winner of an Oscar for best actress for this film. Based on the true story of Aileen Wournos, without a doubt, a highly recommended feature film.

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