Aileen Wournos By Lucy Johnson

Serial Killer Someone who kills multiple people over an extended period of time. They usually have a similar way of killing the people even though the victims may have no connection.

Aileen Wuornos was a prostitute who killed seven men that reportedly “raped” her. Many people consider Aileen Wuornos to be the first woman serial killer in America but she was not. She was the tenth woman to be executed in the United State, second in Florida. She received six death sentences, more then any other person on death row at that time She had an accomplice, Tyria Moore, a hotel maid. Wuornos supported them both with the money earned from her prostitution. Moore would be critical to her case.

Citations http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/ women/wuornos/4.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aileen_Wuornos

Aileen’s parents Aileen’s mother married at fourteen and had two children, Aileen was the second child. She divorced her husband two years later. Aileen’s father was a child molester who spent his life in and out of prisons. He was put away shortly before her birth for molesting a seven- year-old girl. Aileen never met her father because he hung himself before he got out.

Childhood When Aileen was four, her mother abandoned her children with their grandparents who eventually adopted them. At fourteen she became pregnant, claiming an unknown man had raped her. She gave up her son for adoption. In 1971, when Aileen was fifteen, her grandmother died and Aileen became a ward of the state. She ran away from her foster home and became a prostitute. Her brother died when she was twenty-two.

When Aileen was twenty, she went to Florida and married 70-year-old Lewis Gratz Fell. During their marriage she was arrested for assault at a bar. Her husband took out a restraining order after she hit him with his cane. They divorced nine weeks into their marriage. In 1981, she was arrested for armed robbery and went to jail. In Miami, she was arrested for grand theft auto and resisting arrest. She also gave an alias to police and was charged with obstruction with false information.

Victims Aileen killed seven men, shooting them anywhere from two to nine times. They were found nude or fully dressed and their occupations ranged from a sausage salesman to a former police chief. Each body was found in a different county, but all in remote locations. The first murder took place in November, 1989, and the last occurred in November, 1990.

Apprehension Aileen’s fingerprints were found on the inside of the sixth victim’s car as well as on other victims’ items, which turned up in pawnshops. Witnesses gave a description of a woman leaving the car of the sixth victim, leading to a media campaign to apprehend the killer. Aileen’s accomplice was arrested and agreed to confess everything in exchange for immunity. Moore called Aileen begging her to confess. On January 16, 1991, Aileen confessed to killing all seven of the men.

Trial Aileen went to trial first for the murder of Richard Mallory, a convicted rapist. She implied that he had raped her and it was self-defense. Because of Williams Rule, evidence from the other murders was allowed to be presented at this case to show a pattern of illegal acts. Her psychiatrist diagnosed her as being mentally unstable, with borderline personality order, and the defense tried to defend her actions by using this information She was sentenced to death on January 31, 1992.

Trial For the trial of three other victims she pleaded “no contest” saying, "I wanted to confess to you that Richard Mallory did violently rape me as I've told you. But these others did not.” She was given three more death sentences Four months later she received her fifth death sentence for the murder of Charles Carskaddon. She pleaded guilty to the murder of Walter Antonio and received her sixth death sentence. She was never tried for the murder of the sixth victim because his body was never found.

In 200l, Aileen announced she would no longer try for appeals on her death sentence. Some questioned her competency but three psychiatrists found her competent to be executed. One of her childhood friends said that she didn’t want to say anything that might jeopardize her execution because she didn’t want to live on death row any longer. "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. She was executed on October 9,2002.