In 2002, the state of Florida executed the 10th woman to ever receive the death penalty in the United States since the 1976 reinstatement of capital punishment. Aileen Wuornos, a former adult entertainment worker, had murdered seven men she picked up while working the highways of Florida in 1989 and 1990.
Her life later became the subject of screenplays, stage productions, and multiple documentaries and the basis for the 2003 movie Monster.
These interpretations of Aileen Wuornos’ story exposed a woman who repeatedly demonstrated the capability to commit murder and also revealed the tragic nature of her own life.
Early Trauma Shaped Aileen Wuornos as a Serial Killer
Wuornos’ father, a convicted sex offender, was absent before she was born and committed suicide in his prison cell when she was 13 years old. Her mother, a Finnish immigrant, had already abandoned her by that point, leaving her in the care of her paternal grandparents.
Less than a year after her father’s suicide, Wuornos’ grandmother died of liver failure. Meanwhile, according to her later account, her grandfather had been physically and sexually assaulting her for several years.
When Wuornos was 15 years old, she dropped out of school to have her son at home for unwed mothers. Afterward, she and her grandfather had a confrontation, and Wuornos was left to live in the woods outside of Troy, Mich. She then gave up her son for adoption. She supported herself through prostitution and petty theft.
At 20, Wuornos attempted to escape her life by hitchhiking to Florida and marrying a 69-year-old man named Lewis Fell.
Fell was a successful businessman who had settled into semi-retirement as the president of a yacht club. Wuornos moved in with him and quickly began getting into trouble with local law enforcement. She frequently left the home she shared with Fell to hang out in a local bar and engage in altercations. She also abused Fell, who later claimed she beat him with his cane.
Ultimately, her elderly husband obtained a restraining order against her, causing Wuornos to return to Michigan to file for an annulment after just nine weeks of marriage.
Around this time, Wuornos’ brother (with whom she had a consensual relationship) suddenly died of esophageal cancer.
Wuornos collected his $10,000 life insurance policy, used some of the money to cover the fine for a DUI, and bought a luxury car that she then crashed while driving under the influence.
When the money ran out, Wuornos returned to Florida and began getting arrested for theft again. She briefly served time for an armed robbery in which she stole $35 and some cigarettes.
Working as a prostitute again, Wuornos was arrested in 1986 when one of her customers told police she had pulled a gun on him in the car and demanded money.
In 1987, she moved in with a hotel maid named Tyria Moore, a woman who would become her lover and accomplice in crime.
Wuornos Lived a Nomadic Existence as an Adult
Having previously been a ward of the state, Wuornos lived a nomadic existence as an adult, hitchhiking and engaging in adult entertainment to survive.
She was arrested during the mid-1970s for assault and disorderly conduct charges and eventually settled in Florida, where she met wealthy yachtsman Lewis Fell. The two were married in 1976, but Fell annulled the union shortly after that, upon Wuornos being arrested in another altercation.
A decade later, having been involved in numerous additional crimes, Wuornos met 24-year-old Tyria Moore in Daytona, Florida, and the two began a romantic relationship.
String of Murders
It would later be revealed that from late 1989 into the fall of 1990, Wuornos had murdered at least six men along Florida highways. In mid-December 1989, the body of Richard Mallory was found in a junkyard, with five more men’s bodies to be discovered over subsequent months.
Authorities were eventually able to track down Wuornos (who had used various aliases) and Moore from fingerprints and palm prints left in the crashed vehicle of another missing man, Peter Siems.
Wuornos was arrested in a bar in Port Orange, Florida, while police tracked down Moore in Pennsylvania. To avoid prosecution, Moore made a deal, and in mid-January 1991, she elicited a confession from Wuornos over the phone, who admitted full and sole responsibility for the murders.
Trial and Execution
During the trial, Wuornos claimed that she had been raped and assaulted by Mallory and had killed him in self-defense.
Mallory had previously served a decade-long prison sentence for sexual assault, though this was not disclosed in court. She stated that her killing of the five other men had been in self-defense, though she later retracted these statements.
On January 27, 1992, a jury found Wuornos guilty of first-degree murder in the Mallory case, and she received the death penalty.
Over the ensuing months, Wuornos pleaded guilty to the murders of the other five men and received a death sentence for each plea. Outside of court, she later admitted to the killing of Siems, whose body was
Final Words of Aileen Wuornos
Wuornos was executed by lethal injection on October 9, 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.”
Wuronos’ remains were cremated and spread by a tree in her hometown.
