Aileen Wuornos:

Was She Really a "Monster"

Or Just a Helpless Victim?

By Lynn A. Granata

    One thing is for certain, though, she became the most notorious if not one of the first well known female serial killers of the late 20th Century.

 Aileen Wuornos got off to a very rocky start in life. Her mother Diane, was a tragic victim of domestic violence. Her father was a hardened life long criminal. She in fact never got to know either of her biological parents. She and her brother Keith were abandoned by their parents while they were infants. Aileen and Keith were raised by their grandparents. Diane, Aileen's mother dropped them both off at grandma's house one day and just left them there for good.

No, this was no doting grandparent's home, far from it.

Aileen and Keith were more or less treated as unwanted visitors, guests, and intruders.

Lauri Wuornos, Aileen's grandfather was an abusive alcoholic who gave regular belt whippings to both children and dubbed it "discipline."

Once Aileen turned 14 she got pregnant and then left home.

This is when her permanent downward spiral began. She turned to drugs, hitchhiking, and prostitution; she was born in Troy, Michigan.  But, her vagabond lifestyle wasn't conducive to Michigan's frigid cold weather in winter. She figured out a way to cope and she hitchhiked to Florida. There she met an older man of means, named Lewis Fell. The relationship at first, began as a quick romantic wedding, but then soured quickly. Fell was smitten at first, but then once Aileen began to show the dark side of her personality, the marriage to Fell came to a screeching halt. Fell annulled Wuornos as fast as he married her. They were married for only 9 weeks.

Aileen Wuornos with brief husband Lewis Fell.

A few years went by, and Keith died from throat cancer. Aileen attempted suicide with a firearm. Eventually she recovered. But she then kicked off her own little life of crime. Aileen walked into a Daytona Beach convenience store clad in a bikini, and robbed the store at gun point. She then served her first 3 year lengthy prison sentence. Wuornos began a lesbian love affair with Tyria Moore, after they met at a bikers bar in Daytona Beach called the Last Resort Saloon.

Tyria Moore

From 1989-1992, a string of middle aged men were being found dead in a nearby Dade County Parking Rest area.  Each man was reported missing, and they all had a similar pattern of their whereabouts. They traveled the same road, for example, they were all middle-aged fathers, husbands, and working men that carried cash in their pockets. They were found dead as they were reported missing, not collectively all at once.

Wuornos was found guilty of first degree murder with a deadly weapon, ( a .22 caliber revolver) her blood, finger prints, and DNA lifted from the crime scene all tested positive. Wuornos, used many of her own strategies during her second trial. She testified that these men all raped her, and sexually abused her. 

However, she lost her case, after 2 tries a jury found her guilty of 7 counts of murder in the first degree. In Florida the death penalty is the only punishment for murder in the 1st degree. Aileen was sentenced to die by lethal injection. Her victims had picked her up and figured she was a highway hooker. She went with them to the swampy area, parked, took out her revolver, and shot her victims at point blank range. Then she took their cash and left, returning to a motel where she and her lover Tyria Moore lived together. 

Tyria betrayed Wuornos, it's been said, because she was instrumental in bringing her lover to justice by co- operating with the police in aiding them with Aileen's capture and arrest. Moore agreed to plea bargain, so that she wouldn't be charged as a conspirator to Aileen's charges. Moore knew about Aileen's working as a prostitute, because she often questioned Aileen about how she got all this cash. Aileen after much coaxing finally broke down and told Moore what she was doing.

Conclusion

         Aileen Wuornos was born on February 29, 1956 to Diane Wuornos and Dale Pittman. During her turbulent train wreck life, all she knew was hatred, abuse, drugs, beatings, forced into prostitution, and death by lethal injection. A lot of experts have postulated that she was neglected and should have been brought to the Department of Child Protective Services. Instead she was dumped in the lap of a non-loving family, her own grandparents and an estranged aunt and an older uncle.  She and her brother Keith were told that they were their sister and brother. Nevertheless, these two extended family members took just as much a part in the grisly abuse as did their mother and father. Aileen wanted to die by lethal injection, because she had tremendous faith in God. She prayed all the time she served on death row. She wanted to go to heaven, and truly believed in a divine power greater than this life could ever provide to her. 

May her soul RIP.

Aileen Wuornos at the time of her execution