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Thread: Aileen Carol Wuornos

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    Aileen Carol Wuornos

    She has been heralded in tabloid headlines and on television talk shows as Americas first female serial killer. In fact, Aileen Wuornos was neither the first nor the worst, although she did display a curiously masculine tendency to prey on strangers of the opposite sex. Suspected of at least seven murders, sentenced to die in four of the six cases she confessed to police, Wuornos still maintains that some or all of her admitted killings were performed in self-defense, resisting violent assaults by men whom she solicited while working as a prostitute. Ironically, information uncovered by investigative journalists in November 1992 suggests that in one case, at least, her story may well be true.

    Americas future media monster was born Aileen Pittman in Rochester, Michigan, on February 29, 1956. Her teenage parents separated months before she was born, father Leo Pittman moving on to serve time in Kansas and Michigan mental hospitals as a deranged child-molester. Mother Diane recalls Aileen and her older brother Keith as crying, unhappy babies, and their racket prompted her to leave them with her parents in early 1960. On March 18 of that year, maternal grandparents Lauri and Britta Wuornos legally adopted the children as their own. Aileens childhood showed little improvement from there. At age six, she suffered scarring facial burns while she and Keith were setting fires with lighter fluid. Aileen later told police that she had sex with Keith at an early age, but acquaintances doubt the story and Keith is unable to speak for himself, having died of throat cancer in 1976. At any rate, Aileen was clearly having sex with someone, for she turned up pregnant in her fourteenth year, delivering her son at a Detroit maternity home on March 23, 1971. Grandmother Britta died on July 7, and while her death was blamed on liver failure, Diane Pratt suspected her father of murder, claiming he threatened to kill Aileen and Keith if they were not removed from his home. In fact, they became wards of the court, Aileen soon dropping out of school to work the streets full-time, earning her way as a teenage hooker, drifting across country as the spirit moved her.

    In May 1974, using the alias Sandra Kretsch, she was jailed in Jefferson County, Colorado, for disorderly conduct, drunk driving, and firing a .22-caliber pistol from a moving vehicle. Additional charges of failure to appear were filed when she skipped town ahead of her trial. Back in Michigan on July 13, 1976, Aileen was arrested in Antrim County for simple assault and disturbing the peace, after she lobbed a cue ball at a bartenders head. Out-standing warrants from Troy, Michigan, were also served on charges of driving without a license and consuming alcohol in a motor vehicle. On August 4, Aileen settled her debt to society with a $105 fine. The money came, at least indirectly, from her brother. Keiths death, on July 17, 1976, surprised her with a life insurance payment of $10,000, squandered within two months on luxuries including a new car, which Aileen promptly wrecked. In late September, broke again, she hitched a ride to Florida, anxious to sample a warmer climate, hoping to practice her trade in the sun. It was a change of scene, but Aileens attitude was still the same, and she inevitably faced more trouble with the law. On May 20, 1981, Wuornos was arrested in Edgewater, Florida, for armed robbery of a convenience store. Sentenced to prison on May 4, 1982, she was released thirteen months later, on June 30, 1983. Her next arrest, on May 1, 1984, was for trying to pass forged checks at a bank in Key West. On November 30, 1985, named as a suspect in the theft of a pistol and ammunition in Pasco County, Aileen borrowed the alias Lori Grody from an aunt in Michigan. Eleven days later, the Florida Highway Patrol cited Grody for driving without a valid license. On January 4, 1986, Aileen was arrested in Miami under her own name, charged with auto theft, resisting arrest, and obstruction by false information; police found a .38-caliber revolver and a box of ammunition in the stolen car. On June 2, 1986, Volusia County deputies detained Lori Grody for questioning after a male companion accused her of pulling a gun in his car and demanding $200; in spite of her denials, Aileen was carrying spare ammunition on her person, and a .22 pistol was found beneath the passenger seat she occupied. A week later, using the new alias of Susan Blahovec, she was ticketed for speeding in Jefferson County, Florida. The citation includes a telling observation: Attitude poor. Thinks she is above the law. A few days after the Jefferson County incident, Aileen met lesbian Tyria Moore in a Daytona gay bar. They soon became lovers, and while the passion faded in a year or so, they remained close friends and traveling companions, more or less inseparable for the next four years. On July 4, 1987, police in Daytona Beach detained Tina Moore and Susan Blahovec for questioning, on suspicion of slugging a man with a beer bottle. Blahovec was alone on December 18, when highway patrolmen cited her for walking on the inter-state and possessing a suspended drivers license. Once again, the citation noted Attitude POOR, and Susan proved it over the next two months, with threatening letters mailed to the circuit court clerk on January 11 and February 9, 1988.

    A month later, Wuornos was trying a new approach and a new alias. On March 12, 1988, Cammie Marsh Green accused a Daytona Beach bus driver of assault, claiming he pushed her off the bus following an argument; Tyria Moore was listed as a witness to the incident. On July 23, a Daytona Beach landlord accused Moore and Susan Blahovec of vandalizing their apartment, ripping out carpets and painting the walls dark brown without his permission. In November 1988, Susan Blahovec launched a six-day campaign of threatening calls against a Zephyr Hills supermarket, following an altercation over lottery tickets. By 1989, Aileens demeanor was increasingly erratic and belligerent. Never one to take an insult lightly, she now went out of her way to provoke confrontations, seldom traveling without a loaded pistol in her purse. She worked the bars and truck stops, thumbing rides to snag a trick when all else failed, supplementing her prostitutes income with theft when she could. Increasingly, with Moore, she talked about the many troubles in her life, a yearning for revenge. Richard Mallory, a 51-year-old electrician from Palm Harbor, was last seen alive by coworkers on November 30, 1989. His car was found abandoned at Ormond Beach, in Volusia County, the next day, his wallet and personal papers scattered nearby, along with several condoms and a half-empty bottle of vodka. On December 13, his fully-dressed corpse was found in the woods northwest of Daytona Beach, shot three times in the chest with a .22 pistol. Police searching for a motive in the murder learned that Mallory had been divorced five times, earning himself a reputation as a heavy drinker who was very paranoid and very much into porno and the topless-bar scene. A former employee described him as mental, but police came up empty in their search for a criminal record. They could find nothing dirty on the victim, finally concluding he was just paranoid and pussy-crazy. The investigation was stalled at that point on June 1, 1990, when a nude John Doe victim was found, shot six times with a .22 and dumped in the woods forty miles north of Tampa. By June 7, the corpse had been identified from dental records as 43-year-old David Spears, last seen leaving his Sarasota workplace on May 19. Spears had planned to visit his ex-wife in Orlando that afternoon, but he never made it. Ironically, his boss had spotted the dead mans missing pickup truck on May 25, parked along I-75 south of Gainesville, but there the trail went cold. By the time Spears was identified, a third victim had already been found. Charles Carskaddon, age forty, was a part-time rodeo worker from Booneville, Missouri, missing since May 31. He had vanished somewhere along I-75, en route from Booneville to meet his fiancée in Tampa, his naked corpse found thirty miles south of the Spears murder site on June 6. Carskaddon had been shot nine times with a .22-caliber weapon, suggesting a pattern to officers who still resisted the notion of a serial killer at large. On June 7, Carskaddons car was found in Marion County, a .45 automatic and various personal items listed as stolen from the vehicle. Peter Siems, a 65-year-old merchant seaman turned missionary, was last seen on June 7, 1990, when he left his Jupiter, Florida, home to visit relatives in Arkansas. Siems never arrived, and a missing-person report was filed with police on June 22. No trace of the man had been found by July 4, when his car was wrecked and abandoned in Orange Springs, Florida. Witnesses described the vehicles occupants as two women, one blond and one brunette, providing police sketch artists with a likeness of each. The blond was injured, bleeding, and a bloody palm print was lifted from the vehicles trunk.

    Eugene Burress, age fifty, left the Ocala sausage factory where he worked to make his normal delivery rounds on July 30, 1990. A missing-person report was filed when he had not returned by 2:00 A.M. the next day, and his delivery van was found two hours later. On August 4, his fully-dressed body was found by a family picnicking in the Ocala National Forest. Burress had been shot twice with a .22-caliber pistol, in the back and chest. Nearby, police found his credit cards, clipboard, business receipts, and an empty cash bag from a local bank. Fifty-six-year-old Dick Humphreys was a retired Alabama police chief, lately employed by the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services to investigate child abuse claims in Ocala. His wife reported him missing when he failed to return home from work on the night of September 11, 1990, and Humphreys was found the next day in an undeveloped subdivision, shot seven times with a .22 pistol, his pants pockets turned inside-out. On September 19, his car was found abandoned, stripped of license plates, behind a defunct service station in Live Oak. Impounded on September 25, the car was not traced to Humphreys until October 13, the same day his discarded badge and other personal belongings were found in Lake County, seventy miles southeast of the murder scene. Victim number seven was 60-year-old Walter Antonio, a truck driver from Merrit Island who doubles as a reserve police officer for Brevard County. Found in the woods northwest of Cross City on November 19, 1990, he had been shot three times in the back and once in the head. Antonio was nude except for socks, his clothes later found in a remote area of neighboring Taylor County. His car, meanwhile, was found back in Brevard County on November 24. Police determined that Antonios killer had stolen a distinctive gold ring, along with his badge, nightstick, handcuffs, and flash-light. By that time, journalists had noted the obvious pattern detectives were reluctant to accept, and media exposure forced authorities to go public with their suspect sketches on November 30, 1990. Over the next three weeks, police received four calls identifying the nameless women as Tyria Moore and Lee Blahovec. Their movements were traced through motel receipts, detectives learning that Blahovec also liked to call herself Lori Grody and Cammie Marsh Green. Fingerprint comparisons did the rest, naming Blahovec/Grody/Green as Aileen Wuornos, placing her at the scene where Peter Siemss car was wrecked in July, but it still remained for officers to track the women down. Meanwhile, Cammie Green was busy pawning items stolen from her victims, pocketing some extra cash.

    On December 6, she pawned Richard Mallorys camera and radar detector in Daytona, moving on to Ormond Beach with a box of tools stolen from Richard Spears. (She also left a thumb print behind in Ormond Beach, identical to that of Lori Grody.) The next day, in Volusia County, Green pawned Walter Antonios ring, later identified by his fiancée and the jeweler who sized it. With mug shots and a list of names in hand, it was a relatively simple matter to trace Aileen Wuornos, though her root-less life style delayed the arrest for another month. On January 9, 1991, she was seized at the Last Resort, a biker bar in Harbor Oaks, detained on outstanding warrants for Lori Grody while police finished building their murder case. A day later Tyria Moore was traced to her sisters home in Pennsylvania, where she agreed to help police. Back in Florida, detectives arranged a series of telephone conversations between Moore and Wuornos, Tyria begging Aileen to confess for Moores sake, to spare her from prosecution as an accomplice. One conversation led police to a storage warehouse Aileen had rented, a search revealing tools stolen from David Spears, the nightstick taken from Walter Antonio, another camera and electric razor belonging to Richard Mallory.

    On January 16, 1991, Wuornos summoned detectives and confessed six killings, all allegedly performed in self-defense. She denied killing Peter Siems, whose body was still missing, and likewise disclaimed any link to the murder of a John Doe victim shot to death with a .22-caliber weapon in Brooks County, Georgia, found in an advanced state of decay on May 5, 1990. (No charges were filed in that case.) I shot em cause to me it was like a self-defending thing, she told police, because I felt if I didnt shoot em and didnt kill em, first of all ... if they had survived, my ass would be gettin in trouble for attempted murder, so Im up shits creek on that one anyway, and if I didnt kill em, you know, of course, I mean I had to kill em ... or its like retaliation, too. Its like, You bastards, you were going to hurt me. Within two weeks of her arrest, Aileen and her attorney had sold movie rights to her story. At the same time, three top investigators on her case retained their own lawyer to field offers from Hollywood, cringing with embarrassment when their unseemly haste to profit on the case was publicly revealed. In self-defense, the officers maintained that they were moved to sell their version of the case by pure intentions, planning to put the money in a victims fund. To a man, they denounced exposure of their scheme as the malicious work of brother officers, driven by their jealousy at being cut out of the deal. A bizarre sideshow to the pending murder trial began in late January 1991, with the appearance of Arlene Pralle as Aileens chief advocate. A 44-year-old ranchers wife and born-again Christian, Pralle advised Wuornos in her first letter to prison that Jesus told me to write you. Soon, they were having daily telephone conversations at Pralles expense, Arlene arranging interviews for Wuornos and herself, becoming a fixture on tabloid talk shows from coast to coast. In Pralles words, their relation-ship was a soul binding. Were like Jonathan and David in the Bible. Its as though part of me is trapped in jail with her. We always know what the other is feeling and thinking. I just wish I was Houdini. I would get her out of there. If there was a way, I would do it, and we could go and be vagabonds forever. Instead, Pralle did the next best thing, legally adopting Wuornos as her daughter.

    Aileens trial for the murder of Richard Mallory opened on January 13, 1992. Eleven days later, Wuornos took the stand as the only defense witness, repeating her tale of violent rape and beating at Mallorys hands, insisting that she shot him dead in self-defense, using her pistol only after he threatened her life. With no hard evidence to support her claim, jurors rejected the story, deliberating a mere ninety minutes before they convicted Aileen of first-degree murder on January 27. Im innocent, she shouted when the verdict was announced. I was raped! I hope you get raped! Scumbags of America! The jury recommended death on January 29, and the following day Aileen was formally sentenced to die. In April, she pled guilty to the murders of victims Burress, Humphreys, and Spears, with a second death sentence delivered on May 7, 1992. Around the same time, Aileen offered to show police where the corpse of Peter Siems was hidden, near Beaufort, South Carolina. Authorities flew her to the Piedmont State, but nothing was found at the designated site, Daytona police insisting that Wuornos created the ruse to get a free vacation from jail. They speculate that Siems was dumped in a swamp near I-95, north of Jacksonville, but his body has never been found.

    The Wuornos case took an ironic twist on November 10, 1992, with reporter Michele Gillens revelations on Dateline NBC. Thus far, Aileens defenders and Florida prosecutors alike had failed to unearth any criminal record for Richard Mallory that would substantiate Aileens claim of rape and assault. In the official view, Mallory was clean, if somewhat paranoid and pussy-crazy. Gillen, though had no apparent difficulty finding out that Mallory had served ten years for a violent rape in another state, facts easily obtained by checking his name through the FBIs computer network. The fascinating part about this, Gillen said, is here is a woman who for the past year has been screaming that she didnt get a fair trial and that everyone was rushing to make a TV movie about her--and in reality that comes true. (The first TV movie depicting Aileen aired on a rival network one week to the day after Gillens report.) Even so, Gillen stopped short of calling for Aileens release. Shes a sick woman who blew those men away, Gillen declared, but thats no reason for the state to say, Shes confessed to killing men, we dont have to do our homework.



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    Administrator Michael's Avatar
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    The Role of Tyria Moore

    Far From Home: Tyria Moore is from Cadiz, Ohio, hometown of Clark Gable. She went to school at Harrison Hills Vocational School where she was a C student. She left because the town was too small for her to be an out lesbian.

    Lover of Aileen "Lee" Wuornos: Tyria Moore met Lee Wuornos in a South Daytona lesbian bar called Zodiac, in 1986. The two were together for four years. In the end, Ty said, "We were more like sisters than lovers."

    Family of Ty: Tyria's father was a well-respected carpenter and brick mason. She had one sister and three brothers.

    Life with Lee: Lee Wuornos and Tyria Moore lived a nomadic life, travelling from one seedy motel or apartment to another. Tyria worked from time to time cleaning motel rooms, but mostly she was content to let Lee support them through prostitution.

    Did she know Lee was killing?: Yes, Tyria strongly suspected that Lee had killed more than one man. She came home with cars and other items that did not belong to her. She asked Lee not to tell her too much because she did not want to be an accessory to her crimes.

    Ty Leaves Lee: Ty went to visit her family for Thanksgiving 1990. A few months later, Aileen Wuornos was arrested in January for an old warrant. The police suspected Wuornos was the person they wanted for a rash of killings in Florida, but they needed some way to convict her. That's where Tyria came in.

    The Police Find Tyria Moore: The police found Tyria Moore at her sister's house in Pennslyvania. They brought her down to Florida to try to get Lee to confess to the killings.

    Ty turns on Lee: Aileen Wuornos loved Tyria Moore. In a letter she said, "Your (sic) my left and right arm, my breath, I'd die for you." If Ty had loved Lee, she did not show it in the end. She agreed to try and manipulate Lee into confessing the murders for the police.

    Ty turns on the Guilt: Over the course of three days, Moore and Wuornos talked on the phone many times while police taped the conversations. Over and over Lee told Ty how much she loved her and missed her. Ty never once said she loved Lee. What she did do was cry and carry on and say she was afraid the police were coming for her to get Lee to confess to the murders.

    Love Turns to the Witness Stand: The last time Tyria Moore saw Lee Wuornos was when she testified against her in court. She did not even look Lee in the eye. She never attempted to contact Lee while she was in jail, nor sent her any letters.

    Christina Ricci portrays Moore in the movie Monster. Moore looked nothing like Ricci. She had red hair and was a big-boned, overweight girl. I do not know what has happened to Tyria Moore since the execution of Aileen
    Wuornos.

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    Administrator Michael's Avatar
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    The Last Words Spoken by Aileen Wuornos Before Being Executed

    Convicted murderer, Aileen Wuornos final words before being executed by lethal injection in October 2002 in Florida, 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."

    Aileen Wuornous (February 29 1956 - October 9, 2002) was born in Michigan and abandoned by her parents at a young age. By the time she was in her teens she was working as a prostitute and robbing people to support herself. In 1989 and 1990, Wuornos shot, killed, and robbed at least six men . In January of 1991, after her fingerprints were found on evidence located by police, she was arrested and tried and received a total of six death sentences. She earned an inaccurate label by the press of being the first American serial killer. In the end, she fired her attorney, dropped all appeals, and asked that her execution take place as soon as possible.

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    A Brief Story

    A Sad Beginning: Aileen Wuornos was born outside of Detroit, Michigan in 1956 to a teenage mother. Her father spent time in jail for child molestation before he killed himself in prison. Aileen and her brother were raised by her maternal grandparents.

    Unhappy Childhood: Aileen burned herself at age 6 while playing with lighter fluid and the facial scars remained her whole life. She didn't have many friends and ended up pregnant at age 14. She was sent to an unwed mother's home and her baby was put up for adoption.

    Hitchin' and Hookin': Shortly after her baby's birth, Aileen's grandmother died. Aileen, going by the name Lee, dropped out of school, left home and took up prostitution. In the next few years, her beloved brother died of cancer, her grandfather killed himself and Lee, hitch hiked to Florida.

    Lesbian Life: Lee met 24-year-old Tyria Moore at a Daytona gay bar. Lee turned tricks to support them. Although the relationship started out loving, it quickly turned volatile. Yet, it was quite possilbly the best Lee had ever known. The two moved from seedy motel to seedy motel, barely eeking out an existence.

    Serial Killer: In December 1989 the body of 51-year-old Richard Mallory was found in the woods north of Daytona Beach. He had been shot three times. It was the first of six bodies that would turn up before Lee was caught.

    The bodies pile up: After Lee killed her victims, she stole their cars and money and pawned their belongings. Eventually Lee was caught by police on January 9, 1991 at The Last Resort, a biker bar in Harbor Oaks, Florida. Her lover Tyria Moore was found a day later at her sister's house in Pennsylvania.

    Convicted: Moore cooperated with police and got Wuornos to confess to the killings. Tyria testified against Wuornos at her trial. Lee Wuornos was convicted of killing Richard Mallory in January 1992, even though she claimed self-defense. It never came out at the trial, but in November of that year, Dateline NBC reporter Michele Gillens discovered Mallory had served 10 years for violent rape in another state. Wuornos never got a re-trial.

    Sentenced to Die: Wuornos confessed to killing three other men and was sentenced to die. Although she has been called the first female serial killer, she was not.

    A final Strange Twist: After seeing Wuornos on television, 44-year-old born-again Christian Arlene Pralle felt compelled to contact Aileen. She claimed Jesus told her to do so. Pralle quickly became an outspoken advocate of Wuornos, speaking with her daily and claiming her innocence on tabloid talk shows. Pralle eventually legally adopted Wuornos as her daughter. In the end, though, both Moore and Pralle abandoned Wuornos.

    Wuornos was executed by legal injection on October 9, 2002.

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    Decade later: Remembering the tortured soul that was executed serial killer Aileen Wuornos

    A decade has passed since the nation's foremost serial killer was put to death by the State of Florida through lethal injection for the shooting deaths of seven men who had the misfortune of picking up the hitchhiking prostitute along the region's criss-crossing interstates.

    I know a little something about Wuornos' final fate as one of a select few reporters to witness her execution.

    Back then, I was a reporter for the Daytona Beach News-Journal. The other local reporter was Clare Metz of WESH TV.

    I had already logged 18 years in my journalism career as a breaking news and investigative reporter when Wuornos' execution date was finally set. And having covered multiple appeals in her case over several years, I was ready to cover the big story.

    The six original death sentences handed down at trial were finally to be carried out. There wasn't enough evidence to legally tie her to a seventh killing, though she never denied committing the murder. But before I get to the actual execution, which was as good as it gets in terms of checking out on her own terms, I wanted to share the prelude to her execution.

    The one thing about Wuornos that always stood out was her unpredictable behavior. She would turn around and look my way and smile after being escorted to the defense table in shackles. And I would nod.

    While her outward demeanor was vile -- she had the look of a train wreck and a nasty tongue for anyone who stood between her and her stated desire to be executed -- I saw that anguished and tortured inner child in her eyes in court. Nearly 10 years after her trial, the courtroom gallery became far less crowded, to the point where I was sometimes the only person there with the exception of courtroom personnel. On the outside, though, to those in her line of fire, she was a viper.

    A Michigan teen runaway exposed to drugs and alcohol at a young age, she was raised by ill-equipped grandparents after her mother abandoned her at the age of 4 (she never met her father, a rapist who died in prison), had sexual intercourse with her own brother at 11, and bore a child out of rape by one of her father's friends at 14. The child was taken by the authorities and given up for adoption.

    And after her two-year killing spree in 1989-'90 and subsequent trial, including the killing of a victim named Richard Mallory in woods near Ormond Beach, she led a tormented existence on death row, often accusing staff of poisoning her food. Aileen wanted out. To her, life on death row was worse than death itself.

    I distinctly remember her final court appearance. Her latest set of appeals were kicked back by the High Court for the sentencing judge to determine her competency in granting her wish to be put to death. That decision was left to Circuit Judge R. Michael Hutcheson. The trial judge, Uriel Blount, died years earlier.

    The drama in the courtroom reached its peak when told her attorneys to basically sit down and shut up. I had seen the outbursts many times before, starting off with polite hushed words to bursting into tears and letting loose with angry tirades.

    The stakes were much higher for this time around and Wuornos learned to play the game of making nice. There was Hutcheson, a soft-spoken jurist who wasn't afraid to bring down the hammer in applying the full weight of the law.

    Then there were the state appeals prosecutors, with support from charismatic State Attorney John Tanner in the background, well-schooled in the Holy Bible. Not one to shy away from death sentences, he also saw it as his duty to try and save souls, even praying with even-more notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, just before his execution. It didn't matter that Bundy's nationwide killing spree spared Tanner's circuit.

    And on the defense side, sitting alongside Wuornos were two state-appointed appellate attorneys. Wuornos lived for the drama. It was all the excitement she had left. But it was different this time. She told the judge in a reasoned and calm voice that she understood that the men she killed were true victims of robbery -- not the sadistic opportunists she portrayed them as at trial. When her attorneys objected, she fired them on the spot, saying she wanted to speak directly to the judge. He allowed it.

    The hearing was not the first time Wuornos had changed her story from victim to perpetrator, but she was more believable. Her calmer demeanor conveying her message and convincing the judge that she understood the crimes and the ultimate punishment to be meted out for them.

    In the weeks leading up to her execution, one of her attorneys persuaded Gov. Bush to order a temporary stay of execution, pending one more psychiatric exam. The results were convincing to the governor that Wuornos understood the nature of the crimes committed and the sentence and lifted the stay.

    Then came the date with death -- Oct. 9, 2002. I sat in the third row of a cramped viewing room with a white curtain covering a large glass window into the death chamber. And I was seated directly behind Hutcheson and Tanner.

    We were three for what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was a couple of minutes before the curtain was opened from the other side of the glass and there was Wuornos strapped onto the gurney with leather restraints just below her collar bone and across to her arms, her waist, thighs and ankles. The poisonous needles were already in her left arm on the same side as the window.

    She was asked if she wanted to say any final words;Yes, I would 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. I'll be back."

    The rock is a biblical reference.

    Then came the pressing of buttons to release the poisons into her. She stared straight up at the ceiling, swallowing incessantly, her eyes watering, but she wasn't emotional.

    As the first few minutes passed, I couldn't help but hear the humming noise from a small air conditioner sticking out from the wall opposite wall doorway. Of the dozen or so witnesses, not one word was spoken. Nobody cried, sighed, coughed or sneezed.

    I was staring intently at Wuornos upper body when I saw that she had stopped breathing. While her skin began to turn pale in her now lifeless body, the backs of the necks of Judge Hutcheson and State Attorney Tanner turned red, as if their blood was boiling. It was hot in that room.

    After about eight minutes or so, the attending physician nodded when the warden asked if she had expired. He then picked up a phone, presumably to the governor. None of us could hear his words because the audio system was deactivated after Wuornos spoke.

    The warden then nodded to one of the guards and the curtain was drawn closed. Aileen Wuornos was dead at the age of 46.

    We were immediately escorted out to a waiting bus to take us back to the main prison parking lot. I remember Clare and I comparing notes to make sure we were accurate in what Wuornos said. And we were.

    Ironically, one reporter missed the bus, and as a result, the execution altogether. Then I did what I do best: I went into overdrive on my laptop and cranked out the story. It was sent by e-mail (the Internet was far less advanced back then as far as a writing and delivery tool). My story was the first to hit the AP.

    For an honest day's work, I was later given a breaking news award from the Society of Professional Journalists, Florida Chapter with the headline, "The execution of Aileen Wuornos."

    In the years since, my name has been mentioned in several published books by authors from Europe and three years ago, a film crew came to my house in New Smyrna Beach for an on-camera interview that became part of an episode in a documentary TV show called "Twisted" that aired in 2010, and is available on DVD. I never watched it.

    For that matter, I never watched the 2003 movie "Monster" with Charlise Theron playing Aileen Wuornos, for which she won an Academy Award for best actress.

    I plan on writing my own book on Wuornos and my thoughts on the death penalty. It's one of three books in the works for publication over the next two years, all of them related to my journalism career. I was a little taken aback at a recent local newspaper anniversary story and the triteness at which her execution was remembered.

    The part that bothered me most was the publicity quotes from a local bar owner who said she had returned from the dead. Then again, there wasn't anything else for an inexperienced reporter to make a 10-year-old article on deadline seem fresh.

    The life and death of Aileen Wuornos is a story told many times over with lots of cliches and cheap catchphrases. But being there along the way is a story worth telling upon greater reflection and with the passage of time.

    The other two books involve someone famous and the littlest among us, all tragic and part of the career experiences of a journalist with a love for breaking news.

    http://nsbnews.net/content/410388-de...aileen-wuornos
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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    Serial killer Wuornos still a draw for bar, motel

    A framed photo of serial killer Aileen Wuornos sits on the bar at The Last Resort, the place where she had her last beer. Her photo is also on bottles of hot sauce and T-shirts sold there, while an airbrushed portrait lists the seven men she killed, along with her last words. At a nearby motel, guests often ask for the room where Wuornos stayed.

    Almost 22 years after her arrest and more than 10 years since her execution, the hitchhiking prostitute depicted by Charlize Theron in the 2003 movie "Monster" continues to fascinate the public. Some sympathize with her, saying the abuse she suffered as a child and later as an adult made her snap. Others are captivated by the idea of a female serial killer. Some who stop in at The Last Resort simply want to see the bar from the movie.

    Al Bulling, who's owned the tiny brick biker bar for 33 years and who appeared in "Monster," says he's simply honoring her last wishes. "She wanted to be remembered and keep the memory going," he said. "Well, we'll keep it going for her."

    Michelle Forbes of New Orleans decided to visit The Last Resort after seeing the movie. "She was always a character that really fascinated me," said Forbes.

    Forbes said the bar — covered inside and out with graffiti — "is not the kind of place I would go under most circumstances." She waited in her car until a friend joined her, but once inside, she listened to Bulling and a bartender tell stories about Wuornos for an hour.

    "They were really happy to talk about it. They were really nice. They made me feel bad for cowering in the car!" Forbes said with a laugh, adding, "I do think they were trying to keep things in her spirit. I think they were honoring her, and not just making a spectacle."

    Wuornos' life story is as lurid as her crimes. She was raped and abused growing up in Michigan. Her father committed suicide in prison and her mother abandoned her. She began selling sex at an early age and classmates shunned her. Her grandparents kicked her out at age 15 and she hitchhiked out of Michigan, eventually ending up in Florida, where she survived selling sex on the highways. She claimed she killed her first victim in self-defense after he raped her.

    A burly bartender at The Last Resort who goes only by the name of Cannonball was working there the evening of Jan. 19, 1991 when Wuornos was arrested at the bar. Cannonball, who played himself in "Monster," has told the story countless times.

    "I've been asked some of the stupidest questions," he said. "'Did she act like a serial killer?' Well hell, I don't know. I've never seen one. I don't know what they act like. And one guy asked me, 'Well, were you scared of her?' I ain't never been scared of nobody."

    Wuornos wasn't a regular customer, just someone who came in now and then, probably while hitchhiking back to what was then called the Fairview Motel, where she shared a room with her girlfriend, Tyria Moore. Cannonball said he only knew her name because she introduced herself.

    "When they first come in she goes 'My name is Lee and this is my girlfriend Ty and we're gay.' And I'm, 'Well my name's Cannonball and I don't care. Pay for what you get, don't cause me no grief and I'll treat you square. I don't care what anybody is,'" Cannonball said.

    The Last Resort is a popular biker bar even without the Wuornos connection. Hank Williams Jr. mentioned the bar in the song "Daytona Nights" and some regulars have had their ashes scattered outside, beneath a live oak with battered Japanese motorcycles hanging from the limbs.

    Still, Bulling is not shy about promoting the Wuornos story. The bar's slogan is "Home of ice cold beer and killer women," and he sold the hot sauce on eBay until the site forced him to stop, saying he was profiting from a serial killer.

    Customers like to pose with the framed photo of Wuornos on the bar, and there's also a framed and signed "Monster" movie poster. T-shirts for sale show a picture of Wuornos being arrested, and the "Crazed Killer Hot Sauce" lists her execution date under a photo that makes her look crazy. The label reads, "WARNING!! This Hot Sauce could drive you insane, or at least off on some murderous rampage. Aileen liked it and look what it did to her."

    Wuornos' childhood friend, Dawn Botkins, who exchanged thousands of letters with Wuornos while she was on death row, is upset by all this. She says Bulling "is just using the situation that Aileen just happened to be there and all of a sudden he's on TV saying, 'Yup, this was her hang out.' No it wasn't. She just happened to be there that night."

    Botkins said she stopped by the bar with her husband Dave and told Wuornos about it during a prison visit. "I said to Dave, 'Oh my God! He really is using and abusing her,'" Botkins recalled. "So I went to my next visit with Aileen and said, 'I'm telling you, he's got T-shirts and everything' and she said, 'I can't believe that. He don't even know me.'"

    But Bulling insists he's not exploiting her and talks about Wuornos with respect. He said many who come by, especially women, are sympathetic toward her. "I have not had one woman in here yet, I don't care if they were 9 or 90, that said she got what she deserved. Every woman felt sorry for her in one way or another," Bulling said.

    The bar was featured in several scenes in "Monster" and prominently in the DVD special features, including a clip of Theron signing her name on the ceiling. Cannonball and Bulling are also interviewed in the DVD featurette on the making of the movie.

    Bulling's Wuornos collection includes a large, locked briefcase of court documents, police records, transcripts, photos, articles and films about Wuornos' life, along with copies of her letters to Botkin and a sealed plastic bag containing a bra that Wuornos wore. In one of her letters, she described hanging the bra on The Last Resort ceiling the night before her arrest.

    At the motel where Wuornos often stayed, now called the Scoot Inn, owners Mike and Dawn Bock said they didn't know about the connection until just before they signed the papers to buy it.

    "It didn't so much bother me because Aileen Wuornos didn't do any of the killing here," Bock said during an interview in the room Wuornos used. But he said his wife has pointed out that "there was probably some evidence at some point in time that got washed down that shower in there."

    Aside from a small photo of Wuornos on a bulletin board behind their office desk, the Bocks don't publicize the infamous story. But when they took over, the local newspaper published an article about the new owners and the motel's past. That day, there was a constant stream of cars pulling up in the parking lot to see it, with many people getting out to take photos.

    "I personally don't broadcast anything about it," Bock said. "But I'm certainly not ashamed of it. If somebody brings it up and says, 'Hey, is this the Aileen Wuornos motel?' Then sure, then I'll talk about it."

    Customers often ask for Wuornos' room. It was No. 8, but the rooms have since been renumbered and it is now No. 7. Others just want photos.

    "I had somebody who takes photographs of bathrooms, oddly enough, of people who were mass murderers and infamous people," Bock said. "She didn't take any pictures of the bedroom, she just went straight to the bathroom and started taking pictures of that."

    http://www.jamestownsun.com/event/ar...34/group/News/
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  7. #7
    I do not usually have any sympathy for murderers, but there's something about Aileen Wuornos that makes (made) me feel sorry for her.

  8. #8
    Banned TheKindExecutioner's Avatar
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    She was a SERIAL KILLER!

  9. #9
    I know & she deserved to be executed, but there was something rather tragic about her; I don't feel this way towards any other killers.

  10. #10
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
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    I understand what you mean. She has a really troubled life and finaly she was betrayed by Tyria Moore. Moore escaped every punishment.
    No murder can be so cruel that there are not still useful imbeciles who do gloss over the murderer and apologize.

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