& nbsp;   &n bsp;   “On a killing day these guys always wanted to go way back in the woods. Now I know why they did it: they were gonna hurt me.” This was Aileen Carol Wuornos’s statement, at thirty-five year old, on the discussion of series of men that she killed.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   Aileen, or “Lee”, was incorrectly known as the “first female serial killer in America”. She was suspected of killing seven men, charged with seven, received six death penalties. It is unsure what the cause for the killings was, however, there were three main factors supposedly lead Lee to killing the seven men: her childhood, her demanding girlfriend, or the seven men themselves.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   Trouble started at a young age for Aileen. She was born in Rochester (or Detroit), Michigan in nineteen fifty-six, as Aileen Pittman, only a few years short of her older, and only, brother Keith. Her alcoholic father, Leo Pittman, left the family, after being charged with sodomizing a young boy, before Aileen was even born. Then at six months old she and her brother were abandoned by her sixteen year old mother, Diane. After her parents’ departure she and her brother were sent to live with their grandparents, Lauri and Britta Wuornos.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   After her parents left everything went down hill. Her grandfather was an abusive alcoholic who often beat Lee and Keith, as well as his wife. The grandmother was quite passive, or seemed to be, about the beatings and the treatment of the children. She also received facial scars when she and her brother were starting fires with lighter fluid.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   At about the age of eight, Lee’s grandmother died. While still grieving over her grandmother’s death Lee was blamed by her grandfather for his wife’s death. He kicked her out of his house and she was then forced to live on the street and fend for herself. It wasn’t long after that that she began doing sexual favors for people around town and strangers that passed through. She generally had enough money to eat as well as for drugs. She resided in the woods in a fort she made. She spent roughly a year and a half sleeping in the fort and friends cars, even through the grueling weather of northern Michigan, literally sleeping in the snow at times.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   When Lee was thirteen she became pregnant and birthed a baby boy. Knowing what was best for him she gave him up for adoption. After her son’s birth she became the “untouchable” of the town. Town kids yelled names and obscenities at her for being a prostitute without a home, who had already bared a child by the age of fourteen. However, being her stubborn, short tempered self, she often retaliated with her own remarks or became physical. Along with the remarks about her street life she was also tormented about her sexual experiments with her brother Keith and the rumors of her sexual experiences with the neighborhood pedophile.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   When Lee saved up money she left Rochester, dropping out of school in the tenth grade, and traveled all around the country by bus or by hitchhiking, paying them with her services for a couple of years. Lee used various aliases whenever trouble came her way. She was picked up for disorderly conduct and drunk driving on many different occasions. She was charged with firing a twenty caliber handgun in a moving vehicle. She received more charges when she didn’t show up for her court hearings. In Antrim County she was charged for throwing a cue ball at a bartender’s head and for disturbing the peace. In Troy Michigan she was charged with another drunk driving, also for driving without a valid license.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   To pay for her debts came at a terrible price. She received a life insurance payment of ten thousand dollars when her brother Keith died of throat cancer. The money didn’t stay with her long, only two months, as she spent it all on a new car and drugs. She wrecked the car shortly after buying it.

At about seventeen years old, after her extensive traveling, she decided to go to Florida where it was rumored that prostitution was more regular and pay for it was better. The warm weather also was alluring to her after the cold living.

In Florida Lee faced more problems with the law. Lee robbed a convenience store, which she was arrested for, and she was also picked up for handing out forged checks. She was also suspected of stealing a handgun. About eleven days later she was arrested again for driving without a valid license, this time under the name “Lori Grody”. In Miami she was arrested, under her own name this time, for stealing a car and resisting arrest. She was also charged with giving false information.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   During her traveling Lee had a few boyfriends that generally ended badly. She was beaten and raped on many occasions, as comes with her “profession”. She was also married for a very short time to a man in his seventies. They split when she couldn’t deal with the abuse. After a few more boyfriends she came across a man that she really thought was the one for her. When they broke up it was very hard for her to deal with. She tried to commit suicide by shooting herself in the abdomen with a shotgun. There were other times she tried to take her life, some when dealing with the men in her life, other times it was just her life in general.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   After her failed attempts at suicide she was at an all time low. Prostitution was slowing down for her and now most all of her money was spent on drugs and alcohol. She began to need money to pay debts she owed to some friends who supported her habits and her living. It didn’t take her long to think of a fast way to get money. In nineteen eighty-one, under the influence of alcohol and Librium, she decided to rob a Majik Mart at gunpoint for sixty-one dollars. It went, like most things in her life, terribly wrong. She ended up in prison for three years.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   When she got out and started her line of work again, she began to get more and more heavier into drugs. She began turning anywhere from eight to ten tricks daily. In her drugged stupor Lee went into a local gay bar named the Zodiac. It was at this bar that Lee met a twenty-eight year old woman called Tyria Jolene Moore. It was June at this time.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   Lee and “Ty” became quick friends and lovers. Throughout their four year relationship they stayed in various cheap motels and apartments. To make their payments Lee continued to prostitute in Daytona and Ty worked various odd jobs. After about two years their “passion” did fade but they were still very close friends and were practically inseparable. The two were together for a little more than four years.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   Within those four years is when Aileen committed the acts of which she is most famous for. Within a fifteen month period Lee shot and killed seven men. They were all johns of hers, all shot in the chest and/or head anywhere from four to sixteen times. She claimed later that all of these killings were completely in self defense. “I think I probably… it was… I always shot somebody, if I could, you now, as fast as I could, it would always hit right around this area. Up here. Right over… I always aimed to the mid-section so I know I shot ‘em” “Usually it would be we both got naked and I was gonna do an honest deed but I had a big fight. They… they were either gonna physically right me… either try to rape me or something or they were gonna try to… you know, so they wouldn’t have to pay their… I don’t know what they were gonna do. They just… started getting’ radical on me and I had to… do what I had to do.”

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   With each murder Lee stole all of their money and their car. That would be part of how they made payments and the car served as transportation for very brief amounts of time. It was at this time that Ty began to wonder about Lee and what was really happening.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   “We were sitting on the living room floor, and she openly confessed that she had shot and killed a man that day. And at first I didn’t believe her ‘cause she lies about a lot of things, but I saw it about a week later on the news. I heard it… I know I had seen the name Richard on a piece of paper before I heard it on the news. We were just sitting around talkin’ and she just came right out of the blue and said she had somethin’ to tell me, and she told me that she had shot and killed a guy that day.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   “She told me that she covered his body with a piece of carpet. She didn’t tell me that that was the care… but when I saw it on the news they showed a picture of the car and of the man that they had found with the carpet lying over him, and so I put two and two together.”

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   Ty didn’t want to believe or hear about it. She didn’t believe until one day they were driving one of her victim’s vehicles and they crashed it. Lee told Ty, after they couldn’t get it started, to run. Run fast.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   At this time there were witnesses to the crash. They went to the police to report the accident, gave the police information for sketches, and once the car was traced to a missing person, warrants were sent out for the arrest of two women who possibly may have been involved in a rash of murders in the surrounding counties.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   Within the next three weeks after the police sketches had been aired on the television, four calls had been made identifying the two women as Tyria Moore and “Lee Blahovec”. Lee was picked up by the police and Ty fled to her sister’s house in Georgia. Police used fingerprints to place Lee at the scene of all of the seven murder scenes. Lee was charged and arrested for the murder of seven men while she was at the Last Resort biker bar. All police needed now was a confession from Aileen.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   The police got that confession with the help of Tyria. They traced her back to her sister’s place in Georgia, contacted her and offered her a deal. They wouldn’t charge her with anything if she could get Lee to confess to the murders. Through a series of phone conversations Ty got Lee to confess to four murders, all of which were in self-defense, and now Lee was onto trial.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   Her series of trial for all seven murders took less than a year. This was due to the serious publication of the trial and poor representation. During her trial Lee was also legally adopted by a forty-four year old “born again Christian” of the name Arlene Pralle, who lived on a horse ranch and raised she-wolves. She and “Dr. Legal” AKA Steve Glazer, her attorney. Arlene told Lee to come clean with God and plead guilty. Glazer agreed that Lee should plead guilty. These two allegedly struck movie deals and interviews of which they profited on. Lee believed that the police were involved in movie deals as well, making money themselves.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   After the both the defense and prosecution rested the jury went back and deliberated for merely ninety-one minutes. When they came back they found her guilty of first degree murder in all charges, and recommended the death penalty. When the judge agreed with the jury Lee spoke out. “Sons of bitches! I was raped! I hope you get raped! Scumbags of America!” She had her other choice words for the jury, the judge, and the prosecution.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   Lee was then sent to Florida State Death Row. She spent the next twelve years there waiting to die. She felt that she should and was preparing for it. “I think it’s gonna be like Star Trek, beaming me up into a space vehicle, man. Then I move on to be recolonized to a new planet.” While she sat in her cell she would watch TV, read the Bible, and write letters to a childhood friend named Dawn. She sat and prepared, reflecting on her life. She cried as much as she could so that she wouldn’t cry in the chamber.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   Also, as she sat there she began to believe that the Volusia County Jail was trying to make it look as though she was crazy at all times. She believed that there was a huge satellite on the complex that was sending sonic waves into her room since nineteen ninety-seven, crushing her head, and that a Ms. Filicorta would turn it up when she wrote or when she was reading. The satellite sent signals into either the television or into a mirror that they planted in her cell. She also made claims that the jail was poisoning her food. “…one day I didn’t wash my food off and I was sick for three weeks. I almost died.” She believed in these huge conspiracies against her that the police knew that she was killing and that they actually let her kill more men. She believed that the cops had been surveillancing her for years, even before the killings took place. Lee raved about these “conspiracies” up until the days before she was executed.  She also expressed her feelings toward her mother, who told a filmmaker named Nick Bloomfield that she loved her and that she was sorry for leaving her. Lee said, in regards to her mother, “…she plopped me out of her belly and left me with my grandparents and we never knew her. So tell that damn whore I can give a fuck if she ever had me.”

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   In her letters to her friend Dawn she made plans for what she wanted to happen to her and her body. She wanted to wear a pair of jeans, a black Harley-Davidson shirt with wings, because she believed she got her wings, black leather boots with cornered toes, and a military belt for the funeral. She wanted Natalie Merchant’s song “Carnival” played at her wake as well. Then, after the funeral she wished to be cremated with her Bible and to be sent to Dawn’s house where she would be around those she loved and those who loved her.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   On October eighth Aileen was given her choice for her last meal, being able to spend up to one hundred twenty dollars. All Lee asked for was a cup of coffee. The next day, October 9^th, eight o’clock am, Lee was escorted down the long hallway, through corridors until her final destination was reached. After twelve years Lee finally got what she had wished for. It was her time to die for her wrongdoings. Her final statement was: “I’d just like to say I’m sailing with the Rock, and I’ll be back like Independence Day, with Jesus June sixth. Like the movie, big mother ship and all, I’ll be back.”

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   “Love conquers all; every cloud has a silver lining; fate can move mountains; love will always find a way; everything happens for a reason; where there is life, there is hope. They gotta tell you somethin’”

 Bibliography

Crimes and Punishment Vol 13

Crime and Detection- Serial Murderers

On a Killing Day

Lethal Intent

Dead Ends

20 Century Murder

Aileen Wuornos- The Selling of a Serial Killer

Aileen Wuornos- The Life and Death of a Serial Killer

Encyclopedia of American Crime

The Female Homicide Offender

Women Who Kill: Profiles of Women Serial Killers

Wuornos

Three’s a Crowd

The First Woman Serial Killer?

My Lover is a Killer in Bed- and a Serial Killer Too- Say Cops

Kiss and Kill

Let’s Make a Deal

Florida Cops Say Seven Men Met Death on the Highway

www.courtcases.com/wuornos.aileen

Web of the Spiderwoman

Monster

Modern Killers of the World