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Aileen Wuornos, once infamously known as Florida’s “Damsel of Death,” remains a chilling figure in the annals of American crime history. Her notoriety stems from a series of murders she committed while working as a sex worker along the highways of Central Florida. Wuornos is believed to have killed seven men, often leaving their bodies riddled with bullets and concealed in wooded areas.
Her murderous activities were halted in 1991 when she was apprehended by undercover officers at the Last Resort Bar in Port Orange, Florida, as reported by WKMG-TV. The arrest marked the end of a terrifying chapter that gripped the region.
In court, prosecutors asserted that Wuornos’s motives were rooted in financial gain. However, Wuornos claimed that the killings were acts of self-defense, alleging that her victims either raped her or intended to do so, according to a report from People. This discrepancy between prosecution and defense added layers of complexity to an already sensational case.
Even decades after her crimes, the story of Aileen Wuornos continues to capture the public’s attention, a testament to its haunting and dramatic nature.
“You go in those woods and go through what I went through with these scum,” she once said in an interview featured in Oxygen’s Snapped: Notorious, “and then you tell me if I deserve life in prison or death row at all.”
Wuornos’s troubled life began in 1956, born to a teenage mother and an absent father, setting the stage for a tumultuous existence that would eventually lead her down a dark path.
Aileen Wuornos’ Troubled Childhood
Wuornos was born in 1956 to a teen mom and absent father.
Her father, Leo Pittman, later died by suicide in prison while serving time for the rape of a 7-year-old girl, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Her mother, Diane Wuornos, tried to raise Aileen and her older brother Keith on her own in Michigan, but abandoned the pair at a babysitter when Aileen was just 6 months old after admitting she “couldn’t cope” with the responsibility, the newspaper reported.
Wuornos went to live with her grandfather, who she’d later describe as an abusive alcoholic. At the age of 14, Wuornos said she was raped by a family friend. She got pregnant and was forced to give the baby up for adoption, according to an appeal filed in 1994.
By the time she was 16, Wuornos had dropped out of a high school and was working as a sex worker.
She eventually made her way to Florida, according to court records, where she began working along the highway at least four days a week and was “maced, beaten and raped by customers.”
Who Was Aileen Wuornos’ Girlfriend?
In 1986, Wuornos met girlfriend Tyria Moore at a gay bar in Daytona Beach. She’d later describe Moore as the “love of my life,” according to a 1991 report in The Los Angeles Times.
For four and a half years the couple lived together, staying in motels in Central Florida while Moore worked as a maid and Wuornos continued earning money as a sex worker, per the court records.
Aileen Wuornos’ Suspected Victims
Then, on Dec. 1, 1989, Moore would later tell authorities that an intoxicated Wuornos came back to the Volusia County motel room where they were staying and confessed to shooting and killing a man earlier that morning. The victim was later identified as Richard Mallory.
“She said she sorted through the man’s things, keeping some, discarding others,” the court records stated. “Wuornos said she abandoned the man’s car near Ormond Beach, and left his body in a wooded area.”
Despite the confession, Moore continued to stay with Wuornos until she began to hear reports that police were looking for two women believed to be involved in a string of murders. Moore panicked and returned to her home in Pennsylvania, authorities said.
In addition to Mallory, Wuornos was also linked to the deaths of David Spears, Charles Carskaddon, Troy Burress, Charles Richard Humphreys and Walter Jeno Antonio, according to previous reporting from Oxygen.
Investigators believe Wuornos also killed a seventh victim, Peter Siems, although his body was never recovered.
How Was Aileen Wuornos Caught?
Wuornos deadly deeds came to light after Florida law enforcement officers tracked Moore down and convinced her to return to Florida to try to illicit a confession from Wuornos.
Moore testified in a 1991 court hearing, according to The Los Angeles Times, that police put her up in a Daytona Beach hotel room for four days, purchasing her beer and hamburgers, as she recorded 10 telephone conversations with Wuornos, who confessed in the calls.
“I will not let you be involved in the picture,” Wuornos told Moore in one conversation. “You’re not the one. I am the one who did everything. I did it all myself.”
Wuornos was arrested on Jan. 9, 1991 at Last Resort Bar. She confessed to the killings to law enforcement officers, but insisted she had acted in self-defense, Oxygen previously reported.
Wuornos went on trial for Mallory’s murder in 1992, with Moore taking the stand as the prosecution’s star witness, the Orlando Sentinel reported that year.
Wuornos alleged that she killed Mallory in self-defense after he violently raped her.
The jury didn’t believe her claims and Wuornos was convicted on Jan. 27, 1992. After the verdict was read, she shouted, “I was raped. I hope you get raped, scumbags of America.”
She later pleaded no contest to five other murders. She was never charged in connection to Siems’ presumed death.
Where Is Aileen Wuornos Today?
Wuornos died by lethal injection on Oct. 9, 2002, after delivering some eerie last words.
“I’m sailing with the Rock and I’ll be back like Independence Day with Jesus June 6th,” she said, according to CNN. “Like the movie, on the big mothership and all, I’ll be back. I’ll be back.”
