Aileen Wuornos, a name that even myself wasn't too aware off till this year at least? There's a lot of people out there, myself included, that enjoy a good crime documentary; not for any sadistic reason but for the reason that the case itself is very interesting and intriguing for people to learn about. Being one of these individuals I can definitely understand why very well.
Aileen Wournos, known as a lady serial killer, is one of these people a lot of individuals want to learn about and delve into her case. Her case is incredibly shocking, maybe even a little unbelievable, in a lot of ways for everything that happened within Aileen's case she claims to have been self defence?
But was this truly the case? Was Aileen's murder victims all killed for the reason that she was defending herself? That's for you to decide.
Aileen Wournos
Born on February 29th 1956 in Michigan, Aileen was born into a pretty dysfunctional family life something you could perhaps blame for the way she went later on in her life. Aileen's mother, Diane, was just 14 years old when she married Aileen's father but filled for divorce just 2 months before she gave birth to Aileen's brother. Her father was known to have schizophrenia, jailed for sex crimes and killed himself in prison in 1969.
Being abandoned at the age of 4 and adopted by her grandparents, at the age of 11 Aileen started exchanging sexual activities with people for things such as cigarettes and food, she also later claimed that her grandfather had been sexually assaulting her.
Aileen also gave birth at just 14 to a baby boy after being raped by her grandfathers friend and at 15 she was made homeless by her grandfather so began supporting herself through earning money with prostitution and living in the woods.
The case
Now, after such an already traumatic up bringing in a lot of peoples eyes it is no wonder, in some ways, why Aileen may have been seen as guilty for the murders she was accused of much later on in life.
Wuornos was accused of killing 7 men while doing her job as a prostitute with 6 men having been shot numerous times and 1 other never being found.
After all her trouble in Michigan Wuornos moved up to Florida where these awful crimes were committed, where Aileen met her then partner Tyria Moore and having previously had relationships with men it would now seem Aileen was in a serious relationship with a woman which could surprise some considering she was a prostitute that slept with men.
In January 1992 Wuornos was convicted with the murder of a man named Richard Mallory who she claims violently raped her, she was then in March 1992 charged with the deaths of 3 other men, Dick Humphreys, Troy Burress, and David Spears, who she also claimed "only just started to" rape her before she killed them.
She then received her 5th death sentence in June 1992, that ofCharles Carskaddon, however the defence then brought to light that Wuornos' first victim Mallory had previously been put inside a maximum security correctional facility that try to rehabilitate sexual offenders. Proving that what Wuronos said about her first killing was probably not a shadow from the actual truth given the history of the man.
However, the judge did throw this information out and it was not allowed to be used for Wuornos to gain a retrial, why?
The end charges
In the end Wuornos received a total of 6 death sentences before she died having never been charged with the 7th due to the body never being found. Aileen was then put to death October 9th 2002 and since then this lady serial killer has had documentaries such as the ones on Netflix "Aileen Wuornos: the selling of a serial killer" & "Aileen: Life & Death of a serial killer" and also she has been depicted in the TV hit series "American Horror Story: Hotel" by actress Lily Rabeas seen in the clip below:
So what's your personal view on this serial killer? Do you reckon each kill Wuornos made was in self defence or was she simply just mentally unstable given her traumatic past? You decide.
