4 things we learned from ‘Aileen: The Story of a Serial Killer’

There is a typical profile that people expect when they think of serial killers: cunning, cold — and, above all, men. Therefore, when Aileen Wuornos was arrested in January 1991 as the prime suspect in a series of shooting murders in Florida, national attention quickly came. Wuornos She was an itinerant sex worker at the time of the crimes and almost immediately confessed to shooting seven male clients to death: Richard Mallory51; David Spears47; Charles Carskaddon40; Troy Burress50; Charles Humphreys56; and Walter Antonio62. The press soon dubbed her “the whore from hell”, and her story generated hundreds of reports, books, TV episodes and films. (Charlize Theron took the Oscar of Best Actress when interpreting Wuornos in Monster – Killer Desire — 2003 film that dramatizes the life and crimes of the killer.)

Since the execution of Wuornos by lethal injection in 2002, her story became so exploited that she stopped being a person and became almost a national archetype. But in the new Netflix documentary, Aileen: The Story of a Serial Killerthe director Ellen Turner uses archival footage, audio recordings and prison interviews with Wuornos and other people involved in the case to paint a more detailed portrait of her trajectory and the experiences that led her to the murders in Florida. “Aileen said: ‘I’m going to tell the truth about my crimes’, and, when watching this interview, a very different version of her emerges”, he said Turner the People. “Contradictory, very human and, at times, quite disturbing.”

Below, see four things we learned in Aileen: The Story of a Serial Killersecond Rolling Stone.

Wuornos confessed to the murders to protect his girlfriend — a confession she later said was coerced

According to several interviews given to national press vehicles, Aileen Wuornos He spent his entire life exposed to poverty and abuse. From a young age, she was forced to find food and shelter on her own. She became a mother at 13 and put her baby up for adoption. She was later adopted by her grandparents, but said her childhood experiences — including sexual assault — led her to rebel and eventually run away from home.

Wuornos said he had several relationships with men — at least one of them abusive — before falling in love with his girlfriend, Tyria Moore. The two stayed together for a few months, but after Aileen pawned a belonging from one of his victims, the police began to investigate both for the murders. After the arrest of Wuornosresearchers used Moore to get a confession out of her. In a call recorded by police and played at the trial, Moore She cried saying she was afraid of being arrested for a crime she didn’t commit.

“I won’t let you go to jail. TyI love you”, he says Wuornos in the audio, which appears in the documentary. “If I have to confess everything just to get you out of trouble, I’ll do it.”

However, after arrest, Wuornos stated that she would not have confessed if she had not been so worried about Moore — a situation in which, according to her, she was coerced by the police.

At her first trial, Wuornos claimed to have been raped and tortured

Much of the public knowledge about Wuornos and her case focused on her background as a drifter and sex worker. At the time of the trial in 1992, many media outlets claimed that she had killed her victims out of hatred for men. But Wuornos She said she only bought a gun because many of the men who hired her for sex also threatened her life.

“I did programs in several places around the world. Keys. Then I started on the highways. They’ve already put double-barreled shotguns to my head, .357 Magnums in my head,” she says in the documentary. “So when a police officer friend of mine told me to buy a gun, it was purely for protection. I had to do what I needed to do.”

His first and only trial was for the murder of Richard Malloryhis first victim. Wuornos declared herself innocent and testified that she had been assaulted, raped and tortured by Mallory during the encounter, and that he only fired to escape. “The only thing I told myself — and I don’t think this was premeditated in any way — was: if anyone ever tries to rape me like that, they’re going to regret ever meeting that prostitute,” she said. Wuornos in another interview conducted in prison.

At the time of Aileen’s trial, the prosecutor had a history of disdain for sex work

Wuornos was prosecuted by the Florida State Attorney, John Tannerknown for his public stance against pornography. Second Wuornos and its defenders, Tanner based her case primarily on the fact that she was a sex worker and the interactions she had with clients. “You offered sex, you were lying naked on your back. And the man paid you”, he said Tanner the Wuornos during the trial. “And you call it rape when he’s kissing you and climbing on you?”

After being convicted of the murder of Mallory, Wuornos declared himself no contest (no contest) to the other six counts of first-degree murder. Even after journalists discovered that Mallory — his first victim — had a history of sexual assault, Tanner continued to believe that Wuornos was guilty.

When Aileen died, other death row inmates believed she was not mentally well.

After his arrest, Wuornos converted to Christianity — a transformation that took place after she met Arlene Prallea Florida woman born again into faith. After reading the story of Wuornos, Pralle He began corresponding with her through letters and ended up persuading her to accept being adopted by her. Throughout the relationship, Pralle stated that the life experiences of Wuornos they had caused profound damage to their mental and emotional health.

The lawyers of Wuornos They tried to claim emotional distress at their first trial, but the argument was not accepted.

Interviewers and other death row inmates who spoke with Wuornos in the months before the execution they reported that she showed clear signs of mental instability. They said she was paranoid, believed she was being heard and lived in constant anxiety. But, according to an archival interview with the former prisoner Deirdre Hunt, Wuornos She asked her colleagues to keep their suspicions secret — and said she was ready to die. “Aileen I wasn’t well mentally, from my experience,” he says. Hunt in the documentary. “It was very emotional. It’s hard to imagine killing someone innocent or someone who wasn’t fully there. She wasn’t there.”

Wuornos was executed by lethal injection on October 9, 2002, becoming the third woman to be executed in Florida. His last words were that he was going to be with Jesus. “The real Aileen Wuornos She’s not a serial killer,” she says in the documentary. “I was so drunk, so lost, so screwed up in the head that I ended up becoming one. But my true self is not that.”

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