Abstract This paper will be written in the form of a case study analysis and will examine the work of Aileen Wuornos, the majority of the information for this paper will come from ten peer-reviewed articles from the Western Kentucky University library database. This paper will evaluate Aileen Wuornos and the murders she had committed from 1989 to 1990. This case study will be constructed starting with her early life, including her mother and father, the profile of the seven different murders she committed, what type of serial murder she is labeled as, her conviction, her sentencing, and leading up to her death. This paper will also include some of the movies that were inspired by Aileen Wuornos’ life, but for the majority of this case …show more content…
But when they do commit murders, they tend to commit them in a more passive aggressive manner, and it is usually a one time event, either against their husband, or a family member. What causes them to commit homicide in a more violent way? Could it play into how they were raised, or mental illness, which happens to even more rare in serial killers? There could be a multitude of reasons to cause a person to be more violent than any other non-murderous individual. There is a hypothesis that women are more likely to become serial killers if they participate in deviant behaviors throughout their early adolescent years, deviant behavior being, smoking, drinking and high level of sexual activity, could go unnoticed in the bigger picture, their deviant behavior can reflect feelings of low self-esteem (Schurman-Kauflin, 2000, p. …show more content…
Her parents had a violent marriage, her father was arrested multiple times for petty crimes but to avoid prison he enlisted in the army, seven months after her father enlisted Diane gave birth to Aileen. Her mother abandoned Aileen and her brother, when they were four and five, at their maternal grandparents house. Her grandparents eventually adopted Aileen and her brother, changing their last name from Pittman to Wuornos in 1960 (Kelleher & Kelleher, 1998, p. 76). When she turned eleven she had already began to engage in deviant activities, such as prostituting herself for cigarettes, drugs, and food. From the time she was eleven, she claimed that her grandfather sexually abused her, by the time she was fourteen she had already had a baby and by fifteen she dropped out of school and had already become a ward of the state and her brother was put on the streets (Kelleher & Kelleher, 1998 p. 76-77). After her brother died in 1976, Aileen was left with a life insurance policy of no more than 10,000 dollars, but after two months the money was gone and she made her way to Florida by prostitution and hitchhiking (Kelleher & Kelleher 1998, p. 77). During this same time period of her life it was just multiple run-ins with law enforcement, the majority of them were for minor offenses and she solved them with fines adding up to the total of one hundred and five
Most female serial killers kill people they are emotional close to, like their children or husbands, and mostly for material gains. When they do kill these individuals, they use less physical and more low-profile means like poison. However, Aileen killed men she had just met for no reason, other then claiming that they had raped her. She also murdered them using a .22 caliber pistol, shooting them more than once, and then disposing of their bodies like a typical male serial killer. She was also involved in a homosexual relationship when these murders were committed. Taking this into account, Freud would argue that she suffered from his theory of penis envy (?). This theory states that girls, around the age of three and six, begin to develop a desire to have a penis and have a sense of inferiority and jealousy about not having one (?). This desire is usually repressed near the end of the phallic stage of Freud’s psychosexual stages of development. However, Freud would state that her penis envy and feelings of inferiority were never resolved and led to her committing these murders the way that she did and her involving herself in a homosexual
Aileen Wuornos was born on February 29, 1956 in Rochester, Michigan; at a young age she and her brother, Keith, were raised by their grandparents, after her parents divorced just months before Aileen was born. Her father, a career criminal, was later convicted of kidnapping and raping a seven year old girl and eventually hung himself in his prison cell. Wuornos grandparents drank heavily and parented with strict authority. Wuornos would later say that she was sexually abused by her grandfather and had sexual relations with her brother. She became pregnant at the age of 14, and the baby was given up for adoption, and was forced out of her home and lived in the woods. She was arrested during the mid 1970s for charges related to assault and disorderly
Andrea Yates was a will educated women by all means, “she was the class valedictorian, captain of the swim team and an officer in the National Honor Society. She completed a two-year pre-nursing program at the University of Houston and then graduated in 1986 from the University Of Texas School Of Nursing in Houston. She worked as a registered nurse at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center from 1986 until 1994.” (Montaldo, n/a) Andrea met her husband, Rusty Yates at the apartment complex that she lived in. Andrea and Rusty after little time to together decided to get married in April of 1993. They seemed to be the perfect couple and started to have a family saying that, “they planned on having as many children as nature provided.” (Montaldo, n/a) In total the Yates had five wonderful children together, five boys and one girl ranging in ages from seven years old to seven months old.
As the years goes by, Wuornos life was becoming unstable and a nightmare. As a result, Wuornos childhood is well defined on how and why she became a criminal and killed those seven men victims. Her life consists of abandonment, mental and physical abuse by family, peers and neighborhood. While her mother was a teenager when she gave birth to Wuornos. Her father was absent in her life and abuse her mother. After he absent father was in jail for the rape of an underage child. Wuornos was abandoned by her mother as a teenager and left with grandparents. On the video stated she was emotional, sexually and physical abused by both grandparents. She became a prostitution to earn a living in the street of Florida. The life of Wuornos could be associated in with a diverse of theories of crime behavior. There are three various theories that could describe the life and subsequent in crimes of Aileen Wuornos. These three theories consist of biological/biosocial theory, self-control theory, and social control
She had a low self-esteem, felt abandoned, sexually abused by those that were to care for her. As a child she was sexually promiscuous and having sex with other children to obtain cigarettes, drugs, and food, which is how she came to learn that she could make money in prostitution. When she was 14 she was forced to give up a baby to adoption. She never got to meet the little boy that was born on March 23, 1971 who was born at a home for unwed mothers, (“The Child of A Serial Killer: Aileen Wournos’s Son,” 2017) another issue of abandonment. After her brother passed away, she once again felt abandoned, which helped fuel her fire for the hatred of
Some of the social factors that affect Andrea Yates were mentioned to you previously before. Her family had a history in mental illness and they had sought professional help. This made her susceptible for mental illness. She was a bright young girl, didn’t date, but went to college for a degree in nursing. Eventually ending up marrying Russell Yates and proceeding with 5 children. After her first son was born she had told the doctors that Satan told her to get a knife and stab someone. She has more children and then a breakdown where she attempts suicide by overdosing on her father’s Trazadone. She was taken to a
As years go on so will the research on serial killers and hopefully we as a society will fully understand them and one day be able to cure whatever inside that makes them have the urge to kill. Works Cited The Electronic Journal of Sociology, published by the University of Guelph, Ontario. http://www.scribd.com/doc/167086215/How-Serial-Killers-Work. According to the article “10 Most Common Traits of Potential Serial Killers By Hestie Barnard Gerber. According to Comrade Chikatilo: The Psychopathology of Russia's Notorious Serial Killer.
They have no sense of remorse or guilt. Most of the time they are not in serious relationship or have any emotional obsession with any one person, besides their victims. Most of the well-known serial killers are: Robert Pickton, Charles Manson, Anthony Sowell, Ted Bundy, The Zodiac Killer, The Green River Killer, and The BTK murderer. (Sanmartn, 2001). Often, women were never seen as even a suspect in a serial murder, but little did they know, women were just as bad as men.
The FBI defines serial killing as “the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s) in separate events” (Farrell, Keppal, & Titterington, 2011, p. 231). While individuals who partake in such activity do receive a large amount of attention, the female parts of this population are vastly under recognized. Female serial killers receive little academic attention, even though they are a complex and dynamic group to study (p. 229). Women make up 15% of American serial killers, with 36 known to be active in the last century (p. 230). It is speculated that at any given time there are 50-70 serial killers in the United States, and approximately 7-8 of them are female (Schurman, 2000, p. 12).
Andrea Yates’ life started out completely normal. She graduated number one in her high school class, became a registered nurse for the Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and met the love of her life and got married. Her life sounds as normal as anyone’s does. Four months after she gave birth to her fourth child, something changed. She tried her first suicide attempt by swallowing 40-50 sleeping pills. She was hospitalized to a psychiatric facility and diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Her doctor’s attempt to medicate her was unsuccessful. She was discharged due to insurance restrictions and according to Charles Patrick Ewing, a forensic psychologist and attorney who wrote the book Insanity, Murder, Madness, and the Law “her family contracted to keep a close eye on the patient.” Several months following her hospitalization, her mental health declined. She lost 13 pounds, had no energy, slept all day, and had memory and conce...
Often considered America’s first female serial killer, Aileen Wuornos was neither first nor the worst. She had been suspected of committing at least seven murders and was sentenced to four of cases she had confessed to police. All the while, she maintained her innocence claiming that some or all of the killings were in self-defense.
She was raised by her grandmother together with her brother and evidently lacked the parental guidance as a child since her mother had abandoned her when she was only four years old (Seal, 2014). Her father on the other hand was a known child molester and psychopath who later hanged himself in prison. This is an evident genealogical aspect and coupled with the assertions mentioned above; these are some of the biological developmental and environmental factors that may have led to her indulgence in crime. Aileen also claims that she became pregnant at a tender age of 14, a pregnancy that she inconsistently blames on either her grandfather’s friend or her brother. The decision to adopt the baby could also be a resound proof that it could have altered her attitudes when growing up and it is also backed up by the fact that she chose a woman for a spouse and not a man (Frei, Graf & Dittmann, 2006). This is a factor that can be pegged on the fact that she probably grew a hatred for men after being impregnated by an individual she knew too
So what makes a serial killer? Levin points out that contrary to popular belief, serial killers don't just 'snap'; or 'go crazy'; (Douglas, p. 137). Many of the serial killers have been the victims of childhood abuse. Jack Levin stated 'Research shows many serial killers suffered abuse, incest or neglect as children and develop poor self images'; (Douglas, p. 137). Serial killers often have a childhood marked by the absence of any nurturing relationship. 'They often come from families where the parents were absent or ineffective, where authority was not defined, and where they could engage in destructive behavior undeterred-violent play, cruelty to animals, and incidents of arson being some of the childhood behavior patterns noted among many serial killers'; (Clark, p. 206).
In order to identify serial killers before they kill repeatedly, a person needs to study the characteristics that makes up this type of criminals. Most serial killers have been abandoned, by one or both parents, they are emotionally, physically, and even sexually abused by a family member, or relatives from unstable families who have criminal, psychiatric and alcoholic histories, or tend to have hate for their parents and people in general which makes them have antisocial personality disorder. They have conflicted pain or tortured animals at a young age and most are highly interested in gaining control over things. Even though not every serial killers posses these characteristics, but most share these characteristics the same way they share the psychological need to have complete control and power over people.