The Famous Female Serial Killer: Aileen Wuornos

Aileen Wuornos

Aileen Wournos was an infamous female serial killer, who went on a year-long killing spree along Florida highways from 1989 to late 1990. Wuornos was accused of slaughtering seven middle-aged men, and convicted for six. The killer escaped authorities for about a year using numerous aliases, including Susan Lynn Blahovec, Lori Kristine Grody, and Cammie Marsh Greene. She was eventually tracked down, with the help of her girlfriend, and imprisoned with six consecutive death sentences for first degree murder. Aileen was executed on October 9, 2002 at Florida State Prison (Jones 2009).

Aileen was born in Rochester, Michigan on February 29, 1956. Her father, a convicted child molester, was killed in prison, and her mother abandoned

Aileen would use her position as a prostitute to lure out middle aged white men to remote areas along the road. She would pull her victims from their vehicles, shoot them multiple times, hide their bodies, and steal their cars. Authorities eventually tracked her down after finding her fingerprints on the door handle a vehicle she had stolen from one of the men she killed. Wuornos was tricked into confessing her many crimes when her girlfriend, Tyria Moore, began working with Florida police to catch the killer. In the month of January 1991, Aileen gave a phone confession, claiming sole responsibility for her crimes. In order to protect her girlfriend, Aileen added to her confession by saying “The reason I’m confessin’ is there’s not another girl. I did it. There is not another girl.” (Biography.com Editors

Aileen had spent almost ten years in the Florida State Prison waiting for her execution date. Her death was delayed for nearly a decade because the state was unsure that Wuornos was mentally aware of her punishment. However, it was later determined that she was intellectually able to understand her situation, and her death sentence was reinstated. Although she had the option to choose her final meal in prison, she declined and only received a cup of coffee. Before her she was killed, Aileen sold her story, which would later be turned into three movies, two books, a comic book, and an opera. Her last words were, “I’d just like to say I’m sailing with the rock, and I’ll be back like Independence Day, with Jesus June six. Like the big mothership and all, I’ll be back” (Clark County Prosecuting Attorney). Wuornos was the first woman in history to fit the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations’ profile of a serial killer (ABC News