Aileen Wuornos' reign of terror span from late 1989 to late 1990, she was sentenced to death for 6 of the 7 murders. She maintained that she was innocent up until her death.
#serialkillerdocumentary #aileenwuornos #florida
#serialkillerdocumentary #aileenwuornos #florida
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00:00Hello and welcome to the Dark Mystery Lounge.
00:03Today we are going to take a trip back to my beloved state of Florida for one of the most notorious serial killers the state has ever seen, Eileen Wuornos' case.
00:12Yes, Ted Bundy was bad, but he kind of ended his reign of terror in Florida, whereas Eileen committed murders only in Florida.
00:19She's one of those ladies who only gained fame for being dubbed the first female serial killer by the press.
00:25She's rare in that her murders were a people she didn't know.
00:29She didn't use poison or was a caretaker of any sorts.
00:32Plus, I want you to keep something in mind that we discussed in the Candace Newmaker video about reactive attachment disorder.
00:39Now, I'm not a psychologist or any kind of doctor, but she does display some behaviors that could point to it.
00:46I also felt a bit sad for her at times while researching her case.
00:50So let's go ahead and get right into this, shall we?
00:52Eileen Wuornos was born Eileen Carol Pittman on February 29, 1956.
01:04Yes, she was born on Leap Day in Rochester, Michigan to Diane Wuornos and Leo Dale Pittman.
01:10Diane was only 14 when she married Leo, who was 18 at the time.
01:13She gave birth to Eileen's brother Keith on March 14, 1955.
01:18After less than two years of marriage and two months before Eileen was born, Diane filed for divorce.
01:24She gave birth to Eileen at the age of 16.
01:26She never met her father because he was in prison at the time she was born.
01:30He was convicted of raping a seven-year-old girl and was a suspect in a child murder case.
01:36He was also diagnosed with schizophrenia.
01:37He committed suicide by hanging in prison on January 30, 1969.
01:43When she was almost four years old, Eileen and her brother were abandoned at their maternal grandparents' house.
01:48The only time they would ever see their mother was at funerals.
01:52Lori and Britta Wuornos, both alcoholics,
01:55Britta would show lots of love and affection towards the children.
01:58Lori was the opposite.
02:00Violence was very much the norm in that house.
02:02Even with all of this going on, Lori and Britta legally adopted them.
02:06The kids always believed that their grandparents were actually their parents and that their mom was their sister.
02:12Eileen was a quiet child in school.
02:14No one would ever want to play with her on the school playground during recess.
02:18She would just sit on the steps.
02:20She looked very lonely and scared.
02:21Even though she was quiet, she did have a quick temper if someone were to make fun of her.
02:26At home, Eileen was beaten almost on a daily basis,
02:29often being forced to clean the leather strap she was beaten with after it was over.
02:33She was also being sexually assaulted by her grandfather as well.
02:37She never could develop any kind of attachment to anyone in her life.
02:40The only people she ever had any kind of relationship with was her grandmother and her brother.
02:46At the age of around 9 or 10, her and Keith would perform sexual acts on each other,
02:51and kids around the neighborhood knew it was going on.
02:54She became more of a wild child as she grew up,
02:57often sneaking out at night and going to a patch of woods at the end of the street,
03:01known as The Pits.
03:03There were three small lakes back there, and no houses were developed at that time.
03:07So it was a good spot for kids and teens to hang out and have bonfires.
03:11Out in these woods, Eileen would strip off her clothes and perform sex acts for loose change or cigarettes.
03:17Boys had no problem using her for sexual favors,
03:20but would never want to date her or be seen with her,
03:23even though she wanted some kind of positive attention from them.
03:26They would just push her down and call her mean names.
03:29She had a neighborhood nickname the kids gave her, The Sick Pig.
03:33No one would have really noticed Eileen if it wasn't for her doing these things she was doing.
03:38She really didn't have much self-worth.
03:40At the age of 12, Keith and Eileen learned the truth about who their parents really were.
03:45Feeling that they were being lied to made them feel worse than ever.
03:49Dawn Botkins really was the only friend that Eileen really had.
03:52She saw the good side of her.
03:54She described Eileen as quiet, but when she would get to drinking too much,
03:58she felt like everyone was after her.
04:00She would become very paranoid.
04:02One time she had enough money to throw a party at her house.
04:05She was so excited and happy to throw a party.
04:08Hopefully now she would be accepted.
04:10Once the party was going off, the other kids would kick her out of her own party.
04:14So nothing she could do would ever make her feel accepted by her own peers.
04:18She started running away from home more often and slept out in the woods.
04:22In 1970, at the age of 14, she became pregnant, having been raped by a friend of her grandfather.
04:28She was sent to a home for unwed mothers and gave birth to a 7-pound baby boy on March 23, 1971.
04:36And the child was placed for adoption.
04:38Soon after the birth, her grandmother would die of liver failure.
04:42At 15, she dropped out of school and her grandfather kicked her and her brother out of the house.
04:47She survived out in the same woods, prostituting, often sleeping out in the snow.
04:53Eileen figured it was too cold to stay here in Michigan, so she hit the road.
04:57Hitchhiking and hooking to get to some place that was warmer.
05:04Eileen hitchhiked all over the country.
05:06She found comfort around bikers and other people who were on the fringes of society,
05:11because they were a lot like her.
05:12Wild and crazy people who didn't judge her because they weren't exactly saints themselves.
05:17She got into some trouble while in Colorado, where she was arrested for DUI, disorderly conduct,
05:23and firing a .22 caliber pistol from a moving vehicle.
05:26She was later charged with failure to appear.
05:28She hitchhiked down to Florida, where she met 69-year-old Yacht Club President Louis Fell.
05:34They got married quickly, but the marriage fell apart as quickly as it started,
05:38after Eileen beat Louis with his own cane.
05:41The marriage was annulled within only nine weeks, and he even filed a restraining order against her.
05:46She got into petty crimes like assault after getting herself involved in a bar fight.
05:52She briefly went back up to Michigan, where she was arrested for assault and disturbing the peace
05:57after throwing a cue ball at a bartender's head.
06:00On July 17, 1976, her brother Keith died of esophageal cancer,
06:05and Warnos received $10,000 from his life insurance.
06:08In August 1976, Eileen was given a $105 fine for drunk driving.
06:15She used the money inherited from her brother to pay the fines and spent the rest within two months
06:20buying luxuries including a new car, which she wrecked shortly afterwards.
06:24She attempted to commit suicide in 1978 at the age of 22 by shooting herself in the stomach.
06:30This isn't the first time.
06:32She has attempted to commit suicide a total of six times since the age of 14.
06:36Later, she was arrested again for armed robbery of a convenience store,
06:40where she stole $35 and two packs of cigarettes.
06:43She spent more time in prison.
06:45She kept getting arrested for more petty crimes like forging checks, stealing a gun,
06:50car theft, resisting arrest, obstruction of justice, and much more.
06:54It seemed like wherever Eileen went, trouble followed her.
06:58But in 1986, Eileen met Tyria Moore, a 24-year-old hotel maid at a Daytona Beach gay bar called Zodiac.
07:06They fell head over heels in love with each other.
07:09She supported the two of them by prostitution, which Tyria was fully aware of.
07:14In Tyria, she finally found a stable relationship where she didn't feel as threatened as she did when she was around men.
07:20And Tyria wasn't really asking for anything out of Eileen.
07:24She just wanted love. I think for the first time in her life, Eileen felt like she could relax a bit.
07:30Now Eileen, or Lee as she was being called, was in her 30s, her looks began to fade.
07:36So it was becoming harder and harder for her to make any money as a prostitute.
07:40Even though Tyria, or Ty as she was called, earned a stable living as a maid in an upscale hotel,
07:47it wasn't enough to support their partying kind of lifestyle.
07:50So Ty would press Lee to earn more and more money, but all Lee wanted to do was spend time with her.
07:55The only time Ty would spend time with her is if she got money.
07:59So Eileen had to come up with a way to get the money she needed to keep her girlfriend.
08:06On November 30th, 1989, Eileen was picked up by 51-year-old Richard Mallory, who owned an electronic store in Clearwater.
08:14Eileen claimed that she was beat, raped, and sodomized after he drove her to an abandoned area for sexual services.
08:21She claims that she shot him in self-defense.
08:23Later, it became known that Mallory previously had been convicted for attempted rape in Maryland.
08:29A couple of days after the murder, police discovered his abandoned car.
08:32On December 13th in Volusia County, his body was found several miles away in a wooded area, very badly decomposed.
08:39He had been shot several times, and two bullets to the left lung were found to have been the cause of death.
08:45She stole everything of value and covered up his body with a piece of carpet.
08:50Then there was David Spears, age 47, a construction worker in Winter Garden.
08:55He was declared missing on May 19th, 1990.
08:58On June 1st, 1990, his naked body was found along U.S. Route 19 in Citrus County.
09:05He had been shot six times by a .22 caliber pistol.
09:08Charles Karsgaden, age 40, part-time rodeo worker, was murdered on May 31st, 1990.
09:16His body was found on June 6th, 1990, in Pasco County.
09:20He had been shot nine times with a .22 caliber pistol.
09:23His naked body had been wrapped in an electric blanket and was badly decomposed when they found him.
09:29Witnesses saw Eileen in possession of Karsgaden's car, and she had also pawned a gun identified as belonging to him as well.
09:37Peter Sims, age 65, a retired merchant seaman, in June 1990 left Jupiter, Florida for Arkansas, and on July 4th, 1990, his car was found in Orange Springs, Florida.
09:50Tyria and Eileen were seen abandoning the car, and Eileen's palm print was found on the interior door handle.
09:57His body was never found.
09:58Troy Burris, age 50, a sausage salesman from Ocala, Florida, on July 31st, 1990, was reported missing, and on August 4th, 1990, his body was found in a wooded area along State Road 19 in Marion County.
10:15He had been shot twice.
10:16Charles Humphreys, age 56, a retired U.S. Air Force major, former State Child Abuse Investigator, and former Chief of Police, was murdered on September 11, 1990.
10:28On September 12, 1990, his body was found in Marion County.
10:32He was fully clothed and had been shot several times in the head and chest.
10:36His car was found in Suwannee County.
10:38Gino Antonio, age 62, trucker, security guard, and reserve police officer, was found November 19, 1990.
10:48Antonio's naked body was found near a remote logging road in Dixie County.
10:53He had been shot four times.
10:55All he was wearing was a pair of socks.
10:57Five days later, his car was found in Brevard County.
11:01Police were figuring out that they had a serial killer on their hands,
11:04but instead of all the murders being in one county, they were spread all over the state.
11:09Witnesses came forward to say that they saw Eileen and Tyria with Peter Simms' car after they crashed it and ran away.
11:17They checked the pawn shop records, which it is required to have your thumbprint when you pawn something,
11:22match the pawn print that was left in Peter Simms' car.
11:25Even though Eileen told Tyria what she was doing, she didn't say a word.
11:29Never reported her to the police.
11:31But then Ty got scared and fled back to her family in Pennsylvania.
11:35Abandoned again, Eileen decided to go drink at her favorite bar, the Last Resort Biker Bar.
11:41Two undercover police spotted her.
11:43They arrested her outside of the bar on January 9, 1991, on an outstanding warrant.
11:49Police found Tyria at her family's home.
11:51She agreed to get a confession out of Eileen in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
11:57It worked.
11:58Eileen confessed to the murders and promised Ty that nothing was going to happen to her
12:03because she was going to take full responsibility for what she did.
12:07Eileen claimed the men had tried to rape her and she killed them in self-defense.
12:14The trial for Richard Mallory went first on January 14, 1992.
12:20To Eileen's shock and dismay, Tyria testified against her, utterly betraying her.
12:25Tears welled up.
12:26This hurt her to the core.
12:27The prosecution was allowed to introduce evidence related to her other crimes to show a pattern of illegal activity.
12:34Her defense lawyer brought into evidence that Mallory was a sex offender,
12:38even obtaining records from the Correctional Institution in Maryland that showed that from 1958 to 1962,
12:46Mallory was committed for treatment and observation resulting from a criminal charge of assault with intent to rape
12:53and received an overall eight years of treatment from the facility.
12:57In 1961, it was observed of Mallory that sociopathic trends, but the judge wouldn't allow the records to be submitted into evidence.
13:06Eileen testified in a detailed story of what happened to her and Mallory, but didn't really seem to sway anyone.
13:13At her sentencing, psychiatrists for the defense testified that Eileen was mentally unstable and diagnosed her with borderline personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder.
13:24On January 27, 1992, Eileen was found guilty and sentenced to death.
13:30On March 31, 1992, Eileen pled no contest to the murders of Charles Humphreys, Troy Burris, and David Spears, saying she wanted to get right with God.
13:40In her statement to the court, she said, in part,
13:43I want to confess to you that Richard Mallory did violently rape me, as I've told you, but these others did not.
13:50They only began to start to.
13:52On May 15, 1992, she was given three more death sentences.
13:56In June 1992, Eileen pled guilty to the murder of Charles Corsgadden, and in November 1992, she received her fifth death sentence.
14:05In February 1993, she pled guilty to the murder of Gino Antonio, and was sentenced to death again.
14:12No charges were brought against her for the murder of Peter Sims, as his body was never found.
14:18In total, Eileen received six death sentences.
14:23With all the trials over, and knowing her appeals would take a long time, Eileen sunk into a deep depression.
14:29She stopped talking to her lawyers, and Arlene Prow, who was the woman that legally adopted her during her trials.
14:36Her lawyer was known on local TV as Dr. Legal.
14:40This was her second lawyer after dumping her public defender.
14:43As the years wore on, she became more and more paranoid.
14:46She began to believe that the police let her continue to kill after the first murder,
14:51so that they could sell her story for books and movies, making money off of her.
14:55She wasn't totally wrong.
14:56Many officers resigned after selling her story for a movie deal, and Tyria did the same thing.
15:02She finally started writing letters to her childhood friend, Dawn Botkins.
15:06She became in charge of Eileen's personal affairs, including her final wishes, when she is finally executed.
15:14She finally let filmmaker Nick Broomfield conduct interviews with her,
15:18where she kept up the same story that she was raped and that she defended herself.
15:23You can see that over the years, she started to have mental issues,
15:27believing that the guards were trying to taint her food with dirt, saliva, and urine.
15:31She had to wash her food in order to eat.
15:34She said she overheard conversations among prison personnel,
15:38quote,
15:38trying to get me so pushed over the brink by them,
15:42I'd wind up committing suicide before the execution,
15:45and wishing to rape me before execution, unquote.
15:48She also complained of strip searches, tight handcuffing, door kicking, frequent window checks,
15:54low water pressure, mildew on her mattress,
15:57quote,
15:57catcalling in distaste and pure hatred towards me, unquote.
16:01But it wasn't all bad for Eileen on death row.
16:04She did a lot of reading, especially the Bible.
16:07She liked to draw, and is very good at it.
16:09She makes these ink drawings that you can only see if you hold them up to the light.
16:14She also listened to a lot of music too.
16:16Finally, Eileen had enough of all of the media circus.
16:20She also learned that the woman that adopted her and her lawyer
16:23were just making money off of her name and stopped trusting them altogether.
16:28With her final appeals processing,
16:30she finally hired a new lawyer to try and fight her appeals.
16:34From 1996 to 2001, they were denied.
16:37Even though all these shady things were happening,
16:40nothing seemed to work in overturning her convictions.
16:43In a 2001 petition to the Florida Supreme Court,
16:46she stated her intentions to dismiss her legal counsel and terminate all pending appeals.
16:52Quote,
16:52I killed those men, she wrote.
16:54Robbed them as cold as ice.
16:56And I'd do it again too.
16:57There is no chance in keeping me alive or anything,
17:00because I'd kill again.
17:02I have hate crawling through my system.
17:04I am so sick of hearing this, she's crazy stuff.
17:08I've been evaluated so many times.
17:10I'm competent, sane, and I'm trying to tell the truth.
17:13I'm one who seriously hates human life and would kill again.
17:17Unquote.
17:17While her attorneys argued that she was not mentally competent to make such a request,
17:23Eileen insisted that she knew what she was doing,
17:26and a court-appointed panel of psychiatrists agreed.
17:29Eileen was tired and was just ready to meet her fate.
17:32Governor Jeb Bush, yes, this guy,
17:38put in a brief stay of execution so she could have a mental evaluation
17:42to see if she was sane enough to be executed.
17:44I honestly want to know what it takes to fail this test.
17:47She clearly was showing signs of possible paranoid schizophrenia,
17:51but I'm not a doctor, so what the hell do I know?
17:53She breathed right through the test,
17:55and once she learned that there was a stay of execution,
17:58she was pissed.
17:59She threatened Jeb Bush, saying he better get that warrant signed,
18:03or there will be bloodshed.
18:05Well, she got her wish.
18:06He signed her death warrant,
18:08and she was shipped off from the Women's Death Road down in the Everglades,
18:11just like old Judy,
18:13and was sent up to the men's prison in Stark, Florida.
18:16The day before her execution,
18:18Nick Broomfield did her last interview.
18:20She spoke about the same talking points as in the previous videos,
18:23about the cops, the food, and how they were using sonic pressure through the intercom
18:29to induce headaches and make her nauseous.
18:31When she would complain about it, they'd just increase it.
18:34She also turned on her interviewer,
18:36quote,
18:36Don later told Nick, after spending time with her,
18:52that she wasn't personally attacking him.
18:54She was just mad at the situation.
18:56According to the documentary Eileen Wuornos' Life and Death of a Serial Killer,
19:01she ate a bucket of KFC and French fries.
19:04Officials say her last meal was just a cup of black coffee.
19:08On October 9, 2002, at 5.30 a.m.,
19:11Eileen was woken up after having a restful sleep.
19:14She was very calm, but not very talkative like she normally is.
19:17She takes a shower and gets dressed.
19:19It's not clear what all she did for the four hours of time she had.
19:23At 9.30 a.m., Eileen was taken to the death chamber,
19:27strapped down, and starting an IV for her.
19:30She asked if she had any last words.
19:32Yes, I would like to say that I'm sailing with the rock, and I'll be back.
19:37Like Independence Day with Jesus.
19:39June 6, like the movie.
19:41Big mothership and all.
19:42I'll be back.
19:43I'll be back.
19:44The lethal cocktail flowed through her veins
19:46as her breath got more and more shallow as the minutes passed.
19:49And by 9.47 a.m., Eileen Wuornos was pronounced dead.
19:54She was 46 years old.
19:55Her body was claimed by her friend Dawn,
19:58who held a small funeral for her.
20:00As for her wishes, Eileen's body was dressed in a black Harley Davidson shirt with wings
20:04because she felt like she earned her wings.
20:07A pair of jeans, a pair of boots with corner toes, and a military belt.
20:11And played the song Carnival by Natalie Merchant,
20:15which she listened to a lot while on death row.
20:17After that, her body was cremated, taken back to Michigan,
20:21where they were scattered under a young tree on Dawn's farm.
20:24She said to Nick during the last part of the documentary
20:27that Eileen is at peace here.
20:29No one to bother her or harass her anymore.
20:32She can finally rest.
20:37There was a media circus after Eileen was executed.
20:40After all, she was only one of two women to be executed in the state of Florida.
20:44Judy Buenoeno being the first,
20:46which I've already done a video on her if you want to check it out.
20:49Most female death row inmates here in Florida
20:52end up having their sentences commuted to life without parole.
20:55Right now, as of the recording of this video,
20:58there are only three women on death row in the Florida Everglades.
21:02One of them has been there for quite a long time now,
21:05so she might be up next for execution.
21:07Her name is Tiffany Cole.
21:09Why she is there is nothing short of horrific.
21:11But as Eileen predicted, there were a lot of movies, books, songs, and documentaries on her.
21:18And she did get to see some of them while she was alive.
21:20She claimed that everything they tried to report as fact was completely wrong
21:25and that they are just painting her in an even worse light.
21:28None of those movies made early on helped her with her case.
21:31I don't think anything would have really helped her.
21:33The evidence against her was more than enough to seal her fate.
21:36Now, I feel like a lot of her behavior as a child
21:39could have gotten her the diagnosis of reactive attachment disorder
21:43or some sort of attachment disorder.
21:45Being sexually abused at a young age,
21:48messing around with her brother and other boys in the neighborhood,
21:51getting pregnant at a young age after being raped,
21:54being lied to about her parental situation.
21:56Yeah, those things will screw up any young mind and twist it into a sick adult.
22:01The whole nature versus nurture thing comes up all the time with serial killers.
22:04And I think hers was nurture for sure.
22:07She wasn't wired to be this way.
22:09This developed from a young age.
22:11Sure, she might have come from parents that leave a lot to be desired.
22:14But everything that she went through,
22:16all the bad treatment, all the neglect and being used,
22:19it was only a matter of time before she would kill someone
22:22or finally succeed with killing herself.
22:25When she was asked if she had her life to do all over again,
22:28what would Eileen have become?
22:30She said an archaeologist, a paramedic, a police officer, firefighter,
22:35or working for the DEA as an undercover officer.
22:38When she was asked if she had any happy memories,
22:41she said she couldn't think of any because of how much hell she had been through.
22:45And that tells you a lot about what that woman went through.
22:48There really isn't much to say about Eileen.
22:54Seems like she was just a product of her environment.
22:56Maybe if she would have been shown love and stability in her life,
22:59then maybe she wouldn't have turned out as screwed up as she was.
23:03Granted, not everyone that experiences the same thing goes out and kills people.
23:07Certainly not.
23:08My childhood wasn't perfect either,
23:10but those thoughts never crossed my mind in any way.
23:13And I'm really not trying to excuse what she did.
23:15I just want to show that there's more to a person than just,
23:19oh, he or she is evil,
23:20strapped in the old sparky and put them out of our misery.
23:23By digging to the root of the problem and seeing what happened in their life,
23:27then perhaps we can spot it when someone is in trouble and help them in some way.
23:31I don't believe that anyone is born to kill.
23:34It all happens due to their childhood and their upbringing.
23:37Something bad happens in their life that triggers that side,
23:40and once they've had a taste,
23:42either it will scare them off or make them want more.
23:45It's happened to way too many people.
23:46Anyways, I did watch the documentaries that Nick Broomfield made,
23:50and they were done very well.
23:52Eileen Wuornos, Selling of a Serial Killer,
23:54and Eileen Wuornos, Life and Death of a Serial Killer.
23:58Those two shed so much light on what was really going on,
24:01and yes, I did watch Monster.
24:03Charlize Theron did a fantastic job getting into the mind of Eileen.
24:07For a brief moment, I almost forgot that that wasn't Eileen.
24:10But in the back of my mind while watching it,
24:13I kept thinking, yeah, she was right.
24:15She's just a cash cow for these people.
24:17Well, if you made it this far into the video,
24:19thank you for sticking around until the end.
24:21If you really like what I do, subscribe, will you?
24:24Be sure to hit that like button if you enjoyed this video,
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24:33You never know who I will cover next.
24:34Thank you for hanging out with me in the Dark Mystery Lounge.
24:37This is Phoenix signing out.
24:39Have a good evening and stay safe.
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