Aileen Wournos
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After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers will pay $25 a month as long as they remain active on the Boost Unlimited plan. Forever. Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast. The podcast dedicated to serial killers. Who they were, what they did, and how. I am your Norwegian host, Samus Viborg Thun. Tonight's episode is a bit of a landmark for this podcast, as it marks its one-year anniversary.

One year ago, your humble host published the episode on Jeffrey Dahmer, and I was surprised to find it's quickly garnered many listeners. However, I was very new to this, and I still get negative feedback regarding that episode, as the audio quality is lackluster. The content is at times repetitive, and I speak far too fast for a podcast episode.

I am of the opinion that the podcast has improved over the last 12 months, and I do hope you, dear listener, feel the same way. So tonight we do something new for this show.

First of all, I am recording this episode not from my usual home studio, but from my tent high in the Norwegian mountains. More precise, I am recording in Turtagrø, a beautiful location with a spectacular view of the fjord far below and awesome mountain ranges all around.

So if you hear some background noise in this episode, rest assured that it is just the wind. Also, every episode up until tonight has dealt with a male serial killer. But as you, dear listener, probably know, not all serial killers are male. Quite a few are female.

And tonight's subject is none other than probably the most famous female serial killer in America, if not the world. Imagine, if you will, dear listener, being a young girl between nine to ten years old, born in February 29th, 1956.

and raised in the Rust Belt of America in Rochester, Michigan, where you and most everybody you know are poor. You are at first raised by your single mother, Diane Wurnos, as your father, Leo Dale Pittman, has hung himself in prison after being convicted of raping a seven-year-old girl.

However, your mother leaves both you and your brother, and you are left at the mercy of your grandmother and father, Britta and Laurie Wurnos. The grandfather is an alcoholic, and he regularly beats and berates your grandmother and his children and grandchildren. If you complain, he takes you out back home,

and makes you strip off all your clothes before brutally whipping you with his belt across your buttocks and back. Afterwards, he oftentimes molests you, going as far as rape when you turn ten years old. He invites his friends over for parties and passes you around among his friends. You are made to perform oral sex and have intercourse with several of his friends again and again.

No one shows you love, and you try to buy friends at school by giving boys sexual favors and handing out cigarettes and alcohol to your peers. You get cigarettes and alcohol by selling sex to pedophiles, and you start doing this at the age of 11, and it culminates in you getting pregnant by one of your grandfather's friends at the age of 14. You are not allowed to get an abortion,

and give birth at a home for unwed mothers, only to have the child be given up for adoption immediately afterwards. The only woman who showed you any small token of kindness, your grandmother, passes away only a few months afterwards, of liver failure due to alcoholism. You and your brother, who also regularly molested you during your childhood,

are both thrown out of your grandfather's house at age 15. You put up in a small shack near your childhood home and support yourself as a prostitute. You never had a real childhood. You are never shown any kindness. And your name is Eileen Lee Carroll Wurnos, the Florida Highway Killer of at least seven men.

Diane Wurnos, Eileen's mother, offered to let Eileen and Keith, her brother, come live with her in Texas, but they both declined, as she intended to establish rules and keep order in her household. Eileen, known to friends as Lee, dropped out of high school. She left her home and from her shack in the woods took up hitchhiking and prostitution to support herself.

In the next few years, Keith died of throat cancer, and Laurie committed suicide. Lee was then southward bound and headed for the Sunshine State, Florida. In balmy weather and among many wealthy pensioners, she met, charmed, and married an elderly man named Louis Fell, who had a comfortable income from railroad stocks.

The marriage was short. Fell obtained a restraining order and an annulment after Lee was arrested for hurling a cue ball at a bartender's head back home in Michigan. She claimed she had squandered his money and beaten him with his cane when he was not forthcoming with even more cash.

Keith's life insurance had paid off well for Lee. She received $10,000, but she burned through that money in just two months, traveling all over the American Deep South. She drifted back to Florida and embarked on a decade of failed relationships and small-time crime.

On the 20th of May, 1981, Vurnus was arrested in Edgewater, Florida, for the armed robbery of a convenience store, where she stole $35 and two packs of cigarettes. She was sentenced to her first day in prison on May 4, 1982, and released just over a year later on the 30th of June, 1983. From time to time, she turned tricks.

She worked as a so-called exit-to-exit interstate hooker. If you, dear listener, are not familiar with that term, it means a hooker that stands on the road shoulder near interstate highway exits, waiting to be picked up by a customer. The customer, often referred to as a john, then has his way with her in his car, before dropping her off at the next interstate highway exit ramp.

These hookers are usually the most haggard and cheap. But even so, Lee's marketplace value was on a rapid decline. When she met 24-year-old Tyria Moore at a Daytona gay bar in 1986, Lee was lonely and angry and ready for something new. As you, dear listener, might have seen in the movie Monster, where Eileen is portrayed by Charlize Theron,

Eileen had an epiphany when she met Tyria, called Ty. She showed her love and tenderness, something she had never experienced before, and for a while it was great. Ty loved her, and didn't leave her. She even quit her job as a motel maid for a while, and allowed Lee to support her with her prostitution earnings.

According to interviews, the two started out as passionate lovers, letting Lee experience lovemaking that was not based on money or violence for the very first time in her life. Their passionate feelings for each other cooled, though, and money ran short. Their relationship changed from hot-burning passion to that more similar to sisterhood.

Still, Ty stayed with Lee, following her from cheap motel to cheap motel, with stints in old barns or in the woods in between. They ate cheap fast food and snacks from gas stations, and both consumed a lot of alcohol. Lee's market value as a prostitute, never spectacular, fell even more.

She had developed a very haggard appearance, with pockmarks, deep wrinkles, a sagging body, and general bad hygiene due to her vagabond lifestyle. Their existence, meager though it was, became even harder to maintain. Clearly, something had to change. Richard Mallory liked a change now and again, too.

The middle-aged owner of a Clearwater, Florida, electronics repair business was known to close up shop abruptly and disappear for a few days at a time on drinking and sex binges. He changed the locks to his apartment eight times in three years. He kept employees at his business only long enough to clear the backlog of work that accrued during one of his disappearances, letting them go once his repair orders were caught up again.

His only constants were alcohol, sex, and paranoia. So when he didn't show up to open his shop in early December 1989, no one thought much of it. There was no one close enough to him to notice he was gone. It wasn't until his 1977 Cadillac was found a few days later outside Daytona that anyone knew anything was amiss.

On December 13th, 1989, Jimmy Bonchi and James Davis were looking for scrap metal along a dirt road close to Interstate 95 in Volusia County, Florida. Instead of saleable junk, they found a body wrapped in carpet. Fingerprints carefully taken from the badly decomposed hands proved that this was Richard Mallory.

He had been shot three times with a .22 caliber revolver, and he died as a result of the two bullets penetrating his left lung, causing him to drown in his own blood.

Several months of investigation into Mallory's sordid lifestyle and somewhat shady acquaintances produced no real leads. Initial suspicion revolved around a stripper who went by the name of Chastity, but the evidence, what little there was of it, didn't add up. Mallory's case went cold.

On May 5th, 1990, the body of an unidentified male was found naked in Brooks County, Georgia, close to Interstate 75 and just across the state line from Florida. Two .22 caliber slugs were found in the remains, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation had no leads to the identity of their mysterious corpse.

On June 1st, another unidentified naked male body was found in the woods of Citrus County, Florida, about 40 miles north of Tampa. Police initially suspected Matthew Cocking, a surveyor who had found the body, as he was known to carry a gun and spewed profanity and threats at anyone who questioned him about his find.

However, the identification of the body on June 7th, 1990, as that of David Spears of Bradenton, Florida, cleared cocking. Spears had been a heavy machinery operator from Sarasota, Florida. He had been shot six times with a .22 caliber revolver. All six bullets had entered the torso, and unconsciousness and death is thought to have occurred quickly due to shock and rapid blood loss.

It took police another week to effect identification via dental records, and they discovered he had been missing since the 19th of May. His truck was found shortly after that on Interstate 75, with the doors unlocked and the license plate missing. Meanwhile, 30 miles south in Pasco County, yet another naked body was found a few miles off Interstate 75. This one was discovered on June 6th,

and was so badly decomposed that medical examiners were not able to obtain fingerprints and could not estimate time of death. The body had nine bullets found in it. The bullets were damaged by the decomposition, but were determined to have come from a .22 caliber weapon.

Detective Tom Muck, a 17-year veteran investigator from the Pasco County Sheriff's Office, had no immediate luck identifying his John Doe, later determined to be Charles Karskadon, but had heard about the case in Citrus County. He notified Citrus County Sheriff's Investigator Marvin Padgett about the similarities and told him to stay in touch.

Searching further for leads, he called the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and was told of their own mystery guest. Again, he noted similarities, but didn't feel he had enough information to put together an investigation. And so it was, dear listener, that on July 4th,

Independence Day. A car careened off State Road 315 near Orange Springs, Florida, and came to rest in some brush. Rhonda Bailey, who was sitting on her porch at the time and watched the accident happen, said two women clambered frantically from the car, throwing bear cans into the woods and swearing at each other.

The brown-haired woman said little. The blonde, whose arm was bleeding from an injury sustained in the crash, did most of the talking. She begged Bailey not to call the police, saying her father lived just up the road. She and her companion got back in the car, which now had a smashed windshield and other damage, and got it out of the brush. The crippled vehicle didn't take them far, though.

Hubert Hewitt of the Orange Springs Volunteer Fire Department responded to a call about the accident and asked the two women if they had been the ones in the car. The blonde cursed at him and said no, they had not, and they did not want any help. He left them alone, and they walked on. Marion County Sheriff's deputies found the car where the women had left it.

It was a 1988 Pontiac Sunbird, grey with four doors. The glass in the front doors, as well as the windshield, was smashed. There were apparent bloodstains throughout the interior, and the license plate was missing.

A computer search, based on the VIN number, revealed that the car belonged to Peter Seams, who had disappeared on June 7th after leaving his home in Jupiter, Florida, to visit relatives in Arkansas. Seams was a 65-year-old retired merchant seaman who devoted much of his time to Christian outreach ministry.

John Wisnecki of the Jupiter Police, who had been working the case since Seams was reported missing, sent out a nationwide teletype containing descriptions of the two women. He also sent a synopsis of the case and sketches of the women to the Florida Criminal Activity Bulletin. Then he waited. He was not optimistic about finding Seams alive. Troy Bureas

Left on his delivery route from Gilchrist's Sausage early on the morning of the 30th of July. When he didn't return that afternoon, Gilchrist's manager, Johnny May Thompson, started calling around and discovered Biores hadn't shown up at his last few delivery stops. Late that night, she and her husband went out looking for him. At 2 a.m.,

Buress's wife reported him missing. At 4 a.m., Marion County Sheriff's deputies found his truck on the shoulder of State Road 19, 20 miles east of Ocala. It was unlocked, and the keys were missing. So was Buress. He was found five days later, and he was found dead.

A family out for a picnic in the Ocala National Forest happened upon his body in a clearing just off Highway 19, about eight miles from where his truck was found. The Florida heat and humidity had hastened decomposition, precluding identification at the scene, but his wife identified his wedding ring.

He had been killed with two shots from a .22 caliber revolver, one to the chest and one to the back. When media reports of homicides by gun, they often fail to inform the public of how such a murder actually works. From movies and magazines, one are often led to believe that being shot in the chest and back is not very painful and a rapid way to die,

However, unless you are shot in the heart or main artery, death is far from instantaneous. Bureas was shot both in the back and front. Probably, he was first shot in the front, causing him to fall to the ground, face down. Aileen then shot him in the back. Neither of the bullets hit Bureas' heart, and as such, he probably died in the same manner as Manning,

Blood would have started hemorrhaging in one or both lungs, causing him to experience a lot of blood bubbling up into his mouth and a drowning sensation. The bullet wounds themselves were probably extremely painful. Many people think that life-threatening wounds somehow aren't painful due to shock, but most times the wounds cause a massive increase in adrenaline levels, making the victim hyperconscious.

All feeling of pain is increased, and the victim is very aware of his wounds and surroundings. Burez would have been in a great deal of pain. He would have been terrified, and he died alone, as Eileen simply left him there to slowly...

and was picked up close to the abandoned truck. It became evident as the investigation progressed, however, that Blanketship was not involved. For the time being, Tilly had no more suspects. Dick Humphreys never made it home from his last day of work at the Sumterville office of the Florida's Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services.

A protective investigator specializing in abused and injured children, he was about to transfer to the department's Ocala office. He was 56, and this was not his first career. Previously, he'd been a police chief in Alabama. He celebrated his 35th wedding anniversary on September 10th. On September 11th, 1990, he disappeared. On the evening of September 12th,

His body was found in Marion County. He'd been shot seven times. Six .22-caliber slugs were recovered from his body. The seventh went through his wrist and was never found. His car was found in late September in Suwannee County. About a month later, the nude body of Walter Gino Antonio was found on a logging road in Dixie County.

Sixty-year-old Antonio was a trucker, a sometime security guard, and a member of the reserve police. He'd been shot four times with a .22-caliber revolver. When he was found on November 19th, he'd been dead less than 24 hours. His car was found five days later across the state in Brevard County. Captain Steve Binagar said,

was commander of the Marion County Sheriff's Criminal Investigation Division, and he knew more about crimes in Citrus and Pasco counties. He could not ignore the similarities and was formulating a theory, along with a multi-agency task force with representatives from counties where victims were found.

"'No one stopped to pick up hitchhikers anymore,' he reasoned. "'So the perpetrator, or perpetrators, of these crimes "'had to be initially non-threatening to the victims. "'He suspected women. "'Specifically, he suspected the two women "'who had wrecked Peter Seam's car and walked away. "'He turned to the press for help. "'In late November, Reuters ran a story about killings, "'saying police were looking for the women.'

Papers across Florida picked up the story and ran it, along with police sketches of the women in question. It didn't take long for the leads to start pouring in, and by mid-December, police had several tips involving the same two women. A man in Homo Sassa Springs said the two women had rented a trailer from him about a year earlier. Their names were Tyria Moore and Leigh.

A woman in Tampa said the women had worked at her motel south of Ocala. Their names, she said, were Tyria Moore and Susan Blachowicz. Another anonymous caller also identified the women as Ty Moore and Lee Blachowicz and said they had brought in an RV in Homo Sassa Springs. Lee Blachowicz was the dominant one, the caller said, and a truck stop prostitute. Both were lesbians.

The major break in the investigation, though, came from Port Orange, near Daytona, Florida. Police there had been tracking the movements of Lee Blahovec and Tyria Moore, and provided a detailed account of the couple's movements from late September to mid-December 1990.

They had stayed primarily at the Fairview Motel in Harbour Oaks, where Blahovec registered as Cammy Marsh Green. They spent a bit of time living in a small apartment behind a restaurant, very near the Fairview, but returned to the motel. In early December they left the Fairview. Blahovec slash Green returned alone and stayed until December 10th.

A quick computer check gave driver's license and criminal record information on Tyria Moore, Susan Blachowicz and Cammie Marsh Green. Moore had no real record, breaking and entering charges against her in 1983, having been dropped. Blachowicz had one trespassing arrest, while Green had no record at all. Additionally, the photograph on Blachowicz's license did not match the one for Green. The Green ID was the one that paid off best.

Volusia County officers checked area pawnshops and found that in Daytona, Cammy Marsh Green had pawned a camera and a radar detector, and had left a requisite thumbprint on the receipt. These items had belonged to Richard Mallory. In Ormond Beach, she pawned a set of tools that matched the description of those taken from David Spear's truck. The thumbprint was the key—

Jenny Ahern, of the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, found nothing on her initial computer search, but came to Volusia County and began a hand search of fingerprint records there. Within an hour, she found what she came for. The print showed up on a weapons charge and an outstanding warrant against a Lori Grody.

A bloody palm print found in Peter Siem's sunbird matched Laurie Grody's prints as well. All this information was sent to the National Crime Information Center. Responses came from Michigan, Colorado and Florida. Laurie Grody, Susan Blachowicz and Cammy Marsh Green were all aliases for none other than Eileen Carol Wernos.

The hunt for Bruno's began in earnest on January 5th, 1991. Pairs of officers, including two undercover as Bucket and Drums, drug dealers down from Georgia, hit the streets hoping to track her down. On the evening of January 8th, Mike Joyner and Dick Martin, in their roles as Bucket and Drums, spotted her at a Port Orange pub.

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Visit betterhelp.com slash serialkiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash serialkiller. They meant for their takedown to develop gradually, as they wanted an airtight case. But Port Orange police entered suddenly and took Burnos outside—

Mike Joyner frantically phoned a command post at the Pirates' Cove Motel, where authorities from six jurisdictions had come to work the case. This development wasn't because of a leak. They surmised these were just cops doing their jobs. Bob Kelly of the Volusia County Sheriff's Office called the Port Orange police station and told them not to arrest Vounos under any circumstances.

The word was relayed to the cops in the nick of time, and Vurnos returned to the bar. Joyner and Martin struck up a conversation with her and bought her a few beers. She left the bar at around ten, declining an offer for a ride. Once again, the cautious takedown was almost ruined. Two Florida Department of Law enforcement officers pulled up behind Vurnos as she walked down Ridgewood Avenue, following her with their lights off.

Officers at the command post made a call and got the FDLE officers off the street, and Vournos made it to her next destination, a biker bar called The Last Resort. Joyner and Martin met her there for a while, drank more beers, shot more bull. They left just after midnight. Vournos didn't leave at all.

She spent her last night of freedom sleeping on an old car seat in the last resort. As a side note, the last resort bar still exists today, and they have a mural consisting of names painted on bricks behind the main bar with what they call their Wall of Fame. Eileen Wurnos's name is on one of the bricks, along with the phrase, I was raped.

The following afternoon, Joyner and Martin were back at the last resort as Bucket and Drums, talking burnos up and wearing transmitters that kept the police surprised of everything that went on. They had planned on making their collar later that night, but the last resort was gearing up for a barbecue and bikers would start pouring in any second. The decision was made at the command post to go ahead with the arrest.

"'Joiner and Martin asked Vournos if she'd like to get cleaned up at their motel room. "'She accepted their offer and left the bar with them. "'Outside on the steps, Larry Horzepa of the Marion County Sheriff's Office approached her, "'told her she was being arrested on the outstanding warrant for Laurie Grody. "'No mention was made of the murders.'

and no announcement was made to the media that a suspect had been arrested. Their caution was wise. As of yet, they had no murder weapon, and no Tyria Moore. On January 10, 1991, Moore was located. She was living with her sister in Pittston, Pennsylvania. Jerry Thompson of Citrus County and Bruce Munster of Marion County flew to Scranton, Pennsylvania to interview her.

She was read her rights, but not charged with anything. Munster made sure she knew what perjury was, swore her in, and sat back as she gave her statement. She had known about the murders since Lee had come home with Richard Mallory's Cadillac, she said. Lee had openly confessed that she had killed a man that day, but Moore told her not to say anything else. "'I told her I didn't want to hear about it,' Moore told Munster and Thomsen.

"'Then any time she would come home after that and say certain things, "'telling me about where she got something, I'd say I don't want to hear it. "'She had her suspicions,' she admitted, "'but wanted to know as little as possible about Lee's doings. "'The more she knew,' she reasoned, "'the more compelled she would feel to report Lee to the authorities. "'And she didn't want to do that.'

"'I was just scared,' she said. "'She always said she'd never hurt me. Then you can't believe her, so I don't know what she would have done.' The next day, Moore accompanied Munster and Thompson back to Florida to assist the investigation. A confession would make the case against Vouranos virtually airtight, and Munster and Thompson explained their plan for obtaining one to Moore on the flight.

They would put her in a Daytona motel and leave her to make contact with Lee in jail, saying she'd received money from her mother and came down to get the rest of her things. Their phone conversations would be taped, and Moore was to tell Vournos that authorities had been questioning her family, that she thought the Florida murders would be mistakenly pinned on her, Moore.

Munster and Thompson hoped that, out of loyalty to Moore, Vournos would confess. The first call from Vournos came on January 14th. She was still under the impression that she was only in jail for the Laurie Grody weapons violation. When Moore broached her suspicions, Vournos reassured her, "'I'm only here for that concealed weapons charge in 86 and a traffic ticket,' she said."

"'And I tell you what, man, I read the newspaper and I wasn't one of those little suspects.' "'She was aware, though, that the jailhouse phone was monitored "'and made efforts to speak of the crimes in code words and to construct alibis. "'I quote, "'I think somebody at work, where you worked at, said something that looked like us,' she said. "'And it isn't us, see. It's a case of mistaken identity.'

For three days the calls continued. Moore became insistent that the police were after her, and it became clear that Wuornos knew what was expected of her. She even voiced suspicion that Moore wasn't alone, that someone was there taping their conversations. But as time passed, she became less careful about what she said. She would not let Moore go down with her.

Just go ahead and let them know what they want to know or anything, she said. And I will cover for you, because you're innocent. I'm not going to let you go to jail. Listen, if I have to confess, I will. End quote. And on the morning of January 16th, 1991, she did. Wurnos came back to two main points over and over during her confession to Larry Horsapah and Bruce Munster.

First, she made it clear that Moore was not involved in any way in any of the murders. Additionally, she was emphatic in her assertion that nothing was her fault, not the murders and not any circumstance that had led her down the criminal path that was her life. All the killings were done in self-defense, she claimed. Each victim had either assaulted her, threatened her or raped her. Her story seemed to develop as she told it.

When she thought she'd said something incriminating, she would back up and retell that part, changing details to suit her overall scenario. She'd been raped several times in the past few years, she claimed, and had had enough. When each of her victims became aggressive, she killed out of fear. Several times...

Michael O'Neill, a public defender from the Volusia County Public Defender's Office, advised Vurnos to stop talking, finally asking in exasperation, Do you realize these guys are cops? Vurnos answered, I know, and they wanted to hang me, and that's cool, because maybe, man, I deserve it. I just want to get this over with.

An avalanche of book and movie authors poured into detectives, relatives, Moore, and even Vurnos herself. Vurnos seemed to think she would make millions from her story, not yet realizing that Florida had a law against criminals profiting in such a manner. She was all over the local and national media. She felt famous, and she continued to talk about the crimes with anyone who would listen, including Volusia County Jail employees.

With each retelling she refined her story, casting herself in a better light each time. Into this tumult came Arlene Prowl, a forty-four-year-old born-again Christian who ran a horse breeding and boarding facility near Ocala. She had seen Vurno's picture in a newspaper and wrote her a letter.

I quote,

"'Prowl advised her that her public defenders were trying to profit from her story, as was everyone else. "'Vurnos asked for and got new attorneys. "'Prowl spoke with reporters, describing her relationship with Vurnos to a Vanity Fair reporter as a soul-binding. "'We're like Jonathan and David in the Bible. "'It's as though part of me is trapped in jail with her. "'We always know what the other is feeling and thinking.'

To another reporter, she said, if the world could know the real Eileen Vurnos, there's not a jury that would convict her. Throughout 1991, Prowl appeared on talk shows and in tabloids, talking to anyone who would listen about what she perceived as Vurnos' true good nature. She arranged interviews for Vurnos with reporters she thought would be sympathetic.

And in this forum, Vurnos continued to tell and embellish her fantastic story. Both Vurnos and Prowl emphasized Vurnos' troubled upbringing, both leveled accusations of corruption and complicity at anyone who was handy, the agents proffering the book and movie deals, the detectives, the attorneys, and especially Tyrion Mawr.

and just when it seemed things couldn't get any weirder, they did. On November 22nd, 1991, Arlene Prowl and her husband legally adopted Eileen Wuornos. Prowl said God had told her to. Wuornos' attorneys engineered a plea bargain, to which Wuornos agreed, in which she would plead to six charges and receive six consecutive life terms.

One state attorney, however, thought she should receive the death penalty. So on January 14th, 1992, Burnos went to trial for the murder of Richard Mallory. The evidence and witnesses against her were severely damaging. Dr. Arthur Botting, the medical examiner who had autopsied Mallory's body, stated that Mallory had taken between 10 and 20 agonizing minutes to die.

"'Tiria Moore testified that Vurnos had not seemed overly upset, "'nervous or drunk when she told her of killing Mallory. "'Twelve men told of encounters with her along Florida's highways over the years. "'Florida has a law, known as the Williams Rule, "'that allows evidence relating to other crimes to be admitted "'if it helps to show a pattern. "'Because of the Williams Rule, "'information regarding the other killings was presented to the jury.'

Vournos' claim of having killed in self-defense would have been a lot more believable had the jury known only of Mallory. Now, with the jury made aware of all the murders, self-defense seemed improbable at best. After the excerpts from her videotaped confession were played, the self-defense claim seemed ridiculous. On the tape, Vournos appeared confident and not at all upset by the story she was telling.

She made easy conversation with the interrogators and repeatedly told her public defender to be quiet. Her image spoke from the screen to the jury. I quote, I took a life. I'm willing to give up my life because I killed people. I deserve to die. End quote. Trisha Jenkins, one of Vurnos' public defenders, did not want her client to testify and told her so, but Vurnos insisted on telling her story.

By now, her account of Mallory's killing barely resembled the one she gave in her confession. Mallory had raped and sodomized her, she claimed, and had tortured her. On cross-examination, Prosecutor John Tanner obliterated any shred of credibility she may have had. As he brought to light all her lies and inconsistencies, she became agitated and angry.

Her attorneys repeatedly advised her not to answer questions, and she invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 25 times. She was the defense's only witness, and when she left the stand, there was not much doubt about how her trial would end. On January 27th, Judge Uriel Blount charged the jury. They returned with their verdict less than two hours later.

They found Vounos guilty of first-degree murder, and as they filed out of the courtroom, Eileen Vounos exploded with rage, shouting, ''I'm innocent! I was raped! I hope you get raped, scumbags of America!'' Her outburst was still fresh in the minds of the jurors, as the penalty phase of her trial began the next day.

Expert witnesses for the defense testified that Vurnus was mentally ill, that she suffered from borderline personality disorder, that her tumultuous upbringing had stunted and ruined her. Jenkins referred to her client as a damaged primitive child, as she pleaded with the jury to spare Vurnus's life. But jurors neither forgot nor forgave the woman they'd come to know during the trial,

With a unanimous verdict, they recommended that Judge Blount sentence her to the electric chair. He did so on the 31st of January, 1992. Vernos did not stand trial again. On March 31st, she pleaded no contest to the murders of Dick Humphreys, Troy Burress, and David Spears, saying she wanted to "'get right with God.'"

In a rambling statement to the court, she said, I wanted to confess to you that Richard Mallory did violently rape me, as I've told you, but these others did not. They only began to start to. She ended her monologue by turning to Assistant State Attorney Rick Ridgeway and hissing, I hope your wife and children get raped in the ass.

On May 15th, Judge Thomas Savaya handed her three more death sentences. She made an obscene gesture and muttered, In June, she pleaded guilty to the murder of Charles Karskadn, and in November, she received her fifth death sentence. In early February of 1993, she was sentenced to die after pleading guilty to the murder of Walter Gino Antonio.

No charges were brought for the murder of Peter Seams, as his body was never found. For a time, there was speculation that Vournos might receive a new trial for the murder of Richard Mallory. New evidence showed that Mallory had served ten years in prison for sexual violence, and attorneys felt that jurors would have seen the case differently had they known this fact. No new trial was forthcoming, though.

The night before her execution, on the 8th of October 2002, Eileen gave her last interview to journalist Nick Broomfield. This interview was recorded, and I am now, dear listener, going to play the entirety of that interview to you. It is about seven minutes long. Here we go. I'm just wondering how you're going to be, you know, at 9.30 tomorrow morning. Are you prepared? I'm...

Alright, I'm alright with it. I'm alright with it. But like I said, remember, let them know that I know that the cops knew who I was after Richard Mallory died. I left prints everywhere and they covered it up and let me kill the rest of those guys to turn me into a serial killer. I know they did because I was no professional killer.

serial killer or anything. Murder or whatever you want to call it. It wasn't special. It was just sloppy work. How do you prepare yourself for tomorrow morning? I'm all right with it. I'm ready to go. I was tortured at BCI. They had the intercom on in the room and they kept lying that it wasn't on and they were using sonic pressure on my head since 1997.

And every time I was trying to write something, and I think they had some kind of eye in the cell, I'm not sure, but every time I started writing something, it went up higher. So I'm thinking that probably had the TV rigged. The TV or the mirror or something was rigged. They got a huge satellite on the compound. After they put the huge satellite on the compound, it could have been either rigged to the TV set or the mirror or something because the electrician, when he put the mirror on the wall, he said, doesn't that look like a computer?

The back of it, and he stuck it to the wall. Did you use it, what? Did that affect your mind, do you think? Huh? Did that affect your mind in some way, sonic? It was crushing my head, and they were using sonic pressure continually. Now, when I had three meetings with Ms. Villacorta on it,

Every meeting I had, she increased the pressure of the volume of the comm, increased the harassment on the floor, increased the trays being inedible,

Just increased every bit of my complaints and trashed all grievances. They were trying to make it look like I was crazy at all times. Rig up the room with torture. If I said anything about it, I think their whole plan was trying to make it look like I was totally crazy so nobody would believe anything I had to say about anything. And then drive me there if they could. I suffered so bad. I was really struggling to survive. Had a lot of trades that were attempted murder and everything. I had to wash all my food off.

Then one day I didn't wash my food off and I was sick for three weeks, almost died. But you're okay now. I'm okay. I'm okay. God is going to be there. Jesus Christ is going to be there. All the angels and everything. And, you know, whatever's on the beyond, I think it's going to be more like Star Trek beaming me up into a space vehicle, man. Then I move on, recolonize to another planet or whatever. But it's whatever's beyond, I know it's going to be good because I didn't do anything as wrong as they said. I did the right thing.

And I saved a lot of people's butts from getting hurt and raped and killed too. So are you saying that you killed in self-defense or in cold blood? Because you've changed your story. I'm just trying to... What are you trying to talk about? Change story on what? About whether it was self-defense or not. I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to get in depth about my cases, Nick. I'm on my way to the chamber. Nothing's stopping it. You can believe it or you don't have to believe it. That's up to you, man. Put a big question mark on your film.

What more is there to say about the cops? What more do you want to say about the cops? A lot of stuff. Did you know that they were surveilling me before I killed? And then I knew it. And that it was covered up. Did you know there was helicopters dropping down from the sky? Deputy Sheriff with decoys picking me up four or five months before my arrest. It was covered up.

But nonetheless, whether the cops were following you or not, Eileen. Oh, whether the cops were following me or not, Eileen, what? Let's say the cops were following you. Let's say they were following you and they did everything that you're saying they did. Nonetheless, you killed seven men. And I'm asking you, what got you to kill the seven men? And I'm telling you because the cops let me keep killing them, Nick. Don't you get it? Not everybody is killing seven people.

So there must have been something in you that was getting you to do it. Oh, you are lost, Nick. I was a hitchhiking hooker. Right. Running into trouble. I'd shoot the guy if I ran into trouble, physical trouble. The cops knew it. When the physical trouble came along, let her clean the streets. Then we'd pull her in. That's why. But how come there was so much physical trouble? Because it was all in one year. Seven people in one year. Oh, well.

Oh, wow. But why not say now? Because I'm at a retaliation for taking my life like this and getting rich off it all these years. And total pathological lying. Yeah, thanks a lot. I lost my fucking life because of it. Couldn't even get a fair trial. Couldn't even get a fair investigation or nothing. Couldn't even have my appeals right. You sabotaged my ass society and the cops and the system. A raped woman got executed.

It was used for books and movies and shit. Bladder climbs, reelection, everything else. I got a big finger on all your faces. Thanks a lot. You're an inhumane bunch of fucking living bastards and bitches. And you're going to get your asses nuked in the end. And pretty soon it's coming. 2019, a rock's supposed to hit you anyhow. You're all going to get nuked. You don't take fucking human life like this and just sabotage and rip it apart like Jesus on the cross. You see, thanks a lot for all the fucking money I made off of you.

They not care about a human being and the truth being told. Now I know what Jesus was going through. They've been trying to tell the truth. And I keep getting stepped on. Concerned about if I was raped. I'm not giving you book and movie info. I'm giving you info for investigations and stuff. And that's it. We're going to have to cut this interview, Nick. I'm not going to go into any more detail. I'm leaving. I'm glad. Thanks a lot, society, for railroading my ass. Okay, let's go.

It was really pretty incredible that Eileen had just sailed through the psychiatric test the day before. It makes you wonder what you'd have to do to fail. Associated Press reported that serial killer Eileen Vournos was executed by lethal injection at 9.47 a.m. Wednesday, October 9, 2002. Lethal injection.

replaced the electric chair as the main form of execution over a decade ago. Lethal injection ideally works the following way: The prisoner is first given a sedative, causing her to go to sleep. Then a muscle relaxant is introduced, preventing the body to spasm. Finally, an injection of poison is injected, causing the lungs and heart to shut down and death to occur.

However, as many of my dear listener probably know, this method of execution often does not work that way. Quite often the sedative wears off before the poison is introduced. This has the effect of the prisoner waking up feeling the poison work its way to the heart and feeling the lungs shut down.

The prisoner will not be able to move as the muscle relaxant prevents movement, but does not prevent the sensation of pain. It usually takes between 20 minutes and 2 hours for the prisoner to be proclaimed dead.

Eileen Carol Vurnos died at the hands of the state more than a decade after she murdered seven men along Central Florida highways while working as a prostitute. I have been your host, Thomas Weyborg Thun. Doing this podcast is a labor of love.

But if you do want to support me, it is greatly appreciated. I have a Patreon account at patreon.com slash the serial killer podcast. And any donation, no matter how small, helps a great deal in order for me to be able to do this podcast. Patrons are continuing to let themselves be known.

Maud, Megan, Thomas, Amanda, Patty, Linda, Justin, and Wendy. Your patronage is duly noted. Thank you very much. I do appreciate it. Also, feel free to visit my website at theserialkillerpodcast.com As always, if you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe to it.

Also, if you feel especially generous, you can leave a review, either at my Facebook page at facebook.com slash the SK podcast, or at your favorite podcast application. Finally, thank you, dear listener, for listening, and join me next time for another tale of serial murder. Good night, and good luck.

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