cover of episode A True Monster or Victim? Aileen Wuornos - Mind of a Monster

A True Monster or Victim? Aileen Wuornos - Mind of a Monster

2023/3/28
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Aileen Wuornos was born in a troubled family, with her mother leaving her and her brother at their grandparents' house. Her father was a convicted sex offender who later committed suicide. Aileen's early life was marked by abuse and neglect.

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If you're new here, hi. I hope you're having a good day, first of all. Second of all, every Monday I sit down and I talk about a true crime story that's been heavy on my...

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So this story has definitely been highly requested. It's a popular one and some would call her the America's first female serial killer, but maybe there's a debate. I'm not sure. I guess it doesn't matter because at the end of the day, that's not a good title to have. Today we're gonna talk about Eileen Wuornos.

I feel like I say her name weird. I've been practicing. Eileen Wuornos was born in Rochester, Michigan on February 29th, 1956. Her mother, Diane Wuornos was 14 years old when she married 16 year old Leo Dale Pittman and they got married on June 3rd, 1954.

Now between the two of them, they actually had a son first, and he was born in March of 1955, and then the couple, they were together for two years, and then Eileen's mother, she became pregnant again, this time with Eileen. Two months before Eileen was born, that's when Diane had filed for divorce from her husband, her then husband.

Eileen, she actually never got the opportunity that we know of to meet her father, because at the time of her birth and throughout most of her life or her childhood, he was in prison. He was arrested and convicted of the rape and attempted murder of a seven-year-old girl.

I know. He was also diagnosed with schizophrenia and he was in and out of prison. He was in and out of mental health hospitals. He would be in and out of prison for various sex crimes against children. So Eileen never got to meet him because then in January of 1969, he committed suicide by hanging himself in prison. Yeah, it's rough right out the gate. So in January of 1960, Eileen was almost four years old at the time. Well, guess what?

Her mom takes Eileen and her brother to their grandparents' house, okay? Takes them off, she tells them like, "Yeah, we're just gonna go visit your grandparents," whatever. She takes them there, she drops them off, and she never comes back back. She ditched them at her grandparents' house. According to the grandparents, they didn't know like this was the plan at all. A couple of months after Eileen's mom dropped her and her brother off at her grandparents' house, I think it was like in March 1960, that's when legally the grandparents would adopt

Eileen and her brother. By the age of 11, Eileen began engaging in sexual activities in exchange for drugs, cigarettes, and food. And she would do this even at school. So with other kids or outside of school as well, which is wild to think at the age of 11, this is what she was doing.

Now, sadly for Eileen and her brother, their home life with their grandparents was awful, just garbage. Eileen would say that her and her brother, they would engage in sexual relations at home together.

I know, but most of all, Eileen would say that her grandfather was an alcoholic and he would assault her and beat her throughout her childhood. He would also rape her. I don't know about the brother. I would assume maybe, but I don't know. So I guess I shouldn't assume anything. Grandfather, a shit bag and it gets worse.

he would allow friends of the family to come on by, come by the home, come on by. And they would participate in the abuse. Let me call it what it is. They would rape Eileen. Again, I'm not sure about the brother, but for Eileen, this was her experience growing up, which is fucked.

Sadly, at the age of 14, Eileen, she becomes pregnant. Ugh, I know, sad, awful, God, how awful of a childhood is this? Now, she becomes pregnant by one of her grandparents' friends. Eileen was in place in a home for unwed mothers, and while there, that's when she would

have the baby and then the baby would be put up for adoption. And this happened in March of 1971. Shortly after giving birth to her baby, Eileen, she goes back to living with her grandparents. It was not long after, that's when her grandmother had died of liver failure. At the same time, Eileen dropped out of school. Now I was trying to like dig around and I'm sure I just simply missed it, but I could not figure out like

Was her grandma aware that Eileen and the kids were being abused? Based off of what Eileen was saying and how bad the abuse was, I feel like how could anybody miss it? I mean, she got pregnant. So I feel like deep down, grandma probably knew, but I also don't know because I didn't fully find the answer. So I shouldn't assume again.

So, okay, Eileen drops out of school. And at this point now she's 15 years old and she's still living now with just her grandpa and her brother as well. At the age of 15, that's when her grandpa would kick Eileen and her brother out of the home. So at this point, Eileen and her brother, they have nowhere to go. They're 15.

her brother went in a different direction and Eileen ended up going to a wooded area that was nearby. She just kind of like lived in there for a little bit until she figured out what she was doing. And then she worked as a sex worker at night to support herself. She's 15. Between this point, like when she moved out at 15 and between the age of 18,

18. Not much is like said as to what she was up to. Her story, because she has shared her story and done a lot of interviews. Her stories tend to change a lot. So it's always like, well, what's the truth? We don't know. Anyhow, so we're gonna fast forward now to May of 1974.

Eileen was 18 years old and she was arrested in Colorado. She was arrested because she was driving under the influence, but also for firing a pistol from a moving vehicle and disorderly conduct. She was later charged with failure to appear for, you guessed it, failing to appear in court. And she was just kind of racking up her record.

In 1976, Eileen, she would end up hitchhiking from Colorado to Florida. And when Eileen was in Florida, that's when she met 69 year old Lewis, who was a yacht club president. He's a little bit older than her, a lot older than her, and he seemed to have money. And the two of them ended up getting married pretty quickly after meeting.

Eileen though, she was still involving herself into a lot of confrontations at local bars. She just liked to fight, I don't think she liked to fight, it's just she obviously has some problems. She has a lot of built up anger, seemed like she just liked to fight all the time. So she would involve herself in confrontations at like their local bar pretty often.

which would eventually lead to her being arrested and sitting in jail for assault because she liked to fight. So she also assaulted her then husband. She attacked him with his own cane. Now this would lead to him actually filing a restraining order against her. And this was like weeks after their marriage. So I don't think their marriage is going too great to say the least. She attacked him with a cane. So after that, after the restraining order and

the fact that she needed to stay away from her then husband. She headed back to Michigan and in July of 1976, that's where she was charged with assault and disturbing the peace for throwing a cue ball at a bartender's head. Eileen, she would just hang out at local bars because one, they're always open really late and two, it's a good place to meet people, hopefully like a

be able to crash on someone's couch, go home with them. So yeah, she was always at bars, getting in fights a lot. So this round she threw a cue ball at a bartender's head. Can't do that. And then July of 1976, Eileen's brother, her older brother, he died of cancer. This is a sad life. I'm sure she had one or two happy moments. I mean, did she? I don't even know.

Her brother dies of cancer. Now he ended up leaving her $10,000 from his insurance money. So she was stoked. Now Eileen would say that she used this $10,000 to pay off a fine that she had just gotten. And then she also got a car, but she blew all $10,000 within two months. And the car that she had purchased, she ended up wrecking it. That didn't last long. May of 1981.

Eileen, she headed back to Florida and when she was there, she actually decided to rob a convenience store. When she was there, she actually got $35 and two packs of cigarettes. A win if you ask me. Now she ended up getting caught and Eileen even said this in an interview. She said she was really sloppy with all of her work and she never really tried to like hide

hide the fact that she was doing illegal stuff. I appreciate her honesty, but this also made me think of another story I was reading about a girl who was saying a lot of the times women who are homeless and kind of doing what she was doing, they purposely try and get caught or just try and be sloppy so they do get caught

and that way they can go to prison, but they'll have somewhere to stay. You have a bed, you have a bathroom and you have food. I don't know if that's what she was doing, but it made me think of that. I thought that was interesting. I never really thought of it like that, but it totally makes sense, right? She gets caught, she's arrested and she ends up doing a year in prison. I'm not even kidding you. Like she gets released after a year, just a couple of days after she gets released, Eileen would be arrested for attempting to pass forged

checks at a bank in Key West. And from then onwards, she constantly was in trouble with the law for crimes like grand theft auto, obstruction of justice, resisting arrest, firearms possession, and robbery. January of 1986, Eileen, she ends up meeting a woman named Tyra Moore, and she meets her at a gay bar in Daytona Beach.

The two hit it off, they're attracted to one another. Eileen has been pretty standoffish when it comes to her relationships. This is what she has said in her previous interviews, knowing what we know now and her upbringing and whatnot, I don't blame her for being standoffish in relationships. Eileen said that like Tyra, Tyra Moore, this young woman that she met,

Her and Eileen just had this like instant connection and easily Tyra became the love of her life, which is romantic in a way. It's romantic, come on. Tyra, she goes by Ty, so I'm gonna say Ty, okay? So the two, they move in together. The relationship moves pretty quickly.

Ty was working as a maid for a hotel. Eileen, she would support them financially with her earnings from her sex work. Eileen would become like the breadwinner and the one who would take care of Ty. So trouble came a knocking and accusations of assault were placed against Eileen. This was at again, a bar and Ty actually came forward and

acted as a witness in her defense. Now this would happen often. It was like they were a team. I think they were a team, safe to say that. Well, Ty would deny it later, but anytime Eileen would get into some kind of trouble, Ty would be there and be a witness. And usually in Eileen's favor, like, "No, she didn't do anything wrong. It was that person first. What are you talking about?" You know, like it was like that. It was kind of smart. And it would get her out of a lot of things. At first, Eileen, all of her

crimes were everything but murder, right? She would rob small stores, she would rob people, she would beat people up, forge checks, anything just to kind of get her by. But of course that didn't last forever because Eileen then upgraded and in 1989 that's when Eileen would go on to murder seven men and she did this within a 12 month period. So and these are seven men that we know of. I feel

I feel like maybe she probably did it, did more. I'm leaving the names of the victims out because I feel like I can't give them a proper backstory and everything. I'm gonna give them a little description. The first victim that was found was a 51 year old male. And he was a store owner of an electronic store in Clearwater, Florida. Eileen would say she killed him end of November.

His body wasn't found until December 13th and he was found in a wooded area which was several miles away from Clearwater. They saw that this victim had been shot several times and there were two bullets that were found in his left lung and those were what caused his death. I guess I will mention this because it kind of ties into the story, but this victim was a convicted rapist who

Eileen claimed to have killed in self-defense. She would go on to say that she was doing her sex work. He would be a client of hers. And when they were alone together, that's when he tried to strangle her and rape her. So she went on to then kill him.

Later on in court, when she would be tried for this one, it was brought up. And when they discovered that he was a convicted rapist, that's when it kind of prolonged the whole trial. And a lot of people believe that it was indeed self-defense. In the end, I think she was just found guilty. I love that I don't know and I'm the one that's telling you. She was found guilty. So that was the first victim. Now go get to canceling. Get back to today's story.

On June 1st, 1990, the body of a 47 year old man was found along route 19 in Citrus County, Florida. Now this victim, he was shot six times. Not much info about him so much, but when police found this, they're starting to maybe link the two together because then they find another victim, 40 year old man. This man, he worked part-time as a rodeo worker

Eileen, she ended up shooting him nine times. He was found in Pasco County, Florida. And this victim was a little different. He was wrapped in an electric blanket and his body was just badly decomposing. So witnesses ended up coming forward and they said that they saw Eileen in possession of this man's car.

So that's when this Eileen lady was now on the radar, okay? So they're looking into her, looking at her background. She's done some shit. Eileen and her girlfriend, Ty, they're constantly moving like within Florida, just kind of moving around, living in different hotels. Again, Eileen would do her sex work at nighttime and make the money to get the hotels. And this victim in his car, there was a gun in the glove compartment.

And Eileen, she ended up finding it 'cause she takes this man's car. So she finds the gun and she's like, "Fuck yeah." Which I don't know why she didn't keep it, but she doesn't. She ends up taking it and pawning it, which was a bad move because it's registered in this guy's name, the victim's name. So Eileen's next victim was a 65 year old merchant seaman.

He devoted much of his time to Christian outreach ministry. Sadly, his body was found in Orange Springs, Florida. Eileen, after attacking and killing this victim, she took his car. There were witnesses who saw Eileen and Ty abandoning the car.

later on and when police went and got the vehicle, they were able to get a palm print on the door, the interior door handle, which linked Eileen to the car. Sadly though, that last victim, his body was never found. Another victim, he was 50 years old and worked as a sausage salesman, was reported missing in July of 1990 and his body would be found

in August in a wooded area along State Road 19. And this victim had been shot twice. Then another one of Eileen's victims was a retired US Air Force major. He was a former child abuse investigator and a former chief of police. I mean, he's like, yeah, he's like an employee.

He's an important man. But sadly he would be Eileen's next victim. His body would be found in September of 1990, been shot six times in the head and the torso. Eileen's last victim was a 62 year old trucker and his naked body was found near remote lodging road in Dixie County. He had been shot four times. Now, this is a side note and a personal opinion at that.

I've seen comments before on other like YouTube videos I've watched of interviews with Aileen and the comment section will be like, well, the guys, the men, the victims, maybe they shouldn't have been, you know, trying to sneak around with a sex worker. Maybe they shouldn't have been trying to get a little blow job from Aileen in the first place. You know, that's just not,

Fair. Nobody should die just for making a bad choice. Eileen and Ty, they're driving around in one of the previous victim's car. They stole it and they end up getting into just a little car accident in front of somebody's home. It was loud, I guess, 'cause it was enough to bring the people inside the house. They came outside to see like, what was that?

What the hell is that noise? So they came to look and they see like these two women just kind of like crashed into a ditch, kind of ruined their car. Now because of this, like the people came outside, it worried Eileen and Ty, 'cause Ty was fully aware of what was going on. They came outside and they were like, do you guys need help? This obviously freaks Eileen out. She's like, oh shit, people are now looking at us. Well, shit.

So Eileen's like, dude, let's get the hell out of here. So Eileen and Ty, they end up just running off on foot. They tell the people like, no, it's okay. Like we're fine. Bye. And they just take off, right? So of course this is concerning to the people inside the home. They're like, dude, what the hell was that? So they call police and then they give a brief description of what the people look like who crashed the car. And that's when police come on. They come on down because

'cause they knew like, oh, these are the girls that we're looking for. So once police actually like got a name and everything, what they did was they ran this huge media campaign trying to locate them or try and get tips as to where the hell they were. They found more and more property which belonged to victims that were pawned

at pawn shops and they were able to lift fingerprints off of some of the items, which again kind of led to Eileen. Eileen had been arrested previously a lot. I'm laughing because like, duh, hello, were you paying attention to the first half? Now, because of this, her fingerprints were on record, right? So when they ran her fingerprints through the system, boom, Eileen. So they were like able to

tag all of this property that was coming forward to Eileen. Well, the ones that they had the framed prints on them. On January 9th, 1991, Eileen would go to a biker bar in Florida called The Last Resort.

That's funny, come on, that's funny. Police were able to arrest her on an outstanding warrant. Eileen was alone, so they went looking for her girlfriend, Ty, who they ended up finding the next day in Pennsylvania. She was way out there. She made a run for it. Eileen said that

her and Ty, they had gotten into an argument and Ty decided that she wanted to go back home 'cause she was done with this living hotel to hotel situation. And Eileen was, from my understanding, she told Ty about what was going on, that she was killing people, but she claimed over and over again that a lot of times it was self-defense. I guess I should take back what I said. I don't fully know what Ty knew and I guess none of us really should

should judge if, unless we're in their shoes. It's just so easy to, you know? I think she knew because how do you not know what your partner is that you spend a hundred percent of the time with? How do you not know what she's doing like fully? Well, okay. Anyways, so Eileen was alone and they went looking for Ty who they ended up finding the next day in Pennsylvania. They needed a confession. So who are they gonna call? Ty.

Not Ghostbusters, they're gonna call Ty. And they knew this because they could use Ty as leverage pretty much because what they did was they asked Ty, "Hey, can you please get a confession from Eileen in exchange for immunity?" She would return to Florida with the police and they placed her in a motel.

They hooked up the phone, it's wired so that they could record everything that Ty is saying to Eileen. But I'm bringing, you know, she made a number of phone calls to Eileen asking her, "Hey, can you please help me clear my name?" The news, the media, everybody is just out here saying that I did this with you and I didn't do it. So she's asking Eileen, "Can you help me?" So then three days later on January 16th, that's when they would finally get a confession from Eileen to Ty.

Mm-hmm, baby, she got it. Eileen claimed that, you know, men had tried to rape her and she killed them in self-defense, but it was still a confession. They got it. So Eileen is arrested. She remains in prison. News media, everyone's going apeshit. A woman serial killer? First of all, what the fuck? You know, it was just mind-blowing. And she's lesbian? What?

People are just losing their shit. They just can't believe this. So it's just being covered everywhere. Aileen is this monster. She's awful. She did many interviews and some of the interviews you watch, she seems very well-spoken. And then there's other interviews where it's just, she is just out there.

Honestly, again, I remind myself, I'm like, what do you expect? I mean, her upbringing, she wasn't set up for success. She had nobody to guide her in some kind of right direction. I'm not trying to excuse what she did, but I'm just saying like when you, when I was like looking into it and seeing the newspapers and stuff and they're just like monster. I guess she is. I mean, she killed people, but I mean, I got, I don't know. I just felt bad. Anyhow, she still killed people.

So she's sitting in prison and she's waiting her trial. Now during all this, she's trying to set herself up to where she can plead the insanity plea or just get testing done to show that she's not mentally stable enough to do this, but it would not go in her favor. It never does. I don't know why they always try it, but it never does.

A year later though, Eileen would go on trial and she would have numerous trials from January, 1992 to November of 1992. She would have a trial for each known victim. And in the end, Eileen would receive six death sentences. In court, they actually were able to get Ty to come out and testify against her.

Eileen was very upset by that. Eileen told several inconsistent stories about the killings, so again she would claim initially that all seven men had raped her while she was working as a sex worker, but then later she recanted the claim of self-defense saying it was a robbery, she was trying to rob the guys, and then she had a desire to leave no witnesses as the reason for murder.

So her story would change depending on the day. So Eileen would end up sitting in the Florida State Prison, waiting for her execution. In 2001, there was a petition to the Florida Supreme Court, and she stated her intention to dismiss her legal counsel,

and terminate all pending appeals saying quote, "I killed those men, I robbed them as cold as ice and I'd do it again too. There's no chance in keeping me alive or anything because I'd kill again. I have hate crawling through my system, I am so sick of hearing that she's crazy stuff. I've been evaluated so many times, I'm competent, sane and I'm trying to tell the truth. I'm one who seriously hates human life and would kill again." End quote.

Those were her words. We appreciate her honesty. Her attorneys would say that she wasn't mentally competent and there's no way that she wants to be sentenced to death. So they were trying to say like, don't listen to her, don't listen to her. But Eileen insisted that she knew what she was doing and a court appointed panel of psychiatrists, they had agreed that she is saying she's, this is what she wants, just.

do it. So Eileen is just out there saying, please kill me. I'm ready to go. Her execution took place on October 9th, 2002. She declined her last meal and opted for a cup of coffee instead. Her last words were, quote, yes, I would like to just say I'm sailing with the rock and I'll be back like Independence Day with Jesus. June 6th, like the movie, big mothership and all, I'll be back, end quote. She sounds more like the

Terminator, but July 6th. Is that Independence Day? Is she talking about the movie? Then she just died. Eileen would be the 10th woman in the United States and the second in Florida to be executed since 1976 United States Supreme Court decision restoring capital punishment. There have been many songs, many books, many movies, many TV shows, many, many, many

many things that are based off of Eileen and her story. Of course, there's Monster, the movie Monster, which if you haven't seen is a fantastic movie and highly suggest that. But yes, Eileen is just worldwide.

She's also up there with those very infamous serial killers, which to me, okay, hold on. And that's the story about Eileen. Okay, now I'm gonna add my own little commentary. When you look into her story, obviously she has a really effed up upbringing, right? We can all agree on that, right, you guys?

Okay, good. In my opinion, I think she did awful things. She should have gone to prison. I don't know how I feel about the death penalty for her. That's just my opinion. But I'm also, I'm not a fan of the death penalty. So whatever. But I just don't think she's, she sounds so tame when comparison to the other people that we've talked about, you know? So it's like, it's just weird that she got the death penalty. I mean, she killed six people. I'm debating everything in my head. Do you hear me okay?

Her girlfriend, though, Ty, she...

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Not all of them, but a lot of them just tend to kill at random with no rhyme or reason. Again, this is all personal opinion. At the end of the day, I think they all kill because they just want to be heard and they just want to be seen because they, if you've been paying attention at all, you would know that their upbringings are so toxic. They're very bad, they're very abusive. They all have very similar stories and it's like they don't have this relationship

loving relationship, maybe a family relationship, parents, something. It's like, it just always seems like they're killing to be heard. Listen to me in a way. I'm also don't know what I'm talking about. I just read True Crime. I'm a true crime enthusiast.

but not a doctor or anything. It's just an observation that they, I think they all just, everyone just wants to be heard. Kind of going off track. Okay, but yeah, Eileen was killing with a reason, whereas a lot of men tend to just kill at random. It's interesting, I wonder why that is. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Please, please, please be safe out there. Stay inside, make good choices. Bye-bye.