Criminal Justice Aileen Wuornos Essay Example

Keith both rebelled once they found out. This rebellion only added to an already troubled situation.

Lauri Wuornos was a drunk and extremely strict with the children. Lauri would make Aileen pull down her shorts and bend over a chair in the middle of the kitchen. Sometimes Lauri went as far as to have Aileen lie face down on her bed with her legs spread open, and naked to get her spankings. Britta Wuornos was very submissive to Lauri. Britta was scared to take up for the children. Aileen was extremely promiscuous at a very young age. Aileen got pregnant at the young age of fourteen. It was and has been rumored that Keith fathered the child. Aileen was sent to an unwed mother’s home after the Wuornos’ found out she was pregnant.

Aileen had the baby, a boy. Aileen’s baby boy was later adopted in 1971. In July of 1971, Britta Wuornos died. Lung cancer is said to be what killed her, not Aileen. Diane, Aileen’s mother has stated that she believes that Lauri had something to do with her dying. Britta’s biological children have said that the stress of Aileen and Keith’s behavior, Aileen’s pregnancy, and all the other problems Keith and Aileen caused is what killed their mother. Aileen dropped out of Troy High in the ninth grade. Aileen was called Lee by her friends in and out of school. This is when Aileen began to start prostitution.

Along with prostitution came alcohol and drugs. Aileen was drifting from state to state. Even at this age, Aileen was using aliases and getting arrested. Aileen was arrested for disorderly conduct, driving under the influence and a

weapons charge all in the state of Colorado. During the year after Aileen turned twenty, Keith died from throat cancer at the age of twenty-one. Lauri Wuornos committed suicide this same year. With nothing more to lose or gain, Aileen took off hitchhiking for Florida. While hitchhiking, Aileen met Lewis Fell. Fell was a sixty-nine year old president of a yacht club.

Lewis fell in love with Aileen instantly. The couple married in 1976. Aileen treated Lewis very badly. On one occasion Aileen was arrested after a fight in a bar and charged with assault. Lewis realized he had made a very big mistake and filed for divorce. Lewis was able to get their marriage annulled after only about a month. For the next ten years, after Aileen’s divorce from Lewis Fell, she lurched from fail relationship to another. Aileen was engaging in prostitution, forgery, theft, and armed robbery. During this time Aileen attempted suicide. Aileen was a wreck emotionally and physically.

This was due to her doping, drinking, and self-destructive lifestyle. In 1986, Aileen met twenty-four year old Tyria Moore at a gay bar in Daytona, Florida. Aileen was lonely, angry, and ready for a change, something new. Tyria and Aileen hit it off. Things were great for the couple for a while. Tyria loved Aileen so much she quit her job as a motel maid and let Aileen support them with her prostitution income. Due to Aileen’s income, the couple didn’t make it long before they started having money issues. Even with these problems, Tyria did not leave Aileen. Tyria would move with Aileen from one cheap motel to another.

It wasn’t long before Aileen decided

she would have to rob her John’s and then kill them to make ends meet. On December 13, 1989, the corpse of Richard Mallory was found in the woods near Daytona Beach. Mallory had been shot three times and robbed. Two young men that were out looking for junk they could sell discovered Mallory along a dirt road close to Interstate 95, in Volusia County, Florida. Richard Mallory’s body was wrapped in a rubber-backed carpet runner. Mallory was a white male, only 51 years old. It was determined that Mallory was murdered on December1, 1989. Fingerprints were taken from his badly decomposed body along with three . 2 bullets. Mr. Mallory was the owner of a Clearwater, Florida electronics repair shop and had the freedom to close up his business and leave town for several days at a time. Mr. Mallory really wasn’t close to anyone. Mallory was also known to go on drinking and sex binges from time to time. So, when Richard Mallory didn’t show up to open his shop, no one gave it much thought. It wasn’t until his 1977 Cadillac was found, outside Daytona, that anyone knew something was amiss. After several months of investigating his murder, the police had no real leads. For the time being the death of Richard Mallory went cold.

On June 1, 1990, an unidentified naked male, with only a baseball cap, was found in the woods of Citrus County, Florida. The victim was identified on June 7, 1990, as David Spears, 43, of Sarasota, Florida. Mr. Spears worked as a heavy-equipment operator for Winter Garden Construction. The last time David was seen was on May 19,

1990, when he told his boss he was going to Orlando, Florida. David Spears never made it to Orlando. His truck was found shortly after telling his boss he was leaving. The truck was found along Interstate 75. David’s truck doors were unlocked and the license plate was missing. Mr.

Spears had been shot six times with a 22. Some reports state, that there was a used condom found near Mr. Spears body. On June 6, 1990, thirty miles south of Citrus County, another body was found in Pasco County, Florida. The body of this victim was so severely decomposed that medical examiners were unable to obtain fingerprints. Medical examiners estimated that he was murdered in late May, 1990. The nine bullets found in the remains were damaged due to the decomposition, but were determined to have come from the same 22 caliber weapon as with the other victims. This victim was later identified as Mr. Charles Carskaddon. Mr.

Carskaddon was 40 years old and also a white male. Carskaddon worked as a part-time rodeo worker. On July 4, 1990, a car careened off state Road 315 near Orange Springs, Florida. A witness named Rhonda Bailey was sitting on her porch at the time of the accident and told police that she witnessed two women stumble from the vehicle and throw beer cans into the woods nearby. Bailey also stated that she witnessed the two women swearing at one another. Bailey said the blonde one was bleeding from her arm and that she did most of the swearing. Bailey told the women she was going to call the police, and the blonde woman begged her not to

call them.

The blonde woman told Bailey that her father lived just up the road. The two women got back into the severely damaged car and drove away. The vehicle didn’t take the two very far before they abandoned it, not far from where the accident occurred. The women began to walk when Hubert Hewett of the Orange Springs Volunteer Fire Department stopped them. Mr. Hewett was responding to a call about the accident at the time he stopped the two women. Hewett asked the women if they were the ones involved in the accident. Hewett later told police that the blonde one demanded no help and cursed at him.

Hewett let the two go and he continued on to the scene of the accident. Marion County deputies found the car just where the two women had left it. The car was a 1988 Pontiac Sunbird, gray with four doors. The windows in the front as well as the windshield were smashed. The deputies found bloodstains throughout the vehicle, a palm print on the interior door handle and the license plate was missing. Using the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) the police were able to identify that the vehicle belonged to Peter Siems. The police ran the palm print found and it came back to belong to Aileen Wuornos. Mr.

Siems disappeared on June 7, 1990, after leaving his home in Jupiter, Florida to visit family. Siems was a 65-year-old retired merchant seaman. Mr. Siems devoted most of his time to Christian outreach ministry. With all the information John Wisnieski, a Juniper Detective, sent out a nationwide Teletype, containing the description of the two women, known as Aileen Wuornos

and Tyria Moore. Wisnieski also sent a synopsis of the case and sketches of the two women to the Florida Criminal Activity Bulletin. All he could do was wait. Wisnieski was not optimistic about Peter being found alive. Siems body has never been found.

Due to this fact, Aileen was never charged with his murder. Wuornos did confess to murdering him. Officially Peter Siems death was ruled to have been on September 11, 1990. On the morning of July 30, 1990, Troy Burress left Gilchrist Sausage in Ocala, Florida where he worked as a sausage salesman. Burress never returned from his delivery route that afternoon. Gilchrist manager, Johnny Thompson, knew something was wrong. Mr. Thompson found out that Burress never made it to his last deliveries. At 2 a. m. Mr. Burress’ wife reported him missing. Marion County sheriff’s deputies found Burress’s truck at 4 a. m. on the shoulder of State Road 19.

The truck was twenty miles east of Ocala, Florida. Burress’s truck was unlocked and the keys were missing. On August 4, 1990, a family out for a picnic in the Ocala National Forrest came upon the body of Troy Burress just off highway 19 in a clearing. Burress’s body was found only eight miles from where his truck was found. Due to Florida’s high temperatures and humidity, Burress’s body was badly decomposed. Mrs. Burress identified Mr. Burress by his wedding band. Burress was shot two times with a . 22 caliber weapon. Mr. Burress was 50 years old and a white male. An autopsy ruled that he died on July 30, 1990.

On September 11, 1990, Charles Dick Humphreys never returned home from his

last day at the Sumterville office of the Florida’s Department of Health and Rehabilitation Services. Dick was a protective investigator specializing in abused and injured children and Humphreys was transferring to the Department’s Ocala office. Dick was a retired Air Force major, former police chief and had worked as a child abuse investigator for the state of Florida. On September 10, 1990, the Humphreys had celebrated their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. On the evening of September 12, 1990, Humphreys body was found in Marion County, Florida. Mr.

Humphreys body was fully clothed and he had been shot six times. His vehicle, not found with his body, was found later in September in Suwanee County, Florida. The body of Walter Jeno Antonio was found on November 19, 1990. Jeno was found near a remote logging road in Dixie County. Jeno’s body was nearly nude, he had been shot four times with the same . 22 caliber weapon, and his belongings were missing. Jeno was, like the others, a white male and was 62 years of age. Jeno was a trucker, sometimes a security guard, and a member of the Reserve Police. At the time Jeno was found, it was ruled that he had been dead less than 24 hours.

Law officers found Jeno’s car five days later in Brevard County. Detectives later learned that items belonging to Jeno were sold at a pawnshop in Daytona Beach. The alias names that were used were traced to Aileen Wuornos, through fingerprints left on the shop cards. Captain Steve Binegar was commander of the Marion County Sheriff’s Criminal Investigation Division, he knew about the other murders in Citrus and Pasco Counties and

knowing this, he could not ignore how similar the murders were. He along with a multi-agency task force with representatives from all the counties where victims were found formulated a theory.

Binegar suspected the two women who had wrecked Peter Siems car and walked away. The task force turned to the media for help. In late November 1990, the Reuters ran a story about the killings, saying police were looking for the two women, Wuornos and Moore. Papers around Florida picked up on the story and ran it along with pictures of Wuornos and Moore. By mid-December, police had several tips. One tip from a man in Homosassa Springs said the two women rented a trailer from him about a year earlier. The man also said their names were Tyria and Lee. Another tip from a woman in Tampa, said the women has worked t her motel south of Ocala. This woman stated that the two women’s names were Ty Moore and Lee Blahovec, who bought a RV from her in Homosassa Springs. The caller stated that Lee was the dominate one and a truck stop prostitute. The Anonymous caller also stated that both women were lesbians. The break detectives were waiting for came from Port Orange near Daytona. Police there had been tracking the movements of Lee Blahovec and Tyria Moore. Police in Port Orange were able to provide a detailed account of the couple’s movements from late September 1990 to mid-December 1990.

The couple stayed mostly at the Fairfield Motel, in Harbor Oaks. Lee registered as Cammie Marsh Greene. The couple spent just a little bit of time living in an apartment behind a restaurant

very close to the Fairfield. Then the couple went back to the motel to stay. In early December, Aileen and Tyria left the Fairfield Motel. Aileen returned alone on December 10, 1990. A computer check on Tyria Moore, Susan Blahovec, and Cammie Marsh Greene gave drivers license information as well as criminal record information on all three names. Moore only had a breaking and entering charge on her record from 1983, the case ended up being dropped.

Blahovec had one trespassing arrest. Greene had no record at all. Along with this information, detectives realized that the photograph on Blahovec’s driver’s license did not match the one for Greene. The Greene ID is what really paid off for detectives. Volusia County officers checked area pawnshops and found that in Daytona, Greene had pawned a camera and radar detector. Greene left a requisite thumbprint on the receipt. The items Greene pawned belonged to her first victim, Richard Mallory. In Ormond Beach, she pawned a set of tools she had taken from another victim’s truck.

The tool set belonged to David Spears. The thumbprint was the key detectives needed. Jenny Ahern of the Automated Fingerprint Identification System found nothing in a computer search, but she went to Volusia County and found a match by doing a hand search. The print matched one that was on file for a weapons charge and outstanding warrant for Lori Grody. The bloody palm print found in Peter Siems’s Sunbird matched Lori Grody’s print as well. With this information, detectives sent it to the National Crime Information Center. Detectives received responses from Michigan, Colorado, and Florida.

Lori Grody, Susan Blahovec, and Cammie Marsh Greene were all

aliases for Aileen Wuornos. Detectives began to search for Aileen on January 5, 1991. On the evening of January 8, 1991, officers Mike Joyner and Dick Martin went undercover as “Bucket” and “Drums. ” The officers spotted her at the Port Orange Pub. Bucket and Drums wanted their takedown to develop gradually, but Port Orange police entered the Pub very suddenly and took Aileen outside. Officer Mike Joyner frantically called the command post at the Pirate’s Cove Motel, where authorities from six jurisdictions had come to help work the case.

Bob Kelley of the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office called the Port Orange police and told them the situation. The officer’s who took Aileen outside were told to let her go. After letting Aileen go, she returned to the Pub. Bucket and Drums were able to strike up a conversation with her and bought her a few drinks. Aileen declined a ride and left the Pub around 10:00. Aileen was walking down the street when two Florida Department of Law Enforcement Officers’ began following Aileen. Once again, the command post had to make contact with FDLE and have the officer’s back off.

Aileen made it to her next destination; a biker bar called the Last Resort. Bucket and Drums met her there for awhile; they bought her more drinks and talked with her more. The undercover officers left Aileen at the bar around midnight. Aileen didn’t leave the bar that night. Aileen Wuornos spent her last night of freedom sleeping in a car in the parking lot of the Last Resort. The following afternoon, January 9, 1991, Joyner and Martin went back to the Last Resort, as Bucket

and Drums. They began talking Aileen up. The undercover officers were wearing transmitters that allowed the other officers at the command post to hear what was going on.

The detectives planned to arrest Aileen later this same night. Due to a barbecue and crowding at the bar, the decision was made to go ahead and arrest Aileen. Bucket and Drums asked Aileen if she would like to get cleaned up at their motel room, she accepted their offer and left the bar with the undercover officers. Once outside, Officer Larry Horzepa of the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office approached Aileen and told her she was under arrest for an outstanding warrant for Lori Grody. Nothing was said about the murders to Aileen. The police didn’t announce to the media that a suspect was arrested.

Police were being very careful, they had no murder weapon and Tyria Moore still had to be found. Detectives found Moore on January 10, 1991. Tyria was living with her sister in Pittston, Pennsylvania. Jerry Thompson with the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office and Brice Munster with the Marion County Sheriff’s Office flew to Scranton, Pennsylvania to interview Moore. The Officer’s read Tyria her rights and made sure she knew what perjury was but did not charge her with any crime. Moore stated that she had known about the murders since Lee brought Richard Mallory’s Cadillac home.

Tyria stated that Lee told her she had killed a man that day. Moore told detectives that she told Lee she didn’t want to know anything. Moore also stated that from then on she would not listen when Lee spoke about it, or show something off she got from

the murder victim. Moore admitted to detectives that she had suspicions about all Lee’s doings, but wanted to know as little as possible. Moore told detectives that she felt the less she knew, the less she would feel the need to call police. The next day Tyria Moore accompanied Muster and Thompson back to Florida to assist in the investigation.

The plan was to get Wuornos to confess. The detectives were going to use Moore as a way to obtain the confession they wanted. The detectives would put Tyria Moore in a Daytona motel and have her make contact with Aileen Wuornos in jail. The detectives and Moore agreed that, Moore would tell Aileen she had received money and had come down to Florida to get the rest of her belongings. Moore knew that the conversations would be taped; she had to tell Lee that authorities had been questioning her family, and that she was worried that the Florida murders would be pinned on her.

The hope was that, Wuornos would confess due to her loyalty to Moore. The first call came from Wuornos on January 14, 1991. Wuornos was under the impression still, that she was only in jail for the Lori Grody weapons violation. Wuornos was aware that the phones were tapped in jail. She was very careful how she spoke and what she said. Wuornos told Moore that there was nothing to worry about. Aileen made comments like, the women seen leaving the accident looked like the women at your job, right, and how she read the paper and was not a suspect. Wuornos said it was a case of mistaken identity.

Phone conversations between

Moore and Wuornos continued for three days. Moore became more insistent that the police were after her. Wuornos voiced her suspicion that Moore was setting her up. As time passed, Wuornos began to see what was expected of her. Aileen was not as careful about what she said or how she said it. Aileen told Moore to go ahead and tell the detectives what they needed to know in order for Moore to stay out of it. Wuornos told Moore that she would not let her go down with her. Aileen stated that Moore was innocent and had nothing to do with the murders.

Aileen also stated that she would confess if she had to, to keep Moore from going to jail. On January 16, 1991, Aileen Wuornos confessed to seven murders, all allegedly in self-defense. Aileen denied killing Pater Siems, whose body has never been found. Wuornos also disclaimed any link to the murder of a John Doe victim shot to death with a . 22 caliber weapon in Brooks County, Georgia. This victim was found on May 5, 1990, it was in such an advanced stage of decomposition, no ID was made and no charges filed against Wuornos for the crime.

Wuornos made it very clear in her confession that Tyria Moore had nothing to do with any of the murders. Aileen was empathetic in her assertion that nothing was her fault, not the murders and not any circumstances that led her down the criminal path that was her life. Aileen claimed that each victim had assaulted, threatened, or raped her. Detectives later stated that it seemed as if she was making her story up

as she spoke. During Aileen Wuornos’ confession a public defender with Volusia County, Michael O’Neill, advised Aileen to stop talking. Aileen told O’Neill that maybe she deserved it and that she wanted to get it over with.

An avalanche of book and movie offers poured in to detectives, relatives, Moore, Wuornos, and even public defenders once Aileen was charged and the media was running it. Wuornos thought she would make millions from her story, not realizing yet that Florida had a law against criminals profiting in such a manner. Aileen was all over the local and national news. She felt famous, and in a way she was. Wuornos would talk to anyone who would listen. A strange show to the pending trial began in January 1991, with the appearance of Arlene Pralle, acting as Aileen’s chief advocate.

Pralle was a 44-year-old ranchers wife and born again Christian. Pralle wrote a letter to Wuornos and told her Jesus told her to write to her. It wasn’t long before the two were having daily phone conversations at Pralle’s expense. Pralle was arranging interviews for Aileen and herself, becoming a fixture on tabloid talk shows. Pralle stated that her and Aileen’s relationship was soul binding. Mrs. Pralle said they were like Jonathan and David in the Bible. Pralle gave Wuornos legal advice and told her that her defenders were making money off her story. Wuornos asked for and received new attorneys.

Throughout 1991, Pralle appeared on talk shows and in tabloid’s, talking to anyone who listened to what she thought was the truth about Aileen Wuornos. Pralle arranged interviews with reporters she thought would be understanding and sympathetic toward Aileen Wuornos.

Both women would emphasize on Aileen Wuornos’ troubled childhood and leveled accusations of corruption and complicity, blaming anyone from movie agents to Tyria Moore. On November 22, 1991, Arlene Pralle and her husband legally adopted Aileen Wuornos. Again, Pralle said God told her to adopt Aileen. Aileen’s attorney’s engineered a plea bargain that Aileen agree to.

Aileen would plead guilty to six murder charges and receive six consecutive life terms. One state attorney, however, thought Aileen should receive the death penalty, so on January 14, 1992, Wuornos went on trial for the murder of Richard Mallory. Evidence and witness testimonies were very damaging. The medical examiner who performed Mallory’s autopsy was Dr. Author Botting. Botting testified that Mallory had taken between 10 and 20 minutes to die. Tyria Moore testified that Wuornos had not seemed overly upset, drunk or nervous when she told her about the murders.

Twelve men testified about their encounters with Wuornos along Florida’s highways over the years. The state of Florida has a law known as the Williams Rule, this rule allows evidence relating to other crimes to be admitted if it helps show a pattern. Due to this law, information regarding the other murders was presented to the jury. With the jury made aware of the other crimes, Aileen’s self-defense claim seemed improbable, at best. With the jury also seeing excerpts from her taped confession as well, her claim was just ridiculous. One of Aileen’s public defenders, Tricia Jenkins, advised Aileen not to testify.

Wuornos went against her attorney’s advice and took the stand as the only witness for the defense. Aileen’s account of Mallory’s murder was far from the one she gave

in her taped confession. Wuornos now was saying that Mallory raped, sodomized, and tortured her. Prosecutor John Tanner obliterated any and all credibility Wuornos may have had. As Tanner brought to light all her lies and inconsistencies, she became extremely angry and agitated. Wuornos’ Attorney’s repeatedly advised her not to answer questions and she invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination twenty-five times during her testimony.

On January 27, 1992, Judge Uriel Blount charged the jury. The jury returned in a mere ninety minutes with a verdict. They found Aileen Wuornos guilty of first-degree murder. As the jury filed out of the courtroom, Wuornos exploded with rage, shouting and cursing. Having heard Wuornos’ outburst in the courtroom, it was fresh on their minds as the penalty phase of the trial began on the 28th of January 1992. Expert witnesses testified that Wuornos was mentally ill, suffered from borderline personality disorder, and that her tumultuous upbringing had stunted and ruined her.

Wuornos’ attorney, Jenkins, referred to her client as a damaged, primitive child as she pleaded with the jury to spare Wuornos life. Unfortunately for Wuornos, the jury never forgot or forgave the woman they’d come to know during the trial. With a unanimous verdict, the jury recommended that Judge Blount sentence Aileen Wuornos to the electric chair. He did so on the 31st of January, 1992. Aileen Wuornos never stood trial again. On March 31, 1992, she pleaded no contest to the murders of Dick Humphreys, Troy Burress, and David Spears, saying she wanted to get right with God.

Aileen again, was angry in the courtroom. She was yelling and cursing at the Assistant State Attorney. On May

15, 1992, Judge Thomas Sawaya handed her three more death sentences. Wuornos made an obscene gesture and muttered more curse words at the judge. Shortly after this court ruling Wuornos offered to show police where the corpse of Peter Siems was hidden, near Beaufort, South Carolina. Authorities flew her to the Piedmont State, but nothing was found at the designated site, Daytona police think Wuornos created this ruse to get a vacation from jail.

Police speculate that Siems was dumped in a swamp near Interstate 95, north of Jacksonville, Florida, but his body has never been found. This already bizarre case took an ironic twist on November 10, 1992, with a reporter’s revelations. Up till this point, Wuornos’ defenders and prosecutors in Florida had failed to unearth any criminal record for Richard Mallory that would support Aileen’s claims of being raped and abused by Richard. The reported revealed that Mallory had served ten years for a violent rape in another state, facts that were easily obtained by checking the FBI’s computer network.

With the new evidence, more court proceedings were taking place. Aileen pleads guilty to murdering Charles Carskaddon and received her fifth death sentence in November 1993. In early February 1993, Aileen was sentenced yet again to die for the murder of Walter Gino Antonio. There was speculation for some time that Aileen might receive a new trial for the murder of Richard Mallory, due to the new evidence. Some thought that the jury would have viewed the case differently if they had this new evidence. The State Supreme Court of Florida affirmed all six of Aileen Wuornos’ death sentences; no new trial would be given.

In

a letter Aileen wrote to the Florida Supreme Court, she said, “I’m one who seriously hates human life and would kill again. ” In April 1993, the court allowed Wuornos to fire her attorney’s and stop all appeals. Reportedly, Aileen was allowed to choose lethal injection over the electric chair, which changed the manner in which she would die. It was reported, that the Governor, Jeb Bush, issued a stay and ordered a mental examination on Aileen, but lifted it in the first week of October 9, 2002, after three psychiatrists interviewed her concluded that Wuornos understood she would die and why she was being executed.

Aileen Wuornos spent her last hours on Death Row, with the only friend she had left, an old friend named Dawn. Pralle, Aileen’s adopted mother, was not there. Aileen and Pralle had been distant for some time. Aileen Wuornos was executed by lethal injection at 9:47 a. m. , Wednesday, October 9, 2002, more than a decade after she was convicted of killing Richard Mallory and six other men along Florida’s highways working as a prostitute. The execution took place at Florida State Prison near Starke, Florida. Aileen was allowed to give a statement before her execution.

Aileen Wuornos’ last words were, “I’d just like to say I’m sailing with the Rock and I’ll be back like Independence Day with Jesus, June 6, like the movie, big mother ship and all. I’ll be back. ” Wuornos was the tenth woman in the United States and the second woman in Florida to be executed since the U. S. Supreme Court unbanned capital punishment in 1976.

References

1. Encyclopedia of Women and Crime (2003) Rafter,
   

Nicole Hahn