Wide-eyed, small-framed, and oblivious to the darkness that lies ahead, the girl in the faded childhood photo appears innocent, even endearing. However, she would become one of the most notorious female serial killers in American history, a woman whose life descended into brutality that stunned the country after early trauma.
She was born in a chaotic world in Rochester, Michigan, in 1956. For kidnapping and raping a seven-year-old child, her father—a guy with a lengthy history of violent and sexual offenses—was given a life sentence. He committed suicide while incarcerated shortly after being given that sentence. Before the young girl and her brother were old enough to comprehend what was occurring, their mother vanished, leaving them alone.
Their maternal grandparents adopted the children. Stability suddenly vanished from the picture. The girl then claimed that her grandfather frequently mistreated her physically and sexually while she was a child, and that her grandma drank excessively. She was raised in a house filled with secrets, instability, and fear—a recipe for disaster down the road.
After being raped at the age of fourteen, she became pregnant, and for years there were speculations that her brother might be the child’s father. Seeing adoption as her only hope for a good life, she gave birth to a child and put him up for adoption right away. She had already experienced more trauma and grief than most people go through in a lifetime before she was able to drive legally.
She left school after her grandma passed away and made ends meet by selling her body on the streets. It was survival, not a choice. Her life unfolded like a police blotter between 1970 and 1980, with arrests for prostitution, violence, stealing, disorderly conduct, and drunk driving. She was struggling all the time, drifting all the time, and scraping by. Her grandfather took his own life shortly after her brother’s death in 1976. She became more and more unstable with every setback.
She eventually hitched a ride to Florida in the hopes that the distance would let her start over. Rather, she became even more unstable. She served time after being arrested for armed robbery in 1982. She had previously made six suicide attempts between the ages of fourteen and twenty-two by that point. Poverty, tragedy, and mental illness were pushing her over the edge.
Her narrative took its last devastating turn in Florida.
She met Richard Mallory, a 51-year-old owner of an electronics company, while working as a prostitute around truck stops and highways. They found themselves together outside of Daytona in a remote wooded location. The national conversation would revolve around what transpired next. Two weeks after she shot Mallory three times, his body was found.
At first, she said they quarreled over money. She later testified that she was raped, beaten, and attacked by Mallory before defending herself by fighting back. The fact that Mallory had a history of sexual violence, which would only come to light following her incarceration, compounded her story. By that point, however, the story was established: a man had been killed by a dangerous vagrant.
She will eventually confess to killing seven more men, although no one knew this yet.
Florida was the destination of her victims’ trail from December 1989 to November 1990. They were all white males in their middle years. A retired police chief, a truck driver, a construction worker, and a rodeo hand were among them. It followed the same pattern: she met them while working as a prostitute, said they tried to attack her, and then shot them in self-defense, she asserted.
However, her assertions were overshadowed by the sheer volume of dead and the constancy of the situation. Ballistics and stolen objects were used by the police to connect the killings. Her fate was sealed by her passionate, frantic, and conflicting confession calls.
Six counts of first-degree murder were brought against her. She acknowledged killing one person, but his body was never discovered. She was ultimately given six death sentences.
She went by the name Aileen Wuornos.
She gained global attention after being dubbed the “Damsel of Death.” Her life story—the violence, the homelessness, the abuse—was repeatedly discussed, sensationalized, and dissected. Was she a predator? A lifelong traumatized person who lost it? A lady on the periphery of society, battling for her life? Psychologists cited years of instability, untreated trauma, and serious mental disease. She was portrayed by the prosecution as a heartless murderer.
At the age of 46, Aileen Wuornos was put to death by lethal injection on October 9, 2002. She wavered in her last years between expressing anger and paranoia and claiming self-defense. She was a monster to some. A sad result of neglect and maltreatment to others. For the majority, she continued to serve as a disturbing reminder of what may result from a painful upbringing.
The young girl in the photo ultimately had no chance. Long before she touched anyone, the world let her down, and by the time she gained notoriety, there was no way for her to return to her former self.