Aileen Wuornos - Part 2 - Killer Queens: A True Crime Podcast

Aileen Carol Wournos was called the “Damsel of Death” and the “Hooker from Hell.” She is widely known as the first female serial killer. She was unique because of her method of murder and her motives.Most female murderers are poisoners or are driven in the heat of passion to kill. Some kill for money and typically someone they know like a husband or family member. However, Aileen was different. She killed with a gun, for money and an uncontrollable internal rage, and killed men she lured with the promise of sex – men she didn’t know.

For part one, click HERE!

After her Arrest

Investigators wanted to find more evidence and ended up finding her girlfriend, Tyria Moore. She was cooperative and willing to help the police. In fact, the prosecution decided not to press charges and grant her immunity if Tyria would talk to Aileen over the phone and let them record it while she tried to get a confession. On January 14, Aileen called Tyria. Tyria told Aileen that the police were harassing her and her family. At first, Aileen tried to talk about how the sketches had caused mistaken identity, but Tyria was still trying to gain sympathy and kept on about her family being in danger. Aileen got suspicious and asked Tyria if there was someone else in the room with her. Tyria denied it and they kept talking.

As they spoke, Aileen became determined to protect Tyria and told her just to tell the police what she knows and what they want. Then Aileen whispered, “If I have to confess, I will.” Sooooo, on January 16, 1991, Aileen provided a full, 3-hour long, rambling, occasionally disjointed confession that was recorded on video tape. On the tape, Aileen said: “I still have to say to myself…I still say that it was self defense. Because most of ‘em either were gonna start to beat me up or were gonna screw me in the ass and they’d get rough with me so I’d fight ‘em and I’d get away from ‘em.”

The public defender was sitting in the room like, “Please stop. Just stop talking.”

Aileen said she didn’t care about the public defender and that she “can’t be any truthfuller.” She was adamant that Tyria was not involved and was completely innocent. Aileen said, “I don’t want an innocent person hurt.”

Aileen ended up admitting to 7 murders, but claimed they were all self-defense. She was charged with 6 – 1st degree murders and was almost immediately approached about movie and book offers. As were her family and friends. Her defense attorney, Steven Glazer, tried to make it very clear to Aileen that there are laws about profiting from your wrongdoings, and if she went through with any of this she wouldn’t make enough money to buy a pack of cigarettes.

Aileen was awaiting her trial in jail and somehow a born-again Christian named Arlene Pralle found out about her. Pralle was convinced that Aileen was really a good person, and that she had been compelled by God to help Aileen. Pralle was very eager to be able to visit with Aileen in jail, but was turned away because she’s not family. No problem. She’ll just become family. Glazer suggested, well if you adopted this 35-year-old serial killer, you can visit all you want because you’ll be her mom.

Pralle and her husband agree that that is the most logical next step so on November 7, 1991, the Pralle’s adopt a bouncing baby girl who is also a grown-ass woman on trial for murdering men.

The Trials

Public Defender, Trisha Jenkins said that Arlene became somewhat of a distraction for Aileen. Aileen refused to work with the defense team unless they talked with Arlene and took care of anything Arlene needed. On January 15, 1992, Aileen’s murder trial for Richard Mallory began. Aileen’s strategy was that she had killed him in self defense. Now…her attorney for this trial was the attorney mentioned previously named Steven Glazer. He was also known as Dr. Legal in his commercials. Glazer was a pot-smoking, music-playing, afro-sporting lawyer. He was…something. He seemed to see the interview with 60 minutes as his way to break into the music biz.

On the day Tyria testified against Aileen, Aileen was devastated. She didn’t know that Tyria had turned on her, and Tyria wouldn’t look at Aileen the entire time she was on the witness stand. Aileen was warned that it was not a good plan to have her testify in her own defense. Aileen was a constantly rumbling volcano just waiting for the slightest provocation. The prosecution would destroy her on cross-examination. Aileen testified anyway and claimed that Mallory raped and tortured her so she shot him in self defense. She said that he choked her and said that he said that she was “wet for his huge cock” and asked her “wanna die slut.” Aileen testified that Mallory put rubbing alcohol up her nose.

On cross examination Aileen let her temper show. The jury was not on her side and on January 27th after 2 hours of deliberation, they came back with a guilty verdict for 1st degree murder. Aileen flipped and started yelling at the jury on their way out. “I was raped. I hope you get raped. Scumbags.” She even flipped the bird to the judge. Unfortunately, that didn’t help her cause when they came back the next day for sentencing.

Aileen’s team said that she was diagnosed with Borderline Personailty Disorder, and because of this she shouldn’t get the death penalty. The jury was not sympathetic and Aileen Wuornos aka Susan Lynn, aka Lori Christina Grody, aka Lee Blahovec, aka Cammie Marsh Greene was sentenced to death. Over the next 2 years, Aileen pleaded no contest to 3 counts of murder and then pleaded guilty on two more. Eventually, Aileen asked Glazer to just get all this finished. Aileen was mad about having multiple death sentences and even said to the press on her way out of the court once: “How many times you gotta kill me. This is bullshit. We don’t need to be doing this”

In January of 1992, Aileen was 36-years-old and claimed that she had found God in all of her time reading the Bible. She spent 23 hours in solitary confinement daily, so she spent most of that time reading. Aileen wanted to be executed, but had to wait for her automatic appeals to get used up. So she read her Bible and drew pictures with an ink pen which she then sent to Mommy Arlene. However, Mommy Dearest had an ulterior motive for being Aileen’s mom. She wanted to make money off of their relationship. All the pictures that Aileen was sending to Arlene, Arlene was holding on to so that she could start a museum. Aileen called her out on trying to profit off of her, and Arlene stopped coming around.

During one of her appeals, Aileen’s new attorney, Joe Hobson claims poor representation on the behalf of Aileen’s previous lawyer, Steve Glazer. In that trial, it was pointed out that Glazer used Aileen’s interviews to make thousands and thousands of dollars. Glazer would testify that, because Aileen couldn’t pay him, they made the money for his fees using interviews.

Glazer was called inexperienced and it was brought out that the “lawyer” didn’t even have a FAX MACHINE! Glazer was accused of not preparing Aileen for the possible outcomes of the trials. Aileen seemed to believe that she was going to get off and go live with Arlene. Nick Broomfield, director of Aileen Wuornos: LIfe and Death of a Serial Killer and Selling a Serial Killer, was called to testify about footage he’d gotten of Glazer smoking joints.

They were on their way to see Aileen and Broomfield asked Glazer how long the trip would take. Glazer said it was a 6 or 7 joint ride. They drove to their meeting with Aileen where Glazer would provide legal advice after his 6-7 joints and on that trip, the people in the car were treated with the sultry sounds of Steve Glazer’s own music on a cassette tape. Glazer had joints in his mouth on video tape while driving to see Aileen to provide her with legal advice.

In July of 2001, 45-year-old Aileen was tired of waiting. She went to court to have her appeals waived. She stated that it was just using taxpayer money and then told the court that her murders were never self defense. Aileen admitted that she robbed all of the men and killed them to get rid of any witnesses. She went on to say that if she ever got out she knew she would kill again. Aileen would continue to waffle back and forth about her motives for the murders. She was adamant for a long time that all the murders were in self defense, but she changed that story to none of it was self defense and she killed them for money.

In a 1994 interview with 60 Minutes Australia, when talking about how someone had called her crimes horrendous Aileen said, “Those men were just shot. They weren’t cut up. There was no OJ jazz. All they were was shot and left. If it was horrendous, why didn’t I shoot them between their eyes, cut their penis off, stick it in their mouth?”

In a prison interview with an Orlando based station, Aileen pushed some of the blame for her murders onto the police. She claimed that they knew who she was the whole time and they let her become a serial killer. Aileen says she was set up by the police so they could become rich and famous off of her murders. Aileen continued to rail about how the police treated her in interviews with Nick Broomfield, director of Aileen Wuornos: LIfe and Death of a Serial Killer and Selling a Serial Killer. She said that the police had her fingerprints from the Mallory case, because she was “not a professional” murderer and she was “sloppy.” They knew who she was and let her keep killing and getting these horrible men off the streets. Then they took her in so that they could make money off of her and people could climb their career ladders using her.

Aileen wasn’t completely wrong. While there was no proof that the police actually “let” her keep killing, three officers were fired for trying to sell Aileen’s story. Captain Steve Binegar, Major Dan Henry, and investigator Bruce Munster were involved with Tyria in movie discussions about Aileen. Major Dan Henry was chief of staff of the Marion County Sheriff’s Office. He was forced to resign when taped conversations were discovered between him and Munster.

In another interview, Aileen said that she never provoked any of these men. She claimed that she never cursed in front of her clients and was very “ladylike.” She said that they would talk about politics and religion and would never argue with them.

In another interview with Nick Broomfield, Aileen was calm and said she wanted to come clean with him. She said, she wasn’t going to get off death row, and she can’t be executed until she had spoken the truth. Aileen was clear when she told him that she had actually killed all the men because she wanted to rob them. She said she knew she was going to kill them when they picked her up. Her rent was due and Tyria was tearing through all their money. Aileen said Tyria knew what she was doing the whole time.

Aileen said that Richard Mallory was absolutely not self defense. He had a car and the amount of money she needed for rent. She claimed that her story didn’t just change because she was ready to die and be done with all of this, but it was timely that she changed her tune.

On April 1, 2002, Aileen’s request to waive her appeals was upheld and her execution was scheduled for October. During these last months Aileen continued to blame others for what she became. She didn’t deny that she had done the deeds, but she blamed others for letting her do it or pushing her to do it. Aileen’s attorney was concerned that she was not mentally competent to understand the ramifications of the death penalty. She was noted to be “disconnected from reality.”

A stay of execution was granted by governor Jeb Bush so that Aileen’s mental competency could be assessed. Three psychiatrists evaluated her and determined that she was competent.

On October 9, 2002, Aileen was put to death by lethal injection. She was 46-years-old when she died, and her final words were pretty telling of her mental state. Aileen said: “I’ll be back like Independence Day with Jesus. June 6th like the movie. Big mothership and all. I’ll be back.”

She was cremated and her best friend since childhood, Dawn Botkins, who had continued visiting her and being her friend, took her ashes back to Michigan and planted a tree for Aileen.