Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of murder and assault. Reader discretion is advised.
Aileen Wuornos, infamously known as the Damsel of Death or the Highway Hooker, is an American serial killer who was convicted of killing six men in 1989 and 1990. She stole her victims’ possessions and dumped their bodies in Central Florida’s woodlands. Wuornos, a sex worker, claimed that she killed the men in self-defence when they were attempting to assault her. She was initially tried for one murder but confessed to the killing of five more men.
51-year-old electrician, Richard Mallory was the first confirmed victim of Wuornos. While she was convicted for the murder of Mallory, she claimed to have killed five more people. She said that they were all allegedly her customers and grew violent towards her. All of Aileen Wuornos’ victims were motorists along the highways of Florida and approached her as clients. She was a petty criminal and a sex worker at the time.
Wuornos’ first known victim was Richard Mallory, a 51-year-old electrician whom she shot dead on November 30, 1989. His body was found almost two weeks after his death. Wuornos claimed that Mallory had tried to beat and rape her and that she killed him in self-defence. According to the Independent, Mallory had previously been convicted of attempted rape in Maryland. Between June 1990 and November 1990, five more such bodies were recovered.
Additionally, Aileen Wuornos is believed to have robbed and murdered a seventh victim who is identified as 67-year-old Peter Abraham Siems, a retired merchant seaman. However, his body was never found and the allegation remained unproven.
When was Aileen Wuornos executed?
Aileen Wuornos spent an entire decade on death row before she was executed by lethal injection on October 9, 2002. She was given six death sentences. In 2001, she allegedly asked authorities to put her to death, claiming that she killed those men in cold blood and that she’d do it all over again. During her trial, Aileen Wuornos pleaded not guilty and argued that she had to kill Mallory in self-defence when he tried to sexually assault her. Prosecutors suggested that she killed those men only to rob them of their possession, CNN reported.
“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,” were Aileen Wuornos’ last words before she was executed. The defence had argued for years that Wuornos was suffering from a personality disorder. They suggested that she wasn’t eligible to fulfil the court’s sentence, a plea that was reportedly belittled by the prosecution according to the New York Times. Wuornos was 46 when she died and she reportedly denied a last milk. She had a cup of coffee instead.
Wuornos was the tenth woman to be executed ever since 1976. In that year, the death penalty for women was reinstated after a short prohibition, the Guardian reported. Aileen Wuornos fired her defence team and demanded to be executed in 2001, adding to the arguments that she wasn’t mentally healthy or eligible to stand the court’s sentence.
In Manhunter: Aileen Wuornos, an episode of Catching Killers on Netflix, investigators dig deeper into the crimes committed by Wuornos and the evidence that was considered for her conviction. The 40-minute episode is from the first season of the docu-series that is currently streaming on Netflix.
