By
Succubyss
Dead Rebel – Aileen Wuornos
Dead Rebel Of The Week
~ Aileen Wuornos ~
Aileen Wuornos has been touted as “The First Female Serial Killer”. It is my opinion that she was not a serial killer, and certainly not the first of the female variety either. Aileen displayed none of the characteristics of a “typical” serial killer. Her reasons for killing, and her reactions to the political manipulations that occurred during her trials and convictions, are what make her a rebel.
All children leave the womb as equals. They are born pure and untouched, the possibility of life stretching before them like so much smooth highway to be traveled. The potholes, roadblocks and tragic accidents that occur on that highway are what determine the ultimate outcome of the journey. Aileen’s road was made from dirt, with gaping sinkholes and very little smooth traveling.
She was born in 1956, her conception a result of the union between a psychopathic child molester and a woman who may have been one of his victims. A few months after Aileen’s birth, her seventeen year-old mother left her and her older brother, Keith, in the care of Aileen’s alcoholic and abusive maternal grandparents. At that time, her father was in prison, serving time for his deranged crimes. He later committed suicide by hanging, as had his father before him.
In the substandard care of her grandparents, Aileen did anything but flourish. She didn’t even know that her caretakers were her grandparents until she was twelve years old, believing them to be her birth parents up until that time. In later accounts, Aileen reports that she was verbally and physically abused by numerous family members, as well as being sexually abused by both her brother and her grandfather.
At the age of fourteen, Aileen found herself pregnant. With whose baby is unclear. She was sent to a home for unwed mothers, where she lived until the baby was born and put up for adoption. Later that same year, her grandmother died of liver failure, although Aileen’s biological mother accused both Aileen and her grandfather of murdering the woman. At this point, Aileen became a ward of the court and with nothing even closely resembling a family, she ran away from home.
On the streets, she made money the only way she knew how, with sex. She frequently traded sex for food, shelter or small amounts of money, drugs or alcohol. Aileen, better known as “Lee” by this time, drifted across the country, sleeping with whoever could give her what she needed at the time to survive. She was young, uneducated, and with no thoughts of the future, other than how to get thru each day. It wasn’t long before her anger at her situation began to manifest itself in tangible ways.
She was first arrested at the age of eighteen for disorderly conduct, drunk driving and firing a pistol from a moving vehicle. This was followed over the years by various charges of being under the influence and minor assault. It is inconceivable to me that Lee’s life could have taken any other turn. She was born with genetics already against her, with a psychopath for a father, and a mother with the IQ of a stump who had been abused herself. Aileen had never known love, stability or trust. , She had been taught from the beginning of her ability to comprehend that men would hurt her, violate her and use her for their own needs, and she wasn’t allowed to have an opinion about it. What are the options for a woman who grows up this way?
For the next fifteen years, Aileen plied her trade of prostitution up and down the state of Florida. She had the misfortune of not being particularly attractive, and as youth deserted her, she took on the bloated look of an undernourished drunk. She didn’t make any attempt at being pretty or sexy as she sold her body in truck stops and on the side of the Interstate. She used a picture of a distant family member’s children to try and evoke sympathy from her “clients”, saying the children were hers and that she was just trying to make some money to get back to them. This reveals something about the clientele she was dealing with. They were perfectly willing to justify whatever deviant sexual act they had to pay for by telling themselves they were giving her money to help her and her kids.
Aileen’s killed her first victim in 1989. His name was Richard Mallory and he was typical of the men “Lee” found up and down the highways. He was five times divorced, prone to drinking and sex binges and had been described by a coworker as “mental”. Aileen went with him for a cheap exchange of sex-for-money that turned horribly violent. Mallory allegedly hit Wuornos in the head, knocking her unconscious. When she awoke, she found herself bound and tied to the interior of the car, with Mallory brutally raping her, both in the vagina and the rectum. She said that she thought he was alternating penetration with his penis and other objects. At some point, he poured rubbing alcohol into a Visine bottle and squirted her in and around her torn rectum, causing extreme pain and anguish to an already broken woman. Is it any wonder that when Aileen was free, she used the gun she carried with her to shoot the man several times?
Mallory’s death can, in NO WAY, be compared to a death caused by a serial killer. Lee didn’t pick him out, stalk him and set him up to die, as a serial killing usually goes. He died because he hurt another human being who retaliated in self-defense. His manner of picking her up and getting her into the situation she found herself in, speaks more of Mallory being a serial sexual abuser than anything else. He deserved to die and I’m glad he did, before he could hurt anyone else.
One thing Lee probably did get out of that experience was a feeling of control. Killing that man to put an end to his abuse of her that night was most likely the first time she had felt in control of anything in her life. She went on to kill an additional six men, under circumstances similar to those she encountered with Mallory. All the men she killed were alleged clients of hers, and she claimed that all had tried to rape her. While it may or may not have been true that she was brutally raped by each man she killed, I do think that these men took advantage of a woman who they believed could not defend herself against any humilities they felt justified in inflicting on her. I have no compassion for a man who looks for the person least capable of defense to make him feel like his own twisted perversion is acceptable.
Aileen’s new role of a killer didn’t really change any part of how she lived her life. She continued to prostitute herself by the side of the highway and in truck stops. There is no doubt that she hated men and with good reason. She didn’t kill every man she was with, but took her hatred in a different direction after she met lesbian Tyria Moore in a gay bar. Tyria gave Lee a stability she hadn’t known before, and Lee gave Tyria that sense of danger she was looking for since her escape from her close-knit family and small town life. They were together at the time of Lee’s first kill and remained together until Lee confessed to the multiple killings, at the behest of Tyria. Another clue that these were not serial murders comes into play, as an overwhelming trait of documented serial killers is the lack of empathy they show towards other human beings. Aileen confessed to her murders so that Tyria would not be implicated and would be able to leave it all behind and go on with her own life.
Once Aileen confessed, the media and numerous political machinists had a field day. It seemed that everyone and their twisted, perverted brother was going to do their damndest to make sure this “sick murderess” was exposed at her very worst. For her, it was one of the first times she could be just who she was, with no pretense. After her confession, her look, her whole countenance, is almost peaceful and she looks as beautiful as in any picture seen before or since then. She didn’t try to justify her deeds by attributing them to a higher cause, except to say that they had been in self-defense. Another clue that Lee wasn’t a serial killer. A multiple killer, acting in self defense, yes. A serial killer, acting out an urge to kill? No.
In light of all the media, many officers of the state exaggerated their role in catching, implicating and prosecuting Lee. Judges refused evidence that may have proven her allegations of being raped by Richard Mallory, though they surprisingly let in evidence of her other charges to her own trial. Aileen repeatedly accused the judges and prosecutors of manipulating her case for publicity during an election year. As it turns out, she was right. A short time after her conviction and death sentence, several politicians were removed from office for various reasons of neglect in her case.
Once Aileen Wuornos was convicted, she waived any and all appeals and asked to be put to death as soon as possible. For killing men who deserved to die, calling out the American justice system for the farce that it represented to her and for using the circumstances to allow her to escape the misery that her life had become, I applaud Aileen Wuornos as a Dead Rebel.
