At first glance, she looked like any other little girl – bright eyes, blonde hair, shy smile.
But behind that innocent face lay a childhood filled with pain, neglect, and secrets dark enough to warp anyone's soul.
Her mother disappeared.
Born in 1956 in a quiet town in Michigan, her life began in chaos. When she was just four years old, her 20-year-old mother packed her bags and disappeared, leaving her and her brother behind.
The mother later said that it was probably the “biggest mistake” she had ever made in her life.
At almost the same time, her 23-year-old father, already behind bars for kidnapping and assaulting a young girl, took his own life in prison.
From that moment on, the children were left in the care of their grandparents. But instead of safety, their new home turned into another nightmare.
Her grandmother struggled with alcoholism, and her grandfather was rumored to have been violent, even predatory.
“I had to… adopt them out to strangers. We, in our family, were victims of a form of child abuse. My father was verbally aggressive. My mother was verbally aggressive, and we were always told we were no good,” the girl’s mother later told The Tampa Bay Times.
They became wards of the state
At the age of 13, she became pregnant after being attacked. Some even whispered that the father might have been her own brother. But according to many others, she was attacked by a friend of her grandfather.
Family members later told the Tampa Bay Times that no one believed her at the time. No police report was ever filed.
She gave the baby up for adoption, hoping to provide him with a better life than the one she was given.
Soon after, tragedy struck again for her grandmother. Her grandmother died, a devastating blow to her. She described her as a “really clean and decent” woman who didn’t drink or swear. Soon after, her grandfather took his own life.
She and her brother, Keith, were placed in state custody. At age 11, she began engaging in sex acts at school in exchange for cigarettes, drugs, and food. Alone and desperate, the teenager dropped out of school and began living on the streets, surviving through petty crime and prostitution.
Over the next decade, she racked up arrests for theft, assault, and disorderly conduct—a record that seemed to grow longer with each passing year.
In her mid-25s, she moved to Florida, a state that would soon learn her name in the worst possible way. In 1989, the body of a man was found deep in the woods near Daytona Beach, shot multiple times. Two weeks later, police linked the murder to a woman who had recently been seen hitchhiking nearby.
When she was found, she confessed to not just one murder, but several. One after another, men in central Florida turned up dead.
She claimed that she was defending herself and that every man tried to attack her, that she was fighting for her life.
"I'm not a misogynist," she told the Orlando Sentinel in March 1991. "I've been through so many traumatic experiences that I'm either walking around in shock or I'm so used to being treated like trash that I guess it's become a way of life."
"Virgin of Death"
But prosecutors saw something different: a cold-blooded, calculating killer who lured men, killed them, and stole their belongings.
When her case went to trial, she was accused of killing seven men in just one year. The press called her "America's first female serial killer."
Since then, her name has become infamous, her story retold in books, documentaries, and even Hollywood films.
She was Aileen Wuornos—"The Maiden of Death."
Media circus
"Wurnos is a murderer who robs, not a thief who kills. She really looks like a serial killer," said lead investigator Steve Binegar in 1991.
Wuornos' trial quickly became a media circus. She claimed that each murder was an act of self-defense against men who had tried to harm her. But the jury did not believe her. In January 1992, she was found guilty and sentenced to death.
After receiving six death sentences after pleading guilty, Wuornos told the court: "I am guilty as far as it goes. I want the world to know that I killed these men, cold as ice. I have hated people for a long time. I am a serial killer. I killed them in cold blood, really nasty."
Sentenced to death at Broward Correctional Facility in Florida, while awaiting her execution, she regularly complained about the decision to delay her fate.
"There's no point in sparing me," Wuornos said in July 2001. "It's a waste of taxpayer money. I killed these men, I robbed them. And I would do it again."
"There's no way you're going to keep me alive or anything, because I'd kill again. Hatred is creeping through my system."
Last words
Wuornos' execution was carried out by lethal injection on October 9, 2002. Before the execution, the 46-year-old woman muttered her final statement, which was as follows:
"I just want to say I'm sailing with the rock and I'll be back, like Independence Day , with Jesus. June 6th, like in the movie. Big mother ship and everything, I'll be back, I'll be back."
Although her crimes horrified the world, her tragic past still leaves a nagging question: Was Eileen born a monster – or was she made one?
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