The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (100 page)

well be true.

to 1969. Geography was Martha’s friend, preventing America’s future media monster was born Aileen medical examiners in various locations from connecting Pittman in Rochester, Michigan, on February 29, 1956.

her several crimes until her luck ran out at last, in Balti-Her teenage parents separated months before she was more.

born, father Leo Pittman moving on to serve time in Martha’s pattern was always the same, involving a Kansas and Michigan mental hospitals as a deranged rush to the nearest hospital with an unconscious baby child molester. Mother Diane Pratt recalls Aileen and in her arms. Each time, the infant was alone in Martha’s her older brother Keith as “crying, unhappy babies,”

care when it abruptly, inexplicably “stopped breath-and their racket prompted her to leave them with her ing.” The children were revived and sent home with parents in early 1960. On March 18 of that year, mater-Woods, but they inevitably suffered more attacks within nal grandparents Lauri and Britta Wuornos legally a span of hours or days. Altogether, police calculated in adopted the children as their own.

hindsight, nine children had suffered a total of 27 life-Aileen’s childhood showed little improvement from threatening respiratory attacks, with seven resulting in there. At age six she suffered scarring facial burns while
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WUORNOS, Aileen Carol

she and Keith were setting fires with lighter fluid. Aileen ving, and firing a .22-caliber pistol from a moving vehi-later told police that she had sex with Keith at an early cle. Additional charges of failure to appear were filed age, but acquaintances doubt the story and Keith is when she skipped town ahead of her trial. Back in unable to speak for himself, having died of throat can-Michigan on July 13, 1976, Aileen was arrested in cer in 1976. At any rate, Aileen was clearly having sex Antrim County for simple assault and disturbing the with
someone,
for she turned up pregnant in her 14th peace after she lobbed a cue ball at a bartender’s head.

year, delivering her son at a Detroit maternity hospital Outstanding warrants from Troy, Michigan, were also on March 23, 1971. Grandmother Britta died on July 7, served on charges of driving without a license and con-and although her death was blamed on liver failure, suming alcohol in a motor vehicle. On August 4, Aileen Diane Pratt suspected her father of murder, claiming he settled her debt to society with a $105 fine.

threatened to kill Aileen and Keith if they were not The money came, at least indirectly, from her

removed from his home.

brother. Keith’s death on July 17 surprised her with a In fact, they became wards of the court, Aileen soon life insurance payment of $10,000, squandered within dropping out of school to work the streets full-time, two months on luxuries including a new car, which earning her way as a teenage hooker, drifting across Aileen promptly wrecked. In late September, broke country as the spirit moved her. In May 1974, using the again, she thumbed a ride to Florida, anxious to sample alias “Sandra Kretsch,” she was jailed in Jefferson a warmer climate, hoping to practice her trade in the County, Colorado, for disorderly conduct, drunk dri-sun. It was a change of scene, but Aileen’s attitude was still the same, and she inevitably faced more trouble with the law.

On May 20, 1981, Wuornos was arrested in Edge-

water, Florida, for armed robbery of a convenience store. Sentenced to prison on May 4, 1982, she was released 13 months later, on June 30, 1983. Her next arrest, on May 1, 1984, was for trying to pass forged checks at a bank in Key West. On November 30, 1985, named as a suspect in the theft of a pistol and ammunition in Pasco County, Aileen borrowed the alias “Lori Grody” from an aunt in Michigan. Eleven days later, the Florida Highway Patrol cited “Grody” for driving without a valid license. On January 4, 1986, Aileen was arrested in Miami under her own name, charged with auto theft, resisting arrest, and obstruction by false information; police found a .38-caliber revolver and a box of ammunition in the stolen car. On June 2, 1986, Volusia County deputies detained “Lori Grody”

for questioning after a male companion accused her of pulling a gun in his car and demanding $200. In spite of her denials, Aileen was carrying spare ammunition on her person, and a .22 pistol was found beneath the passenger seat she occupied. A week later, using the new alias “Susan Blahovec,” she was ticketed for speeding in Jefferson County, Florida. The citation includes a telling observation: “Attitude poor. Thinks she’s above the law.”

A few days after that incident, Aileen met lesbian Tyria Moore in a Daytona gay bar. They soon became lovers, and while the passion faded after a year or so, they remained close friends and traveling companions, more or less inseparable for the next four years. On July 4, 1987, police in Daytona Beach detained “Tina Moore” and “Susan Blahovec” for questioning, on sus-Aileen Wuornos stands before the judge at her trial. (Wide picion of slugging a man with a beer bottle. “Blahovec”

World API)

was alone on December 18 when highway patrolmen
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WUORNOS, Aileen Carol

cited her for walking on the interstate and possessing a By the time Spears was identified, a third victim had suspended driver’s license. Once again, the citation already been found. Charles Carskaddon, age 40, was a noted “Attitude poor,” and “Susan” proved it over the part-time rodeo worker from Booneville, Missouri, next two months with threatening letters mailed to the missing since May 31. He had vanished somewhere circuit court clerk on January 11 and February 9, 1988.

along I-75, en route to meet his fiancée in Tampa, his A month later, Wuornos was trying a new approach naked corpse found 30 miles south of the Spears mur-and a new alias. On March 12, 1988, “Cammie Marsh der site on June 6. Carskaddon had been shot nine Greene” accused a Daytona Beach bus driver of assault, times with a .22-caliber weapon, suggesting a pattern to claiming he pushed her off his buss following an argu-officers who still resisted the notion of a serial killer at ment; Tyria Moore was listed as a witness to the inci-large. On June 7, Carskaddon’s car was found in Mar-dent. On July 23, a Daytona Beach landlord accused ion County, a .45 automatic and various personal items Moore and “Susan Blahovec” of vandalizing their listed as stolen from the vehicle.

apartment, ripping out carpets, and painting the walls Peter Siems, a 65-year-old merchant seaman turned dark brown without his approval. In November 1988, missionary, was last seen on June 7, 1990, when he left

“Susan Blahovec” launched a six-day campaign of his Jupiter, Florida, home to visit relatives in Arkansas.

threatening calls against a Zephyrhills supermarket, fol-Siems never arrived, and a missing-person report was lowing an altercation over lottery tickets.

filed with police on June 22. No trace of the man had By 1989, Aileen’s demeanor was increasingly erratic been found by July 4 when his car was wrecked and and belligerent. Never one to take an insult lightly, she abandoned in Orange Springs, Florida. Witnesses now went out of her way to provoke confrontations, described the vehicle’s occupants as two women, one seldom traveling without a loaded pistol in her purse.

blond and one burnette, providing police sketch artists She worked the bars and truck stops, thumbing rides to with a likeness of each. The blond was injured and snag a trick when all else failed, supplementing her bleeding. Police lifted a bloody palmprint from the vehi-prostitute’s income with theft when she could. Increas-cle’s trunk.

ingly, with Moore, she talked about the many troubles Eugene Burress, age 50, left the Ocala sausage facin her life and a yearning for revenge.

tory where he worked to make his normal delivery Richard Mallory, a 51-year-old electrician from Palm rounds on July 30, 1990. A missing-person report was Harbor, was last seen alive by coworkers on November filed when he had not returned by 2:00 A.M. the next 30, 1989. His car was found abandoned at Ormond day, and his delivery van was found two hours later. On Beach the next day, his wallet and personal papers scat-August 4, his fully dressed body was found by a family tered nearby, along with several condoms and a half-picnicking in the Ocala National Forest. Burress had empty bottle of vodka. On December 13, his fully been shot twice with a .22-caliber pistol in the back and dressed corpse was found in the woods northwest of chest. Nearby, police found his credit cards, business Daytona Beach, shot three times in the chest with a receipts, and an empty cash bag from a local bank.

.22 pistol. Police searching for a motive in the murder Fifty-six-year-old Dick Humphreys was a retired learned that Mallory had been divorced five times, earn-Alabama police chief, lately employed by the Florida ing a reputation as a “heavy drinker” who was “very Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services to paranoid” and “very much into porno and the topless investigate child abuse claims in Ocala. His wife bar scene.” A former employee described him as “men-reported him missing when he failed to return home tal,” but police came up empty in their search for a from work on the night of September 11, 1990, and criminal record. They could find “nothing dirty” on the Humphreys was found the next day in an undeveloped victim, finally concluding that he was just a paranoid subdivision, shot seven times with a .22 pistol, his pants womanizer.

pockets turned inside out. On September 19, his car was The investigation was stalled at that point on June 1, found abandoned and stripped of license plates behind a 1990, when a nude “John Doe” victim was found, shot defunct service station in Live Oak. Impounded on Sep-six times with a .22 and dumped in the woods 40 miles tember 25, the car was not traced to Humphreys until north of Tampa. By June 7, the corpse had been identi-October 13, the same day his discarded badge and other fied from dental records as 43-year-old David Spears, personal belongings were found in Lake County, 70

last seen leaving his Sarasota workplace on May 19.

miles southeast of the murder scene.

Spears had planned to visit his ex-wife in Orlando that Victim number seven was 60-year-old Walter Anto-afternoon, but he never made it. Ironically, his boss had nio, a trucker from Merritt Island who doubled as a spotted the dead man’s missing pickup truck on May reserve police officer for Brevard County. Found in the 25, parked along I-75 south of Gainesville, but there woods northwest of Cross City on November 19, 1990, the trail went cold.

he had been shot three times in the back and once in the
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WUORNOS, Aileen Carol

head. Antonio was nude but for socks, his clothes later shot ’em ’cause to me it was like a self-defending found in a remote area of neighboring Taylor County.

thing,” she told police, “became I felt if I didn’t shoot His car, meanwhile, was found back in Brevard County

’em and I didn’t kill ’em, first of all . . . if they survived, on November 24. Police determined that Antonio’s my ass would be gettin’ in trouble for attempted mur-killer had stolen a distinctive gold ring along with his der, so I’m up shit’s creek on that one anyway, and if I bagde, nightstick, handcuffs, and flashlight.

didn’t kill ’em, you know, of course, I mean I
had
to kill By that time, journalists had noted the obvious pat-

’em . . . or, it’s like retaliation, too. It’s like, ‘You bas-tern detectives were reluctant to accept, and media expo-tards, you were going to hurt me.’ ”

sure forced authorities to go public with their suspect Within two weeks of her arrest, Aileen and her attor-sketches on November 30, 1990. Over the next three ney had sold movie rights to her story. At the same time, weeks, police received four calls identifying the suspects three top investigators on her case retained their own as Tyria Moore and “Lee Blahovec.” Their movements lawyer to field offers from Hollywood, cringing with were traced through motel receipts, detectives learning embarrassment when their unseemly haste was publicly that “Blahovec” also liked to call herself “Lori Grody”

revealed. In self-defense, the officers maintained that and “Cammie Marsh Greene.” Fingerprint comparisons they were moved to sell their version of the case by did the rest, naming “Blahovec/Grody/Greene” as Aileen

“pure intentions,” planning to put the money in “a vic-Wuornos, placing her at the scene where Peter Siems’s tim’s fund.” To a man, they denounced exposure of their car was wrecked in July, but it still remained for officers scheme as the malicious work of brother officers, driven to track the women down.

by their jealousy at being cut out of the deal.

Meanwhile, “Cammie Greene” was busy pawning

A bizarre sideshow to the pending murder trial items stolen from her victims and pocketing some extra began in late January 1991 with the appearance of cash. On December 6, she pawned Richard Mallory’s Arlene Pralle as Aileen’s chief advocate. A 44-year-old camera and radar detector in Daytona, moving on to rancher’s wife and “born-again” Christian, Pralle Ormond Beach with a box of tools stolen from David advised Wuornos in her first letter to prison that “Jesus Spears. (She also left a thumbprint behind in Ormond told me to write you.” Soon, they were having daily Beach, identical to that of “Lori Grody.”) The next day, telephone conversations at Pralle’s expense, Arlene in Volusia County, “Greene” pawned Walter Antonio’s arranging interviews for Wuornos and herself and ring, later identified by his fiancée and the jeweler who becoming a fixture on tabloid talk shows from coast to sized it.