Aileen Wuornos was an American serial killer who murdered several men between 1989 and 1990, leaving their bodies along highways in Northern and Central Florida. In 1992, she plead guilty to the murder of six men, and received the death penalty for each plea. Although much speculation surrounded her mental stability, she was eventually executed in 2002, making her the tenth woman executed in the United States, and the second in Florida, since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977.
The first murder Wuornos committed was that of Richard Mallory, a 51-year-old electronics shop owner. Aileen was working as a prostitute along Florida highways at the time, and claimed that she was picked up by Mallory and killed him in self defense after he raped and beat her. Her story changed several times before she gave her testimony, and her statement was not consistent with evidence found at the scene. While she testified that Mallory was coming towards her when she initially shot him, investigation by a firearms specialist revealed that the gun had been fired from behind. After her conviction of Mallory’s murder, Wuornos’s attorney brought to attention that Richard Mallory was a convicted sex offender who spent several years in a mental institution after pleading insanity to a
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That July, a woman named Rhonda Bailey witnessed a car crash off State Road 315, two women, later identified as Aileen Wuornos and her partner Tyria Moore, implored her not to call the police. They then abandoned the car and left on foot. When the police found the car, they determined it was that of 65-year-old Peter Siems, who had been missing since June 7th. The license plate was missing from the car, bloodstains were found throughout the interior, and a bloody palm print was discovered on the interior door handle. Police sketch artists interviewed witnesses who had seen the two women, then released their likenesses to the