“One year. Seven murders. One giant mystery” (Reed, 2017). Aileen Wuornos is remembered as one of the first female serial killers captured in the United States. Aileen Wuornos, originally named Aileen Carol Pittman, was born in Rochester, Michigan, on February, 29th, 1956. She was the daughter of Leo Dale Pittman, who was incarcerated at the time of her birth from a sentence for committing sexual crimes against children and molestation, later taking his own life in prison (Reed, 2017). Her mother, Diane Wuornos, abandoned both she and her brother, Keith, who were later adopted by their maternal grandparents Lauri Wuornos and Britta Wuornos (Reed, 2017). Convicted in 1991, she demonstrated biological factors from her father, who was a criminal psychopath, developmental factors due to her abusive upbringing environment as a child, along with mental disorders including conduct disorder, antisocial and borderline personality disorders.
Aileen grew up in a harsh and abusive environment by her grandfather who was an alcoholic that had physically and sexually abused her. She was often beaten on consecutive days and not given a chance to recover from the previous days’ beatings. Aileen learned to trade sex, first experienced with her brother along with sexual
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All of the victims were murdered point-blank with multiple shots, primarily to the head, resulting in a quick death. Most of these men were found naked or partially clothed, decomposing in remote and wooded areas. She would often murder the men that she targeted before any sexual activity transpired. The serial killings all demonstrated similar findings, aside from only one of the men having a history with conviction of rape. During Aileen’s trial, she finally admitted to the killings of the seven men and was sentenced to death (Reed,