I believe that Aileen Carol Wuornos killed for several reasons and that her traumatic childhood only influenced her urges. Wuornos’ childhood was extremely tough and hard on her. Her father was incarcerated for rape and her mother abandoned her at 6 months. She was then forced to live with her abusive grandfather. While living there she claims to have been raped (not by her grandparents) and became pregnant. As a result of her young pregnancy, her grandparents kicked her out, but eventually she gave up the child and moved back into their residence. However, after more family hardships Wuornos began living on her own and began to engage in prostitution to acquire money to survive. She was also engaging in heavy drug abuse. Given all of that information I would have to say that Wuornos experienced a very traumatic upbringing and that it could have affected her immensely. That being said, she fits perfectly within the Trauma-Control Model, which makes me believe that her childhood could have absolutely motivated her to become the person she did. Also, going along with this idea, she was using drugs; therefore, drugs could have been a facilitator to her crimes. It is clear that she may have been motivated either financially, by anger, or perhaps by psychosis. She was motivated financially because she had sex with victims for money and then killed them when they wouldn’t pay her enough at times. I …show more content…
She had limited educational and even dropped out of school. She also engaged in many crimes prior to her killing career. Her crimes consisted of prostitution, theft, robbery, forgery. etc. Wuornos was no stranger to the world of crime. Wuornos had an explosive temperament, in that she hated men and would act out of anger in her murders. I would have to conclude that for these reasons, she could be labeled as a