24 - Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers by Emily Turner

In this episode, we discuss Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers, Emily Turner’s documentary about Aileen Wuornos, a rare, hands-on female serial killer whose life is steeped in trauma, exploitation, and state violence. We discuss our views on the death penalty and then unpack whether Aileen’s childhood abandonment, sexual abuse, homelessness, and years of sex work made her into a "monster”. We discuss  nature vs nurture, the deeper horror of the targeting of sex workers; misogynistic and homophobic rhetoric, and the way prosecutors, cops, lawyers, and her “adoptive” mother profited from Aileen's story.

Content & Spoiler Warning:

This episode includes discussion of capital punishment, sexual assault, sex work, misogyny, child abuse and neglect, mental illness, suicide, corruption, homophobia, and of course murder and serial killers in general. We also spoil this documentary. 

Palate cleanser:

The films of Rob Reiner, whose work, such as The Princess Bride, Stand by Me, This is Spinal Tap, and When Harry Met Sally has shaped our cinematic lives almost as much as Star Wars.

Other recommendations:

Other media covering Aileen Wuornos includes Nick Broomfield’s documentary Selling of a Serial Killer, the Oscar-winning film Monster starring Charlize Theron, the podcast the Last Podcast on the Left (Aileen Wuornos two-parter), the podcast Women and Crime (criminology professors discuss female offenders), and My Favorite Murder (episode 96).

Dateline & 13 Alibis – for exploration of wrongful prosecutions 

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog – ongoing recommendation if you want to learn more about the impact of childhood trauma.

S-Town (podcast) – a portrait of a damaged, brilliant man 

Shiny Happy People and The Righteous Gemstones – to explore evangelical excess and hypocrisy.

The Crucible – for witch-hunt logic, moral absolutism, and judges who sound a lot like Aileen’s.

Betrayal (podcast, not the documentary) – a woman uncovering that her teacher husband was abusing students.

Our past episodes on Spotlight and Catch and Kill  for the horrific impact of sexual abuse.

Dexter - a unique take on a Florida serial killer

Sons of Anarchy for biker bars similar to the Last Resort, where Aileen was arrested.

Making a Murderer for troubling confessions.

My Favorite Murder episode 145 on the McMartin pre-school

The Green Mile - both the book and the movie for a riveting story of death row inmates

Super Troopers for highway cops with prominent moustaches. 

Homework for next episode:

Watch: Hereditary (2018)

Next up, we pivot from true crime back to horror cinema with Ari Aster’s Hereditary. What's the connection? Shocking violence on a highway. You might want to close your eyes around 33 and a half minutes.

And coming up on a future episode, start reading Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno Garcia.

 Special thanks to Nancy Azano for the podcast cover art (Instagram: @nancyazano) and Harry Kidd for the opening and closing score (Instagram: @harryjkidd, Spotify). 

Transcript

Anne 0:12

Welcome back to John to Darkness, a sometimes weekly, sometimes biweekly podcast where we discuss our favorite horror and true crime. If you need someone to process serial killer documentaries with you without judgment, we're here for you. My name is Annie and I'll be introducing Caroline to my favorite horror movies, podcast, TV shows and books.

Caroline 0:28

And my name is Caroline, and I'll be doing the same from the true crime side of things.

Anne 0:32

I'm gonna start with the question. Death penalty. What do you think about it?

Caroline 0:34

I am opposed. it's not just because just killing one. Innocent person is too many, which I do believe, and it's not just because of the cost, which is actually greater, than the cost of incarceration, but also, it complicates things when people are able to get themselves to countries that don't allow extradition to countries that have the death. like people have been able to escape persecution because the country they're in let them come back here because we have it. And so it's like, it, it doesn't just complicate crimes that it's directly related to. It, like complicates things for a whole manner of reasons beyond just like a ethical

Anne 1:14

I hadn't thought about that aspect of it.

Caroline 1:15

There was some like Dateline I was listening to that I learned that from, and I was like, oh, that's a whole new layer of why we shouldn't have it.

Anne 1:24

I'm also opposed for similar reasons, the cost, the possibility of putting an innocent person to death. It has happened. You can read about the innocent project to find out more. I remember I did an anti-death penalty speech back in like middle school, and I think my main points were those also, it's not a deterrent. It makes us as bad as the murderer. And also it's not justly distributed. Like people convicted of killing white people are 17 times more likely to be executed than those convicted of killing black people. And there's tons of stats about racial bias. How much money you have, who you're killing, like all these things, impact who actually receives this punishment. Having said that, you know, if someone in my family were a victim of something, I probably would want the death penalty. Like I don't think I'm all that civilized, you know, I'd want them to die slowly cut into a thousand pieces. But I think it's the job of a society to check that blood thirsty impulse that I have or would have.

Caroline 2:16

I think a long, painful disease ridden life in jail sounds worse than being able to escape the planet.

Anne 2:24

Yeah. It could be. Well, uh, lately there have been calls from certain politicians to use it more frequently, and, 2025 showed a 15 year high, nearly double the previous year, mostly because of an increase in Florida. an NPR article I read said that people executed this year included lots of vulnerabilities such as people with brain damage, a serious mental illness, severe childhood trauma, or an IQ that was in the intellectually disabled range. I asked you this question because our focus today is the documentary Eileen Queen of the Serial Killers directed by Emily Turner. about Eileen Warns, who was executed in Florida back in 2002. Before we get too deeply into this, spoiler and trigger warning. There will be discussion of sexual assault, sex work, corrupt police officers murder, child abuse, mental illness, incest, and we will be spoiling documentary. So Caroline, what can you tell us about Eileen? Queen of the serial killers.

Caroline 3:17

so Eileen, queen of Serial Killers explores the life and crimes of Eileen Waro, one of America's most notorious female serial killers. The documentary traces her deeply traumatic childhood marked by abandonment, abuse, and homelessness, and examines how, years of survival on the margins shaped her worldview. through interviews, archival footage and analysis, the film Recounts Warner's murder of multiple men in Florida in the late 1980s. Crimes that she claimed were acts of self-defense while working as a sex worker. grapples with the tension between personal responsibility and systemic failure, raising questions about mental illness, misogyny, exploitation, and the criminal justice system,

Anne 3:59

what adjective would you use to describe this

Caroline 4:01

I mean, I, I feel like I've used tragic before, but it is tragic. What about you?

Anne 4:06

grim is what came to mind and I'm not sure if I've used grim before or not, but, her life story. What happened is very grim. The documentary itself, is a bit, I guess, biased and unfocused. and we can get to that in the criticisms, but I, I have a lot of criticism about this particular telling of her story. I watched this with my parents. They're visiting and my dad hates true crime. Doesn't get why anyone would subject themselves to these horrors. But my mom is fascinated. And after she was like, all I wanna do is talk about serial killers. And even my dad was like independently researching Eileen Enos and coming up to tell me like facts he learned. So, maybe I'll make a convert out of him yet. yeah.

Caroline 4:46

just to go back to like the adjective it like it does make you think. It makes you question impression versus reality, which is of something, we've discussed across this podcast.

Anne 4:55

I think the thesis of this documentary is valid, but I think it could have been done better

Caroline 5:01

I agree.

Anne 5:01

one of the first images in this documentary is a floating Leaf, it was like this song when the last week of Autumn, autumn happens, come to Florida. And I was like, oh my God. Floating Leaf Frankenstein. I was like, is that why Caroline chose

Caroline 5:13

No,

Anne 5:14

no?

Caroline 5:14

and, I mean, I guess Monster or perceived monster, were they born that way or created that way is really the,

Anne 5:20

That's the real connection, not the fact that there's one floating leaf somewhere in this movie.

Caroline 5:25

Yeah.

Anne 5:25

Well, I think it's important to talk about female serial killers in general, because what makes Eileen Enos so interesting is that she is rare as a violent, hands-on serial killer. The more common category for female serial killers is like the angel of death or the black widow doing it for the money or insurance payouts. Or perhaps they're working with a man like the Manson family, or Ken and Barbie, what's her name? Carla Hoka.

Caroline 5:50

Yeah.

Anne 5:51

I listened to the My Favorite Murder episode 96, which covers Eileen Moreos, but they also covered Judy Guana, ano who's a slightly more stereotypical stereo killer because she kind of does it more from a distance for the insurance payout. Like she's killing husbands and children, with poison and dynamite. Interesting one. So this makes her different.

Caroline 6:10

you when you said her last name, did you say Bueno Anyo?

Anne 6:13

Yes. Well, I don't know if I said that. I said something along those lines. I'm not sure if I pronounced it right. Yeah.

Caroline 6:18

actually her last name anyway, so it doesn't

Anne 6:21

Yeah. So you know all about her then. I, I didn't know about her until I listened to this. My favorite murder,

Caroline 6:26

Quite well.

Anne 6:27

well, setting Florida 1990 era of the first George Bush. We've got the Iraq War happening, which impacted Eileen's living because. Her regular Johns were going off to war. I've never been to Florida. So for me, I'm imagining the land of like Jason Mendoza from The Good Place and Tiger King. Right. You've spent a lot more time in Florida than I have.

Caroline 6:47

Yes, I've spent a ton of time in Florida. My cousins lived there, growing up, so I went there every year for a long time. and now my in-laws have a place there, so I've been very recently as well, Florida, and I don't get along though.

Anne 6:59

I know.

Caroline 6:59

Yeah.

Anne 7:00

I have a question. As I said, I've never been south of Virginia other than to like Australia obviously, but in the United States, why is Daytona Beach a road? Like why is it a parking lot and a road? I don't get it.

Caroline 7:09

I haven't been to Daytona Beach.

Anne 7:11

Okay.

Caroline 7:12

big, it's not like Rhode Island.

Anne 7:14

Yeah. But yeah, I was like, what is going on with this beach? Why are people just like driving on it like it's a road?

Caroline 7:19

I mean there are beaches. You can do that too in the northeast. But yeah, we did that in North Carolina. I think it in the outer banks you can drive on the beach too. People just like to be like, it, I can do what I want. in Florida don't come at me. I think that's what people are known for generally.

Anne 7:34

Well, this is an area and a time that was known for serial killers. this part of Florida, at least, I'm not saying all of Florida, but where Eileen was hanging out was a pretty seedy high crime area. When I heard Marion County, Florida, I was like, I know that for some reason. And so I looked up like Marion County true crime or something. And I didn't find anything specifically there besides Eileen Moreos, but Ted Bundy, got caught in Florida. Danny Rolands is the Gainesville Ripper, also murdered people. He was executed in Florida as well.

Caroline 8:00

There's also a Marian, on the main line outside Philly that you, that might have made you think of it,

Anne 8:06

strong true crime association. I don't know. well, let's talk about Eileen first. Impression, big smile, lots of enthusiasm, crazy eyes.

Caroline 8:13

actually, one of my first notes is like. I loved her energy right away. Like when she comes in the room,

Anne 8:19

Yeah.

Caroline 8:20

just I wouldn't say that I found her like attractive, but she seemed like cute, like a cute, fun person to hang out with, you know? That, has clearly something behind her eyes that, makes you not totally wanna let your guard down, but you do feel endeared.

Anne 8:34

Yeah. And you know, they make such a big deal out of how unattractive she is, and that's not true. She's not that unattractive if this woman had had a normal life and maybe some access to dental care, you would not say she's unusually unattractive. It's just because of who she is that they're making those kind of comments.

Caroline 8:52

Yeah. A, because she's a woman, but B I also think that this was a particular time in our history where the fashion didn't do anyone any favors. Like nobody's looking good in like 1991.

Anne 9:05

Tail end of the eighties fashion,

Caroline 9:06

Yeah. It's like that weird color block period where we weren't quite at like grunge in some of the better parts of the nineties, we had steered away from some of the cooler parts of the eighties too. It was some weird, in-between zone where everyone looked bad and old.

Anne 9:21

Old, Yeah. She looks a lot older than she is, but I mean, I think 15 years of highway sex work. We'll do that to you. That's a rough life. Well, I mean, our life is tragic. She's broken. We've say over and over and over again. Hurt people, hurt people, but lots of hurt people don't hurt anyone. Broken people don't always break others. So I think as we discuss her motivations and her reasons, we have to also remember, she didn't have to do this. She didn't have to go this way. There's a quote from the filmmaker, Emily Turn Turner. It's so much easier to write off someone who's done such heinous acts as a cold-blooded murderer rather than a deeply damaged human. Actually, she was made, and that's chilling, which is the connection to Frankenstein.

Caroline 10:00

Mm-hmm.

Anne 10:01

I always like to discover new podcasts when we're researching this, and one of the ones I found this time was called Women and Crime. The co-hosts are both like criminology professors and they have like seminars on like female serial killers and it just sounded like, oh, this would be a fun class or an interesting class to be in. so I wanna share a quote from them that I think was important. When we talk about theories that explain offenders. Some people think that we're excusing their behavior, but again, it's not justification or excuses, it's understanding. Because if we can understand what makes a monster, we can prevent monsters from being made. I think we just kind of have to keep that in mind as we discuss this. We're not excusing what she did, but we are looking into what created the conditions for her to do these things. So let's talk about her early life. Both nature and nurture probably have to be taken into account here. I mean, her father went to jail for raping a 7-year-old. He had schizophrenia. He died by suicide. Her grandfather died by suicide as well. So perhaps some of these tendencies could potentially be genetic. Lots of red flags there in her background, but I think it's more about nurture. What do you think?

Caroline 11:01

I totally agree. I mean, I get a little defensive about this subject because, I have an, well I had an addict parent, that comes with a lot of assuming things about you, et cetera. I always like to think that it's something you can overcome or learn from or be different than, and I also have witnessed a lot of people that have situations like that and. would hate if something ended up happening with a child of of mine. I'm always afraid, like, what if one of my kids does something horrible? And then everyone's gonna be like, what did you do to them? And I feel like I'm trying my best, you know?

Anne 11:39

That's a fear of mine as well, that you're gonna get that call someday that it was your kid who did the sadistic thing Eileen didn't have much of a chance though. She was abandoned by her teenage mother when she was four. like Ted Bundy, right? Raised by grandparents, maybe thinking they were her parents. though she says they're decent in the documentary and that she had like a moral clean upbringing, but Was one of my criticism. It's like if the point of this is to understand why she is the way she is, they should have acknowledged that. And if this was the only documentary I'd seen, I wouldn't know necessarily that those grandparents were probably pretty abusive. They don't talk about it.

Caroline 12:15

is the friend from high school who talks about how she was abandoned and how, um, there was really no parenting, and clearly she'd had a kid, but nobody really talked about it. And, that the kid was the result of an assault and that they didn't really have a chance. There's another person that mentions that, but Eileen does start, like, it does start off with you thinking oh, maybe everything was fine in her upbringing. And clearly it wasn't. When you go, like, even just to the Wikipedia page, the whole first part of it is like, Jesus.

Anne 12:42

I rewatched this, I had time and I was like, should I watch monsters? Should I watch one of the Nick Broomfield documentaries? Should I rewatch this? And I ultimately decided to rewatch it because I had, I had so much criticism and I was like, am I being fair? did I miss something because I wasn't really. You know, a hundred percent paying attention or something. But no, I had to learn about the abuse at the hands of her grandparents and po possibly her brother from other sources. It doesn't talk about it, it talks about high school and school friends, and I'm putting friends in quotation marks being the source of abuse, but it doesn't talk about those grandparents, which I thought was a strange omission.

Caroline 13:16

I agree.

Anne 13:16

And yes, these are things I learned from other sources that, abuse could be heard by the neighbors. Dawn has said she was abused, apparently she was setting fires, which is one of the, the McDonald triad of cruelty to animals and bedwetting that you often see in serial killer history. Sexually active by 11, trading sex for cigarettes, beer and attention and can we even call it trading sex? She's 11. even if the people she is. You know, having sex with her, perhaps also quite young. It's very awful. pregnant by 13, had to give up the baby living in the woods, committing petty crimes like theft. And then she's a sex worker by 15. And this is not sex work by choice. Like this is not empowered sex work. This is like sex work by default. what else was she going to do? She was sexually abused, I'm sure, because an 11-year-old doesn't go out seeking sex if they haven't gotten that idea somewhere. Once again, I wanna recommend the book, the Boy Who Was Raised as a dog that just really goes into childhood trauma and how much that impacts you. she was, abandoned, betrayed by everybody. Society, family, community. And you know, I feel really sad for that little girl, Eileen, who. Was never given a chance, even if she hadn't become a murderer, she never had a chance at a normal life with that sort of upbringing.

Caroline 14:25

No,

Anne 14:26

I also listened to the last podcast on the left, two part on her,

Caroline 14:30

I knew you would.

Anne 14:32

as usual, I laughed, I cringed, I felt guilty, about laughing. Henry Zaki has this wonderful jaws, Quint black eyes, doll's eyes, speech about her, where he's talking about Eileen Warner was having like doll's, eyes, like Quint. It's, it's very funny, very irreverent. But they do point out, one of them points out, what if someone had given a fuck, right? If just anyone had given a fuck about her. And the host of that woman in crime show as well point out how early intervention could have helped, but she didn't get it.

Caroline 15:00

Right.

Anne 15:01

And I think we probably need to think about attachment theory in relation to her. You know, like if her 14, I guess her mother was 16 when she had her, but had dropped her off by the time she was four at the grandparent's house, she wouldn't have been able to develop a healthy, normal attachment and then she'd have no clue what a healthy relationship with another human being should be and seeking love in all the wrong places.

Caroline 15:23

Did they talk about her marriage on the last podcast on the left?

Anne 15:26

They did.

Caroline 15:27

they don't cover it at all on this.

Anne 15:29

Again, another strange omission. Very Anna Nicole Smith, right?

Caroline 15:34

Mm-hmm.

Anne 15:35

something, he's 69. I think it also reminded me of Best In Show You're a best in show fan, right? The

Caroline 15:41

They can eat

Anne 15:42

with um.

Caroline 15:43

And

Anne 15:43

could talk about soup, talk all day.

Caroline 15:45

talk and still have things to not talk about.

Anne 15:48

So good. those pictures of her, with him, she's cute.

Caroline 15:51

She's cute. I mean, I, like you said, if she had had the opportunity to care for herself better than people wouldn't, I mean, people will always find a way to knock someone down if they need to, to feel big.

Anne 16:02

I'm almost hesitant to point out that she's cute because it shouldn't matter whether she was cute or 20 or not at cute at 20 or not.

Caroline 16:09

and in this moment, I know we've what people look like in earlier episodes, but in this moment. really feels like it's in response to the really brutal harping on how she's so not attractive. You wouldn't pay her for sex, quotes from the very beginning part of this documentary.

Anne 16:26

I mean, I think Emily Turner or Jasmine Hurst, whoever was in charge of the editing of this, they make point of starting with like, how could anyone be attracted to that?

Caroline 16:36

Right.

Anne 16:36

I saw like a lot of people criticize them for doing that, but I think they're doing it very deliberately to point out the misogyny in that. So I don't have a problem with them starting with that. Like that's what they're talking about.

Caroline 16:46

the point. Yeah.

Anne 16:47

Well, that marriage didn't last. Apparently after nine weeks, she, beat him with his own cane and it was an old, after a restraining order, which reflects her explosive temper. But yeah, it seems like, A lot of this is just looking for love, looking for connection, you know, which ties into the poor attachment. She says at one point in the documentary, I was trying to fall in love. It's not cool being alone. It turns into a real drag. And at one point she attempted suicide when one of her relationships broke up. there's that argument that a lot of what she was doing was this desperate effort to hang on to Tyra.

Caroline 17:20

I would say so. You know what's weird? There's so many people in this whose names don't sound like how they're spelled.

Anne 17:27

Yeah, it's spelled tyria.

Caroline 17:28

Yeah. It's spelled Tyre and Waro is, SPEL is spelled like AU or whatever. There's another person. I even wrote it down, where's this person? Oh. U Blunt. Whose name is Blo? Spelled Blo, but they say Blunt, I

Anne 17:45

Who was that? I don't remember that person.

Caroline 17:46

a police officer or something. I just wrote down also not how you pronounce it. What's with that? Yeah,

Anne 17:53

Arlene P pr, I think it's, what is it spelled? P-R-A-L-L-E. But I think I heard her pronounce it. Ply.

Caroline 17:59

this is just like full of people whose names are tricky.

Anne 18:02

Yeah. Well, she was caught, because she was using the same gun. They found a blonde hair. Then she and Tyra crashed the car and she was caught because she had sold some of Richard Mallory's things and had Le left a thumbprint. she was arrested at the last resort bar, which I just thought was an expression at first. I didn't realize the bar was actually called the Last Resort.

Caroline 18:23

So funny.

Anne 18:24

Yeah, definitely reminded me of the type of place they would hang out in Sons of Anarchy. one of my favorite parts of that moment, which is just so weird, she's like, what am I getting arrested for? And there's this guy yelling at her. She's like, arrested for what? And he's like, for a warrant. Did you remember that part?

Caroline 18:40

Yeah.

Anne 18:40

He's like, don't get arrested for a warrant, like you're arrested for murder.

Caroline 18:43

But then she's also like, what warrant? And he doesn't answer like, like it's always interesting when you listen to podcasts like this and people are like, ask for a lawyer and ask for a warrant and ask for proof and stuff like that. am I really gonna be allowed to do that or are they just gonna shove me in a car? You know?

Anne 18:59

well they're gonna shove you in the car, but I suppose before you talk to them, you can ask for those things. Another, uh, WTF moment that made me feel bad for her was when she's about to confess and somebody's like, you know, if you want counsel, please speak up. And she's like, what's that? It just goes to show, I guess, how little she knew about the process. Um,

Caroline 19:17

nice to her talking. whoever that

Anne 19:19

yeah,

Caroline 19:20

who was explaining what she was arrested for and, and the,

Anne 19:22

and I suppose he,

Caroline 19:24

and,

Anne 19:24

he can't probably say, you should ask for life, right? Like, there's probably restrictions.

Caroline 19:29

like, I can't advise you, but it is, you're right.

Anne 19:31

Hint, hint.

Caroline 19:32

Yeah.

Anne 19:33

Well, I guess then we've just gotta talk about, how culpable is she? Is she a killer who robs a robber who kills a woman defending herself? Some combination of all those things. that judge, I think it was Gail Graziano Graziano, the one who got removed, said, we need to consider the why. And I think that's super important that Eileen aos worked as a sex worker for like 15 years. They throw around hundreds of, johns and she didn't kill anyone for a very long time. So lots of men survived. Encounters with Eileen Waro over the years. So why did she kill Richard Mallory?

Caroline 20:07

I wrote down the metrics on that. in the period when she killed seven men, she had seen 400 johns. So why this seven?

Anne 20:14

Yeah, what did they do or what did she need at that point?

Caroline 20:16

and I don't small percentage.

Anne 20:19

Yeah,

Caroline 20:20

that excuses any life, but.

Anne 20:22

so yeah, I guess it's just how do we parse out what the truth is. Apparently there was no mention of rape in the initial confession, and then the rape she describes during the trial is so heinous, right. So extreme that you do wonder if she wasn't just throwing out some extra details to be like, look how bad it was. To provoke sympathy in the jury, like with the court around the neck, the rubbing alcohol. But having said that, I found the way she. Recounted it at trial. Believable, right? Like she's crying, she's shaking, she's having trouble getting the story out. So if it's not true, she's a pretty good actress. And again, I know maybe she's a sociopath and they often are, sophisticated enough to put on that sort of act. But if it is true, I feel like she's well within her rights to do anything she could to free herself from that situation. This is like Florida's stand your ground territory. Like She should have shot him

Caroline 21:05

And that's interesting too when he is like, you know, you're there with your clothes off or whatever, getting paid for sex, but you're saying that he assaulted you and she's like, he didn't pay me. Like,

Anne 21:18

Yeah.

Caroline 21:20

which is also a good technical point to mention.'cause if it's not assault, it's robbery, you

Anne 21:25

Yeah. yeah, it's that John Tanner. He says, you were ravaged and naked and you think no one would believe you, that you'd been assaulted. And she says, we've got women being raped every day and nobody cares about it. Nobody would've believed that I was raped and had to defend myself. They would've said, you're a prostitute. We don't care. Do you think if she had taken that story to the police, would they have taken her seriously?

Caroline 21:45

no. There is that case of that guy who was taking sex workers and hunting them down on the property, like in Alaska or something, like taking them in a

Anne 21:52

yeah.

Caroline 21:53

And that woman

Anne 21:54

Yeah.

Caroline 21:54

and she went and told her story and they didn't believe her

Anne 21:56

Right.

Caroline 21:57

it was true.

Anne 21:57

So I think there's a very good chance that she is right in terms of how that would've been received.

Caroline 22:02

to your point about like her storytelling, I think you're right that it was believable and it was upsetting to watch her recount it. I think it would be fair to wonder if all of that happened with person she was talking about, or if she's describing other of assault throughout her life and using them for this moment. They say when you've been through trauma, your emotional growth is sort, sort of stunted at the age that you were when the trauma occurs. So that's sort of like right? Like A child would utilize all of the tools in their shed to try to get outta something, and it doesn't mean they're necessarily lying that they happen, but maybe they didn't happen then,

Anne 22:42

Or in that exact way.

Caroline 22:44

Right.

Anne 22:44

I have no doubt that when she says she was sexually assaulted, that she was probably sexually assaulted many times. I do think it's important to consider what she wants when she is saying things like, presumably when she committed these murders, she wanted money. She wanted to maintain her relationship with Tyra, and she wanted to survive. Right? She wanted to come home to Tyra. She says that. and then perhaps In the post Richard Mallory shooting, she won a vengeance for the harm done to her, even if it's unconscious or subconscious. Then in court when she recounts, what happens with Richard Mallory, she wants to get off when she denies the rape. Later on, she wants to hasten her execution and is trying to manipulate public opinion to stop her appeals so she can just get it over with. where is the truth in that? But she's so unreliable. I personally believe Richard Mallory probably did do something to her that triggered that murder given that she hadn't done it before

Caroline 23:31

And that he had.

Anne 23:33

he had. Well that's my favorite part of the documentary.

Caroline 23:35

Same.

Anne 23:35

what's her name? Michelle Gillen.

Caroline 23:37

She was great. at first I was like, I don't know if I like her. And then I was like, I like her.

Anne 23:43

I really liked her. Yeah. I read about her, She died kind of young in her sixties, she went to Emerson College, and I found an obituary through that university she exposed dangers in elder housing, abuse of children in state care, human trafficking in South Florida, cancer among firefighters, poor treatment of people with mental illness in Miami prisons and poverty among Holocaust survivors. Her work led in some cases to legislation being passed and in many cases, to local Emmy awards and other accolades. She also pursued justice for herself and her fellow women journalists when she sued CBS for age and gender discrimination after the Miami affiliate declined to renew her contract in 2018. Here's a quote from a friend. For all those who knew her, she was a relentless warrior who fought indefatigably, I don't know if I can pronounce that, who fought for the vulnerable in every story she delved into, she aimed to discover the truth and spur change to improve the quality of life of her community. she's a legend. She's great.

Caroline 24:38

You know, another legend that went to Emerson and my brother, um,

Anne 24:43

That's so weird. They both went to Emerson.

Caroline 24:45

yeah, no, uh, Jennifer Coolidge, who loves soup.

Anne 24:48

Oh. Connections everywhere.

Caroline 24:50

Yeah.

Anne 24:51

I didn't know that she went to Emerson.

Caroline 24:52

Patrick Hines from True Crime Obsessed, which I

Anne 24:55

No way.

Caroline 24:56

three weeks. So

Anne 24:57

I know you are slacking.

Caroline 24:59

I know. Sorry,

Anne 25:01

When she pins down, Danny Tanner. No, not Danny Tanner. John Tanner. I keep wanting to call him Danny Tanner. about Richard Miller. He's, uh, you know, pres, he presents himself in a similarly wholesome way.

Caroline 25:13

He does.

Anne 25:14

I think Danny Tanner actually was wholesome. but what's his real name?

Caroline 25:18

Bob Saggot is,

Anne 25:20

Bob was not,

Caroline 25:21

Mm-hmm.

Anne 25:23

not, not wholesome in the same way that John Tanner is, but, talk about him in a few minutes, but Michelle Gillen, pinning John Tanner down on the fact that he knew very Gale Withers. Got you girl.

Caroline 25:35

Gotcha. Don't it hurt?

Anne 25:37

Yeah, he was in an institution he said he wanted the gas. Richard Mallory wanted the gas chamber because he was afraid he would harm someone and he couldn't control his sexual impulses. Even his doctor said he was a potential danger and Tanner knew. That's pretty damning stuff.

Caroline 25:51

Very, not that it mattered,

Anne 25:53

He had the depositions and he pulled the old, I don't recall

Caroline 25:57

mm-hmm.

Anne 25:57

when he smiles and tells her, you should have been a prosecutor yourself. I thought that was pretty slimy. I know he was like complimenting her, but in this really smug Yeah. Creepy way. When he's first talking to her, I noticed on my second viewing that he's biting his, his bottom lip, which just strikes me as icky when he's like looking at Michelle.

Caroline 26:18

I think icky is a good word for him.

Anne 26:20

he's very like. Good old boys, right wing Christian holier than Thou Puritan To me, he was giving Kevin Spacey and a time to kill, no room for nuance, no empathy. here's my literary reference, not Macbeth, but the Crucible Judge Danforth from The Crucible who's rigid and punishing very fire and brimstone. Not a vibe I like, and he was a Bundy apologist. did you see that? John Tanner, he, a few years before prayed with Bundy, he would go and pray with Bundy. So bad judge a character. If you're like, oh, he's a born again Christian. Bullshit.

Caroline 26:56

I mean, Bundy had a penis, so I guess he got a

Anne 26:59

That's why. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, he feels so bad about what he did. Let's not let what a man does ruin, you know, when he is young, ruin his life.

Caroline 27:06

Exactly.

Anne 27:07

And arguably he

Caroline 27:08

whatever your name is

Anne 27:09

Yeah,

Caroline 27:09

Piece of shit.

Anne 27:10

Piece of shit. So, arguably too, he was using her politically to, you know, run on that anti-porn, anti-sex work crusade for his election.

Caroline 27:19

I mean, talk about what kills women. It's not porn, it's men.

Anne 27:24

It's Yeah.

Caroline 27:25

I love that. If there were no men who would protect you, and you're like, protect me from who?

Anne 27:31

Yeah.

Caroline 27:31

Sorry. If there are men listening know there are good men. We're both married to men that are good. Try and raise good

Anne 27:37

yeah,

Caroline 27:38

We know they're out

Anne 27:38

absolutely. What do we think about these other six men? because we don't know if they were potential rapists, if she was getting a vibe from them that was accurate, that they were going to assault her in some way. Charles Humphrey's family denies that he would've ever seen a sex worker. Of course they would. Right? And how would they know? but yeah, I mean, maybe they were, John's looking for sex and something they did triggered her, and she's in that kind of hypervigilant, traumatized state, and she reacted. so, maybe they were looking to rape her. I've seen perhaps that they were good Samaritans picking up what they thought was a stranded woman on the side of the road. I, I have my doubts about that.

Caroline 28:14

I

Anne 28:14

Yeah.

Caroline 28:15

cause that guy, and maybe this was Ariel Blunt. Blunt, who should be blond, the guy who takes the reporter on the ride and he's like, I had in cash. A$1,200 watch and a$450 ring, by the way, you know, I know what that is in today's money.

Anne 28:31

So much.

Caroline 28:32

Okay, that would be. in cash. I don't know why you would have, I

Anne 28:38

Why was he carrying that much cash?

Caroline 28:39

I don't even know why you would've$3,400 in cash, but a watch that's$2,861 and a ring. That's$3.

Anne 28:49

well, how did she know he had it?

Caroline 28:50

Well, I mean the watch in the ring.

Anne 28:52

So that speaks to the theory that they did something to trigger her.

Caroline 28:56

Not, not that they deserve to die for it. and not that all of them needed to be assaulting her to be triggering. I mean, something else could have triggered her. Who knows?

Anne 29:04

Well, Jasmine Hurst says that perhaps they were icons of previous rapists, which again, is not an excuse,

Caroline 29:10

Right.

Anne 29:11

something that we can think of in terms of understanding her actions. Again, maybe we're giving her too much credit, and then maybe she was just like, Hey, killing these guys is an easy way to take their money. this is when rent is due. Maybe that's why she did it to certain people and not others bringing it home. So Tyra doesn't have to lift a finger and we'll stay with her and not leave a witness. speaking of.

Caroline 29:29

people who needed dental work.

Anne 29:31

I don't wanna make fun of bad teeth because we talked about that with, white Lotus season three, you know, all the focus on the actress's teeth, but that's, that's some bad teeth.

Caroline 29:39

I literally just minutes before we started recording was yelling at my son for saying like, you never should tease people for what they look like. said, like

Anne 29:47

And

Caroline 29:47

bad haircut fine, but like something they can't change, don't talk about.

Anne 29:51

there's a lot of privilege with dental care, who can afford it and who can't afford it.

Caroline 29:54

yes. But I do think when, when someone, I mean f Tyra, I really feel like it's fair game for her because she sucks.

Anne 30:04

yeah. Arlene blames Tyra as the catalyst. Dawn calls her a fatal love. I think one of the police officers refers to her as like a mob wife enjoying stolen cars and money that Eileen brought home. So I don't believe that she didn't know what was going on.

Caroline 30:20

I don't believe she wasn't there sometimes.

Anne 30:23

think she was there for murders?

Caroline 30:24

Yeah,

Anne 30:25

Okay.

Caroline 30:25

I do.

Anne 30:26

yeah.

Caroline 30:27

say there were two women

Anne 30:28

Well they were definitely driving around a stolen car and they crashed it. but I feel like that was weeks after that murder in my head. that doesn't mean she was there for the murder. It means that she was driving around in the stolen car. I mean, okay. I feel bad for Eileen when they're playing that tape of Tyra selling her out, but. If I had found out my partner killed seven people and I wasn't involved, I'd do the same. I wouldn't go down for that shit. Right. But I think the reason this is such a betrayal is I don't think Tyra was uninvolved. I think she probably should have been held accountable in some way. And she got away with, she got away with it. Even if she wasn't involved in the murder, she knew she was complicit. I don't believe she didn't know.

Caroline 31:04

understand what you're saying, that you wouldn't wanna go down for something your partner did if you weren't involved. But there's other ways to, like, she, that is rough,

Anne 31:16

It's rough. Yeah. But if I found out that like. My partner was like Ted Bundy. And people, I'd be like, all right. I'm not gonna be, the good wife anymore.

Caroline 31:23

yeah.

Anne 31:24

I don't think that's what happened here.

Caroline 31:25

No.

Anne 31:26

And you know, despite all that, Arlene still talks about her with such love,

Caroline 31:29

Yeah,

Anne 31:30

right? Which is sad. I do think everybody's story here has an agenda. Right? are you ready to move on to Arlene?

Caroline 31:38

yeah,

Anne 31:39

so she's my biggest, what the fuck of this story? What do you think?

Caroline 31:42

it's very bizarre. I was like, you can adopt adults. And then of course their phone bills were like$3,000 a month in today's money. I'm not religious and I don't believe that God told her to go find her. So I'm like, what is your angle and why do you have all this time and money? So it was looking up and they owned a, a horse farm where they, horses.

Anne 32:04

Like dire wolves or something. What are those wolves she's got around with her.

Caroline 32:07

Oh yeah, the

Anne 32:08

You didn't see like the massive dog wolf things that

Caroline 32:12

I did. Yeah. And then, also worked at Sony an engineer.

Anne 32:18

We don't hear from him in this. did he want to adopt a grown female serial killer in prison as his daughter?

Caroline 32:25

like, I don't understand. She's forcing you to go do media interviews. where's the evidence of that? Because all prison calls are recorded the letters would be documented. So there there would have to be something that could corroborate that she was actually being sent by Eileen do these

Anne 32:43

Have you seen the Nick Broomfield documentaries, like Selling of a Serial Killer, the earlier ones.

Caroline 32:48

no, no,

Anne 32:48

So apparently in that, and this is where I'm like, well, what's truth here? Because in this documentary, queen of the Serial Killers, Arlene is selling herself as like the put upon. Godly adopted mother, right, that I was spending all this money and I was there for her. But apparently in selling the serial killer, she's the one who's pushing Eileen and trying to manage her, appearances. So there's very conflicting accounts of who's the grifter here, who's the tyrant? And again, I just don't know why, if this whole documentary is about showing us some sympathy for Eileen, why they wouldn't include Arlene shaking down Nick Broomfield for interviews.

Caroline 33:29

totally. And I don't know if maybe if it was just too subtly delivered, because I guess you're thinking about the juxtaposition of, we'll call her Lee because it's easier to say next to Arlene Lee's relationship with Tyra versus Lee's relationship with Arlene. it's clear who's. being walked all over. And so you wouldn't be like, walked all over by your partner, but then able to manipulate a woman who you just met from inside jail. You know, I don't, I, it, it doesn't seem like the same person could be, be both,

Anne 34:02

Arlene just hang up. She has no control over you. And the adoption?

Caroline 34:06

do this. God has other

Anne 34:08

No.

Caroline 34:08

to deal with if he's

Anne 34:10

mean, the only other thing that supports her, God told me to do it is does she have any history of doing anything like this before or after? why Lee Enos? why did God tell her to help? Not that I'm saying God actually told her to do anything, but that she believes God told her to help this woman. apparent. I, I it's very weird. And you know what she says in this very weird way, I always wanted to be a mom and it's like, you are not her mom,

Caroline 34:35

No.

Anne 34:35

adopted moms are real moms. I believe that 1000%. But adopting Eileen Enos doesn't make you a mom. It makes you a friend, a source of support potentially, depending on your behavior. But like, she's not her mom.

Caroline 34:48

no. How far apart in age are they even, I meant to look this up.

Anne 34:51

They're probably like the same age,

Caroline 34:52

Yeah,

Anne 34:53

like maybe a decade apart or something. anyway, I've seen the opposite that Arlene is the grifter, not Lee pushing her around. So I don't trust her at all, and she seems to be like salivating about the prospect of Lee dying and going to heaven. Like she's really pushing for her to accept this death sentence and do it and meet Jesus.

Caroline 35:12

She doesn't need Lee to be alive to profit. Off her.

Anne 35:14

Maybe this is like a bit of a munchausens by proxy in prison. You know, you get to be the saint you get to have people feel sorry for you because this person you were close to that you helped so selflessly died.

Caroline 35:27

Yep.

Anne 35:27

So it's probably about that, whether it's about money or not, I don't know, but I think it is about attention and perceived saintliness, but it's just weird. Why would she go from her farm life just like raising horses and wolves or whatever those animals are to this? It's seems like it came outta nowhere.

Caroline 35:42

You got bored.

Anne 35:43

yeah. I, I listened to an interview with Emily Turner the podcast was called, you can't Make this up, and she points out that Arlene is invoking God to protect Lee while Jack Turner is invoking God to execute her. So I just thought that was a, a little interesting dichotomy. also her hair is very Nancy Wheeler in

Caroline 36:00

Mm-hmm.

Anne 36:01

four, right?

Caroline 36:02

Mm-hmm.

Anne 36:03

looks better, but it's like the same hair.

Caroline 36:05

Yep.

Anne 36:06

And Arlene, I believe is the one who, dug up Steve Glaser.

Caroline 36:10

Wait, who's Steve Glazer.

Anne 36:11

He is the, like Bob Ross pothead lawyer.

Caroline 36:15

Oh, right. the lawyer who was like, let her die.

Anne 36:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The one who was out of his depth I mean, I guess arguably he was doing what she wanted, To just expedite this, plead guilty, skip the trials. And I do see the pointlessness and redundancy of Lee going through more trials when she's already got the death penalty for Richard Mallory. But apparently in the old other documentaries they drive with him to visit Lee and he's like smoking pot in the car, he's. I, I don't think he represented her in the way that she should have been represented.

Caroline 36:45

she had a funny line about that where she was like, what are you gonna do? Kill me again? it

Anne 36:49

Fair.

Caroline 36:49

a waste of, I mean, understand that families want justice. and so on paper, I guess I should just say I can't really relate with that. if justice is being served, why does it have to be like, attributed to me or my loved one if it's gonna happen,

Anne 37:04

Yeah. Well, I guess that brings us to did she get a fair trial, the other murders were allowed into testimony, whereas Richard Mallory's criminal history wasn't. the female judge was removed probably because she would've been more sympathetic. the trial was held in a place where there was a lot of extreme Christian types in the jury, and then the judge says, may God have mercy upon your corpse? I feel like that show's a bias.

Caroline 37:30

That was so shitty. the female judge who, I'm so sorry, I didn't write her name down.

Anne 37:35

Yale, Graziano, Graziano,

Caroline 37:37

Oh yeah. but she too, made the same point about Tyra really being a trigger the connection of this being a fatal love or what have you.

Anne 37:47

I feel like there's more about Tyra that like people know that is, has not been revealed. In these documentaries. So yeah, Lee says when she was responding to the Richard Mallory evidence not being included. It's sad, as in a sad society didn't care framed me for elections. Now that's not true. She wasn't framed

Caroline 38:03

no.

Anne 38:04

but she, she was used,

Caroline 38:05

Yeah, was used when she does come out to her, like confession at the end about what was true and what wasn't, and then she says sodomy wasn't part of it or whatever. she had mentioned it in an earlier confession, and so she felt like she had to stick with it. I also am sure that the interview process was a highly contentious and maybe manipulative circumstance. that happens

Anne 38:28

we can go back to. Making a murderer murder to see how interviewees can be manipulated. I think she didn't get a fair trial, but I still think she belongs in jail. had she only killed Richard Mallory and then, gotten the death penalty for him, I would be like, this is injustice. But she did go on to kill those other six people. And perhaps it wasn't self-defense.

Caroline 38:48

It really is insane that they were allowed to mention the other pending trials that she was

Anne 38:54

Yeah.

Caroline 38:54

convicted of. if I were a lawyer I wanted to try to argue for that. I kind of wouldn't because I would be like, then it'll get a conviction, will get thrown out on appeals because it wasn't a fair trial. You know? Like,

Anne 39:06

she could have appealed and maybe gotten Richard Malley thrown out, but then she would've had to, she would've been convicted for the others. So outcome I think remains the same, so I think we can juggle that nuance of she didn't get a fair trial, but she should be in jail.

Caroline 39:19

Yeah. A thousand percent.

Anne 39:20

oh, you know, we haven't talked about Steve Vinegar. Who's definitely feeling very, uh, super troopers to me with his mustache. Right. he was one of the ones who was involved in selling the story for the Made for TV movie. So that's another reason that

Caroline 39:33

Too,

Anne 39:34

she was used. So he lost his job.

Caroline 39:36

I can't believe that he also has no sense that that was completely unethical and wrong, and that he should have lost a job. I mean, first of all, I was shocked that there was actually a consequence for a cop where

Anne 39:48

Yeah.

Caroline 39:48

their job. I think this is the only. Time I can ever think of that happening. I mean, except for what that one police officer in the Karen Reed trial lose his job as well. I think only one.

Anne 40:00

But this wasn't like, this was. Just corruption, right? that's, that's a consequence you don't always see.

Caroline 40:05

No,

Anne 40:06

and I guess the only person who is in her life who I kind of trust who doesn't seem to have an agenda is dawn.

Caroline 40:11

I agree.

Anne 40:11

and she's the one that corroborates the early abuse, the stories of her early life, like living in the woods and, you know, she was there for her. And, I did think it was unreasonable of her in that kind of last conversation with Jasmine. She's upset that the victim's families aren't like, oh, this was a sad day. Like that. the victim's family should feel sad that she was executed. No, they're, they have every right to feel that way, but I'm glad that. Eileen, for such a horribly mistreated person had at least just one person in her corner. what do you think of Jasmine?

Caroline 40:40

Jasmine is the Australian, right?

Anne 40:42

Yes. We know she's Australian because when she goes back to Australia, we see stock footage of Sydney Harbor.

Caroline 40:47

Right.

Anne 40:49

Let's just make it clear. She's Australian. Did,

Caroline 40:52

a very like Patty SM Smith vibe.

Anne 40:54

I was thinking Juliette Lewis's depiction of Natalie. In Yellow jackets. Like, did she base it on this woman? Like she's just like thin, constantly smoking Ramone's T-shirt, like bra straps hanging down off her shoulder.

Caroline 41:06

He's very punk rock.

Anne 41:07

Beautiful apartment. I don't know if that's where she lived. They show her smoking cigarettes staring at the ocean for a while, or if that was just a hotel. But I've lived there so I guess she became her pen pal. She identified with Eileen because she'd also been sexually assaulted. They corresponded for eight years before Eileen offered her the story. And according to the filmmaker, Jasmine held onto that footage for like two decades because she didn't know what to do with it. Which makes me think, okay, well she, she doesn't have the agenda. She's not just going out and using this to make a quick buck. she wanted it done in a respectful way. well, one of my criticisms is. The background B-roll footage,

Caroline 41:42

I

Anne 41:43

what was going on with them?

Caroline 41:44

this B roll with all these couples, the lesbian couples and the, cause the first time I watched it I was like, oh, is that a younger Eileen and Tyra? But it's not.

Anne 41:54

It's not, it's, there's no way it's them,

Caroline 41:56

No,

Anne 41:57

who are these women? Uh, there's these like skinny dipping frolicking women at one point. There's one woman who looks like she's proposing to another on a beach, who are these people? It's not them.

Caroline 42:05

no. It's bizarre. for a film that is probably 20 minutes longer than it needs to be. This would've been a place to cut.

Anne 42:13

I don't think it's too long. I think they didn't include what they should have included.

Caroline 42:17

Yeah,

Anne 42:17

there's things that they included that they didn't need and things that they glossed over

Caroline 42:21

totally.

Anne 42:22

when Jackie goes to Michigan, there's like random snowy footage and then a car almost getting hit by a train and people are sledding what is this about? Is this home video from Eileen? And then because there was all this stuff that clearly wasn't them, it made me doubt everything else. Like there's, in the early stages, they have a picture of a little blonde girl and then there's kids on a boat and a boy tumbling down a sand dune and I'm like, is this her family? they don't strike me as the type of family to be taking home video like happy family moments.

Caroline 42:51

It's not

Anne 42:52

Yeah.

Caroline 42:52

had a camcorder like.

Anne 42:54

So there's this real disconnect between the footage, the B roll and the narration that I was like, what is going on here?

Caroline 43:00

We really didn't need the whole like Florida Travel Authority video in the beginning either.

Anne 43:06

just in general, this whole documentary felt incomplete. A lot of glossing over lack of focus. As I said, if this film is meant to argue that we should be sympathetic to her, it should own that. and just, yeah, like the police officer resignation thing, it was like quick. I often criticize these documentaries for being too long, but I felt like there were so many underdeveloped aspects to this.

Caroline 43:26

There were things that were underdeveloped, but more importantly that were things that they could have utilized to further make their point that they didn't,

Anne 43:34

Now, Emily Turner says the director. I think my hope is that two people watch this and come to quite different views. I kind of want people to feel confused I don't think people should feel confused. I think they should feel that there's nuance and that there's more than one way to look at this, but I felt confused, not necessarily in a good way that needed to be flushed out through researching her in other sources because they left stuff out.

Caroline 43:58

I feel more misled than confused,

Anne 44:00

Okay.

Caroline 44:01

because like I said, I also watched this twice and. The first time I watched it, I had impressions about the B roll, that it was authentic, that the second time I watched it, it was clear that it wasn't and couldn't be, you know?

Anne 44:12

I think it's kind of wrong that it doesn't talk about the other men.

Caroline 44:17

Yeah,

Anne 44:17

it kind of mentions them and like it doesn't even mention every name. And then it kind of like has this panning over of their pictures and their names. But they only focused on Mallory, which is deliberate because they want us to be sympathetic to her. And that is the only really clear cut, most likely clear cut case of self-defense. But we are kind of left to assume the others were rapists too, which maybe they were, maybe they weren't. But it kind of isn't fair to the victims.

Caroline 44:42

I agree.

Anne 44:43

Another thing they left out was when she tells somebody that. She hopes his wife and kids get raped in the ass like that doesn't make her look good.

Caroline 44:51

two of my kids had the flu this week, so there were things I was gonna look up that I didn't get to, but I, I wanted to really look up more awful things that she said because it was very jarring at her trial when she's like, I hope you all get raped or whatever, to the jury. I did start listening to True Crime Obsessed had covered, another Eileen documentary, years and years ago, like early on in their run. I was listening to the beginning of it, and there's these other quotes of hers that are terrible, like the one that you just mentioned. And I meant to Google like, what are some other awful things that she said that were not here,

Anne 45:24

It's out there. Yeah. So I feel like this documentary was deliberately trying to humanize her, minimize monstrous aspects of her, but also not doing a good enough job of it. And, you know, and when I say not doing a good enough job of it, perhaps, you know, like a more standard documentary where you have a psychologist who's sitting there talking about the impact of childhood trauma and sexual abuse, so that we can understand why she is this way, but she is this way and they're just left it out instead.

Caroline 45:48

or like we already said, more of the aspects of the trauma that she went through because they didn't really cover a lot of her childhood trauma. they glossed over a few things that we have since, several more reasons that she would prone to anger outbursts or saying things that probably have a more horrific impact on, people's ears than she can even perceive,

Anne 46:11

I think glossed over is my adjective here.

Caroline 46:14

Yeah.

Anne 46:15

and maybe that's because they figured other documentaries did cover that and that this is how she wanted to tell her story. And if she didn't wanna say her grandparent parents were abusive. Okay. Respect that.

Caroline 46:25

that's fair. Actually. If you think about it as like this, the point of this is to tell the world Eileen's story the way that she feels. Eileen would have told it, Eileen would not have sold Arlene down the river because Eileen was not a aware, Arlene was manipulating her, you know, and Eileen was not aware. Tyro was manipulating her. And, she might have left out some of the things that were left out, I guess. And, and also, Much like some efforts of equity and equality, maybe highlight things to counter the way, the way the public perception is about other things. Like maybe that is the defense of taking this approach is like, well look at what the media did to her and look at how she's been, perceived in all other areas. So this has to be kind of extreme in the other direction, just to get to a midpoint,

Anne 47:16

But it wasn't extreme enough at the same time. Like you can be biased if you're clear about it,

Caroline 47:21

Right,

Anne 47:22

they weren't open about being biased. That is one of the deeper horrors. What you've mentioned is like the rhetoric about how she was discussed is, misogynistic, it's homophobic, you know, all the wild boozing, lesbian prostitute talk, she's described like a spider stalking her prey, damsel of death, man hater, the hooker from hell, I'm quoting, I wouldn't use that word. So the rhetoric around her is pretty vile and they acknowledge that. I think especially with the way they start out with that detective pondering how somebody could be attracted to that, taking a dig at her looks, very dehumanizing, we see that not just in the way someone like Eileen Waro is discussed, but in the way women are discussed in politics, celebrities, like, no matter how accomplished or how monstrous you are, you're gonna be judged on your looks if you're a woman.

Caroline 48:06

A thousand percent.

Anne 48:07

Well, shall we discuss some of the other. Deeper horrors beneath the surface of this. I think the treatment of sex workers, which we touched on in our vanishing at the Cecil episode in terms of the violence, sex workers are pretty routinely subjected to, and the way their cases are less likely to be thoroughly investigated. And it's so many men have targeted sex workers like. Robert Pickton, Gary Ridgeway. Go back to Jack the Ripper, the Long Island, uh, serial killer, the unsolved West Mesa bone collector. So Eileen, a sex worker, killing in self-defense is very plausible given how much violence these women are subjected to. So I think that is one of the deeper horrors that we should be pointing out. and just the deep harm of sexual abuse. Like at one point she says, it doesn't bother me, a wussy woman. It would bother her, but obviously does bother her. Right? Even if it's subconscious, like she doesn't realize the extent of the harm that has been done to her because she's, it's so normalized for her. you know, we also talk about this in our Spotlight episode in Catch and Kill. Jasmine says, the first time I was sexually assaulted, I was six years old and that changed the direction of my life. And I think the deeper harm of sexual abuse is very relevant given the number of girls who were irreparably harmed because of men like Jeffrey Epstein. Release those names, please. we need more transparency there.

Caroline 49:27

Yeah. And I guess another horror that just sort of came to my mind is there will always be a person willing to exploit a person no matter how far down they are kicked,

Anne 49:40

Yeah.

Caroline 49:41

someone is always comfortable taking advantage that's devastating

Anne 49:47

Yeah.

Caroline 49:47

I don't know that that occurs in other, like, species, you know? Like, I don't,

Anne 49:52

Yeah. We're sophisticated enough to exploit each other.

Caroline 49:56

that's what you wanna call it.

Anne 49:58

Also wanna point out that lethal injection is a pretty bad way to go. I think it's looked at as the most humane. Way to execute someone. But according to a website I found called Equal Justice Commission, lethal injection causes severe pain and severe respiratory distress, with associated sensations of drowning, asphyxiation, panic and terror in the overwhelming majority of majority of cases. This was from a review of 200 autopsy reports, which found evidence of, pulmonary edema in 84% of the cases. So that's when your lungs filled with fluid. So this isn't just going to sleep, right? And again, you might say, okay, well she made other people suffer. She should suffer, but it's not humane or it is humane because humans are awful.

Caroline 50:41

I mean, I did actually recently have an that's gonna sound super dark and weird, but I was thinking about you know how people are always like, what a horrible way to die. What a horrible thing to go through when you're dying. And then I was suddenly like, well, could you ever really live happily after going through a horrible thing like that? Like maybe it's okay that the worst part of your life is at the end, because then you don't have to cope with the trauma of whatever just happened to you,

Anne 51:07

Oh yeah. I mean, she wanted to die, you know, she said, I'm all right with it, and, should, we respect that even as people who are against the death penalty, we both said we're against the death penalty. But is the death penalty for someone like Eileen Waro sexually Mercy over 40 or 50 years in prison.

Caroline 51:22

And it is, quite complicated in this case because they do bring in the whole aspect of her mental capacity at the end, which I would argue it was not, you know,

Anne 51:30

Right.

Caroline 51:31

She talked about like sonic pressure on her brain and she remembered what Independence Day is incorrectly and in her final.

Anne 51:38

That was a weird last quote.

Caroline 51:40

sorry to laugh, but like, and then the, there's the jailhouse. Friend or colleague, what have you, that was like, she made us promise we wouldn't tell people how bad her capacity was.

Anne 51:51

wanted to die.

Caroline 51:52

this is another complication does she have the agency to make that decision actually? I am all for dying with Dignity. I don't really understand why that isn't a possibility in every state, to be honest. but yeah, I think it does bring in another piece to this whole death penalty discussion that isn't really talked about.

Anne 52:10

And it must be so weird. I mean, I guess we all know we're gonna die, but to know you're gonna die in two weeks or 24 hours or 12 hours, you know, the scheduling of death is very surreal.

Caroline 52:21

Well, that's one of the reasons I'm afraid of plane crashes.'cause it's like you're aware for a

Anne 52:25

Yeah.

Caroline 52:25

you

Anne 52:25

would have minutes

Caroline 52:27

Minutes.

Anne 52:28

the beginning of it and the actual death. Yeah. I can see why she wasn't able to stomach that last meal.

Caroline 52:34

right. I, that made me sad that she didn't eat her last meal. I don't know, I think too much is made of lasts. and first, like the numeric order of things. I don't really understand why it's that important, but, it, it did make me sad that she was clearly feel well enough to stomach food and that, and that's

Anne 52:49

Yeah. I mean, makes sense.

Caroline 52:51

Yeah,

Anne 52:51

Yeah.

Caroline 52:52

does. I don't hear that often. Do you?

Anne 52:54

I don't know how much I hear about this

Caroline 52:55

I mean, I think Bundy

Anne 52:57

perhaps that speaks to him being more of a sociopath than her. I do think she's someone who felt deeply.

Caroline 53:02

I do too.

Anne 53:03

One last deeper horror. I, I do think it's sad when tough on crime results in individuals being treated unfairly, like to impress a group of voters. You know, I think that was going on with John Tanner and perhaps with Jeb Bush. You know, we're gonna come down hard on this other group of people in a certain demographic, three strikes or stop and frisk so using crime for political points is a deeper horror of this. Do you have any questions

Caroline 53:29

My questions are sort of like, who's the puppet master and who's the puppet In a lot of these relationships, I feel,

Anne 53:36

and Eileen?

Caroline 53:37

I feel pretty confident that Eileen is not a puppet master.

Anne 53:41

I don't think she's that smart, to be honest. I wanted to know, would Eileen have been convicted if she hadn't confessed? I think yes, they make a big deal about getting that confession through Tyra, but I feel like, did they even need it? she probably would've been convicted anyway. Like, I feel like they would've had enough. But again, this is kind of like on the advent of DNA, right? So maybe they didn't have enough,

Caroline 54:02

didn't have DNA, but they had the blonde hair, but I also was like, couldn't she just say she was in his car earlier?

Anne 54:09

right?

Caroline 54:09

They didn't really have that much evidence.

Anne 54:12

So maybe the confession was needed.

Caroline 54:14

one question I did have actually that I meant to look up was what was the on paper reason that they used for dismissing that first judge? Because I couldn't just

Anne 54:23

That's one of my questions.

Caroline 54:24

we don't like her or whatever,

Anne 54:27

Yeah.

Caroline 54:27

what, what did they say was the real reason? And I meant, to research that,

Anne 54:32

What went on behind closed doors to get her removed?

Caroline 54:35

what went on behind closed doors to get that judge to agree, to include completely illegal things to include, like, that you're being accused of a crime you haven't been convicted of your first trial.

Anne 54:46

May God have mercy on your corpse. I reckon he and John Tanner were golf buddies. All boys together.

Caroline 54:51

And I was curious where he is today, where, where the, adoptive parents are today. what else became of them, but I actually don't care enough about them,

Anne 55:01

Well, I'm interested in the psychology of people who befriend or adopt or fall in love with people in prison. I think it's very strange and I don't, really understand why and how that happens. I guess I would like a documentary or maybe just a short, a podcast about the cop scandal, like, I wanna know more about that. That was another section that was like, oh, this thing happened. I don't know, it couldn't have been more than five minutes of the documentary, and I felt like that would've been interesting to delve into a little more deeply what, survival, advice can we take from this? How do we live better in this crazy world?

Caroline 55:33

I don't even know,

Anne 55:35

Don't hitchhike.

Caroline 55:36

so there is actually a wine and crime episode about hitchhiking, and it's not actually that dangerous.

Anne 55:43

Really?

Caroline 55:43

yeah. there is like kind of a, I mean, you know, don't be marginalized. I'm just like,

Anne 55:50

Yeah.

Caroline 55:50

like I don't, It's so hard.

Anne 55:52

be rich enough for a car.

Caroline 55:54

Don't

Anne 55:54

I think in,

Caroline 55:55

shape everything you do and be your excuse

Anne 55:58

I think the most important thing is improve early intervention for abused and neglected young people. supporting her at the right time could have prevented all of this. Well, I think we need a pallet cleanser.

Caroline 56:09

I actually have one or two more things I wanted to just throw

Anne 56:12

Oh, sure, sure.

Caroline 56:13

that are completely random and not, not a good like. Classroom. What is it? not, they're not outline,

Anne 56:19

not a good reflection of our outline.

Caroline 56:21

they're not outline compliant.

Anne 56:23

okay.

Caroline 56:23

I think is my vibe. So, one thing I really wanted to say was that that Australian filmmaker really made me want a cigarette.

Anne 56:32

Yeah. I quit smoking like, I don't know, 20 years ago, and I still, when I see people smoking on tv, I'm like, Ooh,

Caroline 56:39

Yeah.

Anne 56:40

looks.

Caroline 56:40

It was a brief moment after my mom passed that I found one and tried it, and immediately I was like, Ugh. Like I felt like I was gonna vomit. My chest hurt. It

Anne 56:50

Yeah, we're romanticizing it.

Caroline 56:51

Yeah. it was not great. But I did also really appreciate sort of the, I think the last line is her bestie talking about, taking her ashes to the yard and just immediately like dumping them out and

Anne 57:04

Yeah.

Caroline 57:05

her so she's free. I thought that was great. as a person who has often had to figure out what to do with Ashes, I really appreciated that her focus was on her being free and not where she did it or with who or how, or whatever. I thought that was beautiful,

Anne 57:22

because she was never free in her life.

Caroline 57:24

Right,

Anne 57:24

Through no fault of her own, at least at the beginning.

Caroline 57:26

okay, so onto Pellet Cleanser, which is gonna start a down note. as of this recording, we have lost in industry grade. and I might actually cry,

Anne 57:35

Oh

Caroline 57:36

talking about it. not that I ever met him, Rob Reiner is responsible for most important, sorry, movies of my life other than Star Wars.

Anne 57:47

yeah.

Caroline 57:47

Um, and yours, you know, and I think that's true for so many people. what happened obviously is horrible and we're only learning the initial things about it. But, it made me wanna go watch his stuff. And so I just wanted to encourage everyone, go watch Bride. Go watch, this is final tap. a few Good Men. Go

Anne 58:08

Stand by Me.

Caroline 58:10

Stand by me. also talked about, I mean, when we were talking about Frankenstein, having genres and there is no genre that he couldn't

Anne 58:19

Yeah.

Caroline 58:19

knock it out of the park.

Anne 58:21

It's funny because I, I think I mentioned Princess Bride several times during our Frankenstein episode, which will come out after Rob Reiner's death, but we actually recorded it, before I knew, and it just kind of goes to show what a big part that movie is in my life, because I think about it all the time. I've dressed up as my whole family, up as Princess Bride for Halloween And Stand By Me. Oh my God. So many, so many good movies. Yeah. And it's really sad that such a illustrious career and from all accounts, except for what Trump is saying, he's a decent man to. End his life that way. At the hands of his own child is very sad. It's tragic.

Caroline 58:55

and sorry, I, I chuckled

Anne 58:56

This is not a palate cleanser.

Caroline 58:59

Trump as a judge of character is the most laughable thing on earth. But like, yeah, go watch yourself a Rob Reiner flick, please.

Anne 59:06

May all good people be accused of Trump derangement syndrome because

Caroline 59:11

Yes.

Anne 59:11

it, it's not an insult as far as I'm concerned.

Caroline 59:14

much like baby fish mouth. It's sweeping the nation.

Anne 59:17

Maybe fish mouth.

Caroline 59:18

I hear them talking

Anne 59:19

All right, so before we get into recommendations, we just wanna tell you about homework for our next episode. Several months ago, we had a listener write in or our website to ask to do hereditary, and I've been looking for an excuse to do hereditary for a while and there's not much connection to Eileen warns, but I watched it and there is extreme violence on a highway. Tony K's character is named Annie Lee and Charise Therone played Eileen Warns in Monster, and one of the other main characters is called Charlie. So that's my connection. I decided to just look for connections. It's not a natural one, but I found a few.

Caroline 59:52

My connection once was a pool, an indoor pool. So I think it's fair.

Anne 59:56

There we go. And then, after that we're gonna do another true crime pick to be decided from Caroline. But my next pick after that will be Mexican Gothic, the book by Sylvia Marino Garcia. I've wanted to cover it for a while, but between the mosque growing in the tower and Frankenstein and the hereditary aspect of that book, I'm gonna throw it out there to give people who are not fast readers time to get to it. So it won't be for like another month or so, but if you need to start reading early Mexican Gothic. Okay. What recommendations? Do you have

Caroline 1:00:23

So, there was one point where Eileen was saying I think her first kill that she, if she was gonna go down, she's gonna quote, take a bunch of, you, creeps with me all the way out. so that made me think of Dexter, which I

Anne 1:00:35

Extra's on my list too.

Caroline 1:00:37

I had only watched one season of Dexter. I think I've mentioned in an earlier episode, the Trinity season, which I think is the, is the best one people would say.

Anne 1:00:45

I dunno. I'm a season one, two person. I like that the best,

Caroline 1:00:48

also

Anne 1:00:49

most fun

Caroline 1:00:50

read the first book. I don't know if there are more books, but I did

Anne 1:00:53

there are.

Caroline 1:00:53

Book one or whatever, and it was good. So I would recommend that along that line. in terms of, forced confessions or, not forced because I don't think she was forced, but the way she was talking about the sodomy aspect made me remember the McMartin preschool, incident, which I had learned about in, my favorite murder, episode 1 45. So I wanted to recommend that,

Anne 1:01:16

That's a Satanic panic thing, right?

Caroline 1:01:18

Yes. it is like, you know, children can be manipulated to say something and then once they say it, they kind go

Anne 1:01:25

Stick with it.

Caroline 1:01:26

and I guess along those same lines, making a murder, which we do know, like there's problems with that series as well. We don't think Stephen Avery a infallible person or perfect, but I think, Brendan Dasey should not be in jail personally. when it comes to, betrayal, I can't remember if I've recommended this before, but there's a podcast called Betrayal that I listened to. It began, I think as a mini series with, Jennifer Fason, who realized that her husband having affairs all over town, including with minors. he was a teacher. Um. Yeah, so there is a docuseries as well, but I would actually ask you not to watch what's on the screen because there is a victim who specifically didn't wanna be filmed and she is filmed in it. and there was a whole legal debate about it'cause she thought she was only gonna be on the podcast. So do not watch the series. Please listen to the podcast. then, in terms of also just like getting to know people in jail, Dateline does a lot about people who are falsely imprisoned. There is a really good series called 13 Alibis that is about a person who had 13 alibis, including like plane tickets showing that they were in a different state and they still went to prison and it was hard to get them exonerated. So, I'd recommend that when it comes to people sort of starting to lose their. faculties, like it seemed Eileen was at the end s town. I think we've recommended that before. And then for, religious zealots, shiny happy people season two is about the Teenage Holy War and righteous gemstones, which is more fun.

Anne 1:02:53

I haven't seen that yet

Caroline 1:02:54

Oh my God, you haven't,

Anne 1:02:55

Now.

Caroline 1:02:56

oh, it's

Anne 1:02:56

I keep hearing good things. Yeah.

Caroline 1:02:57

good.

Anne 1:02:58

Well, I'm gonna say the crucible for, zealots and people who are righteous when they don't necessarily have the right to be. I mentioned Sons of Anarchy. Great show. There's a lot of scenes in biker bars, obviously. there's other documentaries and the, Oscar winning movie Monster, where Charise Theron played Eileen Waro. And then there's several other documentaries by Nick Broomfield that I'm interested in seeing. When they were discussing selecting jury members, it reminded me of 30 Rock when Liz Lemon tries to get herself excused by identifying as Princess Leia and, um, the Green, yeah, the rural juror. The Green Mile both the book and the movie for a story of death row. the Stephen King book is so good. so check that out. Super troopers for highway cops with prominent mustaches. And yeah, I, I think I listened to last podcast on the left, my favorite murder and a podcast called Women and Crime, to learn more about this case. And that's all for me. Anything else?

Caroline 1:03:59

Final question. Do you nod yes or no?

Anne 1:04:03

Do I nod? Yes,

Caroline 1:04:05

Nod yes.

Anne 1:04:06

Nod. Yes. Shake. No.

Caroline 1:04:07

Yes. it always drives me crazy when people say they nodded no. And sometimes that happens in books. And that happened in this documentary. Someone said they nodded. No, you don't nod. No, you nod. Yes,

Anne 1:04:20

That's preposterous.

Caroline 1:04:21

I agree.

Anne 1:04:24

I've never

Caroline 1:04:26

Nobody nods. No,

Anne 1:04:27

So where, where did they say that? In this documentary,

Caroline 1:04:30

I wrote it down because I have read it in books so many times and I've had this conversation with my husband drink. I finally mentioned him

Anne 1:04:39

but where's your 9 0 2 1 hour reference?

Caroline 1:04:41

I know God. but yeah, they, someone said they nodded. No, I just wrote

Anne 1:04:46

No,

Caroline 1:04:47

nodded. No, and that's not a thing.

Anne 1:04:50

no. Nodding is inherently positive.

Caroline 1:04:53

Mm-hmm.

Anne 1:04:54

look up the etymology of nod.

Caroline 1:04:57

We'll

Anne 1:04:57

there's something to do.

Caroline 1:04:58

homework listeners.

Anne 1:04:59

That's my homework. Look up the etymology of Nod to prove it. What if we're wrong? Oh, no.

Caroline 1:05:03

I don't care. We're right for us.

Anne 1:05:06

Language evolves. We're right now.

Caroline 1:05:07

Exactly.

Anne 1:05:09

All right. Thank you for listening. Please do all the things podcasters ask you to do, like and subscribe. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or threads. Write a review on iTunes. You can email us at Drawn to Darkness pod@gmail.com. And most importantly, tell a like-minded friend who's also drawn to darkness. And if like Shirley Jackson, you delight in what you fear. Join us in two weeks here at Drawn To Darkness. Special shout out to Nancy Ano who painted our cover art. You can find her on Instagram at Nancy ano and to Harry Kidd for our intro and outro music. You can find him on Instagram at Harry J. Kidd and on Spotify.