#20, Aileen Carol Wuornos

This week, strap in and let's travel through Central Florida as I tell you the story of Aileen Carol Wuornos.

Show notes:

Aileen Wuornos - Wikipedia

Wuornos, Aileen; Berry-Dee, Christopher (2004). Monster: My True Story. John Blake Publishing. ISBN 978-1844540792.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aileen:_Life_and_Death_of_a_Serial_Killer

Monster (2003 film) - Wikipedia

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

This is Freshly Squeeze True Crime, a Florida only True Crime podcast. I'm Sun Haley, and before we get to this week's juicy episode, I ask you to visit the website at fsccpodcast.com where you'll find all of our social media platforms as well as the newest episodes. And also find us on YouTube where we would like you to follow us, subscribe, share it, do all the things. So pour yourself a tall glass of orange juice and let me tell you a story.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

The 29th of February is a unique day. It was created artificially to make up for the fact that our year is actually a few hours longer than 365 days. Wrapped up in a warm and secure environment of Clinton Hospital in Rochester, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. Her parents were 14-year-old, some say 16, Diane Warnose, and 19-year-olds handyman, child pervert, and child molester, Leo Dale Pittman. Many claim that Leo was a highly sexed dictorial figure who carried guns, but we know that they were married on June 3rd, 1954, with the blessing of his grandmother who lied about their ages. On March 14, 1955, Diane gave birth to Eileen's older brother Keith. So, one may say, Eileen was born a dangerous breach birth with both small feet on the wrong side of the tracks in a small town in America. The marriage between Diane and Leo proved to be tumultuous, and all is too common in Western world's throwaway society destined for failure. Indeed, it ended a few months before Eileen was born. Warnos never met her father. In 1967, Leo Pittman was sentenced to life imprisonment for kidnapping and raping a seven-year-old girl. Pittman was diagnosed with schizophrenia and committed suicide by hanging in prison on January 30, 1969. With small city people living from hand to mouth, it is not surprising that Diane soon found the responsibilities of single motherhood unbearable. Welfare would not help her, and she sought what seemed to her to be the only way out. In January 1960, when Warnos was almost four years old, Diane abandoned her children, leaving them with their maternal grandparents, Lori and Britta Warnos, who legally adopted Keith and Eileen on March 18, 1960. Both grandparents were alcoholics. Lori Warnos, a worker in the Ford factory, and his wife Eileen Britta Warnos already had three youngsters of their own, Barry, Lori, and of course Diane. Their home, with its sad yellow painted wood cladding, was an unattractive one-story ranch amid a cluster of trees situated off Canvas Street in Troy, Michigan. Innocent looking and otherwise unremarkable, the house, according to Lee, was nevertheless a place of secrets in the rural, close-knit community consisting of dirt roads, some 24 miles north of the bustling metropolis of Detroit. Near neighbors who were never once invited to set foot inside, even for casual pleasantries, recall the curtains always being tightly drawn across the small windows of the Warhouse house. It was common knowledge that Laurie and his wife kept the outside world very much at arm's length. They minded their own business and expected everyone else to attend to theirs. Age six, Lee started causing problems at home when she started taking an unhealthy interest in matches. While trying to start a fire with Lido Fluid, she suffered scarring facial burns, perhaps important for things to come. Lori and Britta raised Keith and Lee with their own children, Barry and Lori, but they did not reveal that they were in fact the adopted children's grandparents, and behind those shaded windows, frequent clashes of will took place between young Lee and her heavy drinking, physically intimidating grandfather, the omnipresent third party, was a ride from Leather Belt and he kept hanging on a bag behind his bedroom door. That at his bidding, the strap was cleaned almost ritualistically by her when settled soap and conditioner, which were kept in the dresser drawer. Werner said that her grandfather had sexually assaulted and beaten her when she was a child. Before beating her, he would force her to strip out of her clothes. She claimed she was forced to bend strip naked over the kitchen table. The petrified child was being frequently with a double over belt. Sometimes she would be face down, spread eagle, to make it on her bed to receive her whippings, while all the while their drunk and adopted father screamed that she was worthless and she never should have been born. You ain't even worthy of the air you breathe, he shouted as the belt lashed down again and again. Sidney Chauvin, who grew up two blocks from Lee, rode the same bus to Troy High School on Livernos Road. Looking back on those days, he recalled with a sigh, Lee always had bruises on her arms, cheeks, and chin. He added that everyone knew she was sexually active with her brother Keith. In fact, Keith was teased by the local kids about having sex with Lee while they were both drunk. Eileen admits that she was having sex with her brother at an early age. How early, we don't know. By age 11, Eileen began engaging in sexual activity at school in exchange for cigarettes, drugs, and food. Lee was very much a loner amongst her peers. While the other kids sat around kissing and cuddling, Eileen would watch from the fringes. No boys wanted to kiss her, but they would buy sexual favors from her in exchange for cigarettes. Thereafter, Eileen became known as the cigarette pig or the cigarette bandit. Also at age 11, Eileen had the shock of her life when she learned that Lori and Britta were indeed her grandparents. She was already incorrigible with her fearsome trailer trust defiance and socially unacceptable temper. But now the girl felt she had been completely deceived. She became uncontrollable, and her volcanic verbal explosions, which were unpredictable and seemingly unprovoked, inevitably drove a further wedge between her and her adoptive parents. Her father, the man she says had so brutalized her as a helpless child, the man who had claimed to be her dad for all those years, was a twisted fraud. She would take out her hatred for him on many of the men she would meet in the future, and she had an excellent tool at her disposal, sex. Eileen had never worked. It only served to harden her resolve, so one Christmas, her grandfather threw her out in the snow. She lived rough in the woods with the lad for two days before she returned home. Then she slept in an abandoned car. Following this, and tired of freezing and having nowhere to stay, she ran away for a period of time with her girlfriend named Dawn Boykins. They hitchhiked to California. Dawn would remain Lee's closest friend until the day she was executed. In 1970, at age 14, she became pregnant after being raped by a friend of her grandfather. Warnos' friends have claimed that the identity of the rapist who impregnated her was an older local pedophile in his 60s. Some claim it to be her grandfather, or some others claim it to be her brother Keith. Warnosgave birth to a boy at a home for unwed mothers on March 23, 1971, and her grandfather forced her to give up the child for adoption. The staff found her hostile, uncooperative, and unable to get along with other girls in the same boat. The child vanished into obscurity forever. A few months after her son was born, she dropped out of school at around the same time that her grandmother died of liver failure. When Morno's was aged 15, her grandfather threw her out again of the house. Living in the woods near her old home, Morno supported herself through prostitution. For whatever reason, Lori's mind became unhinged. Bizarrely, he attempted suicide by trying to electrocute himself by flooding his basement and standing knee deep in water with the power on. While this attempt was unsuccessful, he would later succeed in taking his own life. Lori gassed himself in his garage and Eileen stumbled across the body. At his funeral, she turned up to blow cigarette smoke into the corpse's face. On hearing the sad news about Lori, Diane Warnos invited Lee and Keith to stay with her in Texas, but they both declined. Eileen, although now ward of the court, dropped out of school, left home, and took up a feral existence, a life of hitchhiking and prostitution, drifting across the country as her spirit moved her. On May 27, 1974, at age 18, Eileen was arrested in Jefferson County, Colorado for DUI, disorderly conduct, and firing a 22-caliber pistol from a moving vehicle. She was later charged with failure to appear. In March 1976, 20-year-old Wornos hitchhike to Florida, where she met 69-year-old yacht club president Louis Gratzfell. By any measure, this was a curious match. He was well connected with judges, attorneys, state attorneys, and police officers. They married quickly, and the announcement of their nuptials was printed in the local newspaper society pages. While Perky Lee had hit pay dirt, geriatric Lewis had wandered into a very serious problem. His idyllic dream of settling down each night with a young piece of skirt to satisfy his sexual desires was about to become his worst nightmare. Warnos continually involved herself in confrontations at their local bar and went to jail briefly for assault. She also hit Fell with his own cane, leading him to gain a restraining order against her within weeks of the marriage. She returned to Michigan, where on July 14, 1976, she was arrested at Bernie's club in Mansola, RTM County, and charged with assault and disturbing the peace for throwing a cue ball at a bartender's head. You see, at Bernie's club, she flaunted her body and started to hustle at the pool table. With the figure many women would die for, clad in an off-the-shoulder top, a micro mini skirt, and thigh-high boots, Lee was as hot as his kitchen stove. Nevertheless, despite her physical attributes, which had the locals drooling at the mouth, sometime after midnight, the barman and manager, Danny Moore, decided he had seen enough of her. Lee was drunk, rowdy, shouting obscenities, uttering threats to the patrons, and generally being objectionable. Danny casually walked over to the game and announced that the table was closing down. As he was gathering up the balls, he heard someone shout duck. He turned just in time to see Eileen aim a cue ball at his head. It missed him by mere inches, but the missile had been hurled with such force that it became lodged in the wall. When a smiling deputy Jimmy Patrick arrived, Eileen was arrested for assault and battery and hauled off to jail. She was also charged on fugitive warrants from Troy, who had requested that she be picked up on charges of drinking alcohol in a car, a lawful use of a driver's license, and not having a Michigan driver's license. She was bailed when a friend turned up with a purse containing$1,450, her husband's money. On July 17th, just three days later, her brother Keith died of esophageal cancer, and Warnos received a 10,000 life insurance policy worth$58,000 in 2026. Warnoz and Fell annulled their marriage on July 21st after only nine weeks. You don't need to be clamvoyant to predict the things that did not bode well for Lee and Lewis, and that the marriage would be short-lived. Lee had been torn between her desire to get drunk and hang out in bars and the less desirable option of long periods of abject boredom, sitting around at her husband's feet in his plush beachside condominium, their eyes glued to a TV program about trains, boats, and the stock market. With problems looming from every direction, Lewis tried the well-tested and universally approved I am older than you, please respect your elder's trick. Trained most comprehensively in this area by her late adoptive father, whose family communication skills were considerably less than popular, Eileen responded by awarding her new husband a black eye. Shaken and very little stirred by this outburst from his sweet young wife, Lewis tried another idea. After all, it had worked with his late wife and the other two before that. So why wouldn't it work with this one? He would cut Lee's allowance, and if that failed, he would not give her any money at all. After considering this plan, overnight breakfast came. Dressed in his own gown, his feet warm and his fuzzy slippers, he got as far as saying, I will stop your allow when she beat him up with his walking cane and pointed a meat skewer uncomfortably close to his throat. Lewis now saw the light. At the first opportunity, he obtained a restraining order to prevent another battery and saw an annulment of the marriage, claiming she had squandered his money and given him several times good thrashings into the bargain. In August 1976, Warno's was given a$105 fine for drunk driving. She used the money inherited from her brother to pay the fine and spent the rest within two months buying luxuries including a new car, which she wrecked shortly afterwards. In 1978, at age 22, she attempted suicide by shooting herself in the stomach. Between ages 14 and 22, she attempted suicide six times. On May 20, 1981, Warnos was arrested in Edgewood, Florida for the armed robbery of a convenience store where she stole$35 and two packs of cigarettes. She was sentenced to prison on May 4, 1982. When released on June 30, 1983, she went to live with middle-aged Thomas Sheldon, one of several prison pen pals. Tommy immediately realized that she had problems. He tried to get her psychiatric help for her, but the clinic he contacted refused to admit her for treatment when she claimed quite wrongly that her problems were his fault. After a few months, he sent her back to Florida. Rejection was following Eileen like a ghost, a haunting at every relationship. On May 1, 1984, Eileen was arrested for her attempting to pass forged checks at a bank in Key West. On November 30, 1985, she was named as a suspect in the theft of a revolver and ammunition in Pasco County. On January 4, 1986, Warren's was arrested in Miami and charged with car theft, resisting arrest, and obstruction of justice for providing identification bearing her aunt's name. Miami police officers found a 38-caliber revolver and a box of ammunition in the stolen car. On June 2nd, 1986, Fellucia County Deputy Sheriff detained Warnos for questioning after a male companion accused her of pulling a gun in his car and demanding$200. Eileen was found to be carrying spare ammunition and police discovered a 22-caliber pistol under the passenger seat she occupied. In 1986, 30-year-old Warnos met 24-year-old Tyria Moore, a motel maid, at a Daytona Beach gay bar called Zodiac. According to those who knew Lee and Tyrea, it had been love at first sight. They moved in together and Warno supported them with her earnings as a prostitute. The books were not my own. On July 4, 1987, Daytona Beach police detained Warnos and Moore at a bar for questioning regarding an incident in which they were accused of assault and battery with the beer bottle. On March 12, 1988, Warnos accused a Daytona Beach bus driver of assault. She claimed that he pushed her off the bus following a confrontation. Tyria Moore was listed as a witness to the incident. Later at her trial, Warnos stated, quote, It was love beyond imagination. Earthly words cannot describe how I felt about Tyree, end quote. Before her execution, Warno's claimed to still be in love with Tyria Moore. Warnos murdered seven men within 12 months. All the men were motorists between ages of 40 and 65. Richard Charles Mallory, age 51, electronic store owner in Clearwater, Florida, date of murder, November 30th, 1989. Warno's claimed that Mallory beat, raped, and sodomized her after he drove her to an abandoned area for sexual services. Mallory was Warnos's first victim, and she claimed to have killed him in self-defense. Later, it became known that Mallory had been previously convicted of attempted rape in Maryland. Warnos made no mention of this until she stood trial, and more never claimed she mentioned it to her. Two days after the murder, a Volusia County deputy sheriff found Mallory's abandoned vehicle. On December 13th, his body was found several miles away in a wooded area, had been shot several times, and two bullets to the left lung were found to have been the cause of death. David Andrew Spears As ex-husbands go, 43-year-old David Spears was ideal, practical and predictable, honest, hardworking, he was a man people counted on as a sort of guy you would want living next door to you. Earning his living as a construction worker, David lived in Winter Garden near Orlando, traveling southwest each day to Sarasota, where he worked at Universal Concrete. A shy, softly spoken giant of a man, 6'4 inches tall, bearded, gray-eyed, and weather lines from his outdoor lifestyle, he cared enough about his former wife, Dee, to give her a regular chunk of his monthly paycheck. However, the thoughts going through David's mind on the day he picked up Eileen Warnos were probably not so charitable. He was declared missing as of May 19, 1990. David Spears' truck was found abandoned 10 miles west of Orange Springs near County Road 318 and I-75 in Marion County. On Sunday, May 20th, a blonde hair was found on the steering wheel and a ripped children's condom packet was found on the floor of the vehicle. All his personal property, including tools, clothing, and a one-of-a-kind ceramic statue of a panther, which he had bought as a present for Dee were missing. As in the previous killing of Rich and Mallory, the driver's seat was pulled too close to the steering wheel for a man of his height, indicating to the police that someone else had driven the truck after the owner had been killed. On June 1st, 1990, his naked body was found along US 19 in Citrus County. He had been shot six times with a 22 pistol. Charles Edward Karskedon During the third week of May. May 31, 1990, 41-year-old Charles Carscadon, a former road digger and rodeo driver, was enriched from his mother's home in Boonville, Missouri to Tampa to pick up Peggy, his fiancee. He had packed up his hard life and found less stressful employment as a press operator in his home state of Missouri. All he had to do was drive to Florida to collect Peggy, and his life would be complete. We may safely assume that he was driving south along the Dixie Highway when he spotted Eileen thumbing a ride. In fact, chilling as it may seem, it was highly likely that having dumped David Spears' truck close to the I-75, one of the next rides she took was that of Miskus Garskedon. On June 6, 1990, his naked body was found in Pasco County. He had been shot nine times with a 22 caliber weapon. The body had been wrapped in an electrical blanket and was badly decomposed. Witnesses saw Eileen in possession of Karskadon's car and Warnos had pawned a gun identified as belonging to Karskadon. Peter Abraham Sims, age 65, retired merchant seaman. Deeply religious, easygoing, and considered a real gentleman in every respect, Peter Sims was a 65-year-old retired merchant seaman living on Florida's east coast near Jupiter, Martin County. He had found the Lord many years previously. Soon he would meet the Antichrist. Early in the morning of Thursday, June 7th, 1990, the same day Karskidon's car was found, neighbors saw the part-time missionary placing luggage and a stack of Bibles into his 1988 silver gray Pontiac Sunbird, they assumed correctly, that the balding, bespeckled man was off on another of his trips to spread the good word. On his travels, he intended to visit relatives in Arkansas and then drive up to New Jersey to see his sister. He had promised his wife that he would phone later in the day. She never heard from him again. On July 4, 1990, his car was found in Orash Springs, Florida. Terrier Moore and Eileen Warnos were seen abandoning the car and Warnos's handprint was found on the interior door handle. His body remains undiscovered. It lies rotting somewhere in the pine woods of Georgia. Troy Eugene Burrows. Ever smiling, Troy Eugene Burroughs celebrated his 50th birthday in January 1990. A short, slightly billed, blonde-haired man with a natural gift for Gab, he was employed as a part-time salesman for the Gilcrust Sausage Company in Ocala, a resort town in northern Florida where he lived with his wife Rose. Ocala is just 15 miles from Orange Springs, close to where Lee and Tyria Moore crashed Peter Sims' car. Troy had formerly owned a pool cleaning company, Troy's Pools, in Boca Raton on the southeast coast between West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, but it went bust and the couple had moved to Ocala in 1989. Everyone liked Troy, who was now resigned to his new life. He had only one gripe, the lack of air conditioning in his truck. On July 31, 1990, he was reported missing. On August 4, 1990, his body was found in a wooded area along State Road 19 in Marion County. He had been shot twice. She made no secret that the second shot was deliberate. She seemed to be under the mistaken impression that a rape victim was legally justified in shooting a fleeing attacker. Curtis Corky Reed Curtis Corky Reed's name is not generally mentioned alongside the life and crimes of Eileen Warnos, mainly because the police investigating her crimes were not in the least bit interested in his disappearance or subsequent death. Indeed, this is a case where the police concerns with bringing Eileen to justice should really hang their heads. Corky had been a senior engineer at Cape Canaveral and had been through bad times. Twenty years before he banished, he had plunged six stories and survived, while others had fallen from similar heights and died. Seriously had been cared for by his sister Deanny Stewart and her husband Jim, who owned a car dealership. When he eventually returned to work, his wife had left him, and now he was alone living a seditary lifestyle which revolved around the TV, Deanny and Jim. Every Sunday, without fail, he would call in to see his mother. It was Thursday, September 6, 1990. Corky had just cashed his paycheck and had called in to say he was off for a long weekend to visit his friend Ray, who lived in Coco Beach. He would then continue on to Orlando for an appointment with his doctor. He had experienced a slight stroke several months previously and needed a checkup, after which he would see his mom. On Sunday, September the 9th, Deanny was surprised to receive a call from his mother. Corky had not arrived. At first there seemed to be no immediate reason for concern, but all that changed. On Monday, Jeannie got a call from his brother's secretary at the Cape, he had not returned to work. Deanny immediately visited Corky's home. His clothes and his badge were there, but there was no sign of her brother and his car. Unlike Olive Eileen's other murder victims, whose trips had been lengthy, Corky's drive that Thursday should have been short and sweet. After leaving home, the drive to Coco Beach would have taken him just 15 minutes at best. Then he would be headed out west on the Beeline Expressway towards Orlando, a mere 25 miles away. On Tuesday, September 11th, Corky's white tutor car was found, it is claimed, in a parking lot near the I-95. Deanny and her daughter Tina drove there immediately, expecting to find the Orlando police. They were met by a security guard for the parking lot. He explained that he was concerned because it had been several days. He had called the police, who in turn called Tina. So there we have it. A man is reported missing, his car is found, and the police are informed yet they do nothing. With the great gift of hindsight, perhaps it would have been wiser to leave the car where it was until the police had given it a once over. However, for reasons unknown, Deanny elected to drive the car back to their own parking lot. Corky's body has never been found, although all the hallmarks of Warnos' killings are there. Charles Richard Humphreys Charles Humphreys lived in the East Coast city of Crystal River, which is located about 7 miles north of Homasassa along US 19, and he never made it home from his last day of work at the Sumner office of the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitation Services. Sumnerville was right in the center of Arlene's territory. At age 56, he was a retired United States Air Force major and was a man of experience who had formerly served as a police chief in Alabama. Now an investigator specializing in protecting abused and injured children, he was about to transfer to the department's office in Ocala. He had three children and this kindly nature made him an excellent choice to work with kids. He picked up the killer the day after his 35th wedding anniversary. His wife Shirley had been battling cancer for years. It is claimed on Tuesday, September 11th, 1990, the day Corky Reed's car was found abandoned in New Orlando, Humphreys disappeared after picking up the hitchhiker or hitchhikers, and the following evening his body was found off County Road 484 within a throne strove of where both Spears and Cargon's vehicle had been found. Charles had been shot seven times. Six 22 caliber bullets were recovered from his body, but the seventh copper jacket round had passed through his wrist and was never found. His money and wallet were missing. His trouser pant pockets had been turned inside out. Humphreys' blue four-door Fierza car was found on Wednesday, September 19, some 70 miles to the north. By way of compensation, the killer left one can of Budweiser beer under the passenger seat. The police never dusted the can for Prince. On September 12, 1990, his body was found in Marion County. He was fully clothed and had been shot several times in the head and torso. His car was found in Swainee County. By now investigators should have taken careful note of the cluster of instances that were taking place around the small area of Semino Indian Reservation in Ocala National Rainforest, but they did not. David Spears' abandoned truck, Peter Sims' Pontinex Sunbird had been crashed in Orange Springs, and Troy Barris had failed to make his last delivery in the area. However, all these coincidences were not enough to galvanize the authorities into action. The discovery of yet another abandoned car at almost the very same spot along County Road 484 where Lee had left Carkidon's vehicle should have been a wake-up call. By now, a number of law enforcement officers investigating the various murders were starting to correlate their evidence. Marion and Citrus County detectives had compared notes. Then they spoke to Detective Muck in Pasco County after they read in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement bulletin that Muck's victim might be linked to Spears. That made three bodies, indicating that a serial killer was at large. The crimes had a number of features in common, including the fact that the victims were all older men when robbed, and two of them had their pockets turned inside out. All three killings had been carried out using a small caliber weapon. Bullets recovered from the bodies were 22 caliber, copper coated, and hollow nose with rifling marks made by a right twist firearm. Another link emerged. When the police exchanged the composite sketches made by the individual witnesses, they bore a significant similarity suggesting that they were looking for the same short blonde woman. If she was a soul killer and not working with a man, the officers responded that she might well be using a small handgun. A tremendous amount of information was gained from the men who met Eileen and the lucky ones who escaped with their lives. Finally, Walter Gino Antonio. Hailing from Mariette Island, Cocoa Beach near Cape Canaveral along the east coast of Florida. 61-year-old Walter Gino Antonio was a truck driver, security guard, who doubled as a reserve police officer in Bavard County. On Saturday, November 17th, he was driving to Alabama in search of a job. Recently engaged, he wore a gold and silver diamond ring, a gift from his fiancee. It was a size 10 and 34 yellow gold with a diamond set in a field of white gold. When Eileen arrived back in Florida, this ring was a gift to Tyria, who proved how deeply she loved her. Walter's obvious route was more or less identical to that of Peter Sims. He would use the Florida Turnpike as far as Wildwood, then head upstate along I-75, probably pulling into the speedway truck stop before the long haul north. On Sunday, November 18, 1990, a police officer out hunting game found a man's body naked except for a pair of socks near the intersection of US 19 and US 27, 15 miles south of Wallwood. Walter Antonio had been shot four times, three times in a torso and once in the head with a 22 caliber handgun in Dixie County. Five days later, his car was found in Bavard County. In just over a year, Eileen Warnos has scattered a trail of middle-aged male corpses across the highways of Central Florida. Quick note Tyria Moore has always denied knowing anything about Eileen's crimes, and the public has always believed this to be the case. But Tyria had been riding around with Eileen in Peter Sims' car, and we know this because she was driving the vehicle when it crashed near Orange Springs. The women had been drinking prior to the incident on the nearby Indian reservation. We also know all about their riding around in Richard Mallory's car and accepting his property and the property of Corky Reed was found in her possession. Tyria denied any knowledge of being in a dead man's card on any day. She said she knew nothing of the murder or any murders until police later questioned her about Lee's movements. She claimed never to have met anyone called Charles Humphreys, but she was unable to account for her movements during the time in question. Tyria left her job at Casa de Mad Motel and in the fall of 1990, they moved into room number 8 at the Fairview Motel at Harbor Oaks on US 1 along Daytona Beach. Tyria was unemployed and the two women were living off Eileen's earnings. The staff at the local convenience store got to know Eileen and Tyrea as a regular, sometimes troublesome customers. Eileen would often approach men in their 50s and 60s while they topped off their gas. She was very masculine and aggressive, always flexing her muscles and talking about needing to get over to 92, which people assumed was a bar, but it never registered that it was a highway. On July 4th, 1990, Eileen Warnos and Teria Moore abandoned victim Peterson's car after they were involved in a crash. Rhonda and Jim Bailey, who witnessed the crash, provided police with a description of the two women, which later led to a media campaign to locate them. Police also found some of the victims' belongings in pawn shops. Warno's fingerprint that was found on a receipt at one of the pawn shops matched the print that was left in Sims' car. Warnos had a criminal record in Florida and samples of her prints were in the database. On December 3, 1990, Donald Willingham took the women to the Greenhouse bus station in Daytona, where Teria handed back the ring and tearfully parted company. Now age 34, but looking considerably older, Eileen was mentally and physically almost washed up. Pining for her lost lover, she spent days on end brooding in her room. Out of money and not tricking, she had to leave. She took to the streets, sleeping where she could. If she found the John and business was good, she would have the money to get a motel room for the night. However, business was not always good, and life for Aileen had reached rock bottom. On January 9th, 1991, Warnos was arrested at the last resort biker bar in Velusia County by two undercover detectives posing as leatherclad bikers, Mike Joyner and Dick Martin. According to the New York Times, the arrest was made on the basis of an outstanding warrant for carrying a concealed weapon, although by this point, authorities already came to regard her as a suspect in the murders based on witness testimony and fingerprints found on items in pawn shops that had belonged to one of the murdered men. The warrant had been issued in the name of Lori Grody, one of her many aliases. Police located Tyria Moore the next day in Pittston, Pennsylvania. She agreed to elicit a confession from Warnos in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Moore returned with the police to Florida, where she was put up in a motel. Over the course of three days, and under police guidance, there were 11 telephone calls to Warnos pleading for help in clearing her name. On January 16, 1991, Eileen Warnos confessed to the murders. She claimed the men had tried to rape her and she killed them in self-defense. Her interview was both video and audio recorded. Her love for Tyrea Moore was such that she had to clear her lover's name. If she did confess, maybe she would go to heaven. In November 1991, Eileen Warnos was legally adopted by 44-year-old Arlene Perell with whom Warnos had no previous contact or relation to. After Perel saw Warnos' photo in a newspaper, on January 14, 1992, Eileen Warnos went to trial for the murder of Richard Charles Mallory. Although previous convictions are normally inadmissible in criminal trials, under Florida Williams rule, the prosecution was allowed to introduce evidence related to her other crimes to show a pattern of illegal activity. On January 27, 1992, Warnos was convicted of Mallory's murder with help from Tyrea Morris' testimony. After sentencing, psychiatrists for the defense testified that Warnos was mentally unstable and diagnosed her with borderline personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder. Four days later, she was sentenced to death. These records also reflect eight years of overall treatment from the facility. In 1961, it was observed of Mr. Mallory that he was possessed strong sociopathic trends. However, the judge refused to allow the records to be admitted in court as evidence and denied Warnell's request for a retrial. On March 31, 1992, Eileen Warnos pled no contest to the murders of Charles Richard Humphreys, Troy Eugene Burris, and David Andrew Spears, saying she wanted to quote get right with God. In her statement to the court, she said in part, quote, I wanted to confess to you that Richard Mallory did violently rape me, as I've told you, but these others did not. They only began to start to. On May 15, 1992, Warnos was given three more death sentences. In June 1992, Warnos pled guilty to the murder of Charles Edmund Karskedon. In November 1992, she received her fifth death sentence. In February 1993, Warnos pled guilty to the murder of Walter Gino Antonio and was sentenced to death again. No charges were brought against her for the murder of Peter Abraham Sims as his body was never found. In all, Warnos received six death sentences. Warnos told several inconsistent stories about the killings. She claimed initially that all seven men had either raped or attempted to rape her while she was working as a prostitute, but later recanted the claim of self-defense, citing robbery and a desire to leave no witnesses as a reason for murder. During an interview with documentarian Nick Broomfield, when Eileen Warnos thought the cameras were off, she told him that it was, in fact, self defense. But she could not stand being on death row where she had been for 10 years at that point, as she wanted to die. Eileen Warnos was incarcerated at the Florida Department of Corrections Broward Correctional Institution death row for women, then transferred to Florida State Prison for execution. Her appeal to the United States Supreme Court was denied in 1996. In 2001, petition to the Florida Supreme Court, she stated her intention to dismiss her legal counsel and terminate all pending appeals. Quote, I killed those men, robbed them as cold as ice, and I do it again too. There's no chance in keeping me alive or anything because I'd kill again. I have hate crawling through my system. I am so sick of hearing this, she's crazy stuff. I've been evaluated so many times. I'm competent, sane, and I'm trying to tell the truth. I'm one who seriously hates human life and would kill again. While her attorneys argued that she was not mentally competent to make such a request, Eileen Warnos insisted that she knew what she was doing, and a court-appointed panel of psychiatrists agreed. In 2002, Warnos began accusing prison matrons of tainting her food with dirt, saliva, and urine. She said she had overheard conversations amongst prison personnel trying to get me so pushed over the brink by them I'd wind up committing suicide before the execution and wishing to rape me before execution. She also complained of strip searches, tight handcuffing, door kicking, frequent window checks, low water pressure, mildew on her mattress, and cat calling and distaste and pure hatred towards me. Eileen Warnows threatened to boycott showers and food trays when certain officers were on duty. Quote, in the meantime, my stomach's growling away and I'm taking showers through the sink of my cell. Her attorney stated that Miss Warnos really just wants to have proper treatment, humane treatment until the day she's executed. She believes what she has written. In the weeks before her execution, Warnos gave a series of interviews to documentarian Nick Bloomfield and talked about being taken away to meet God and Jesus and the angels and whatever is beyond the beyond. In her final interview, she once again charged that her mind was tortured at Brouwer Correctional Institution and her head crushed by sonic pressure. Food poisonings and other abuses worsened, she said. Each time she complained to make her appear insane or to drive her insane. She also turned on her interviewer. A raped woman got executed and was used for books and movies and shit. Her final on-camera words were, thanks a lot, society, for rearrolling my ass. Don Botkins, the childhood friend of Warnos, later told Broomfield that her verbal abuse was directed at society and the media in general, not him specifically. Eileen Warno's execution by lethal injection took place on October the 9th, 2002. She declined her last meal, which would have been anything under$20, and instead received a cup of coffee. Her last words were quote, Yes, I would just like to say I'm sailing with the rock and I'll be back like Independence Day with Jesus, June 6th, like the movie, Big Mothership and All. I'll be back, I'll be back. She died at 9 47 a.m. She was the second woman in Florida and the tenth in the United States to be executed since 1976's United States Supreme Court decision restoring capital punishment. After her death, Warnos's body was cremated. Her ashes were scattered beneath a tree in her native Michigan by Warno's childhood friend Dawn Botkins. At Warnos's request, Natalie Merchant's song Carnival from Merchant's album Tiger Lily 1995 was played at Warnos' funeral. Warno spent many hours listening to this album on Death Row. When Merchant found out about this, she gave permission to use the song in the closing credits of Boomfield's documentary Eileen, Life and Death of a Serial Killer. When director Nick Boomfield sent a working edit of the film to Natalie Merchant, she stated the following I was so disturbed by the subject matter that I couldn't even watch it. Eileen Warnos led a tortured, torturing life that is beyond my worst nightmare. It wasn't until I was told that Eileen spent many hours listening to my album Tiger Lily while on Death Roe and requested Carnival be played at her funeral that I gave permission for the use of the song. It's very odd to think of the places my music can go once it leaves my hands. If it gave her some solace, I have to be grateful. Bloomfield later speculated on Wernell's state of mind and motives. Quote, I think this anger developed inside of her and she was working as a prostitute. I think she had a lot of awful encounters on the roads, and I think this anger just spilled out from inside of her and finally exploded into incredible violence. That was her way of surviving. I think Eileen really believed that she had killed in self-defense. I think someone who's deeply psychotic can't really tell the difference between something that is life-threatening and something that is a minor disagreement. That you could say something that she didn't agree with. She would get into a screaming black temper about it. And I think that's what had caused these things to happen. And at the same time, when she wasn't in those extreme moods, there was an incredible humanity to her. According to some specialists, Warnos's crimes had been related to her psychopathic personality and her traumatic past. Assessed using the psychopathy checklist, Warno scored a 32 out of 40 with a cutoff score of 30 for determining psychopathy. Warnos was known to meet the relevant criteria for determining borderline personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder. According to Bryce Arago, Warnos's childhood sexual abuse and career in sex work irrevocably damaged her, and it could be seen that traumatic experiences throughout most of her young life could play a part in Warnos's psychological state, including her biological mother's departure, as well as her grandmother ignoring the abuse she endured from her grandfather, thus leading to the lack of development of a mother-daughter bond for Warnos as a young girl. The damage that was made worse because both Warnos and her brother believed that their grandparents were their biological parents, but at the age of 11 they learned that this was not the case. Warnos was also known to have early behavioral problems, such as having an explosive temper, which limited her ability to make friends, as well as making it increasingly difficult for her to maintain relationships. Her traumatic upbringing, including her physical and sexual abuse, had been partially linked to the development of her borderline personality disorder. Her severe trauma can also disrupt the structuralization of the minds at various developmental points and result in primitive disassociativeness and splitting defenses to ward off the intensity of emotional and sexual stimulation that cannot be integrated as a child. FBI profiler Robert Ressler briefly mentions Warnos in his autobiographical history of his 20 years with the FBI. Writing in 1992, he said he often does not discuss female serial killers because they tend to kill in sprees instead of in sequential fashion. He noted Eileen as a sole exception. Resler, who allegedly coined the term serial killer to describe murderers seeking personal gratification, does not apply it to women in postpartum psychosis or to any murderer acting solely for financial gain, such as women who have killed a series of borderers or spouses. Out of the 13 family background characteristics the FBI has found adversely affect a child's later behavior, study group of serial killers, Eileen experienced 11 of them: alcohol abuse, drug abuse, psychiatric history, criminal history, sexual problems, physical problems, psychological abuse, dominant father figure, negative relationship with male caregiver, negative relationship with both her natural mother and her adoptive mother, and she had been treated unfairly. A staggering 85% by FBI calculations that would have placed her at the top of her high risk register. When one considers that even Henry Lee Lucas, one of the most notorious serial murderers and criminal history, scores him a 77, with Ted Bundy further down at 38, Lee was not off to a good start. The Expert Dictionary defines Monster as an inhumanely cruel or wicked person. Aline Warnos certainly had a dysfunctional start in life, and we cannot blame her for that. However, she became hooked on murder for murder's sake. Aline Warnos chose her own fate. She knew that if she committed aggravated murder in Florida, she would face the ultimate penalty. She decided to kill not once, not twice, but many, many times. And for this, we are obliged to label her a monster. Most of us have a conscience. Aline Warnos had a black void.

SPEAKER_01 54:23

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