On this day, Oct. 9, in 2002, serial killer Aileen Wuornos was executed by lethal injection in Florida.
Wuornos is sometimes called the first female serial killer. Robert K. Ressler, the FBI profiler who coined the term “serial killer,” said female predatory killers tend to know their victims, use poison and murder as a submissive partnership to a man. Wuornos, he said, was the exception. She worked alone, used a gun and victimized strangers.
From 1989 to ’90, Wuornos picked up at least six men on the highways of central Florida, killed then robbed them.
Fingerprints led police to Wuornos. She was arrested in 1991 and confessed, but at first claimed the killings were in self-defense. She was convicted of murdering Richard Mallory and pleaded no contest to five other murders.
At her execution, these were her last words: “I’d just like to say I’m sailing with the rock, and I’ll be back like ‘Independence Day’ with Jesus, June 6. Like the movie, big mother ship and all, I’ll be back.”
Charlize Theron won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Wuornos in the 2003 film “Monster.”
— Scott McCabe
