Serial killers have been a subject of focus for a very long time but more intensely for the past three decades. The main area of focus includes, understanding what motivates them, what qualifies them to be serial killers and on a security level, establishing their identities. Seltzer, (2013) defines serial killers as a person who has killed three or more victims with a resting period between the acts. Ramsland, (2006), adds on to include specific aspects of who qualifies to be a serial killer. They include unique patterns of killing and willingness to kill again. However, he reduces the number of victims to two and agrees with Seltzer, (2013) over the presence of a resting period between the killing acts. The two definitions sufficiently capture what qualifies one to be a serial killer. Some of the world’s renowned serial killers include Rodney Alcala, Edmund Kemper, Cary Stayner and Aileen Wuornos (Rosewood, 2017). This paper discusses Aileen Wuornos, a female serial killer. Emphases are on her life then presents the movie “ Monster ” about her life.
Aileen Wuornos childhood was precarious as compared to an average child in the United States. Perhaps this explains why she engaged in unlawful activities later in her life. She was born on February 29 th , 1956 in Michigan to a teenager mother Diane Wuornos and a convicted father, Leo Dale Pittman. His father’s conviction made them never to meet; twelve years later, he hanged himself in jail. On the other hand, her teenager mother abandoned her when she was almost four years of age leading to adoption by her grandmother (Wuornos & Berry-Dee, 2004) .
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Her difficult upbringing continued in her teenage life and slowly transitioned to prostitution, crime and arrest. As narrated by Wuornos and Berry-Dee, (2004), at nine years of age while at school, Aileen Wuornos had started engaging in sex in exchange for cigarettes and food. This slow prostitution tendency is attributed to the claims that her grandfather sexually molested her. Indeed, she fell pregnant at the age of fourteen due to being raped by her grandfather’s accomplice. The pregnancy landed her in unwed mothers though she placed her baby boy for adoption. After her birth, life became tougher. She dropped from schools almost the same time, her grandmother died. Aileen was thrown out of her grandparent’s home resorting to living in the woods near her previous home. Her lack of support compelled her to rely on prostitution for a living. She was arrested at the age eighteen years for several unlawful accounts among them firing a 22 caliber pistol from a moving vehicle marking the end of her teenager (Wuornos & Berry-Dee, 2004).
The remaining part of Aileen's life started with marriage and assaults. She later advanced her unlawful activities to murder landing her in jail. At twenty years of age, she fell in love and married Lewis Fell lasting for only nine weeks. She was very renown for assaults which she even extended to her husband before being restrained and divorced. However, she also committed robbery in 1981 and 1886 before committing her first murder in 1989. She is among the most prolific women serial killers having murdered seven males using a 22 caliber pistol. She died at forty-six years of age at the Florida State Prison through the administration of lethal injection after a death sentence (Wuornos & Berry-Dee, 2004) .
Aileen’s dramatic life caught the interest of Patty Jenkins culminating in the development of a biographical crime drama “ Monster ." The movie's performance was so strong that it drew an average rating of 7.2 on a scale of 10 (Seal, 2008) . According to Hesse, (2009), the award-winning Charlize Theron who acted as Aileen was most the notable actor. She bagged three prestigious awards for precisely bringing out the psychopathic personality of Aileen. The awards are the best actress, both by awarded Academy Award and Golden Awards (MacCreadie, 2006) . The other award is the best lead actress from the Screen Actors Guild Awards. The movie focuses mainly on her life after attaining twenty years of age. Crime committed till her executed are well captured and makes one understand how Aileen was exceptional. Other notable actors included Christina Ricci acting as Selby (Wuornos & Berry-Dee, 2004) .
An understanding of Aileen’s life brings out an interesting comparison and makes one understand her real personality. For instance, it is clear that she had a difficult life forcing her to fend for herself at a very tender age. Despite having a dark life, falling in love with Fell brought brightness to her life though it was short-lived. Both her life and the movie draw a strong lesson that makes one have a more in-depth understanding of humanity. In conclusion, we find that despite Aileen having difficulty in trusting people her interaction with Selby was against the strong psychopathic notion. Meaning humans are social beings; it is a matter of developing the social aspect through exposure to a favorable environment.
References
Hesse, M. (2009). Portrayal of psychopathy in the movies. International Review Of Psychiatry , 21 (3), 207-212. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540260902747441
MacCreadie, M. (2006). Women screenwriters today: Their lives and words . Westport, Conn. [u.a.: Praeger.
Ramsland, K. M. (2006). Inside the minds of serial killers: Why they kill . Westport, Conn: Praeger.
Rosewood, J. (2017). The serial killer books . CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Seal, L. (2008). Review of Monster and Aileen: life and death of a serial killer. Contemporary Justice Review , 11 (3), 291-292. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10282580802295781
Seltzer, M. (2013). Serial Killers . Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.
Wuornos, A., & Berry-Dee, C. (2004). Monster: My True Story . Chicago: John Blake.
