Aileen Wuornos faced a childhood of abuse and abandonment, going into a killing rampage, making her the most infamous female serial killer in America. Wuornos was executed in 2002 in Florida, making her the 10th female criminal to receive capital punishment since the reinstatement of death penal in American since 1976. Wuornos was detained for killing seven men which she picked up in the highway as she used to work as a prostitute. Since Wuornos, died, her later life has been used in screenplays, documentaries, stage productions and the basis of Monster movie. The aim of using Wuornos in screenplays and movies is meant to show how broken people can commit a crime in the modern United States.
Wuornos’s early life predicts her later criminal life. Wuornos father was a criminal, and he was incarcerated when she was born. Therefore, Wuornos grew up without her father. Wuornos suffered the same crimes, sex against children, which his father was imprisoned for, as she was sexually abused in her life. There are studies which show that crime is genetic. Wuornos could have inherited these genes from her father. Wuornos was abandoned by her mother at a young age, which explains why she became involved in early criminal activities such as drugs, food and cigarettes exchange as early as eleven years (Qemetiel 218, 2018). Wuornos was also involved sexually with her brother, her grandfather, who was an alcoholic sexually and physically, assaulted her. Wuornos became pregnant as early as thirteen years through rape by her grandfather’s accomplice. Wuornos dropped out of school, gave birth, and the child was placed for adoption, and at fifteen years, she became a prostitute to support herself.
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Wuornos was involved in crime in her early young adult lives. At the age of eighteen, she was arrested for drunk driving, disorderly misconduct, and using a gun from a moving car. Wuornos later got married, and after divorce, she was arrested for assault against his ex-husband (Stockton, 2019). Other crimes which Wuornos was involved in were armed robbery, forceful entering, car theft, obstruction of justice, and use of firearms that were not registered. The worse crimes that Wuornos committed were serial killing.
Wuornos had killed seven victims within twelve months. The victims were all men from the ages of forty-three years to sixty-five years. The unique thing about Wuornos murder is her victims, who were all older adults. The pattern of choosing the victims is unique, which can be explained by sexual abuse by her grandfather and his accomplice, who was advanced in age. The other unique this is the way Wuornos killed her victims. Wuornos used to shoot her victims several times, unlike most serial killer in United States history who made the victims suffer before they died. It appears that Wuornos did not enjoy watching his victims suffer; she just wanted to eliminate them. Wuornos got married at the age of twenty years to a sixty-nine years old Lewis Fell (Qemetiel 218, 2018). Fell later divorced her and got a restraining order against Wuornos, an incident which explains the anger Wuornos had towards older men, that is why he chose them as his victims.
Wuornos condition can also be blamed on her psychotic condition. A checklist was used on uses, and it indicated that Wuornos had a PCL-R score of 32, while the cutoff in the United States on psychopathy is 30. It indicates that the levels of damage Wuornos sustained in her young age were beyond repair. Wuornos was also diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder and personality disorder. Wuornos most experienced traumatic experiences which accumulated as she grew up, from the sexual abuse, being left by her mother, growing up in an abusive environment and rejection (Stockton, 2019). Wuornos is said to have had an explosive temper as she grew up, which can be explained by the struggle to defend herself, and that made it hard to maintain relationships. Wuornos never got any person to help her, that is why she could turn to crime as a way of defending herself as she never got that when growing up, even from her grandmother who ignored abuse by the grandfather.
The takeaway message from the story of Wuornos is that the way a child is brought up determines their life. Wuornos was almost alone all her life since the abandonment by her mother and her father throwing her out (Qemetiel 218, 2018). Wuornos became angry as she did not have any person to protect her. Children, even the abandoned ones, should be treated right, taken into foster homes and follow-up made by the social workers to ensure that they are treated right. An abused child will start to develop minds of vengeance against the people who offended them, and the anger accumulates leading to crime. Therapy should be conducted for continuous offenders so that the level of damage can be controlled before it gets to extreme levels as it was in the case of Wuornos. Such practices will reduce the number of serial killers as they plan to revenge.
References
Qemetiel 218. (2018, January 28). Aileen Wuornos (Serial Killer Documentary) ♦A&E♦. Retrieved June 6, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cjRWJurqDA
Stockton, R. (2019, March 15). How Aileen Wuornos Became History's Most Terrifying Female Serial Killer. Retrieved June 6, 2019, from https://allthatsinteresting.com/aileen-wuornos
