Tyria first made contact with Aileen on the taped jail phone on January 14th, 1991. She told Aileen that she was scared because the police were questioning her family about the two of them, and she was petrified the Florida highway murders would be blamed on her. Aileen, still unaware that the police suspected her of the murders, tried to reassure Tyria that there was nothing to worry about.
“I’m only here for that concealed weapons charge in ‘86 and a traffic ticket,” she assured Tyria.
The taped phone calls from Tyria to Aileen in jail continued, with Tyria breaking down and begging Aileen to clear her name. Aileen continued to try and reassure Tyria that she had nothing to worry about. Aileen said of the police sketches of them that had appeared in the newspapers,
“I tell you what, man, I wasn’t one of those little suspects. I think somebody at work -- where you worked at -- said something that it looked like us. And it isn’t us, see? It’s a case of mistaken identity.”
Tyria continued to call and beg Aileen to clear her name. Throughout the phone calls during those three days, Aileen constantly told Tyria how much she loved and missed her. Tyria never once said she loved Aileen.
Finally, on January 16th, 1991, Aileen, who listed her occupation as a "professional call girl,” made the decision to protect her lover, no matter what the cost to herself. A three hour videotaped confession, in which Aileen was dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, was made to the police. In the video tape, Aileen smoking heavily, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, confessed that she had shot the men in self defense as the men had attempted to rape or violently abuse her and that Tyria was entirely blameless. Throughout the confession, her public defender, Michael O’Neil, repeatedly reminded Aileen of her rights. He tried to convince her not to make any statements, not to give any confession about anything, and that it was her right to remain silent. He strongly advised her to exercise that right. However, no matter what he said, she chose to ignore all of his advice.
Aileen when first charged.
In her confession she said, “I just wish I never would’ve done this shit. I wish I never woulda got that gun. I wish to god I never was a hooker. And I wish I never woulda done what I did. I still have to say to myself, I still say that it was in self-defense. Because most of ‘em either were gonna start to beat me up or were gonna screw me in the ass,--and they’d get rough with me, so I’d fight ‘em. And then I’d –as I’d get away from ‘em, I’d run to the front of the car or jump over the seat or whatever, grab my gun and just start shootin’.”
According to O’Neil, her total focus was on protecting the love of her life Tyria, and she showed no concern for herself and her own fate.
Shortly after her confession, the police found a lockup Aileen had rented under one of her aliases, Cammie Marsh Greene. It contained the possessions of the dead men.
When the police released the confession to the media, Aileen became a national celebrity, and her face became plastered all over the local and national media. A plethora of book and movie deals were offered to detectives, lawyers, relatives, Tyria, and Aileen herself. A filmmaker, Jackie Giroux, secured the film rights to Aileen’s story. Aileen and her then attorney, Russell Armstrong, signed the contract.
Aileen initially thought that she might make millions of dollars from her story until she learned that the state of Florida had a law prohibiting criminals from profiting from their crimes.
The Gun used to fire the shots
While, in prison, Aileen received a letter from a "born-again" Christian Arlene Pralle. Arlene was a small, doe-eyed, forty-odd-year-old woman who managed a horse boarding and breeding business near Ocala in Marion County, Florida, where she also bred wolves. Arlene believed that wolves represented a significant part of one’s spiritual life. In her letter to Aileen, she claimed that Jesus had instructed her to write to her. Included in her letter was her home telephone number which Aileen made a collect call to on January 30th, 1991.
Arlene Pralle
Aileen, alone and friendless, was easy prey for a woman such as Arlene, and the two women became “friends” or at least that is what Aileen believed. Arlene began visiting Aileen in Volusia County Jail once a week and talked to her every evening on the telephone. Arlene became a thorn in Aileen’s defense lawyer’s side. Tricia Jenkins, one of the defense team, said many times Aileen would not co-operate with them unless they also attended to Arlene’s needs.
Throughout 1991, Arlene would appear on TV and radio talk shows and give interviews to the tabloid press or to anyone else for money. Aileen believed her “friend” was trying to help her and was unaware, for a while, that she was making money from the interviews she gave. To a Vanity Fair reporter, Arlene said her and Aileen’s relationship was soul binding and that they were like Jonathan and David in the bible.
“It’s as though part of me is trapped in jail with her. We always know what the other is feeling and thinking.”
In a radio interview, Arlene claimed that, “if the world could know the real Aileen Wuornos, there is not a jury that would convict her”.
Arlene and her husband adopted Aileen legally on November 22nd, 1991. Arlene claimed that God had told her to. To reporters Arlene said, “We don't talk about the case, but in my heart I know that Aileen is not a serial killer. She has a heart of gold, and she cares about other people more than herself. God has brought us together."
Aileen believed that she would be acquitted, and after the trial she was planning to go home to her ‘mother’ Arlene and help her with the horses and wolves.
On January 14th, 1992, Aileen Wuornos went on trial in Daytona Beach for the cold bloodied murder of Richard Mallory. Aileen pleaded not guilty, and her defense was that he had attempted to rape her and in self-defense she had shot him as she feared for her life. Normally, in criminal trials, previous wrongful acts are inadmissible. However, in Florida because of the ‘Williams Rule’ the prosecuting attorneys were allowed to introduce evidence related to Aileen’s other crimes to demonstrate a pattern of criminal activity. The witnesses and evidence piled against her were extremely damaging. In particular that of her former lover Tyria Moore who recounted Aileen returning home and in a relaxed manner stating, as they watched the television, "I killed a man today,” and at no time Tyria said did she make any mention of, or had any noticeable indications of, an attack. During her testimony, Tyria refused to make eye contact with Aileen.
Tyria giving evidence
Aileen was understandably gutted and frequently wiped tears from her eyes as Tyria’s testimony buried her. This was the love of her life for which she had taken 100% responsibility for the crimes to save Tyria from any responsibility for the murders. The prosecution painted a picture of Richard Mallory as an upstanding member of society.
Against her public defender’s advice, Aileen took to the witness stand. The defense team was worried that because of Aileen’s inability to remain calm, she would become her own worst enemy.
Aileen giving evidence
On the stand, Aileen testified that she shot Richard Mallory to save herself after he had violently raped her. She gave a graphic account of the pain and humiliation she had suffered at the hands of Richard Mallory. The prosecuting attorney, John Tanner, on cross-examination, destroyed any shred of credibility Aileen might have had. He brought up inconsistencies and lies she had given in her statements to the police detectives. During the cross-examination, Aileen became angry and agitated, giving the jury a glimpse of the violent mood swings that had plagued Aileen throughout her life. Her lawyers constantly advised Aileen not to answer questions and twenty-five times she invoked her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Aileen was the only witness for the defense. Sitting in the courtroom, Arlene Pralle prayed continually and at other times sobbed.
Judge Uriel Blount sent the jury out to consider their verdict on January 27th. Less than two hours later, the jury returned with their verdict. They had found Aileen guilty of murder in the first-de
gree. As the jurors left the courtroom, Aileen angrily yelled at them, “I’m innocent! I was raped! Scumbags of America! I hope you all get raped in the ass!"
The following day, the court convened for the penalty phase of Aileen’s trial.
Expert psychiatric witnesses for the defense stated under oath that Aileen was mentally unstable and suffered from antisocial personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. Aileen’s lawyers argued that her appalling childhood had damaged and ruined her as they pleaded to the jury to spare Aileen’s life. The state’s expert psychologist, Dr George Barnard, also diagnosed Aileen as suffering from Borderline Personality disorder.
However, for the jury, Aileen’s anger and cursing from the day before was still fresh in their minds. The jurors unanimously recommended that the Judge hand Aileen the death penalty. Four days later, on the 31st of January in 1992 Judge Blount sentenced Aileen to death by electrocution. Aileen was just thirty-six-years-old.
Aileen was visibly shocked and distraught by the jury’s verdict. On the way out of the court on her way to death row, she said to waiting journalists, “I was raped, I was tortured, and they had the steering wheel, pictures of the steering wheel. It had scratches on it, it was broken. It is proof that I was tied to that steering wheel. I cannot believe that this has happened.”
Outside the courtroom, Arlene Pralle told reporters that the verdict "gives rapists an open door, an encouragement, to kill prostitutes and get away with it."
Death Row
The British documentary film-maker Nick Broomfield paid Arlene in excess of $10,000 to arrange an interview with Aileen following the trial. At the same time, Arlene was telling Aileen that her public defender lawyers were, along with everyone else involved in the case, the attorneys, the detectives, and, especially, Tyria Moore were all attempting to profit from her story. Arlene said she would arrange paid interviews for Aileen and then Aileen could hire a private lawyer.
Arlene persuaded Aileen to fire her public defender legal team and appoint a new lawyer, Steven Glazer. Arlene had hired Stephen Glazer to handle the adoption of Aileen. Stephen Glazer was a bizarre character who had been a struggling musician before becoming a lawyer. He claimed he had been abused by his parents and had created an imaginary friend, Lowther, to keep him company as a child. As an adult, he had built a replica of his imaginary friend, which resembled a dead, murdered corpse with a scar across his forehead. He said he used him for company and as a deterrent to keep drug addicts away from his house.
Stephen Glazer and ‘friend’
He was hired to defend Aileen in her next murder trial of Dick Humphreys, Troy Burress, and David Spears despite having no experience in death penalty cases. Aileen was extremely lonely and devoid of human contact as she wiled her time away in death row. Arlene persuaded her that her best course of action would be to drop her not guilty plea and to admit to the murders of the three men. Aileen, with lack of advice from elsewhere and still suffering from the betrayal of her lover Tyria Moore, agreed perhaps thinking that in doing this, the court would show her mercy, and she would be spared the death penalty.
On her way to this trial, as she was led to the prison van, she gave no indication to reporters that she was going to change her plea. She only talked to them about having sacked her public defender and had hired a private lawyer, Stephen Glazer.
On March 31st, Stephen Glazer, within seconds of being appointed her new lawyer, stunned the court by changing Aileen’s plea from not guilty to one of ‘no contest.’
Stephen Glazer
He made no attempt at having her death sentence reduced or any kind of plea bargain. Even notorious serial killer Ted Bundy was offered a plea agreement. The “no contest” plea is used as a guilty plea but without a plea agreement, it meant that she was eligible for the death penalty in each case.
Aileen made a rambling statement to the court and Judge Thomas Sawaya in which she said, “She was sorry her acts of self defense had ended up in court like this, but she took full responsibility for her actions, it was them or me………I am prepared to die if you say it is necessary.”
At this point, she paused and seemed confused, not looking sure if she meant this or if it was indeed wise to say this.
On May 15th, 1992, Judge Thomas Sawaya, handed Aileen three more death sentences. In video-tapes of the sentencing, it would seem by Aileen’s reaction that this was not what she was expecting.
She thanked the judge and declared, “I’ll be up in heaven while you all rot in hell.”
She turned and snarled at the Assistant State Attorney that she hoped his “wife and children get raped in the ass!”
To the judge, she gave an obscene gesture and muttered, “Motherfucker.”
Stephen Glazer informed the court that Aileen’s automatic appeal should be handled by the public defender’s office.
Following this court appearance Aileen sunk into a deep depression. She refused to communicate with Stephen Glazer or Arlene. The British journalist Nick Broomfield asked Stephen Glazer why he had allowed Aileen to submit a “no contest” plea. He said he had done so because, he claimed, Aileen wanted to die. Yet until 2001, Aileen continued to appeal her death sentence, claiming self-defense.
Stephen Glazer told Nick Bloomfield, that although he did not feel comfortable, he would be there with Aileen as they strapped her into the electric chair as Aileen had asked him to be there. He would be there as her friend and lawyer, and he would give her the advice that Woody Allen, in the movie “Take the Money and Run,” in which Allen had played the lawyer, Virgil Stockwell, gave to his client about to be executed in the chair, “Don’t sit down.” Stephen Glazer then burst into raucous laughter.
Other lawyers were appalled at Stephen Glazer’s behavior and whispered amongst themselves that he was unfit to defend her and was helping propel Aileen into the electric chair. Tricia Jenkins, Chief Assistant Public Defender, who had handled Aileen’s first trial, said that Steven Glazer had told her “he was taking the case because he needed the media exposure."
In June of 1992, again under Stephen Glazer’s advice, Aileen pleaded guilty to the murder of Charles Carskaddon. In November of 1992, Aileen received her fifth death sentence for Charles Carskaddon’s murder.
Aileen realized too late that Arlene Pralle had only befriended her for financial gain and Stephen Glazer for the promotion of his law firm the media publicity gave him. Aileen had discovered that Arlene was going to start a museum with letters and drawings she had sent her. Aileen told Nick Broomfield in a video-taped interview that Arlene and Stephen Glazer had advised her of ways to kill herself in prison. She said she didn’t see such advice as “very motherly or lawyerly.”
In a letter to her childhood friend Dawn, Aileen wrote, “As her and Steve conned me to “WAIVE OFF” all remaining trials.”
When Arlene was asked why she had advised Aileen to enter the no-contest plea, she remarked, “The state has a death sentence so, golly, in a few years she could be with Jesus. Why not go for it?”
Dateline’s NBC reporter, Michele Gillen, discovered in November of 1992 that Richard Mallory, Aileen’s first victim, had spent ten years in prison in Maryland for violent rape. During Aileen’s first trial when she had taken the witness stand and described the violent rape she had undergone by Richard Mallory, the prosecution denied that there was any evidence to substantiate Aileen’s claims of rape or any history of sexual crimes by Richard Mallory. Trish Jenkins, Aileen’s public defender lawyer, was heavily criticized for failing to bring this to the court’s attention. Many believe that it was Mallory’s violent rape of Aileen that started her off on her spree of murders.
In November of 1992, during the Charles Carskaddon post-trial hearing, Aileen’s public defender defense team tried to introduce the newly discovered evidence against Richard Mallory into court. The lawyers thought that the jurors would have seen Aileen’s case differently had they been aware of this fact. The judge refused to allow this evidence to b
e admitted into the post-trial proceedings and denied Aileen’s request for a retrial. Aileen, during all this time, was locked up 23-hours-a-day in a spartan 6-foot-by-8-foot prison cell rarely seeing anyone except prison guards and devoid of human touch.
Death Row Cell
Aileen spent her time reading the Bible and drawing scenic pictures with her blue ink pen. She also spent her time corresponding with her old school friend Dawn Botkins, to whom she would sometimes write four letters a day.
Aileen’s Art Work
In February of 1993, Aileen pleaded guilty to the murder of Walter Jeno Antonio. Aileen told the court at the sentencing hearing that she wished to waive her right to present mitigating evidence and her right to be present. She said that she already had five death sentences and didn’t want to waste tax payer’s money. Aileen also made the observation that male serial killers normally only received about two death sentences and the number she was receiving was due to a media and political circus. She said she no longer cared and simply wished to return to her cell on death row.
When the sentencing date arrived, Aileen was brought to the court. The defense lawyers presented a letter from Dr. Harry Krop, a psychiatrist, stating that Aileen was incompetent and delusional. The court then ordered Aileen for another evaluation by psychiatrists Dr. Joel Epstein and Dr. Donald DeBeato. They declared that Aileen suffered from a personality disorder but was competent. The court decided Aileen was mentally competent enough to proceed.
At the sentencing, Aileen complained profanely and vehemently about mistreatment. The court threatened to bind and gag her unless she remained silent; she was, however, permitted to address the court. In her statement, Aileen again asserted she had acted purely in self-defense. The court rejected Aileen’s claim of self-defense, and she received her sixth death sentence.
Women Serial Killers of the 20th Century Page 14