Munster: And I hope you won’t lie to me. OK?
Wuornos: Oh, I’m telling you the truth all the way.
Munster: So we can… we can sit here… we can sit here and wait till your attorney comes. We don’t need to talk about the case or anything till you all come to some decision.
Wuornos: I don’t care. I mean… I’m… like I been saying, I don’t… I don’t mind talking… I want this all… I’m telling you from the bottom of my heart, I’m telling you the truth about everything. I mean I can’t be any truthfuller. I’m telling you, with… God by my side, I’m telling you the truth. So, don’t worry. I’m telling you the truth, honest. I just got… I mean… this isn’t a joke… I didn’t mean to giggle there. I’m… I’m being very honest. That’s all I can say. I… the only reason I’m doing this is because… number one, I’m guilty, number two, my girlfriend is not. She doesn’t… didn’t know anything. She was never around at the time that I… hurt these people. She was at work. She’d work, eat, sleep, come home and that was it. She’s a very good person. She doesn’t do drugs. She might drink a little beer now and then, but that’s it. And she’s a real sweet person and she doesn’t deserve to get harmed in this because she didn’t do anything. And that’s another reason I’m confessing. Because they were looking for two women and I want to straighten it out that she was with me with the car, but she didn’t know the car belonged to somebody that was murdered… until after the wreck. And I told her, I said, ‘Man, Ty, I’ve got to tell you something.’ You know, in my mind. So I said, ‘Ty,’ you know, I said, ‘get in the bushes, man,’ you know, because I knew some cars were coming, and so she got in the bushes and she… she said, ‘What the… what the fuck is the deal?’ I said, ‘I got to tell you something,’ and I said, ‘I killed somebody.’ She said, ‘What!’ I said, ‘I killed somebody, man. This car is somebody I killed.’ ‘You idiot! What are you, crazy? Why did you do that?’ and all that stuff. So, anyway, I told her we got to get out of here because I don’t want you to get into trouble, you know, you… you… know you didn’t do anything and, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, you know, and all this stuff. So I told her to hide in the bushes every time a car went by. So, finally we started walking down the road and then those paramedics were trying… came by the road with a fire truck I think. And then we told them that we were hitchhiking… two guys… I lied… I did all the talking. I said to two guys who picked us up and we got in a wreck and they… no, wait… no I didn’t… I said two guys picked us up and they dropped us off and we’re on our way to Daytona and they told us this is where, you know, you can get to Daytona… and this… but, it was the wrong road and all that stuff. And, uh, so then I told them, you know, we got to get going.
Horzepa: The only way that we can begin to talk to you again about the cases is if you wish to voluntarily come to us and say, Look, I no longer want an attorney. I want to go ahead and talk about these things. But since you have invoked your right to the attorney…
Wuornos: Yeah, because maybe an attorney can help me because I know…
Horzepa: And we can’t talk to you.
Wuornos: Yeah, because I know that it wasn’t… I, in my heart, I know I self-defended myself so maybe I need an attorney.
Horzepa: OK.
Munster: Did you contact one, Larry?
Horzepa: Yes.
Munster: One going to come down?
Horzepa: Yes.
Wuornos: Yeah, I know… I know that I have to defend myself because if I didn’t, he probably would have hurt me, killed me, raped me or whatever. Beause I’m telling you, I’m serious. I have gone through at least 250,000 guys in my life at least. And never hurt any of them. Matter of fact, I became very good friends with them, you know, and they really liked me. And they always wanted to see me again and stuff, but I always gave them the wrong phone number because I didn’t really want to be always having calls or I didn’t have a phone anyway. So I’d give them the wrong number and stuff so… but, I mean it, I… what I’m trying to say is I never would have hurt anybody unless I had to, and I had to at the time. So yeah, I guess I need an attorney… you know I really suck.
Munster and Horzepa were, they thought, on to a winning streak. They had manoeuvred themselves into the position of being the principal detectives when other officers were far better qualified to take the lead roles. This rankled with their colleagues who accused them of being ‘office seats’ and not good front-line investigators.
During her confession to Larry Horzepa and Bruce Munster, Lee returned again and again to two themes: she wanted to make it clear that Tyria Moore was not involved in any of the murders, and she was emphatic in her assertion that nothing was her fault, neither the murders nor the circumstances that had shaped her life as a criminal. She claimed that all the killings were acts of self-defence. Each victim had either assaulted, threatened or raped her. Her story seemed to evolve and take on a life of its own as she related it. When she thought she had said something that might be incriminating, she would back up and retell that part, revising the details to suit her own ends. Lee claimed to have been raped several times over the years and decided it was not going to happen again. In future, when a customer became aggressive, she killed out of fear.
Wuornos: I’m very, very… I have to admit I’m scared about all this. I mean, I am very scared. I wouldn’t have confessed if it wasn’t for the fact that I don’t want my girlfriend involved. I mean, I don’t know, because I’ve thought about it many times, but I don’t want her involved. Because she’s not involved. I mean, you can ask her questions and stuff but she didn’t know anything, she wasn’t around and I’m telling you, I love her very much to the max, is what I’m trying to say. I love her deep down inside very much. She’s a Chr– well, she’s not a Christian but she goes to… she used to go to a church and she just worked, ate and slept and watched videos at home, or watched TV, Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy or whatever, and movies. She never did anything else. Have… pop open a few beers because she’s not in… she’s not guilty. And I’m willing to take the punishment because I’d rather confess that I did it so she won’t have to… I… in other words, she doesn’t deserve any punishment. She didn’t do anything. I don’t know how to express myself on this. I don’t want you to think I’m doing it because I love her and am trying to protect her or something, because I’m not. I’m doing it because I love her and she’s not guilty. She didn’t do anything. I’m being very wide open and honest. It’s a very frightening thing for me to do… but I told her I’m a bum. I don’t… she was crying her eyes out. My family’s getting all messed up. She… I didn’t do anything. ‘You got me involved in all this jazz because of the car that you got wrecked.’ Um… ‘You need to go and tell them that you did it and get me straightened out on this.’ And I said, ‘Yes, Ty, OK, I will.’ And that’s why I’m doing this. Because I don’t need her family or her getting messed up for something that I did. Hmmm. I know I’m going to miss her for the rest of my life. She’s a real good person. So sweet and kind.
With Lee’s attorney on his way to the jail, she could not resist another long, rambling dialogue which was intended to portray Tyria Moore as a saint:
Wuornos: Oh, you guys, really… you can out me under hypnosis, you can take a lie-detector test, do whatever you can to make me show you that Ty does not know… did not do anything. Honestly. I am being so honest, I can’t be any honester than I am. She… she’s just a good girl that met… got messed up with a creep like me. I met her at Zodiac a long time ago. Three years of good friendship and being just… loving each other and I screwed up the last year. I asked her, I said, ‘If I never done this would you have stayed with me?’ And she said, ‘Yes.’ And so… I said, ‘I guess you can… you can hate me now.’ She said, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘It’s not hard to do.’ I said, ‘Do you love me a little bit?’ She said, ‘I guess I do feel a little bit for you because, you know, I guess after three years you can still have a little love for me.’ I said, �
��But, yeah, I guess, go ahead and hate me because it’ll be easier for me to get over you and you get over me.’ But I don’t have anybody, no family or nothing. She was my only friend in the whole world and that’s why I loved her so much. But I loved because of her honesty. She never stole. My goodness, I got to tell you something. She was working at a Laundromat, and she found $125 in quarters in the back of the washer. She could have kept the money, but, no, she gives it to the people, gives it them back. And we were hard up for rent then. We needed rent money real bad. So I went out and made some money real quick. Then, I… when she was working as a manager at this Laundromat, I said, ‘Ty, let me see 50 cents,’ because there’s quarters in the Laundromat, right? ‘Ty, let me see 50 cents. I’m going go get a soda.’ We lived three blocks from the place. She said, ‘Hell, no.’ She said, ‘Go home and get the money. I’m not going to let you use any of this money.’ Would you believe that they fired her, saying that she had taken some $600? But there was another guy who was working there and he died of cancer. And then there was another girl that was some kind of biker chick from Canada that would take over… uh… little… you know, for an hour or two… and I think they’re the ones that stole the money. And she got fired for that and she did not take it, because, Honey, I… I mean, I mean… I’m thinking of her… and when I talk to her… I’d be with her all the time and we needed rent money, I had to go out and hustle for it. There’s no way she took it. You see what I’m saying? She’s a very honest person. I guess because we are lesbians, they’d always mess with us. She got fired at the Casa del Mar because we are lesbians. I know that’s what the reason is. He’s from Iran and, yeah, he didn’t like the idea that he wouldn’t… he couldn’t get a piece of ass from her. Kept trying to get a piece of ass from all the girls at work. Yeah. He’s the boss, you know. And so finally he said, ‘Well, I knew it was coming to fire you.’ And, she wouldn’t give, you know, she’s not going to… she’s real sweet and innocent. She ain’t going to. God, she’s in love with me, you know what I’m saying? We didn’t even have sex hardly. We had sex, I’d say, the first year, maybe three times and the next years, we didn’t even have sex together. We were just friends. Just good friends. Hugging, kissing, but we were good friends. You know. So… that’s why I’m saying… that’s why I’m confessing because she’s… shit, she wouldn’t deserve anything because she didn’t do anything, you know. I don’t want her in trouble… for something that I honestly did. I know right now it’s easy for me to confess. I know right now it’s easy for me to say everything honestly now, when I get back to the cell I’ll probably cry my eyes out. I’ll go through a lot of hell, through court and everything else. I’ll take a major toll in this. I understand. So, I know it’s very frightening for me to confess. Because I know I’m probably looking at death, I’m possibly looking at life imprisonment. I don’t know what I’m looking at, but I know one thing, I just want to get right with God again and give this… I’ll put my trust with the Lord and with the people here so everybody knows. I am so sorry… I mean I… I realise I don’t have a family so I don’t, sorry…
Lee paused. Tears were now streaming down her face.
Wuornos: I mean I… I realise I don’t have a family so I don’t understand. But when I… after I’m… seeing Ty’s family and everything… I have never met the family but noticing how Ty was on the phone and stuff, I realise now how badly I used to hurt some families. And the re– now… I… these… these men were older men… another thing after they were dead that didn’t bother me because I thought, Well, they’re older. They probably don’t have anybody hardly anyway so it didn’t worry me too much. But I didn’t kill them for that reason. I killed them because they tried to do something to me. But I think that, Well, they’re old, their father and mother’s probably deceased and so why worry about it and stuff, I don’t know. Creaky spots in my head, I guess. [More sobs] I wish to God… I wish I hadn’t done it. Not that I’m feeling sorry for myself for what I’m going to play, I’m saying I wish I never had the gun, I wish I never, ever hooked and I wish I never would have met those guys. Because I wouldn’t have had to do what I did if I hadn’t been hooking, see. It’s because of hustling, and the guy’s going to physically harm me, that I have to harm him back. You see what I’m saying? Yeah. Beause if I wasn’t hustling, if I wasn’t hooking around, I would have never had a physical problem and I wouldn’t have never had to hurt anybody. And I do have to say one thing, their families must realise that no matter how much they loved the people that died, no matter how much they love them, they were bad people because they were going to hurt me. So they have to realise the fact, that this person, no matter how much they loved them or how good they felt they were, this person was either going to physically beat me up, rape me or kill me. And I don’t know which one. And I just turned around and did my fair play before I would get hurt, see? So, I would love to say to the families. I mean, that guy’s going to… You stupid bitch. You killed my husband or whatever, you know. Or my brother or something. And I’d just have to say to them, ‘Listen, what are they going to do to me…’ I would be probably turning around if I survived it, and say, ‘You stupid bastards. You almost killed me, you almost raped me, you almost beat the shit out of me.’ So, you know, that’s how I have to look at it. I have to look at it like that, too. So I can’t really say that they were sweet… You know, I know that these guys… one guy had a weapon with him. He had a .45 and I… it was dark and he didn’t know where he put it… this is the weapon that I sold. And, uh, I don’t know where he put it. But I didn’t know he had a weapon, see, I had no idea he had a weapon, but when he started shitting on me that’s when I grabbed my gun and I started shooting. And when I was done shooting him, and I went through the car, and there was the .45 sitting on top of the hood. I think he was going to take the gun and blow my brains out. So that’s… another case. And that’s… I honestly have to say, if you’re hooking don’t do it. I mean, I could help people out so bad because I think I had… I have six chan– I had six times I almost got killed. And I killed the person, see. And I’m being very honest. Now, to recollect all this stuff is going to be hard. Because a lot of times I was drunk… and after I’d done it, you know, I’d go and get drunk so, wow, to remember everything is going be a little bit difficult. I don’t even know their names. I can’t even remember their names.
After a break for coffee and cigarettes, Lee was introduced to Michael O’Neill, the attorney from the Volusia County Public Defender’s Office. Now the police could continue in earnest. On numerous occasions O’Neill advised her to stop talking, finally asking in exasperation, ‘Do you realise these guys are cops?’ Lee answered, ‘I know. And they want to hang me. And that’s cool, because maybe, man, I deserve it. I just want to get this over with.’
Horzepa: How many men have you actually shot and murdered? Shot and killed?
Wuornos: Six. All I can remember.
Horzepa: Six… six men that you remember?
Munster: You forgot about the one [inaudible]. That makes seven.
Wuornos: No, because I only did six.
Horzepa: OK.
Munster: Well, we’ll go over those six first.
Wuornos: Right. I think there’s only six.
Horzepa: OK.
Wuornos: I know… I think it’s six.
Horzepa: OK, well… we’ll go ahead now.
Wuornos: OK, yeah, because… because if you showed me all the pictures of the guys, I can tell you, and if you show me a picture of a guy that… you know, if there’s a seventh guy, I can tell you if I did or not because… I’m being very honest with you, as much as possible. I mean I am telling you the absolute, honest to God, so help me Lord, strike me with lightning in my heart right now, if I’m not telling you the truth.
Lee then went on to ramble for two minutes about how innocent Tyria was and what a sweet young innocent she had been while Lee had been out killing men. Then she was stopped short and asked when she aimed her sho
ts.
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