by Sue Russell
(Lori who didn’t believe Aileen’s account. The doctor was not to know that and nor was David Damore. Yet he addressed that very issue.)
He said Dr McMahon didn’t know if Lee had lied to her sister, or if it was perhaps easier for Lee, six months’ pregnant, to have lied about a rape than to have admitted to having had consensual sex. Damore also brought out that Lauri had allowed Aileen back into the family home after the pregnancy, and that she at least had a family unit. Yes, the doctor agreed, also sounding weary, Lee had been fortunate enough to have had a family unit.
They got into the alleged abuse. ‘The worst thing he ever did, according to her, was to strike her in the face with a buckle.’ David Damore was firing questions so quickly that the doctor couldn’t get a word in edgeways.
‘Your honour, the witness should be allowed to answer something! ’ Billy Nolas piped up.
The judge agreed. ‘Let the witness answer the question.’
Dr McMahon read from her notes that Lee had told her that her grandfather hit her with a belt but only on the butt and the legs. There’d been just the one incident where he’d struck her in the face with it.
Damore ventured into Lori and Barry’s police accounts of the childhood. Dr McMahon had talked to a distant cousin and to a gentleman who had spent six days with Lee in 1990. Damore pointedly asked if she’d spoken to, or tried to speak to, Lori Grody, Barry Wuornos or Tyria Moore. Dr McMahon answered ‘No’ to each question. She’d read the sworn statements and had gone no further.
Damore brought out that it took Lee from the first interview in February 1991 until December of that year to recount to her that she’d been raped by Mr Mallory.
‘I didn’t see her between then and December, so yes.’
Damore also elicited from McMahon that Lee had described her criminal history as being lacking in violence and theft. The doctor admitted that Aileen’s criminal history was irrelevant to her diagnosis. The violence, the robbery, the use of aliases, all of it. Irrelevant. Whether she’d stolen or lied. Irrelevant.
‘Isn’t it a fact that the defendant provided you with a history of manipulation and lies to people before Richard Mallory?’
‘Manipulation yes, lies no.’
Damore then returned to the damning absence of mention of the rape by Richard Mallory. She did not tell her she had not been—she didn’t tell her she had been, McMahon fudged.
‘Do you think that a woman who’d been anally raped and sodomised and vaginally attacked and brutalised to the extent that she claims to have been … would be able to forget it?’
‘Would she be able to forget it? In terms of both her condition at the time she was arrested and the time [I saw her] after that, I can see where she may not have related it. Yes.’
Dr McMahon was doing a sterling job of remaining calm and unruffled on the receiving end of David Damore’s often abrasive questioning. It was clearly designed to shake her, but did not. Ultimately, the impression jurors carried away from all this would probably be largely determined by their feelings about psychology.
Damore wanted to go back to the self-defence issue, asking the doctor if she was familiar with the autopsy on Walter Gino Antonio. (Alluding, obviously, to the bullets in the back.) That time, Nolas’s objection was sustained. Damore reworded his question, asking if Dr McMahon had considered any autopsy reports, including that of Mr Mallory, in an attempt to establish whether Aileen Wuornos was telling the truth. Again, McMahon said it was not relevant. It was not relevant to her diagnosis, what had happened out there.
Dr McMahon also said that while she entertained the possibility that Aileen might have an antisocial personality disorder, she found that not to be the case. The diagnosis calls for three or four characteristics by age fifteen and she found Aileen did not meet that criteria.
‘In my clinical opinion, she is not an antisocial personality, she is a borderline personality.’
Dr McMahon felt that sometimes Aileen lied, sometimes she told the truth, and that she wasn’t delusional. She was aware of Aileen’s arrest history, but didn’t consider her recent offences to be an escalation from that, calling them qualitatively different. She was aware of her history of manipulating and using aliases. About lying, she wasn’t so sure.
‘I can tell when she thinks she’s telling the truth,’ Dr McMahon said, but reiterated that for her purposes, Aileen’s perceptions were more important. And she readily admitted that she did not know what had truly transpired with Richard Mallory. She also admitted what Lee had denied. Yes, Ms Wuornos had told her that she had practised drawing her gun quickly.
Billy Nolas then questioned Dr McMahon on redirect.
‘Are what you understand to be her interactions with men while prostituting consistent with the way prostitutes are?’
‘No.’
‘What’s inconsistent about it?’
‘The very fact she enjoyed it, stated that she enjoyed it, stated that it was both emotionally and physically gratifying to her, stated that she would spend more time with them than the contract she had with them … holding hands, kissing, affectionate type of engagement. This is not typical.’
McMahon found it telling that Aileen would want that physical contact and enjoy it even from a stranger, without closeness. And her premature sexual behaviour wasn’t appropriate either.
Billy Nolas had done his very best to elicit from the witness a digestible explanation for his client’s behaviour. And court was in recess until 9.30 a.m. Wednesday.
The defence began the second day of the penalty phase hearing, Wednesday 29 January, by calling Dr Harry Krop, a clinical psychologist, an expert forensic psychiatrist and an expert in sexual abuse.
Billy Nolas began by eliciting from Dr Krop that he had treated over 4,000 sex offenders and had evaluated 435 first-degree murder cases, only 40 or so for the defence. After assessing Lee Wuornos and all her files, his primary diagnosis, in line with Dr McMahon’s, was that she was suffering from borderline personality disorder. Of the eight criteria listed in the DSM-111, of which five are supposed to be met in diagnosis, Lee had all eight. She was a classic case.
Dr Krop had interviewed Lee’s cousin and heard about the dominant, very critical and (when drinking) violent grandfather, and about the passive grandmother who drank intermittently and was ineffective in praising Lee or intervening on her behalf. Dr Krop naturally covered much of the same ground as Dr McMahon. He testified that when sex is prevalent from a very early age there can be one of two outcomes: hyposexuality (a withdrawal from sex) or hypersexuality. Lee belonged in the latter category. Sex was her way of gaining acceptance and she became sexually aggressive.
She had told Dr Krop that she’d been gang-raped at sixteen and tied up and raped at seventeen. He, too, had been told the story of rape by her father’s friend leading to the pregnancy. From thirteen on, Dr Krop said, she’d had a tremendous amount of sexual experience.
Dr Krop mentioned Lee’s school report and the observation that her IQ had been rated, he said, as low dull normal, which was borderline retardation.
This comment precipitated a stifled guffaw from Lee, and Billy Nolas seized the opportunity. His client had just encapsulated the very heart of her problem right before the jury’s eyes. And he badly wanted them to understand her. Nolas walked behind Lee and laid his hands on her shoulders. Lee had just heard that she possessed very limited mental capacity and yet she found it cause for laughter, Nolas pointed out: ‘Is that typical of a borderline personality?’
‘Yes,’ the doctor replied. ‘She doesn’t view herself as being disturbed.’
In his opinion, Lee still ached for family ties. ‘Lee still has the fantasy of being part of a family.’
Billy Nolas had one more point to make. He listed all the borderline qualities from anxiety to poor impulse control. ‘You see all of that here, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
After a fifteen-minute recess, John Tanner questioned Dr Krop.
‘Good
morning,’ Tanner said.
‘Good morning,’ Dr Krop replied.
‘Did I just attempt to manipulate you?’
With that device, Tanner then launched into a demonstration of the dissension within the psychiatric field and an attack on the professional bible, the DSM-III. Krop admitted that, like Dr McMahon, he too had based most of his assumptions on reports and documentation. The first time he had heard the anal rape/Visine story had been ten days earlier. Krop also said that Lee didn’t meet even three of the twelve criteria that would cause him to diagnose her as an antisocial personality.
Dr Jethro Toomer was the third expert to testify for the defence and he confirmed the conclusions of his colleagues.
Lee, sitting at the defence table, being discussed like a specimen in a scientific study, for a moment looked unusually vulnerable. But an outburst of furious gestures just before the lunch recess quickly diluted the impression. She had just heard that Lori Grody and Barry Wuornos were in town to testify for the state. Lee had been promised that if that were to happen, Dawn Nieman would fly in to testify on her behalf. Now it was too late to get Dawn, and Lee felt betrayed.
On the stand, Dr Toomer continued building the picture of a borderline personality that so described Lee. Borderlines lack core self-esteem and their underlying message is, ‘Please like me! Please accept me!’ Unfortunately, the sheer weight of the psychological testimony was taking its toll: one juror had actually dozed off.
Under John Tanner’s questioning, Dr Toomer said that he hadn’t diagnosed Lee as an antisocial personality for a number of very significant reasons. One being that an antisocial personality is someone without a conscience which didn’t, to him, describe her. In his view, she manifested remorse. Antisocials constantly violated social norms. Again, he didn’t find that the case with Lee.
What John Tanner described as her lying and changing stories, the doctor described as ‘her recall and reporting facilities break down under stress’.
Billy Nolas brought out on redirect that Lee was unpredictable in her relationships and that Lori Grody said she never knew what to expect. Dr Toomer elaborated: ‘Ms Wuornos does that. She’ll find one person, put all her focus on that person, like everything about that person, then she’ll switch around and she’ll hate their guts that fast.’
The idealising was typical, the doctor said.
‘The defence rests, your honour,’ Tricia Jenkins said, stirring the drowsy courtroom.
Dr George Barnard from the University of Florida, a forensic psychiatrist who’d examined Lee earlier that month, took the stand for the prosecution. Under questioning, Dr Barnard stated that the day of their interview, Lee had arrived in an agitated state, claiming that the jail officers who’d escorted her had made sexual remarks she considered inappropriate. Her accusations fluctuated, but she was offered a rape test which she declined. Dr Barnard was the gentleman who evaluated Lee for the court back in 1981 at the time of her armed robbery conviction. Barnard agreed with the borderline personality diagnosis but also diagnosed her as an antisocial personality disorder. He said, however, that Lee appreciated the criminality of her conduct, and that neither diagnosis would take away that judgement. He didn’t think people chose to have such disorders, but they might choose some of the behaviours.
John Tanner asked him, ‘She had intent to shoot Richard Mallory to death and she shot him, didn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
The prosecution’s next witness was Barry Wuornos, a squat man with thinning hair, spectacles, a double chin and a maroon-striped shirt. The state had decided not to call Lori Grody. David Damore took Barry through the by now familiar childhood terrain. His father was a strong character, a disciplinarian, gentle, strong rules, a man you could look up to. Did he beat his children? Absolutely not. Aileen had not been denied medical care, he said. Mom he described as quiet, studious, laid-back, very much in the background and much easier-going than dad. Dad was strong on school. Aileen was no differently treated from the others.
Lee did not hide her anger. As Barry spoke, she shook her head in disbelief. First, that Barry was up there testifying against her, then that he was denying she’d been treated abusively. She scribbled copious notes on the pad in front of her.
‘Did you ever ask them to let you talk to Lee?’ Billy Nolas wanted to know.
‘No. There was no reason to ask to talk to her. She’d been in various trouble, and I just thought, here we go again.’
‘Did you ask how Lee was doing?’
‘No.’
‘Did you ask to talk to Lee’s lawyer?’
‘I didn’t even know she had a lawyer.’
Billy Nolas’s tone quietly conveyed it all. It was OK for the prosecution to give Lee a hard time. It was expected that most of the rest of the world would turn away from her, but hadn’t this brother of hers any compassion for his own flesh and blood? Didn’t he at least want to hear her side of the story and find out what had happened to her?
Diane, Barry described as a normal older sister. Leo, with whom she had an on-off marriage, was a rousty individual who’d once thrown Barry down and threatened to choke him.
Barry, Nolas learned, had never heard of Lee needing a hearing aid. He’d heard of the shoplifting and, from Lori, the fire-setting. But he hadn’t heard of much else. Despite his departure from the home when Lee was around ten, it seemed he’d grown up in a different household. All of this had nothing to do with me, his stance seemed to convey.
Lee’s mouth was set in a rigid line of anger and her eyes were downcast as Barry stepped down from the stand. Without looking across at her, he walked from the courtroom. It was a truly distressing scene to watch.
Thursday 30 January was the final day of this, Lee’s first trial. She arrived in a flowery blouse. Larry Horzepa sat in the back row. Arlene Pralle was tearful and agitated. I asked her if Lee had been prepared for the worst. Arlene didn’t know. The strain was certainly showing on Lee’s face. It seemed she’d aged ten years overnight. She had a quiet, angry outburst with the beleaguered Billy Nolas at the defence table.
When the jury filed in, Lee was red-faced and crying.
As John Tanner made his closing argument, she sobbed openly. Nolas put his arm around her to comfort her. Tanner went on to list Lee’s aliases, and to inform the jury that their advisory sentence would carry great weight with the judge who would have the final say.
‘Your responsibilities are here and now. It began in Volusia County and should end in Volusia County. The finality of Richard Mallory’s death, and what is to be done about it, rests with the jury here.’
Of the eleven possible aggravating factors, Mr Tanner felt they had proved six. Listening, Lee shook her head. He reminded the jury that she had previously committed a violent crime and that she killed Mr Mallory during the course of a robbery, acted to avoid arrest, acted for financial gain, and acted with premeditation.
He addressed the mitigating factors the defence would bring out. Dr McMahon had said she could tell when Aileen Wuornos was lying. ‘But McMahon based her whole opinion on the alcohol, rape and bondage story. She accepted that as fact. You rejected it.’
Aileen was sobbing noisily.
He called the suggestion of sexual abuse by Aileen’s father a dirty little innuendo. Summing up, he said that what the doctors had really told them was: ‘She just doesn’t think like others. You knew that!’
He wanted to bring Richard Mallory, the victim, fresh back into the jurors’ minds before he wrapped it up.
‘It became obscenely simple for Aileen Wuornos to kill. In one moment Richard Mallory was eliminated and by that act of her will, he was no more. Simply was no more.’
He brought up Lee’s own words. She said she deserved to die. And John Tanner agreed.
‘Aileen Wuornos deserves the ultimate penalty provided by the state of Florida.’
A few of the jurors looked almost as shaken as the defence team. Tricia Jenkins, as she stepped forward to speak
, was on the verge of tears. She faced an unenviable task.
‘I must ask you to save Aileen Wuornos. How do people who live unimpaired know what it is like to live impaired? Everything goes through that filter of impairment. She is not like us. I don’t know what to do or say to convince you Lee should live. I only know that she should.’
Two female jurors were working as hard as Jenkins to fight back the tears. As she took them once more through a synopsis of the events of that night, Lee sobbed loudly. So did Arlene Pralle, seated behind her.
‘Travelling through the world, always on the outside,’ said Jenkins. ‘Living in a world which to her perception is violent and frightening.’
She was, Jenkins said, ‘intensely needy, intensely afraid of being abandoned.’
Lee’s body was heaving with sobs, perhaps crying for this vulnerable self that Jenkins described. A damaged, primitive child.
‘Not being able to make people like her. Always turning on the very people trying to help her.’
Eloquently, Jenkins told the jury that Lee was incapable of doing anything to help herself. They had learned, she said, ‘that Lee can’t control impulses, and I think all of you have seen that. Think how frustrating that must be.’
Jenkins decried Barry Wuornos’s testimony of this normal family. Even Dr Barnard, the prosecution’s own witness, agreed that Lee came from a dysfunctional family.
‘Barry came into this courtroom against Lee in a proceeding in which the state is trying to kill her. What does that tell you about dysfunction?
‘Ladies and gentlemen, Richard Mallory is dead and that’s a terrible, terrible thing. We’re not asking that you forgive that … all of mankind is diminished when someone dies at the hands of another. ’
What she was asking was that they show mercy. Life in prison without possibility of parole for 25 years. Wasn’t that enough?
‘When she longs for the comfort of human touch, she can’t have it. She has been free, out in the open, most of her life. She’ll go to sleep in a metal cage. If she’s lucky, it will have a window.’