Dear Dawn

by Aileen Wuornos

  And I still can see you in the teens, as if it were yesterday with your muscle bound self and long black hair. Were at your house on Atkins, playing the tunes, with Zeplin, Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Carol King and a mess more blaring away., until., we had to go, because the parents were back. So much fun.

  And buddy – ya left me full of good memories. Even the Mall. I’ll never forget that ice cream cone you got with a scoop so hard put on it, that when ya went to lick it, it fell, and went rolling acrost the floor. Boy – that one kept me laughin all day!.

  And the “bazaar shop” Remember it at the Oakland Mall!? How easy it was to rip off clothes there. Exspecially the “blazers” I remember in one day I wound up with about 8 of them babies. Stashin them then in Lori’s black Chrysler New Port. Then – you finally got the courage to try yourself – “did” – and came back with a pair of jeans, only for me to head back in, and get 5 of those then. Ha Ha. Then we later thumbed out to “Pants Galore” and tried to do the same thing there!. Only for security to wind up to tight to, while the bazar shop got hip to all the missing murchandise., so went for “beeper tags” on the clothes, that worked so well everyone quit liftin anymore. Man – so well it worked, it traveled “the idea” acrost other stores too., and so there went our liftin days!. Ha. Ha. mischievious – I’ll admit it

  Yeah, we were!. So young and free., buttttt heck., nothing like today! “THATS FOR SURE!”

  Then the “PARKS” . . . so much fun there, besides all my homeless days I stayed over at your house and had.

  It was a trip! But if I could do it all over again, I’d skip the drugs. Just don’t believe in the stuff anymore. Exspecially now that we can see what kind of kids came out from outta the Woodstock era. Em. Em. Em. Nothin but a bunch of brain damaged idiots.

  So I’m hoping Kim and David raise their new borns right keeping them away from the stuff as best they can when their teen days come too.

  And boy do I miss them snowy nights up there in the ol’ Mitt. It was romantic to me, whenever I wit the glitter of the snow under the stars of a clear moonlit night.

  And those Authum days with all the leaves blowing around under a full moon. AWWWWW. Miss that crisp air!. It always turned me on.

  And remember those huge whalers that Burger King had back then. Man – the fish and buns were so big. Only for today them to be now so little. While one thinks. Why!? And the answer so easy, “society”, its called “over-population” Chuckle. So quit having so many kids! Geeeez!, Then maybe the buns and stuff will get back to the way it use to be. supersized Ha Ha.

  Anyway – I miss them good ol’ days, but when you came back into my life, it all came back and those memories refreshed in mind.

  As I also need say as well.

  Look who “didnt” give up on me. Man – toooo much and having even taken the place of Ty! . . . . “in friendship” just the same . . . blows me away sis. Your such a “Beautiful soul.”

  And hope you’ll be able to “SOMEDAY” get the word out, how they framed a raped Women down, to a seriel killer, and from the get go took advantage of, in the syndrome, to beat her down to one, for secrets of their own in books and movies.

  Evil!.

  So – I hope you’ll be able to someday get that through their heads, and how “SiCK” the powers become – today.

  As for Volusia, that was just to pull away from the “ANIMALS!” Em. Em. Em. “FOR SURE.” And know now people are being used “SACRiFICiALLY.”

  So again – Would like to “THANK YOU” for helping me through it all!.

  And from the “DEBTS OF MY SOUL” . . . sis “THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING!” “THANK YOU SOOOO MUUUUCH!” “SOOOO SOOOO VERY MUUUUCH.” Will Love ya buddy. “FOREVER – MAN!.”

  And with that good thought “SOOOO MEEEAANNT.” “SOOOOO FOR REAL!” I’ll close here and find a way to relax a little more before the end. I’ll see ya at Starke, and again someday on the other side. Love ya buddy, and take good care “My FRiEND.” You’ll be “FOREVER REMEMBERED BY ME.”

  Love

  Aileen

  P.S. I’d like to also “THANK YOUR FAMILY” for all the support and Understanding they gave in our friendship too., and how they stood by it. Was definetly cool., and., brave. Thanks a million Dawn!. And you too, you guys in the family. Will Love ya

  “FOR EVER!.”

  Afterword

  Dear Aileen,

  Well there my friend I know you have reached the otherside, the only place you ever wanted to be, your Home up in Hevan, and I bet God was right there with wide open arms waiting for you and that Big Smile of your’s.. And it more than make’s up for all the suffering you went threw here on Earth. And I bet it’s far better, beautiful, and peaceful then you ever imagined it to be. Im saying a Big A-men to you and happy and at peace for you, finally made it. Lisa and Daphne thought it would be interesting if I made the time to write you a letter, what would I write today. First thought Crazy Idea, But also more I thought about, “5 minutes,” I miss writting you more then I ever thought I could, got my pad of paper ink pen, and havent hardly put it down for 4 days strait, must of used 50 peace’s of paper, Crumbled them all up, wasnt good enough, went back to Death Row all great million memorie’s Happy Laughing you were so funny, thought, filling my Heart and Soul again, couldnt keep up writting as fast as I was thinking, I was filling up the spot only you have in my heart and soul with our writting, getting that feeling back great friendship, But suddenly never thought I would feel this, felt this would be completing my writing to you. And just relized if your not here to write to, I have no reason to write, Dont want to, made me feel in a way, the End of part of you and I, the writing, got my first tear and feeling I guess Sad. I am at a loss for word’s, And if I could find them to describe how proud and lucky I was you chose me to have as your friend till the End

  you will all ways Be Loved

  and Remembered, and

  Part of our family

  I love you

  Dawn

  February 2011

  Acknowledgments-

  The editors would like to thank Anne Horowitz for her tireless, brilliant, and ruthless editing; this book would not be here without her hard work. Words are insufficient to express the depth of our gratitude.

  Lisa would like to express her sincere gratitude to Daphne Gottlieb for her enormous gift of dedication and focus on this book. She has been the anchor in this project from day one.

  A special thanks goes to Jesse Merril, for enlisting us in this project. Without her gentle nudge, this project would not have been started. Also, heartfelt gratitude goes to Brenda Bass, for believing in this project from the start and helping to make it happen.

  Thanks to Susan Seager and Jonathan Gottlieb, who had wisdom when we needed it. Thanks to our agent Katie Boyle, who was there when we needed her.

  Thanks to Aja Aguirre, Meg Chilton, Deborah Teramis Christian, Annalee Cobbett, Joie Rey Cohen, Amber Hogue, Cassidy Jones, Marie Militana, Cat Ondriezek, and Jae Sevilus for inputting assistance and various other supports.

  Most of all, thanks to Dawn and Dave Botkins. Dave did a great deal of preparation for this project by scanning and organizing the letters and photographs. Dawn has courageously opened her letter file and her heart to us and made this all possible.

  1 See letter dated November 28, 2001.

  2 Keith was Wuornos’s brother, one year her senior, and her only full biological sibling. Aileen and Keith were the children of Leo Pittman and Diane Wuornos. Pittman abandoned Diane Wuornos, and Diane Wuornos, in turn, abandoned the children to her parents, Lauri and Britta Wuornos, who raised Keith and Aileen alongside their own children, Barry and Lori.

  3 Presumably Wuornos is referring to Arlene Pralle, a born-again Christian who saw Wuornos’s story in the paper and felt called to come and help her. Pralle was a fierce advocate in the press for Wuornos, arguing that Wuornos had turned to God. Pralle later adopted Wuornos and came under fire in Nick Broomfield’s documentaries for alleg
edly using Wuornos and her story for financial gain.

  4 Lori Grody (née Wuornos) and Barry Wuornos were in fact Wuornos’s aunt and uncle, her mother’s much younger siblings, but she was raised with them as her brother and sister.

  5 Only two letters from 1991 exist in our archive, and both are included here.

  6 In a prior letter, Dawn informed Aileen that “Ducky,” Dawn’s older brother Don, was murdered in a drug deal gone wrong in 1986.

  7 Wuornos aspired to write her autobiography, at first in response to Jacqueline Giroux’s request for stories from her early years, which could be used in Giroux’s film. From time to time, Wuornos worked on the project, interjecting a few “road stories” and memories, some of which are presented here. This never took the form of a completed manuscript.

  8 Steve Glazer, Wuornos’s attorney.

  9 Charles Carskaddon was Wuornos’s fourth victim. His body was found June 6, 1990.

  10 Dawn has multiple sclerosis, the effects of which, as of the time of publication, have become debilitating. Because of frequent falls, she will soon be wheelchair-bound.

  11 Presumably Toni, Wuornos’s girlfriend prior to Tyria Moore.

  12 A reference to people who were sending Wuornos fan mail.

  13 In her videotaped confession to the police, Wuornos claimed that she had committed all of the murders in self-defense.

  14 Wuornos is referring to her maternal grandmother, Britta Wuornos, who raised her.

  15 Volusia County Branch Jail.

  16 Wuornos is thought to have killed seven men: Richard Mallory, Charles “Dick” Humphreys, Charles Carskaddon, Troy Burress, Peter Siems, Walter Jeno Antonio, and David Spears. However, Siems’s body was never found, and it is difficult to prosecute a murder in which the body is missing. Therefore, Wuornos was only tried (and convicted) for six murders.

  17 Inmates’ letters were not permitted to exceed four pages.

  18 This passage is very similar to Wuornos’s sworn testimony in court, which can be seen in Nick Broomfield’s first documentary on Wuornos, Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer.

  19 According to Dawn, this is likely a reference to an appearance on Court TV, which showed excerpts of Wuornos’s trial. In a previous letter, Dawn transcribed the entire segment for Aileen.

  20 Dawn’s husband, referred to here mostly as Dave.

  21 Peter Siems is thought to have been Wuornos’s fifth victim, but she was never prosecuted for his death since his body was never found.

  22 Likely an abbreviation for Disciplinary Report.

  23 Wuornos is referring to neighborhood kids who used to gather at “the Pits,” Wuornos’s hangout in the woods.

  24 Inmates were allowed to make collect calls.

  25 Jacqueline Giroux, writer and producer of the made-for-TV movie Damsel of Death.

  26 LSD.

  27 Presumably, Wuornos was being interviewed for Nick Broomfield’s 1993 documentary Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer. In 2003, Broomfield made another documentary about Wuornos entitled Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer.

  28 Dawn collects Wizard of Oz commemorative plates and other memorabilia.

  29 Librium is used to treat anxiety and alcohol withdrawal symptoms, and Vistaril, used primarily to relieve allergy symptoms and nausea, is also used for anxiety and alcohol withdrawal symptoms.

  30 A Son of Sam law is any law that prohibits prisoners (and often their friends and families) from profiting from their crimes, by, for example, selling their stories. Frequently, such laws direct proceeds to victims’ families for restitution. These laws vary from state to state; Florida has such a law on the books. However, these laws are subject to the strictest judicial scrutiny because of their potential to violate First Amendment rights; in a major case in 1991, the Supreme Court struck down New York’s Son of Sam law.

  31 Wuornos made her confession to the police on January 16, 1991.

  32 Mark MacNamara, “Kiss and Kill: Out of Florida’s Wave of Horrific Crimes Comes a Dark Version of Thelma and Louise in a Rare Case of a Female Serial Killer,” Vanity Fair, September 1991, 91 – 106.

  33 Wuornos was tried in Marion County for the murders of Troy Burress and Charles Humphreys.

  34 Billy Nolas was Wuornos’s assistant defense attorney.

  35 The article Wuornos is referencing is likely “Sex, Death, and the Double Standard” (On the Issues magazine, summer of 1992). In the article, Chesler maintains that Wuornos’s death sentences have everything to do with her fighting back as a prostitute in society, and deconstructs the ways in which misogyny has guaranteed Wuornos’s execution.

  36 John Tanner was the state attorney for the prosecution in the Mallory trial.

  37 Wuornos is referring to Arlene Pralle. To the best of our knowledge, Pralle had no connection to any of Wuornos’s victims.

  38 LSD.

  39 Dawn’s daughter, fifteen at the time.

  40 Atkins Road, the street where Dawn lived.

  41 Curtis “Corky” Reid disappeared from Marion County on September 6, 1990. He was not one of Wuornos’s victims, although initially it was thought that he might be.

  42 Fearing that her letters to Dawn were not being delivered consistently, Wuornos began marking them at the top. Although the series often began with A, they also began numerically, or with double letters, such as in this case.

  43 Deidre Hunt was found guilty of the murders of two teenagers she and her boy friend had hired to kill her boyfriend’s wife. She was sentenced to death on September 13, 1990, and resentenced to life in 1998.

  44 Andrea Hicks Jackson was sentenced to death on February 10, 1984, for killing a Jacksonville, Florida, police officer. Her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2000.

  45 Ana Maria Cardona was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of her three-year-old son with a baseball bat. The Florida Supreme Court overturned the conviction and a new trial was granted; she was resentenced to death in 2010.

  46 Judias Buenoano was convicted of the murders of her husband and her son and the attempted murder of her fiancée. She was electrocuted on March 30, 1998, by the state of Florida.

  47 The Dake Annotated Reference Bible is an annotated Bible, expressly for Bible study.

  48 Dawn sent Wuornos a photograph from the news coverage of the trial.

  49 Elizabeth McMahon was a forensic psychologist for the state of Florida. An article entitled “Mercy Plea” could not be located, but McMahon has characterized Wuornos as “a primitive, paranoid, unhappy person capable of minute-by-minute mood swings” (Orlando Sentinel).

  50 Wuornos had been sending Dawn photocopies of the press coverage of her court appearances, with commentary.

  51 In Wuornos’s taped confession, she claimed to have shot Humphreys in the head (not Antonio) because he was “gurgling” and she felt sorry for him.

  52 Wuornos is referring to the transcript of her videotaped confession.

  53 This initial Dateline segment aired August 25, 1992, with a follow-up show on November 10, 1992.

  54 Refers to upcoming trial date in Pasco County for the murder of Charles Carskaddon.

  55 Dolores Kennedy, author (with Robert Nolin) of On a Killing Day: The Bizarre Story of Convicted Murderer Aileen “Lee” Wuornos. It is unclear why Wuornos believed Kennedy’s book was entitled Angel of Death.

  56 Hollow-point bullets are designed to expand on impact, thus destroying more area when they penetrate their target.

  57 Wuornos was burned in a fire at the age of nine, and it left scars on her face. She describes this incident in her letter of August 2, 1999.

  58 In the episode of Dateline that aired on November 10, 1992, Gillen made this comment, among others: “She’s a sick woman who blew those men away, but that’s no reason for the state to say, ‘She’s confessed to killing men, we don’t have to do our homework.’”

  59 Prison worker in charge of visitations.

  60 Munster and Henry were among the
officers involved in the made-for-TV movie Overkill. Henry did, in fact, resign, and Munster and Binegar were demoted. Citrus County Investigator Jerry Thompson, who engineered Tyria Moore’s telephone sting operation, was not involved in the Overkill scandal.

  61 Overkill: The Aileen Wuornos Story, which originally aired November 17, 1992.

  62 Cannonball, a bartender and bouncer at the Last Resort, where Wuornos was arrested, was so named because of his “human cannonball” act, which involved lying on explosives as they detonated.

  63 Wuornos is referring to Moore and Moore’s sister.

  64 Publix or Winn-Dixie supermarkets.

  65 Wuornos’s character in Overkill wore boots and a miniskirt.

  66 According to Dawn, she had traveled to Florida to testify, but the defense had not called her.

  67 Michael Reynolds is the author of Dead Ends: The Pursuit, Conviction, and Execution of Female Serial Killer Aileen Wuornos, and Dolores Kennedy is the author of On a Killing Day: The Bizarre Story of Convicted Murderer Aileen “Lee” Wuornos.