Original subtitles

At the start, we didn't know these killings were joined.

They were far enough apart in various counties of the state of Florida,

central Florida largely.

They were not putting the killings together.

I don't think there's anything early on that caused law enforcement to believe

it was a woman that was doing the killing.

I don't know why it's so hard to understand that women can also be...

Truly monsters.

Her story is so tangled with lies,

contradictions. A life that was so twisted and tortured from day one.

It's very difficult to know why she was actually killing. Perhaps she found it

thrilling.

Once they find out Eileen's in their yard, the famous serial killer, they

might want to get out of here real quick.

She's taken on this kind of folk hero type of persona.

There's just a fascination with her character.

One glance into the childhood of Eileen Wuornos, and you immediately see a

person whose choices in life were severely limited.

She became pregnant at the age of 14, likely the result of a rape.

This was an older man they called Chief at the time. He was like 60-some years

old. He did have kids all over teenagers to party at his house because it made

him feel important.

Well, she must have got drunk one night. She probably passed out or something. He

thought, hmm, I got something for me to fool around with tonight and raped her.

She is sent to a facility for unwed mothers where she gives the baby up for

adoption.

My name is Dawn Botkins. It's D-A-W-N-B-O-T-K-I-N-S.

I think we were 14, maybe 15, and she already had her child and all that, and

I heard all the kids making fun about her and stuff like that, and she was a

prostitute. And she come over looking for her sister one day, and I said, oh,

you, Eileen, her sister, come on in.

She come over like the following week, and she said, well, do you want to skip

school with me and do something? Well, I already had quit.

I just didn't tell my family or anything. I pretended like I was going

to school every day.

so she already had quit because she had the baby and all that and her mom had

died and that's when everything went to nuts and when i mean mom i mean her

grandma the one that raised her that i call her mom the one that gave birth to

her she was never a mom eileen's birth mother abandoned her eileen never knew

her father he left home before she was born he was convicted for assaulting a

seven-year-old girl and hanged himself in prison with a bed sheet Eileen lived

with her maternal grandparents, but her grandmother died and her grandfather

kicked Eileen out.

By age 15, she effectively had no family.

Her mom was her grandma, and her grandfather, actually, after Eileen had

been raped,

I think the pressure of being in an unwed home and all that was a bit much

on her, and she died of cirrhosis of the liver, I guess.

And the grandfather blamed Eileen for that, threw her out of the house,

wouldn't have nothing to do with her because the grandma died one day, and he

blamed Eileen for it. Well, she had nothing to do with that.

She really was sleeping in the woods. This is for real, and in cars and

people's homes.

She didn't have no friends. Nobody would let her in the house to take a shower.

She would come over to my mom's. My mom one day said, that girl, your friend

Eileen, come over during the day.

She said she asked me if she could use my shower.

I said, what'd you say? She said, I told her, go ahead, you know, but do it

before my husband gets home.

My dad probably had a fit, but she went a little too far when she come out to my

mom and said, Mrs. Neiman, can I borrow your toothbrush? And she said, no, you

cannot borrow my toothbrush.

Eileen told me that she first got into prostitution when she was around 13 and

she would do it for cigarettes or beer.

You know, the bottom line there is, at that age,

because she had already been taken advantage of sexually by a family

member, that I guess she had lost her self-respect.

That's speculation, but...

For cigarettes at age 13, she was already prostituting herself.

In 1974, an 18-year-old Eileen Wuornos hitchhikes from Michigan to Colorado.

She survives on prostitution.

It is not an easy life.

There are so few ways for a person in her situation to make money, and it is

the oldest profession for a reason, because when people need money, that's

what they do.

That's where the seeds of murder and hate and screw the world, that's when it

started. Because you had that sympathy for her, but the reality was she had to

toughen up.

Two years later, she hitchhikes to Florida.

It is here where Eileen's murders begin.

As if in answer to a prayer, she meets a multimillionaire named Louis Fell.

Astonishingly, The two marry a short time later, but this will be no

Cinderella story.

The marriage quickly unravels in spectacular fashion, with Fell securing

a restraining order on Eileen.

She could have done okay with him, except she was abusive to him.

Eileen tries to take her own life.

Several times, in fact.

On one occasion, she shoots herself in the stomach.

Or does she?

Her claims of attempted suicide have never been substantiated.

Have a nice day.

Eileen was in and out of jail for robbery, car theft, forging checks, and

other charges.

Eileen's life changed dramatically when she met a woman named Tyra Moore at a

bar. Eileen Wuornos' only sense of compassion was with a lesbian, she would

give her what she needed sexually.

But to pay off for one else was tenderness, comfort, maybe an embrace,

the warmth of sleeping with somebody.

I'll take care of you.

I'll make sure you have whatever you need.

Eileen always wanted to provide and take care of Ty and be that mother hovering

figure. A lesbian? No, no, no, no, never, ever.

I would have never thought that. So when I heard about it, I was, like, freaked

out. No way!

But Eileen can't provide without money, and Tyra barely scrapes by as a maid.

Don't you say that to me! Pressures quickly build in the relationship,

pressures that will lead to violence.

I don't know what I would do without you. I'm going to get the money, I

promise. Whatever.

I'm going to get the money.

November 1989.

Eileen is picked up hitchhiking by 51-year-old businessman Richard Mallory

of Clearwater, Florida.

Just like killers who kill prostitutes because they'll get in the car, they're

more available.

She picked men who would easily go with her.

You're going to help me make some money now, Richard.

I need some for rent and stuff.

Take your clothes off.

You gonna

take yours off?

I like to do them on.

Wait,

get cool.

This is supposed to be fun.

Shut up!

Off of me!

No!

Eileen would allege that Mallory tied her hands to the steering wheel.

Now you gonna do what I say?

She will also claim that he sodomized her.

Eileen will later admit in court that she made up this entire story.

Contrived, a false story about how she had been attacked by him, how he tried

to rape her, how he had tied her up.

Richard Mallory did set it off, and that was that. She wasn't going to take

it anymore.

Well, she must have felt pretty much fear to get that out of her person.

Shoot him, don't you think?

Now that you think about it that way, yeah, I'm sure he said something he

shouldn't have probably said.

She developed this anger against men, against life, against people.

After that, and she confessed eventually, I killed them to rob them.

I got you something.

Who's Richard?

Just a guy.

Same guy whose car we were just in?

Yeah.

Well, where is he now?

It don't matter, Ty.

Where is he, Eileen?

I killed him.

What?

It was gonna be me or him.

It's okay.

What did you do with him?

Left him in the woods.

What if somebody finds out?

Nobody's going to find out.

I'm not going to let nothing come between us.

Okay?

Six months after taking the life of her first victim, Eileen hitches a ride with

43-year-old David Spears.

Well, if you like that, there's a lot more, but money first.

I'll pay you after.

Gotta see if you're worth the price.

It's definitely worth the price, Daddy.

Yeah.

You know what?

Take me back to the highway.

Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

No tip?

Get in the back.

What's this for?

It's just a little junk I got to take to the yard.

You were going to try and rape me?

Huh? You were going to try and rape me?

No, no, no, no, baby. I already paid for you, so come on. Let's go ahead and do

what you came out here to do. Go ahead and get out!

Take my car, take my money, but please don't.

She claimed each and every one was self-defense.

Then she retracted those statements.

She changed her story so much it's hard to tell what's real and what isn't.

Eileen kept bringing home property that wasn't hers and the property of men,

obviously, and automobiles that were not hers.

Look, baby.

Where did you get this, Lee?

Work.

And the car?

I did them like the other bastard.

This is bad.

I'm sure she said to him, you know, Tyra Moore, God, I killed another man today.

There's no doubt in my mind. She boasted over it.

Said, man, I do all this for you. I kill these men for you.

It's so odd.

It's so rare.

It's totally rare. I mean, most serial killers are men killing

prostitutes. And here we have the opposite.

Eileen's next victim is 41-year-old Charles Karskadin.

The people that Eileen found were all driving their vehicles.

She was hitchhiking in every instance.

In the summer of 1990, a Christian missionary named Peter Seams is presumed

to be Wuornos' fourth victim.

Merely offering a ride to Eileen is his fatal mistake.

She would tell me they were all in self-defense, except for that one, the

guy with the Bible.

That one really bothers me a lot.

His body, strangely, has never been found.

When she killed the first person and stole things from him, she very quickly

realized she could get stuff, like steal their cars, steal items.

pawn them, get money.

She became what we call a greed killer.

Eileen and Tyra steal Seams' car and wreck it. In a panic, they abandon the

vehicle, leaving Prince behind, connecting them to the missing man.

They are also seen by two witnesses, a man and wife.

Eileen was leaving the scene without doing much to avoid detection.

She was not sophisticated at hiding her tracks, so to speak.

Their descriptions were given to the police, and Eileen's description fit

with other evidence that they had put together, and they thought that she

might be the person that they'd been looking for.

Just weeks after sketches are made public, police discover remains of a

fifth Wuornos victim, 50-year-old Eugene Burris, a salesman from Ocala, Florida.

What surely compounded the misery of the victims' families at this time is the

fact that their loved ones were likely killed by a prostitute.

But what they didn't know was that according to what Eileen herself would

later say, she told the men that her car had broken down.

So they were in all likelihood simply helping a woman in need.

In September 1990, 56-year-old state employee Charles Humphreys of Crystal

River, Florida, becomes Eileen's sixth murder victim.

His body is found fully clothed and his trouser pockets turned inside out. He's

been shot multiple times.

All of the victims were killed with a .22 caliber firearm.

Depending on where they penetrate, .22 caliber bullets are often not instantly

fatal, which may explain Eileen firing numerous times.

When she'd shot somebody, she didn't just shoot them in the head. She shot

them four, five, six times. That was anger. That's overkill.

She actually had a territory.

One of us was literally crisscrossing I-75, I-95, Central Florida, the

roadways, and her target were truckers.

The seventh victim is named Walter Antonio, a truck driver in his early 60s

from Merritt Island, Florida.

Tips begin pouring in from terrified Floridians, and one of them connects

Eileen Mornos to a local hotel and pawn shop.

This cracks open the case, with fingerprints being the critical

evidence.

The search for Eileen Mornos was on.

Feeling the heat, Tyra decides to return to Ohio and move in with her parents.

I did it all for you.

Bus now boarding for Ohio.

Bye, Eileen.

Come back to me.

Please.

Please come back.

I'm sorry.

Her relationship with Eileen Wuornos ended at the bus station.

Her girlfriend could not really deal with life herself.

Tips lead police to the bar where Eileen and Tyra often hung out while dating.

Wuornos was homeless for most of her adult life.

Her place of residence was a bar called The Last Resort.

After seven murders, police now have the rarest of criminals in custody, a female

serial killer.

Apparently, there'd never been a female serial killer, and somebody called her a

female serial killer, America's first one.

And so that was it.

Her story is so tangled with self-serving statements.

lies, contradictions.

It's very difficult to know why she was actually killing.

Perhaps she found it thrilling.

I would die for you.

What you?

You evidently don't love me no more.

You're going to get me in trouble for something that I didn't do.

I'm not going to let you get in trouble.

I don't know whether I should keep living or if I should... I'm not going

to let you go to jail.

If I have to... I confess I will.

Why in the hell did you do this?

I was so worried about us losing our apartment and stuff. I was scared we

were going to lose our place.

Believing that we weren't going to be together.

I love you right next to God.

I heard that.

Police have caught up to Tyra Moore, and she's fully cooperating.

Ironically, it was Tyria Moore who betrayed Aileen Wuornos. They got a hold

of Ty.

It scared the hell out of her.

And so when Eileen called Ty from the jail, it was a tape

-recorded phone call.

This is an actual recording of Eileen talking to Tyra.

They

set

Eileen up.

They set her up on the telephone, so she would give a full confession by using

Ty.

I probably won't live long, but when I die, my spirit's going to follow you and

keep you out of trouble.

Well, I got to go.

Bye, Leah.

See you on the other side.

On the 16th of January, 1991, Eileen Wuornos arrives at a police conference

room with something to tell officers.

Eileen, of course, exonerated her, and it's one of the reasons Eileen, I think,

talked. Eileen tells police that all of her victims had gotten violent with her,

and she had to kill them to protect herself.

The common narrative for Eileen Wuornos is that because she has abuse and

disadvantage that inevitably she grew up to be a violent person. That's simply

not true because lots of people have terrible abuse and deprivation and

neglect.

Psychopaths do not care about anyone but themselves and don't necessarily need a

reason for why they're killing. And they don't care that they have killed or hurt

anybody. They have no remorse.

One diagnosis was borderline personality disorder, another antisocial personality

disorder. There was some hint that perhaps she had a delusional or even a

schizotypal type of disorder.

Lifelong friend Dawn Botkins reads to us a letter Eileen wrote to her from

prison. If it seems bizarrely incoherent, it's because it mostly is.

Even Dawn has trouble deciphering its strange references.

First kite I need to see probably Monday I'll get.

I'll see you if I can talk about me.

Ha ha ha ha ha da ha ha ha ha.

She was diagnosed as a psychopath with a distinct score on the psychopathy

checklist. The psychopathy checklist is a diagnostic instrument, the highest

score being 40. If you fall within 30 to 40, You're diagnosed as a psychopath.

She had a score of 32. That's fairly high for a female.

It puts her right in the range of psychopathy.

A year after her arrest, Eileen Warno stands trial for the murder of Richard

Mallory, her first victim.

She maintains she killed Mallory and most of the others in self-defense.

I thought to myself, I've got to fight, I'm going to die. This guy is going to

play with me and play with me, and then he's going to kill me.

Testifying for herself,

Eileen is the only defense witness.

As was the case for much of her life, she goes it alone.

Even Tyra testifies for the prosecution.

And she just come out and said, I have something to tell you.

And I asked her what, and she said that she had shot and killed a man that day.

The family of the victims in the courts did not want to hear the stories, of

course. They didn't want to hear how their men would solicit anybody.

And so the families and the victims' families were all, all

up in the news, you know, crying for her blood because the way they put their

family members in the light, they put their family members.

On January 27, 1992, a jury convicts Wuornos of capital murder.

She is not happy.

In pronouncing sentence, the judge showed his disdain for her.

Until by warrant of the governor of the state of Florida, you, Eileen Carol

Wuornos, be electrocuted until you are dead.

After she's sentenced to death, she said, how many more times can they kill

me?

What's for me to believe?

It doesn't matter what I believe.

My job was to protect her.

I can't tell you what she told me. It's still confidential.

But I presented her case the way she wanted me to do it, and

that could very well have been because she knew what she did.

I can't tell you what she did, but I think she's kind of telling us what she

did.

especially in the end where she does admit finally that she did it because

she was tired of men and she did it to rob them. Look, the pants pockets were

found inside out.

One time she took the gun and reloaded.

I mean, there was a lot of hate there.

There was a lot of hate, especially when she reloaded that gun. I think it was

Dixie County case.

You know, that tells a lot.

She's safe and finally off the streets and don't have to sell herself just to

find some food for the day or a place to sleep.

I'm happy about that. She's got three squares going to be handed to her every

day and a bed that she knows she's got, and I don't have to worry about her.

She said to me, I don't want to languish on death row for 20, 25, 30 years.

to go home to God.

Eileen found Jesus and said to herself, it's time to come clean.

There's no sense in keeping me alive because I just would absolutely kill

again. I've got too much anger, too much hatred in me.

When she came clean on that day, you know, I think she was finally free.

She was finally free.

Florida changed its primary method of execution to lethal injection in 2000,

sparing Eileen from the electric chair.

Lifelong friend Don Botkins visited Eileen on the eve of her execution.

We really had a good visit. We had a laughing visit. She was fed very well.

She was stuffed.

I knew at the end of the night, because she used to go to bed early, that she

had to stay a four-hour sitting in the chair. She was exhausted.

I know I stuffed her face so she wasn't hungry at all. I knew when that visit

was over, she was going to go back to her cell and go straight to sleep. And

actually, she did exactly that. They had to wake her up for her own execution.

Figure that.

Who would have thought? Most people are awake all night long, petrified of it.

Not Eileen. They had to wake her up.

I was there when Eileen was executed.

I felt it was something I should do as having personally handled the case in

the courtroom.

She appeared perfectly calm and at peace.

I played a role in putting her where she was.

I was relieved that she was relieved.

At 9.47 a.m. on October 9, 2002, Eileen Wuornos was executed.

Her last words were, I would just like to say I'm sailing with the rock, and

I'll be back, like Independence Day, with Jesus, June 6, like the movie,

big mothership and all, I'll be back, I'll be back.

It wouldn't be long before popular culture sought out a way to explain the

horrifying acts of Aileen Wuornos.

One of the issues we have with female serial killers is we seem to have

trouble with the idea that they could just be psychopaths with no particular

reason why they want to kill. They just like it.

And so we gave Aileen Wuornos reasons why that would be understandable to the

TV audience.

And we made it seem like she was trying to take care of her girlfriend who was,

you know, could not really deal with life herself. But her girlfriend was as

big as her and had a job.

So where did that come from?

The 2003 film Monster, based on this story, was praised by critics and one

star Charlize Theron an Oscar for Best Actress.

The problem is the film is not accurate.

For example, it portrays the murder of Wuornos' first victim as self-defense,

even after Wuornos herself said it wasn't. I killed those men.

I robbed them, and I killed them as cold as ice.

And I'd do it again, too, and I know I'd kill another person because I've hated

humans for a long time.

In fact, Wuornos eventually proclaimed every one of her victims was innocent.

I want to come clean.

There's no self-defense.

And so I need to come clean. I need to tell the world that there is no self

-defense in my case.

In accepting her Academy Award, Charlize Theron thanked a lot of people, but

never once mentioned the families of the victims.

That's why I didn't like Monster, because I thought, why are we trying

to... soften her.

We wouldn't be doing that with Ted Bundy.

What is with this? Why do we always have to let women be?

They still have their sweet side.

I don't know why it's so hard to understand that women can also be truly

monsters. Why call that movie that if you're not going to show it?

I felt that the movie overly

portrayed this sympathetic aspect of Eileen.

I don't believe that she was nearly as sympathetic a person as the movie wanted

to portray her as, and did.

I think she knew what she was doing.

She could have stopped at any time.

She decided that she was going to kill people and take their belongings and had

found a way to do it.

She may have been abused as a child, I have no idea, but it did not justify

what she did to these men.

We needed this notion that there was still something redeemable about Eileen

Wuornos and that movie did that and I think it's a misrepresentation of who

she was. Whatever Eileen Wuornos is or whatever she did is still with us today

somehow.

This is Eileen's tree. She wanted me to spread her ashes right when I got home

because she didn't want me to dwell on it. So I had to wait for them to come in

the mail.

though I did hold him for two days because I just didn't get the time to

come down here.

But I do love the tree. I'm proud of the tree, and I'll always be.

I don't know who's going to be in this house after Dave and I are gone, but I

don't know.

Once they find out Eileen's in their yard, the famous aerial killer, they

might want to get out of here real quick.

But all this stuff, most of it was sent to me.

that and that and that from people around the country and i do put it all

here i just haven't kept up with it but it still looks okay and her tree look at

it it's shining up big isn't it you know there's certain

there's people who had it just as bad as eileen who did not kill anyone

so you got to ask the question what as a youth turned

What kicked off in her head that turned her into potential murderous?

And the answer is, I'll never know. And I've studied the case, I've read

everything, and I still don't know why somebody snaps.

I got a storm in my chest, it won't calm down The wolves in my

veins, they're howling loud Every step I take,

I leave the ground burned black No turning around, I'm

never looking back

The moon's my spy every shadows a friend

every

words cut deep you wanted the fire now you're losing sleep

i'm the ghost of the rules you try to break the bottom