The innocent-looking girl in this picture grew up to be one of the most evil female serial killers in the world. Born in 1956 in Rochester, Michigan, she had a tumultuous childhood. At just four years old, she and her brother were abandoned by their mother, around the same time her father was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping and raping a seven-year-old girl. He later died by suicide in prison. The child was left in the care of her maternal grandparents, but life only grew sadder. She later claimed her grandmother was an alcoholic, while her grandfather allegedly physically and sexually assaulted her. If that wasn’t enough, she became pregnant at 14 after being raped, and it was claimed her brother might have been the father. After giving birth to a boy, she placed him for adoption, hoping for a better life for him.
When her grandmother died, the young woman dropped out of school and turned to prostitution to support herself. Between 1970 and 1980, she was arrested for numerous petty crimes like disorderly conduct, drunk driving, assault, shoplifting, and prostitution. Her brother died in 1976, and her grandfather committed suicide. She then hitchhiked to Florida, where she committed more crimes and was imprisoned for armed robbery in 1982. Suffering from severe mental health issues due to her traumatic past, she attempted suicide six times between ages 14 and 22. It was while working as a prostitute in Florida that she committed her first murder: shooting Richard Mallory, a 51-year-old electronics shop owner, three times. His body was found in a woodland area outside Daytona two weeks later. She initially claimed they argued over money and an alleged sexual assault, leading to a fight, and later testified that he tried to assault her without paying, resulting in her shooting him in self-defense after he allegedly raped, beat, and sodomized her.
Following this, the woman confessed to killing seven more men over a 12-month period, from December 1989 to November 1990. All victims were middle- to late-aged white men, including a construction worker, a rodeo worker, a truck driver, and a retired chief of police. She admitted to the murders in phone calls but insisted each time that the men had attempted to sexually assault her, and she shot them in self-defense.
She was charged with first-degree murder for six of the deaths, with one uncharged due to the body not being found despite her confession. Known as Aileen Wuornos, the “Damsel of Death,” she received six death sentences and was executed by lethal injection on October 9, 2002.
