Final Paper: Revisit Aileen Wuornos

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Iowa State University *

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340

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Sociology

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Jun 1, 2024

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Question One: Did Aileen Wuornos receive a fair trial? Why or why not? Aileen Wuornos did not receive a fair trial. She did not receive a fair trial for one reason only. Although she was being accused of killing seven men, she really only stood trial for the killing of Richard Mallory becuase that’s the only murder that she actually fully confessed to doing. With that being said, the prosecution had either failed to or hid confounding evidence of the history of Richard Mallory. This confounding evidence would’ve fully supported Aileen’s story of self- defense. Richard Mallory had a longstanding history of attempted rape and complete rape of a few different women. As Aileen stated in her defense, Mallory had picked her up and offered to pay her for sex. Once they got to a secluded are, Mallory’s demeanor fipped completely and he started to threaten Aileen while raping her. This is where Aileen’s story of self-defense comes into play. If Mallory actually did what Aileen said he did, and if the prosecution had revealed Mallory’s past of (attempted) rape, Aileen could’ve been saved from the death penalty. Another way that Aileen did not receive a fair trial is that her whole trial was very publicized from the very beginning, and this hindered the way Aileen confessed. The way the media portrayed Aileen, they made her look like she was automatically at fault for the seven murders of the me, and didn’t really offer any other stance that could sway people’s opinions. Her past was slightly brought about, but the public failed to let that be the reason for why she killed seven men. A reason for the media keeping Aileen’s troubled past out of the public eye could be because it would make people feel sad for her. If everyone felt bad or felt sympathy for her because of her troubled past, it would be easier to excuse her actions even if they were done out of self-defense. Question Two: How did Aileen Wuornos become deviant? In my answer to this question from the pretest, I had said that Aileen Wuornos became deviant because of her troubled past. Her life was troubled right off the bat because her biological father was a psychopathic child molester and her biological mom had given up custody of Aileen and her brother. When her mother gave up custody, her maternal grandparents took guardianship of the two children, but things only seemed to get worse from there. Aileen should've gotten a chance at a fresh start, but that didn't happen - quite the opposite happened in all actuality. Her grandparents added onto her already existing trauma, and what happened after being adopted just amplified everything for Aileen. While I still stand by the fact that it was her troubled past that led to her being deviant later in life, I have learned that there is a technical name for this to happen - the biological explanation. The biological explanation sums up everything I stated in my answer to this question from the pretest. As stated in the lecture, this explanation states that an individual's own biological makeup serves as a reason why some people turn out the way they do. In the case of Aileen Wournos, her biological makeup is fueled by her father being a convicted psychopathic child molester and her mother being only around fifteen years old when she gave birth to Aileen and

her brother. Aileen had a predisposition to becoming deviant because that's how her father was. Her mother had deviant tendencies, but not nearly as bad as Aileen's father. Aileen never really had the chance to experience a loving and caring household, because each house she lived in was full of abuse and trauma. The continuous trauma all throughout her life, eventually got her to explode and that came out in the act of being deviant. The lecture slides from chapter three state that biology could influence the origins of crime in many ways: genetically inherited traits, hormones, brain factors/chemistry, etc. Aileen’s hormones seemed to be extremely sexually driven based on the fact that the article stated she started to share sexual favors in return for cigerettes, alcohol, and money at the age of eleven. Sexually driven hormones were at the forefront of Aileen’s body for so long, and that would account for all of Aileen’s provocative tendencies which would she would use to lure in Mallory. This lead to Mallory wanting to have sex with her. Maybe Aileen didn't exactly want to have sex with Mallory, but she used her provactiveness to get him close to her, and then acted on self- defesne when he was in too deep with sex. Question Three: How did Aileen Wuornos' experience of psychiatric disorders impact her offending behavior? While talking about her past, significant signs of trauma were blatantly obvious on countless occasions. While recalling her past, Aileen was almost trembling which means that her past was troubled enough to make her still nervous to talk about it decades later. It was also revealed that she has a lot of mistrust which most likely stemmed from her grandparents having custody of her but most of her bad experiences happened while she was in her grandparents custody. Other notable symptoms from her childhood included issues of impulsivity, abandonment, anxiety, rejection, and hostility. These symptoms can be attributed to the trauma of her early childhood. Taking into account Aileen’s troubled childhood and teenage years, there are symptoms and psychosocial factors that align with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and even maybe borderline personality disorder (BPD). Her experience of psychiatric disorders are a direct result of her childhood and adolescent years. Both of these times are when an individual is the most impressionable. Growing up, all Aileen knew was violent behaviors and instability. She never had any experience of being loved and cared for. This, mixed with her experience of psychiatric disorders altered her way of thinking and how to interpret other people’s behaviors. It was also evident that she didn’t have good social skills, and so it was hard for her to connect with someone on a level deeper than superficial. This impacted her offending behavior in one way. When she felt that someone or something was threatening her or was mad at her, the only way she knew how to react was to act in self defense even if that meant killing another person.

With that being said, Aileen was competent enough to stand trial. In order to be competent to stand on trial means that an individual has sufficient present ability to consult with their lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding and whether they have a rational and factual understanding of the proceedings against them. Aileen had both components. She had communicated with her lawyer, and she understood everything that was happening. She communicated with her lawyer about her desire to plead guilty to the killing of Mallory. Her lawyer had communicated back with her that if she did plead guilty, it would erase any and all possibility of relying on self-defense which she told countless times her actions against Mallory were that of self-defense. She communicated back by saying that she wanted to plead guilty anyway. She also understood enough to make the accusation that she was receiving an unjust public pretrial. Because of this, she made the claims that she was not going to be receiving a fair trial. All in all, because of the information listed above, Aileen Wuornos was more than competent enough to stand trial. Question Four: Who are the victims in the Aileen Wuornos case? Out of all the victims in the Aileen Wuornos case, there is just one individual that stands out above the rest. That one individual would be Aileen Wuornos herself. She became a victim the moment she was born. Her father was a psychopathic child molester, and her mom was only around fifteen or sixteen when Aileen and her brother were born. Her victimness was also evident in the fact that her mother gave up custody of Aileen and her brother to their grandparents. When she was in the custody of her grandparents, Aileen was the subject of sexual assault among a list of other things. She was also a victim in the instance of Richard Mallory. Although Aileen is the one that killed Mallory, she was a victim of his because of he sexually molested her. The second victim of Wuornos is Richard Mallory. He played both parts of being the offender and being the victim. Like stated previously, he sexually molested Wuornos, which then cause her to shoot him in the act of self-defense. This means that if he hadn't molested Wuornos, there's a high chance that he might not have been one of her victims. When it came time for Aillen's trial, the prosecution had tried to hide Mallory's history of sexual violence and sexual assault in order to prove that Aileen had no reason to shoot him which would also make Aileen a victim of the prosecution. The killing of Richard Mallory was the only murder that Aileen had admitting to committing. It is also said that this killing made it a lot easier for Aileen to commit her next few crimes. Thus, Mallory was a victim of Aileen, but Aileen was also a victim of Mallory. The other victims in this case are the more obvious victims, and they are the other men that Aileen had killed. All of these men- aside from Mallory - were mostly innocent, so there was no ulterior motive for them losing their lives. These men were all considered to be very good productive members of society. They just happened to be a victim of circumstance, because there's really no clear evidence to suggest that these murders were premeditated by Aileen.

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Another possibly lesser known victim in the Aileen Wuornos case would be Aileen's girlfriend, Tyria Moore. Not much is known about Moore, but it should be noted that she did not participate in Aileen's killings. When they first got together, Aileen had told Moore all about how her upbringing was filled with abandonment issues, sex, and abuse. This could be a good thing, but it could also be Aileen's way of getting Moore to feel sorry for her and to almost excuse her actions. Aileen had admitted to Moore of the killing of Mallory, but again, she said it was out of self-defense, and Moore believed her. At this point, Aileen had Moore under her spell it seemed like. After the killings, Moore was forced to talk to police because she was being identified as someone that Aileen trusted. Working alongside police, Moore was able to coerce a confession out of Aileen. At trial, Moore went on the stand to testify against Aileen. Her testimony helped the verdict of finding Aileen guilty. The final victim in the Aileen Wuornos case would be Arlene Pralle. Pralle, a "born-again" Christian. In the YouTube documentary, Pralle said that she saw Aileen's picture in the newspaper, and that God had told her to write to Aileen in prison. The first time these two talked, they seemed to connect which made Arlene believe that Aileen was innocent. Arlene got it instilled in Aileen's head that her public defenders were just working with her for the money. Arlene went on to say that if the world knew the real Aileen Wuornos and not the Aileen that the tabloids are publishing, there would be no jury that would convict Aileen. This relationship seems to be similar to that of Aileen and Tyria. In both relationships, there was a connection that worked in Aileen's favor. Question Five: What identities potentially expose Aileen Wuornons to bias in the legal system? The main identity that potentially exposed Aileen to bias in the legal system is gender bias. The act of murder is a heavily gendered category. In the eyes of the legal system and just society in general, women are held to a much higher standard than men are. It is almost normal for men to be violent because a lot of the most notable serial killers were/are men and because of the stereotypes that surround men. In addition to that, a lot of people do not expect women to express violent behavior, and many people will not permit it either - even in self defense. This is where the stereotype that surrounds women comes in at. Women are expected to walk a fine line of being polite and proper and to not stray away from that. Aileen definitely did stray away from the moral expectations of women in society, and she proved that women can be just as violent as men even in acts of self defense. This is how Aileen earned the name of “America’s First Female Serial Killer”. During her time on trial, the media represents Aileen as not acting like a female because of her behavior. This is reinforced by saying she has violent tendencies and showed no remorse or sympathy for the men she murdered. She’s also not represented as a man though because she’s

constantly referred to as a lesbian and her relationship with Tyria Moore is very apparent throughout the entire trial. Another thing to take into account here is that Aileen reiterated that she had a troubled past and only knew of abuse and neglect and having to perform sexual acts for strangers in return for money. Nobody seemed to listen to Aileen’s story. If people did listen, they made it seem like she was just excusing her behavior of killing seven men. In my original answer to this question from the pretest, I had said that the identity that potentially exposed Aileen to bias in the legal system was her adoptive mother, Arlene Pralle. I said this because I didn’t realize that the question was asking about bias in the legal system. After this course, I do believe that Arlene Pralle potentially still did expose Aileen to bias but not in the legal system. Arlene exposed Aileen to bias in their personal lives. Arlene was a born-again Christian who talked about her religious beliefs any chance she could. She also had stated that she was okay if Aileen received the death penalty because it would mean that Aileen would be reunited with God again which gave Arlene a sense of peace. Question Six: What are the ways in which Aileen Wuornos experienced interpersonal violence? The first way to understand how Aileen experienced interpersonal violence is to define. Interpersonal violence is defined as a pattern of specific behaviors used to establish a sense of power and/or control from one person over another person. This is done through instilling fear into the other person through intimidation tactics and behaviors that are intended to cause harm. The first time Aileen experienced interpersonal violence was at the hands of her grandfather. I understand that interpersonal violence happens more in romantic relationships, but that kind of seemed to be what her grandfather wanted with her. She also experienced interpersonal violence with her ex-husband, but she was the primary committer of the violence. As stated in the article She would get very enraged, have violent outbursts, get into bar fights, and be sent to jail for assault. The article didn't say if the assault was towards her husband or someone else, but that behavior made her husband take out a restraining order against her. In the instance of Richard Mallory, Aileen once again experienced interpersonal violence. He was a convicted molester, and that’s exactly what he did to Aileen. In addition to raping her, he also threatened her. After raping her to the point of bleeding, Mallory had put rubbing alcohol inside of Aileen. Everything that Mallory did to Aileen is the definition of interpersonal violence. Question Seven: What is suicide?

My answer from the pretest states that s uicide is when an individual makes the chose to end their own life - they are at the hands of their death. Some people do it to escape suffering or pain, but there's also some intention to it. Suicide is typically related back to mental health disorders like depression, post traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse disorder, etc, but that’s not always the case. One thing I learned is that, as stated in the lecture, not everyone who dies by suicide has a mental disorder, and not everyone that has a mental disorders dies by suicide. I also learned that suicide is not an just a decision that someone’s acts on the second it enters their brain. Suicide is a process, not an act. It’s like a journey. It is not an impulsive decision to end one's life. It’s a series of rational thoughts and choices. Question Eight: How has your understanding of the Aileen Wuornos case (and the criminal justice system more broadly) changed from when you first entered this class to now? When I first entered this class, I knew very little about the criminal justice system. The little information that I did know, I learned from TV shows like Law and Order, so I wasn’t sure if it was completely accurate or not. In regards to the case of Aileen Wuornos, I learned that there’s many different explanations for why and how people become deviant. I always thought it was just something that happened to certain people because they just chose to act that way. Instead, as this course has taught me, I learned that there are different explanations that serve as a reasoning for deviance. There’s the biological explanation - which is what I have as the reasoning for why Aileen Wuornos became deviant. There’s also the psychoanalytic explanation. This explanation states that deviant behavior is part of the unconscious mind which is a world of inner feelings that are unlikely to be expressed in obvious ways. There’s also a psychological explanation, but there’s really no association between personality traits and deviant behavior as this theory would suggest. Finally, there’s the rational choice theory. This theory suggests that deviance is a purposeful behavior and that every individual has a choice in any and all behaviors they exhibit.

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Final Paper: Revisit Aileen Wuornos

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