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On the Road and Out of Options: Aileen Wuornos Reaches Florida
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Before she was a female serial killer on Florida's highways, Aileen Wuornos was a runaway child discarded by every institution meant to save her. This episode traces her path from a violent Michigan household to the Zodiac bar in South Daytona — and the first body left in the woods.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Most people think they understand Aileen Wuornos. They've seen the film.
She was born in Rochester, Michigan, in February of nineteen fifty-six. Her father, Leo Pittman, was never part of her life in any meaningful sense.
The state eventually intervened. The kind of intervention that looks like help but mostly warehouses the problem.
She spent years in Florida in the margins. Drifting between motels and roadsides, working as a sex worker, surviving.
In November of nineteen eighty-nine, Aileen Wuornos shot Richard Mallory. He was fifty-one years old, the owner of an electronics repair shop in Clearwater.
Peter Siems' vehicle turned up abandoned in June of nineteen ninety. Two women were seen near the car when it crashed.
Wuornos stood trial for the murder of Richard Mallory first, in January of nineteen ninety-two. She was convicted.
In two thousand and three, Charlize Theron won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Wuornos in Monster. The film was a commercial and critical success.
The title of this episode is Grandfather's Violence. That's the load-bearing point of this whole story.
Chapter summary auto-generated from the verified script. Listen to the full episode for the complete content.