Aileen Wuornos Video

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3 secondsShe stood on the side of a Florida highway, thumb out, eyes forward. To passing drivers, she looked like just

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11 secondsanother woman down on her luck, a hitchhiker, a drifter, someone in need of a ride. But between 1989 and 1990,

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22 secondsseven men would stop for her on roads just like this one. Not one of them would make it home. Her name was Ailen

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30 secondsWarnos and she would become one of the most debated killers in American criminal history. Not just because of

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38 secondswhat she did, but because of why she said she did it. Today, we’re going through the full story, the victims, the

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47 secondsevidence, the trial, and the question that haunted the case until the very end. Was Ailen Warnos a cold-blooded

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55 secondskiller or a woman pushed to her absolute limit? The first man was Richard Charles

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1 minute, 2 secondsMallerie. He was 51 years old. He owned an electronics repair shop in Clearwater, Florida. And in late 1989,

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1 minute, 13 secondshe picked up a woman along Interstate 75 for a paid sexual encounter. A Valuchia County deputy discovered Mallalerie’s

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1 minute, 21 secondsbody several miles from his abandoned car. He had been shot multiple times in the chest. David Spears was 43 years

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1 minute, 31 secondsold, a construction worker. His nude body was found on June 1st, 1990 in

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1 minute, 39 secondsCitrus County. He had been shot six times in the torso. His truck was found

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1 minute, 46 secondsabandoned not far away. Just days after Spears was found, another body turned up, this time in Pasco County.

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1 minute, 56 secondsCharles Carcaden was only 40 years old,

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1 minute, 59 secondsa part-time rodeo worker. He had been shot nine times in the chest and stomach. Peter Seams was 65 years old.

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2 minutes, 9 secondsHe left central Florida in June 1990 heading toward New Jersey and he never arrived. His car was found abandoned on July 4th, 1990 in Orange Springs.

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2 minutes, 22 secondsAilen’s handprint was found inside the vehicle. Witnesses reported seeing two women walking away from it, later

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2 minutes, 30 secondsidentified as Ailen and Ty Moore. Peter Seams’s body has never been found. Troy

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2 minutes, 37 secondsBurrus was 50 years old, a sausage salesman from Marian County. He was reported missing and his body was found

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2 minutes, 47 secondson August 4th, 1990, 5 days later. The cause of death, two gunshots to the torso.

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2 minutes, 56 secondsEven in a fairly decomposed state, the evidence was clear. Charles Humphre was 56 years old, and not just any man. He

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3 minutes, 6 secondswas a retired US Air Force major, a former chief of police, and at the time of his death, a child abuse investigator

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3 minutes, 14 secondsfor the state of Florida. His body was found on September 11th, 1990 in Marian

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3 minutes, 21 secondsCounty, fully clothed, shot multiple times in the head and torso. His car was discovered later in Suani County. The

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3 minutes, 30 secondslast confirmed victim was Walter Antonio, 62 years old. a truck driver and security guard. His partially disroed body was found on November 19th,

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3 minutes, 41 seconds1990 in a remote area of Dixie County.

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3 minutes, 46 secondsHe had been shot four times in the back and in the head. His car turned up 5 days later in Breard County. Warnos was

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3 minutes, 55 secondscaught after witnesses and physical evidence like that handprint in Seams’s car tied her and her girlfriend to the abandoned vehicles.

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4 minutes, 5 secondsShe confessed to all seven killings, but insisted each started as self-defense against rape. Prosecutors argued the

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4 minutes, 14 secondspattern. Robbery, multiple shots, bodies dumped far from cars pointed to predation, not panic. Ailen’s trial began in January 1992,

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4 minutes, 28 secondsand it was a spectacle unlike anything Florida courts had seen. She was charged with the murder of Richard Mallerie

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4 minutes, 35 secondsfirst. The prosecution painted her as a calculated predator, a woman who lured men with the promise of sex and then

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4 minutes, 44 secondsrobbed and executed them. The defense tried to argue self-defense.

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4 minutes, 50 secondsThey pointed to Mallalerie’s own criminal history as a rapist, but that information was kept from the jury.

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4 minutes, 58 secondsAilen herself was volatile in court.

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5 minutes, 2 secondsBefore proceedings even began, she spoke to reporters outside the courthouse.

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5 minutes, 7 secondsI’m never going to get a fair trial, she said. They’re going to hang me. On January the 27th, 1992, the jury

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5 minutes, 16 secondsreturned a guilty verdict. Ailen’s response was unforgettable. She screamed at the jury, “I’m innocent. I was raped.

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5 minutes, 26 secondsI hope you get raped. Scumbags of America.” She was sentenced to death.

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5 minutes, 32 secondsShe would eventually be convicted in six of the seven murders. Peter Seams, whose body was never recovered, was not

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5 minutes, 41 secondsincluded in the charges. After more than a decade on death row, Florida carried out the sentence.

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5 minutes, 48 secondsOn the morning of October 9th, 2002, Florida State Prison went on lockdown.

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5 minutes, 56 seconds29 witnesses, including six relatives of victims, 12 journalists, and state officials, filed into the viewing room.

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6 minutes, 5 secondsAt 9:29 a.m., the curtain opened. Warnos was strapped to a gurnie, IVs in her

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6 minutes, 12 secondsright arm. At 9:30, she was asked for a final statement. She said barely audible, “I just like to say I’m sailing

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6 minutes, 21 secondswith the rock and I’ll be back. Like Independence Day with Jesus, June 6th,

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6 minutes, 28 secondsjust like the movie, Big Mothership and all, I’ll be back.” The executioner then administered sodium pentathol, pancarium broomemide, and potassium chloride.

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6 minutes, 41 secondsShe was pronounced dead at 9:47 a.m.

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6 minutes, 45 secondsWitnesses that day described her as detached, even bizarre, talking about sonic waves the day before, flipping off

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6 minutes, 53 secondsa filmmaker, then delivering a sci-fi final statement no one could decode.

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7 minutesRelatives of Troy Burrus and Charles Humphre called her off her rocker and totally offthe-wall.

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7 minutes, 8 secondsFlorida had not executed anyone since January 2001.

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7 minutes, 14 secondsWarnos became the 53rd person executed in the state since 1976.

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