By Serial Killer Magazine
Aileen Wuornos was executed at Florida State Prison on the morning of October 9, 2002. This conversation was recorded the day before.
Nick Broomfield had filmed her once already, a decade earlier, for a documentary about the people trying to sell her story. He came back for a second film and this is its centrepiece. It is the last recorded interview she gave.
It is short, and nobody in it gets what they came for. Broomfield is trying, plainly and repeatedly, to get her to say why she killed seven men. She will not answer. What she says instead is the reason the footage is worth keeping.
She had changed her account several times over eleven years. She first said self-defense, then withdrew it, then said she had killed in cold blood and wanted to die. Here she goes further: she says the police knew who she was after the first killing, that she had left fingerprints everywhere, and that they let her carry on so she would become a serial killer worth making money out of.
That claim has never been substantiated. She was not a reliable narrator of her own case by this point, and her lawyers, her doctors and the courts had all said so in different ways.
The other thing running through it is that she is entirely composed. She says she is prepared, and she says it twice in the first thirty seconds. The film that contains this footage also contains the interview in which the prison psychiatrist declares her competent to be executed.
What this is, and who holds it. A transcript of an interview filmed by Nick Broomfield on October 8, 2002 and released in "Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer" (2003). The film is copyright its producers and distributors. It is reproduced here as a matter of record, with the film, the film-maker, the date and the source named. SKC claims nothing in it.
What has not been verified. The film was not watched. A published transcript was retrieved and read in full, and that document is what is reproduced. The transcription is another party’s work and has not been checked against the footage.
On the speaker labels. The transcript names her in one place as Aileen Carol Wuornos Pralle, the surname of the woman who legally adopted her in 1991. It is reproduced as published.
And on what she alleges. Her claim that police allowed the later killings to happen is her claim, made the day before she died, and no evidence has ever supported it. It is reproduced because she said it, not because it is true.
Nick Broomfield: I am just wondering how your are going to be - you know at 9:30 tomorrow morning. Are you prepared.
Aileen Carol Wuornos Pralle: I am prepared. I am alright. I am alright with it.
Nick Broomfield: And how.
Aileen Wuornos: I’m all right with it. I’m all right with it but like I said remember and let tell - let them know that I know that, the cops knew who I was after Richard Mallory died I left prints everywhere and they covered it up. And, let me kill the rest of those guys to turn me into a serial killer. I know they did because I was no professional serial killer or anything or murderer, or whatever you want to call it, you know. I wasn’t special at what I was doing. Did some sloppy work. You know, left prints.
Nick Broomfield: How have you prepared yourself for tomorrow morning.
Aileen Wuornos: I am alright with it. Hey, I am ready to go. Hey, I was tortured at BCI. They had, they had the intercom on in the room and they kept lying that it wasn’t on, and they were using sonic pressure on my head since 1997.
Nick Broomfield: Sonic pressure?
Aileen Wuornos: And everytime I was trying to write something - they did - I think they had some kind of eye in the cell, I am not sure but every time I start writing something, it went up higher, something that - I think they had probably had the TV rigged. The TV or the mirror, something was rigged. They got this huge satellite on the compound. After they put the huge satellite on the compound it could have been either rigged to the TV set or the mirror something. Because the electrician when he put the mirror on the wall he said don’t they look like computer, the back of it and they stuck it to the wall.
Nick Broomfield: Do you think what - did that affect your mind, do you think
Aileen Wuornos: Hah?
Nick Broomfield: Did that affect your mind in someway, the sonic.
Aileen Wuornos: It was crushing my head and they were using sonic pressure continually. Then when I had three meetings with Ms. Philicorda on it, every meeting I had she increased the pressure, of the volume of the calm, increased the harassment on the floor, increased the trays being inedible, just increased every bit of my complaints and trashed all grievances. They are trying to make it look like I was crazy at all times. Rig-up the room with torture, if I said anything about - their whole, I think their whole plan was to try to make it look like I was totally crazy. And so, nobody would believe anything I have to say about anything, and then drive me there if they could. I suffered so bad, I was really struggling to survive. Had a lot of trace that were attempted murder and everything I had to wash all my food off. And then one day, I didn’t wash my food off and I was sick for three weeks almost died.
Nick Broomfield: But you are okay now.
Aileen Wuornos: I’m okay, I’m okay, God is going to be there. Jesus Christ is going to be there, all the angels and everything. And you know, whatever, whatever is on the beyond I think it’s going to be more like Star Trek beaming me up into a space vehicle, man. Then I move on recolonized to another planet or whatever but whatever is in the beyond, I know it is going to be good because I didn’t do anything as wrong as they said. I did the right thing. And, I saved a lot of people’s butts from getting hurt and raped and killed too.
Nick Broomfield: So, are you saying that you killed in self-defense or in cold blood. What you - what you - cause you’ve changed your story, I am just trying to understand -
Aileen Wuornos: What are you trying to talk about, changed the story on what.
Nick Broomfield: No about whether it was self defense or not.
Aileen Wuornos: I’m not going to say it. I’m not going to get in depth about my cases Nick. Now I am on my way to the chamber nothing stopping it. You can believe it or you don’t have to believe it. That is up to you human. Put a big question mark on your film.
Nick Broomfield: What more is there to say about the cops. What more do you want to say about the cops.
Aileen Wuornos: A lot of stuff. Did you know that they were surveilling me before I killed, and that I knew it, and that was covered up. Did you know there was helicopters dropping down from the sky Deputy Sheriff with decoys picking me up, four, five months before my arrest it was covered up.
Nick Broomfield: But nonetheless.
Aileen Wuornos: Nobody ever asked me these questions.
Nick Broomfield: Whether the cops were following you or not
Aileen Wuornos: Whether the cops are following me or not, I mean what.
Nick Broomfield: Okay, so let’s say the cops were following you.
Aileen Wuornos: Yeah.
Nick Broomfield: Let’s say they were following you and they did everything that you are saying they did.
Aileen Wuornos: Uh huh.. Yeah.
Nick Broomfield: Nonetheless, you killed seven men.
Aileen Wuornos: Yeah, sure I did.
Nick Broomfield: And I am asking you what got you to kill the seven men.
Aileen Wuornos: And I am telling you because the cops let me keep killing them Nick. Don’t you get it.
Nick Broomfield: Not everybody is killing seven people. So there must have been something in you that was getting you do that.
Aileen Wuornos: Oh, you are lost Nick.
Nick Broomfield: So explain.
Aileen Wuornos: I was a hitchhiking hooker.
Nick Broomfield: Right.
Aileen Wuornos: Running into trouble I’d shoot the guy if I ran into trouble, physical trouble, the cops knew it. When the physical trouble came along, let her - let her clean the streets. And then we will pull her in, that’s why.
Nick Broomfield: But how come there was so much physical trouble, because it was all in one year, seven people in one year.
Aileen Wuornos: Oh well, oh well.
Nick Broomfield: But why not say now.
Aileen Wuornos: Because I’m at a retaliation for taking my life, like this and getting rich off it all these years, in - in total pathological lie. Yeah, thanks a lot. I lost my fucking life because of it. Couldn’t even get a fair trial. Couldn’t even get a fair investigation or nothing. Couldn’t even have my pills right. You sabotaged my ass, society. And the cops, and the system, a raped woman got executed. It was used for books and movies and shit. Ladder climbs - re-elections and everything else; I got the put the finger on all your faces. Thanks a lot. You are inhumane. You’re an inhumane bunch of fucking livingbastards and bitches and you’re gonna get your asses nuked in the end, and pretty soon it’s coming. 2019 a rock’s supposed to hit you anyhow, you’re all gonna get nuked. You don’t take fucking human life like this and just sabotage it and rip it apart like Jesus on the cross, and say thanks a lot for all the fucking money I made off of you. And not care about a human being, and the truth being told. Now I know what Jesus was going through. They’ve been trying to tell the truth and I keep getting stepped on. Concerned about if I was raped, if I - I am not giving you book and movie info. I’m giving you info for investigations and stuff and that’s it. We’re going to have to cut this interview, Nick. I’m not going to go into any more detail. I’m leaving I’m glad. Thanks a lot society for railroading my ass. Okay let’s go.
She was executed by lethal injection at 9.47 the following morning. Her last recorded words to the witnesses were about sailing away with the rock, and Jesus, and returning like Independence Day with the mothership.
She was the first woman executed in Florida since 1848, and the tenth in the United States since 1976. She was forty-six.