"I Killed Them. I Didn't Murder Them.": Aileen Wuornos on Geraldo, 1993

Name: "I Killed Them. I Didn't Murder Them.": Aileen Wuornos on Geraldo, 1993
Uploaded: 2020-12-14
Duration: 44 min 13 s
Description: On death row in early 1993, Aileen Wuornos told Geraldo Rivera that all seven killings were self-defense and that she would rather die than spend life in prison, while a victim's daughter, her childhood friend and her lawyer argued it out in his studio.

On death row in early 1993, Aileen Wuornos told Geraldo Rivera that all seven killings were self-defense and that she would rather die than spend life in prison, while a victim's daughter, her childhood friend and her lawyer argued it out in his studio.

Subject: Aileen Wuornos
Recorded: March 23, 1993
Runtime: 44:13

Content warning: Wuornos describes rapes and sexual assaults in graphic terms and describes shooting several of her victims; a victim's daughter speaks about her father's murder and autopsy; a guest describes violent attacks on sex workers.

The Interview

In early 1993 the talk-show host Geraldo Rivera visited Aileen Wuornos on death row at Broward Correctional Institution near Pembroke Pines, Florida. He played segments of the interview on his syndicated programme, "Geraldo", in an episode the uploader dates to March 23, 1993. Asked whether she killed the seven men, Wuornos answers, "I killed them. I didn't murder them," and says every killing was self-defense. She tells Rivera she would rather die in the electric chair than serve life in prison: for her, it is "acquittal or death".

Historical Context

Between November 1989 and November 1990 Wuornos, who worked as a hitchhiking prostitute on Florida's highways, shot dead seven men aged 40 to 65: Richard Mallory, David Spears, Charles Carskaddon, Peter Siems (whose body was never found), Troy Burress, Charles "Dick" Humphreys and Walter Gino Antonio. She was arrested on January 9, 1991. She was convicted of Mallory's murder in January 1992 and sentenced to death, then pleaded to the other killings with which she was charged, receiving her sixth death sentence, for Antonio's murder, in February 1993. She was never charged with Siems's death.

Circumstances of the Interview

At the time Wuornos was telling the courts that she did not want to contest her cases and wanted to be executed. In the studio Rivera is joined by Dawn Botkins, a childhood friend; Brian Jarvis, a former Marion County police officer who argues that the Mallory killing may have been justified; Terri Humphreys, daughter of Dick Humphreys; Steven Glazer, the lawyer who helped Wuornos plead; and "Vanessa", a New York sex worker who speaks about violence in her work. Audience members put questions to the guests, and later Evelina Giobbe of WHISPER, a group for women leaving prostitution, and Tom Evans, a trucker who says he travelled with Wuornos in May 1990, join by telephone.

What the Interview Covers

Wuornos describes leaving Michigan at 16, an earlier armed-robbery conviction that she says was a misunderstanding, meeting Tyria Moore, and how she came to work as a prostitute. She says she had been raped several times before she got a gun, and gives her account of Mallory's killing. Rivera then takes her through the other victims one by one, including Peter Siems, whom Rivera calls a missionary and whose killing was never charged; she says that if she could do it over, she would not kill him. Asked to speak to the families, she says men should "keep their penises in their pants". At the end she says she is "sorry I killed those men now", insists she killed in self-defense, and says she wants to die. In the studio, Glazer explains why he is helping a client who wants the death penalty, and Terri Humphreys rejects Wuornos's account of her father.

What Makes the Recording Significant

The programme catches Wuornos at the point when she had stopped fighting her cases and was asking to be executed, and sets her words directly against those of a victim's daughter, her own lawyer and a childhood friend. It also preserves her account of Peter Siems's death, a killing for which she was never tried.

Archival Importance

Taken with Dateline NBC's 1992 report, the 60 Minutes Australia interview of 1994 and Nick Broomfield's films, the Geraldo episode helps trace how Wuornos's account of the killings, and of whether she wanted to live or die, changed between her trials and her execution on October 9, 2002. The studio debate is also a record of how her case was argued in public at the time, including the claims about Richard Mallory's past.

Important Caveats

Wuornos's claims of rape and self-defense are her own; courts rejected self-defense. Rivera's opening recap contains errors: David Spears was 47 (not 43), Charles Carskaddon 40 (not 41), Dick Humphreys 56 (not 60) and Walter Antonio 61 (not 60), and Antonio was not "an unemployed waiter" (sources describe him as a trucker, security guard and reserve police officer). She was not "convicted of all seven murders" in early 1992: she was convicted of one at trial in January 1992 and pleaded to others later, and was never charged with Siems's death. She was 34, not 35, when arrested. "First convicted female serial killer" is the programme's characterization. Brian Jarvis's account of Mallory's past, Evelina Giobbe's statistics and Tom Evans's account are their own statements. The broadcast date is the uploader's. "Vanessa" appears under a first name only; no surname should be sought or added.

Aileen Wuornos [interview Footage]: It was pure abuse and pure assault, and I don't understand why you people think that I should sit here and cry my brains out for somebody who is going to kill me or rape me or beat me to death.

Geraldo Rivera: Aileen Wuornos. Hers was a killing spree that terrified the state of Florida and shocked the entire nation. Well, today, in an exclusive jailhouse interview with Aileen, who is perhaps this country's first convicted female serial killer, you will hear her own words, her own justification. With us here in the studio today are several people whose lives are tied to her violent life in very varying ways. First, there is a childhood friend of Aileen's. There is also the daughter of one of her victims. The attorney she has hired to make sure that she gets the death penalty is also here, as is a police officer who believes that on at least one of those cases, Aileen Wuornos was framed. Now, before we talk with them, I'd like to show you a brief review of her brutal story.

Geraldo Rivera: It began in late 1989, along Interstate 75 in Florida. Two scavengers came upon the body of a 51-year-old video store owner named Richard Mallory. He had been shot four times. Several months later, the nude body of 43-year-old David Spears was found. The construction worker had six bullets in him. Within the next, well, half year, five more victims in six months were discovered. 41-year-old Charles Carskaddon, a rodeo worker, shot nine times. Peter Siems, a 65-year-old missionary whose body was never found, just his car and a bloody handprint. 50-year-old Troy Burress, a truck driver, shot twice. Former Alabama police chief Dick Humphreys, aged 60, dead of seven gunshot wounds. And 60-year-old Gino Antonio, an unemployed waiter, shot four times while driving the highway in search of work.

Geraldo Rivera: Fearful Florida motorists stopped picking up hitchhikers, and police issued composite sketches of two women they suspected were the killers. A tip led the cops to a rough-and-tumble biker bar in Daytona Beach, where a 35-year-old hooker named Aileen Wuornos was finally arrested. The other woman, Tyria Moore, Aileen's lesbian lover, became a star witness for the prosecution. In early 1992, Aileen, who is also known as Lee, was convicted of all seven murders and was sentenced to die in Florida's electric chair. She has now been on death row ever since.

Geraldo Rivera: Okay. What causes a woman to become a monster? What led to this grisly string of vicious killings? To try to understand how it happened, I traveled earlier this week to Broward Correctional Institute in Pembroke Pines in Florida. Before the interview even began, Aileen Wuornos had started to cry. When I asked her why she was crying, she said, "Because I know I'm going to die." Now, before we meet these studio guests and hear their first-hand accounts of their brushes with the life of this convicted seven-time murderer, here is the first part of my conversation with Aileen Wuornos.

Geraldo Rivera [interview Footage]: Did you kill those seven men?

Aileen Wuornos: I killed them. I didn't murder them.

Geraldo Rivera: Explain the difference.

Aileen Wuornos: Murder is first-degree murder and intent, and killing is something you have to do in defense.

Geraldo Rivera: So you're saying that all seven of those homicides were justifiable?

Aileen Wuornos: In my belief, yes.

Geraldo Rivera: I'm curious, if you believe that, why in the last several weeks have you been telling the courts that you don't want to participate in your own defense, that you want the death penalty?

Aileen Wuornos: I'm [unclear: "not going to" / "not willing to" / "willing to"] allow them to put me in life in prison when I've been viciously raped, viciously tormented. I've suffered a great deal. I've been raped numerous times, even before I got the gun. Why should I allow you to say, "Oh, we're sorry, we'll overturn the sentence and give you life"? That you're just putting me through torment again when I do something to keep myself alive. I'd rather die.

Geraldo Rivera: You'd rather die in the electric chair.

Aileen Wuornos: I would rather die in the electric chair or natural death than to live life in prison and be tormented continually the rest of my life when I don't deserve it. I [unclear: "say" / "see"] it's acquittal or death, because what I did, anybody would have done.

Geraldo Rivera: But when you give the state a kind of defiant declaration, "acquittal or death", don't you know what side the cards are likely to fall on?

Aileen Wuornos: Yeah. [unclear: "Corruption" / "Execution"], death.

Geraldo Rivera: We are told that a likely execution date would be around 1994, because she is not participating in any of her appeals. Before we see more of that interview, I'd like to introduce you to my studio guests. First, Dawn Botkins. Dawn, who knew Aileen Wuornos as a teenager, says that she has some eyewitness accounts of the dreadful home life that this woman had. Truly horrifying, Dawn?

Dawn Botkins: Yeah, she had a terrible life. Mostly it was the teenagers at school. That's why she had to quit school. She couldn't even go to school. She had a baby when she was 13. She was raped by one of her father's friends, actually, is what it was. And they put her in an unwed home. When she got out of there, the kids knew that she had a baby, and all of a sudden she was nothing but a sleazebag. And that's all they said to her. She had to quit school. Everybody treated her awful. Her, even, brother, her sister, let her go do prostitution and all that just for their cigarettes, where she slept out in the woods and they got to stay in people's homes.

Geraldo Rivera: How did you know her? Why did you know her?

Dawn Botkins: I, we both quit school at the same time, and I just jumped around with her during the day. Everybody else is at school.

Geraldo Rivera: Ever seen any violent propensities?

Dawn Botkins: Yeah, lots of them. Seen them when she's had parties and they've thrown her out of her own party, you know, when she supplied everything, and it just didn't make any sense.

Geraldo Rivera: Any violence from her side, though?

Dawn Botkins: Now, usually, most of the time she had a bad temper, it was justified. It was, some one of the guys started something with her, brother or her sister. She started a lot of stuff, but there was mostly the other kids. They called her names and ragged her. That's why she had to quit school. She had slept in the woods, she slept in cars.

Geraldo Rivera: Brian Jarvis, a former police officer in Marion County, Florida, is a man who says that, uh, Wuornos was sold down the river by some of his own police colleagues, his former police colleagues. Uh, Dawn mentioned, uh, when Aileen was violent, it was usually justifiable. Do you believe that at least one of the murders, the murder of Richard Mallory, who, uh, I guess was a convicted sex fiend, that Aileen, uh, was justified?

Brian Jarvis: I believe that.

Geraldo Rivera: Brian, what do you believe?

Brian Jarvis: Well, based upon information which was uncovered, uh, by another news source late last year, uh, Richard Mallory did have a past.

Geraldo Rivera: Dateline NBC.

Brian Jarvis: That's correct. Maybe controversial to some, but they've done some fine work, and that was one of them. And they found out some information about his past, where he had actually been convicted of an attempted assault with an attempt to rape, and he had done ten years in an institution in Maryland. And the question comes up: why wasn't this found out by the prosecution? Why wasn't this found out by the defense, or brought up at the trial, which could have shed a new light on that, at least that trial in itself?

Geraldo Rivera: But remember, that was only one of the seven murders that she has confessed to committing. Terri Humphreys is the daughter of Dick Humphreys. I think he was the sixth of Aileen's victims. Her dad had been a police chief and a child abuse investigator. He was murdered less than two days after celebrating his 35th wedding anniversary. Terri, she had a rough childhood. Does it make her actions vis-a-vis your father any more understandable?

Terri Humphreys: I don't have a father anymore. The way Aileen Wuornos murdered my father was more than cruel and inhumane. I don't care how she was raised or what kind of family life she had or what she didn't have. It doesn't justify the murder of my father.

Geraldo Rivera: Steve Glazer is the current attorney for Aileen Wuornos. He was hired, in some ways, to ensure that her case would not be appealed. Steve, she told me time and time again that she wants to die now.

Steven Glazer: It's a sad thing that she [unclear: "doesn't want to" / "does want to"] die.

Geraldo Rivera: And that's okay with you? You'll represent that point of view?

Steven Glazer: I don't believe in the death penalty, Geraldo. I think it should never be used, especially in this country, where you can be in one state, commit a crime and not have to worry about the death penalty. You cross the wrong state line and there you go. We should have uniform law.

Geraldo Rivera: Even in the case of a serial murderer, seven dead men, you don't think that she deserves the death penalty?

Steven Glazer: I don't believe in the death penalty. What I'm here for is to tell you that her message, I'm here for her message. Her message is that she has the right to control her own destiny. She has the right to control her own death. Now, why should we sit down for the next 10 or 15 years in the state of Florida, go through trial after trial after trial, spend millions of taxpayers' dollars for the same result? She does not want it, so she's asked me to do everything I can to make sure that these cases do not come back on appeal. She wants to die. She wants to die.

Geraldo Rivera: Meet, finally, Vanessa. Vanessa works, admittedly, as a prostitute, usually right here in and around New York City. She says she knows all too well how common violence is in her line of work. Remember, Aileen Wuornos claims that those homicides, those seven murders, were justified because she was in the process of being raped or assaulted. Now, Vanessa, have you ever been raped in your profession?

"vanessa": Attempted rapes, attempted kidnaps, dragged down the street at 35 miles an hour, yes.

Geraldo Rivera: Beaten?

"vanessa": [unclear: "Beaten, never beaten?"], stabbed [unclear: "two inches from my heart" / "200 from my heart"], I had my lung punctured, spent three weeks in hospital.

Geraldo Rivera: How do you protect yourself?

"vanessa": It's basically the element of surprise, Geraldo. That is what keeps me alive, the element of surprise. It's something I'd never leave home without, sort of like American Express. I mean, let's put it this way. If someone's attacking you and they think that you're some timid little bimbo, and you pull that ice pick, I think they'll probably tend to think twice, you know what I mean? But if you're standing there totally unarmed, with nothing but stockings and heels on, there's a really good chance that you're gonna get really messed up.

Geraldo Rivera: If you had a gun...

"vanessa": I wouldn't carry one. No need for that. These men are not vicious people, basically. If they think that you can be harassed and beaten up, they will do it. But if they think that you're just as equally as sick and perverted as they are, they're going to back up and go back to the Lincoln Tunnel where they come from.

Geraldo Rivera: Aileen Wuornos, the woman who is probably the first convicted female serial killer in American history, the woman convicted in the murders of seven men. It's her story that is our focus today. We'll be right back.

Geraldo Rivera: There is no disputing the fact that Lee Wuornos's childhood was the stuff of nightmare. She was born to unwed, she was born to unwed teenagers herself, right? Her father committed suicide in jail. She was abandoned by her mom at the age of six months. Her grandparents adopted her after her grandmother discovered her in an attic covered with flies. She was physically and possibly sexually abused by her grandfather, a man who also later committed suicide. As Dawn told us earlier, Aileen was probably raped at the age of 12 or 13, became pregnant, gave up that baby for adoption. So we pick up this twisted tale from there.

Geraldo Rivera [interview Footage]: How old were you when you hit the [unclear: "streets" / "straits"], then?

Aileen Wuornos: I was 16 when I left Michigan, and I was four years on the road, [unclear: "crisscrossed" / "that crashed"] the United States. I traveled and [unclear: "crisscrossed" / "crashed"] the United States seven times in one year and everything.

Geraldo Rivera: When did you get to Florida?

Aileen Wuornos: When I was 20 years old, and I stayed in Daytona ever since I was 20.

Geraldo Rivera: And were you prostituting that whole time? Is that how you paid the bills?

Aileen Wuornos: No. I had regular jobs until I got the armed robbery charge, which I didn't mean to rob the store. I was out to blow my brains out, because I was in love with this guy real bad and he was dumping me. And the lady in the store saw the gun and she thought I was going to rob the store. She just started freaking out.

Geraldo Rivera: So were you convicted of armed robbery?

Aileen Wuornos: Yeah. He didn't want to give me any sentence, but I had a gun on me, so he had to give me three years. And when I got out, I went to Maryland, and this guy that I met through a correspondence here, he turned out to be a real weirdo. And I left him, and then I met Ty, this girl, who told me she was a lesbian. And since I was having so many problems with men, I decided, let me try it with a woman.

Geraldo Rivera: So you, all right, you began a lesbian relationship.

Aileen Wuornos: Yeah, I fell really in love with her, because we were very compatible. But I wasn't interested in the sex part, because I wasn't even a lesbian. But because I could be compatible with her, I agreed to go ahead with the sex acts, and I found out it was pretty nice. It was all right. But my main concern was being compatible with somebody and sharing my love and sharing myself with them.

Geraldo Rivera: So you start with Ty. Were you then, at the same time, prostituting?

Aileen Wuornos: No, I was working a regular job, aluminum siding, putting up aluminum siding and stuff. But then I lost that job, worked for a shrimper. He was having sex with me, but he was constantly having sex with me, not paying me my money. So one day I decided to write some, because I worked for him for like five weeks and he didn't pay me my money, so I decided to write up some checks. And so I went to the bank, tried to cash it, I got busted. They said it was a forged check and all this jazz. So I went to jail, and [unclear: "they went to jail again" / "I went to jail again"]. The first one was armed robbery, then forged checks. They're trumping the charges, [unclear: "on how many" / "gonna"] give me eight to ten years in prison. I ran. I said, forget it, I'm running. And when I ran, that's when I turned into a prostitute.

Geraldo Rivera: And how many customers would you have in a typical day?

Aileen Wuornos: Wasn't just customers. There was a lot of cars involved. I... going throughout the day, meeting so many people, I would say I went in and out of vehicles without sexual contact, now, I'd say 35, 40, maybe 50 cars a day.

Geraldo Rivera: And how many would you find a successful business?

Aileen Wuornos: And I've made at least anywhere from three to six.

Geraldo Rivera: What was the going rate?

Aileen Wuornos: Well, I charged [unclear: "thirty for" / "thirty-four"], thirty-five straight, forty for half and half, and a hundred an hour. And I get about ten customers a month for a hundred an hour. And I had mostly [inaudible] they were interested in, and that only took a very short time, a couple minutes, and so it was easy to make money very quickly, get back out of the car, get on the road and make some more.

Geraldo Rivera: Dawn, do you still feel sorry for her when she describes an armed robbery charge, forged checks, and then admittedly becoming a very busy prostitute working the highways of Florida?

Dawn Botkins: I feel sorry for her from when she was a child. Now, I haven't seen her while she was doing all this. You guys refer to her as Lee; I know her as Aileen. And since she's been in jail, yeah, I do, I feel real sorry for her. She explained all that in her letters, how that happened.

Geraldo Rivera: What about the seven victims? Do you feel sorry for them?

Dawn Botkins: Yes, I do. My brother was murdered. I know what it feels like.

Geraldo Rivera: Vanessa, can you in any way, shape or form understand a prostitute murdering seven of her clients and then claiming it was justifiable?

"vanessa": No. I believe she lost her grip on reality. There's no need for that. These men basically are quite, they're more scared of you than you are of them. Now, of course, there's always going to be an exception to that rule, but no, no, I could never be pushed to that point.

Geraldo Rivera: Richard Mallory was certainly an exception to that rule, wasn't he, Brian?

Brian Jarvis: Yes, he was. And if you take a totality of the circumstances that involved both Richard Mallory and Aileen Wuornos's past, with the abuse she endured and the things that happened as she grew up, and put them together, you might be able to at least understand her psyche, where she felt she needed to kill, at least in that particular instance. Not saying that it was right.

Geraldo Rivera: Yeah, there's seven dead people. That's a lot of justifying, if you know what I mean. One time, maybe. Second time, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, the seventh.

Brian Jarvis: Well, she claimed self-defense on the first case, which is the one that went to trial, which, it's possible that it triggered some sort of mechanism inside her whereby when she felt threatened, whether she was or not, she felt threatened, she would attack.

Geraldo Rivera: [unclear: "Let's get some questions" / "get some questions"].

Audience Member: Sorry, are you just saying that you're just, uh, condoning the one murder that she committed, [unclear: "that" / "and not"] the other six?

Brian Jarvis: I'm not here to judge her by any means. What I'm saying is that everyone, everyone in this country is entitled to due process of law, and that includes having a fair trial and bringing about evidence which could back up your claim, for example, in her case, self-defense.

Geraldo Rivera: But Steve, as I understand, she refused to participate in her own defense after the first or second case.

Steven Glazer: That's right. After the Richard Mallory case, [unclear: "I wish he had" / "she had"], uh, public defenders handling her case. Uh, she spent, uh, two weeks in the courtroom. She saw all the evidence being presented, things that were not allowed to be presented. And after she lost the Richard Mallory case, was found guilty and then sentenced to death, she lost all hope in the rest of the cases, and that's where I first came in to defend her. She had public defenders originally.

Audience Member: I wonder if she sought any help before, [unclear] whether she knew she was doing wrong, look for consultation and help.

Geraldo Rivera: I asked her about therapy, and she said absolutely not, because there's nothing wrong with [unclear: "her" / "it"], she says. That if she was, and she really says this, if she was crazy, Aileen told me, she would have killed far more than seven men, because, uh, she told us earlier she would be between 35 and 40 men a day, and would have, uh, sex for money with between three and six of them every day. And, and she only killed seven. She only killed seven. Yes, ma'am.

Audience Member: [unclear: "Using" / inaudible], but once you give up on your own defense, that's like you've given up on your own self-preservation. There's a sign right there that the woman needs psychiatric help and therapy and caring and loving, not to be incarcerated. And the fact that she refused therapy... First thing you have to do when you have a problem, whether it's drugs, whether it's whatever it is, you have to admit that you have a problem, otherwise you can't get [inaudible].

Geraldo Rivera: [unclear: "You have a problem working your business?" / "and I said"]

"vanessa": I have bodyguards, and I have a total different mentality of this woman, and there's nothing in the world that could cause me to kill [unclear: "the one" / "anyone"].

Geraldo Rivera: Do you feel any remorse that you're a prostitute?

"vanessa": No, not at all. I believe that, number one, my profession is the oldest profession on this planet. And I'm like a public service.

Geraldo Rivera: Oh, I thought talk show host was...

"vanessa": Oh, you're right, you're right. Say that again. Just kidding. No, no, no, no, no. I was here before plumbers, I was here before talk show hosts. Okay?

Geraldo Rivera: Wait, wait. And number two?

"vanessa": And number two, you just have to have the right... The rape and divorce rate in this country would skyrocket to the point of no return if [unclear: "I was" / "IDO's"] not out there. I mean, where do you guys go when they want to lick someone's boots?

Geraldo Rivera: You're kind of like a marriage [unclear: "counselor" / "careful"], you mean.

"vanessa": To the... Yes. Okay. I have guys come discuss their marriage problems, I have guys come discuss their business problems. I mean, where do you go when you want to lick someone's boots? You can't go to a newspaper and get the service written.

Geraldo Rivera: This is very true. But we're getting off the point. The point is Aileen Wuornos, and her story continues after this break.

Promo Announcer: Is your marriage suffering from the sexual blues? Well, Jessica Hahn's new Playboy video may be just the thing to rekindle the fire in your bedroom, spicing up your sex life. Next, Geraldo.

Geraldo Rivera: This is a profile of Aileen Wuornos, the convicted murderer of seven, the I-75 prostitute killer, now on death row, a woman who now tells the world she wants to die. Yes.

Audience Member: The question is, the police chief, was he Aileen's john? Was he a customer, was he a john, or was he an innocent bystander, or was he on the case to, you know, to bust her or something?

Brian Jarvis: [unclear: "Which was" / "He was"] the former chief of police who had picked up Miss Wuornos while she was hitchhiking. And that's how they encountered each other. And one thing led to another, I guess, she said, you know...

Geraldo Rivera: That was Terri's dad.

Brian Jarvis: Yes.

Geraldo Rivera: Terri was your...

Terri Humphreys: You don't know. You weren't there.

Brian Jarvis: You weren't there either. You're absolutely right. And I'm not trying to say anything bad about your father. But the facts are, he picked her up.

Terri Humphreys: How do you know that?

Brian Jarvis: If he did, ma'am, it's not [unclear: "uncommon" / "occurring"].

Terri Humphreys: I'm sure. I agree. But how do you know? How do you know he picked her up?

Brian Jarvis: Yeah.

Geraldo Rivera: I think it will be useful if we go to the interview and go through her crimes, because she talks about all seven of her victims. And one of them, of course, Terri, is your father. But she starts with Richard Mallory. Aileen claims that she killed that first victim, Richard Mallory, when he tried to rape her. And that was the event, in her mind at least, that triggered off this murder spree. But she says that wasn't her first experience with rape.

Geraldo Rivera [interview Footage]: Had you been raped prior to Mallory?

Aileen Wuornos: Yes.

Geraldo Rivera: How many times? Any idea?

Aileen Wuornos: I'd say a year before Mallory, at least three or four.

Geraldo Rivera: They push you around, they hurt you?

Aileen Wuornos: Yeah. How about punching the mouth, or how about slapping the face, and how about pulling my hair and forcing me down and forcing their penis into my mouth, ramming it down my throat and everything. It was rape. I had a double-barrel shotgun up against my head, begging for my life. I had a knife against my throat. I had one of those razors that cut carpets and stuff to the side of my neck and everything.

Geraldo Rivera: Did you feel like killing any of those [unclear: "guys" / "guns"]?

Aileen Wuornos: I didn't have a gun. I was begging for my life. I was on my knees with a double-barrel shotgun, begging for my life.

Geraldo Rivera: What made you get the gun?

Aileen Wuornos: Because the way I had to beg for my life and everything, I said, I can't, you know, one of these days these guys are going to kill me.

Geraldo Rivera: Tell me about Mallory. What did Mallory do? He started to strangle you?

Aileen Wuornos: Yeah. And then he pulled me back toward him and had me kind of laying on the seat, where my legs were up like this, you know, and he's choking me. And he said, you know, "You better do what I say or I'll kill you right now, you bitch, and I'll [unclear: "fuck you" / "kill you down you"] later, don't matter to me, your body will still be warm. I've killed other sluts like you, and it don't make no difference to me, because I've done it before," and stuff like this.

Geraldo Rivera: How'd you manage to reach your gun?

Aileen Wuornos: I started fighting with him, and he slapped me in the face, and I grabbed his arm over here, and he hits me again with his arm. I'm grabbing his arms, and a lot of, there was a lot of arms flinging and everything. And finally, he was choking me, and I spit in his face. He got back up and he said, "Boy, you're gonna be a lot of fun, bitch." I fell on my back, and I kind of, like, fell to the floor grabbing for the gun, and, like, my back and my shoulder was on the floor. And when he was coming at me, he was reaching towards me, and I just, I shot twice as fast as I could.

Geraldo Rivera: Shot him twice as he leaned over you in the front seat. Was that the only time you shot him?

Aileen Wuornos: No. When I shot him twice, he started coming back at me again. I shot him one more time.

Geraldo Rivera: Did it become easier to kill after Mallory?

Aileen Wuornos: I didn't want to kill anybody. I didn't.

Geraldo Rivera: But as an option, did it become more accessible to you after Mallory? I mean, was it like a taboo is lifted in some way?

Aileen Wuornos: No. I felt really kind of bad about the situation, but then I felt like, well, the guy, to me, I felt the guy deserved it.

Geraldo Rivera: But Terri, did your father deserve it? Would your father deserve it if the roles were reversed? We'll be right back. We'll talk about all the victims, and talk more with our guests.

Geraldo Rivera: [unclear: "The audience here"], Aileen Wuornos, the killer of seven, an exclusive jailhouse...

Geraldo Rivera: Aileen Wuornos, the convicted killer of seven. [unclear: "Got this back to everybody"]. Yes.

Audience Member: Okay, I have a question for her lawyer. Steve, what would have happened had you not stepped in, if the public defenders were still defending her? Where would she be today?

Steven Glazer: She'd more than likely be waiting to go to trial, because her public defenders... Miss Wuornos wanted to plead to get this over with a while ago. She wasn't allowed to, because her public defenders would not go that way with the case.

Geraldo Rivera: They wanted to try their best as attorneys, didn't they?

Steven Glazer: But, you see, they have a philosophy that "we don't care what the client wants, we're going to do it our way anyway."

Audience Member: Doesn't it bother your conscience that you're going to help send a woman to her death?

Steven Glazer: It has to, but the main thing is I'm doing this for her. No one else would do it for her. She could not get a lawyer.

Audience Member: Why don't you get a gun and shoot her?

Steven Glazer: Because then I'd be in the same position she'd be in.

Audience Member: Why don't you bring a gun and let her shoot herself?

Steven Glazer: That's contraband. Can't get it into prison.

Audience Member: But isn't it the same?

Steven Glazer: It's not the same. Here's a person who...

Audience Member: Why [unclear: "doesn't she" / "is it a"] jump off a roof or something?

Steven Glazer: She can't jump off a roof.

Geraldo Rivera: How can a man who doesn't believe in the death penalty be the cheerleader for an execution?

Steven Glazer: I am not the cheerleader for an execution. I am doing what she wants, what my client wants me to do.

Audience Member: We'd have to put her out of the misery routine or something?

Steven Glazer: And if she wants to be out of her misery...

Geraldo Rivera: Remember that film, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

Steven Glazer: She has the right.

Audience Member: I wanted to ask the girlfriend, what type of punishment do you think she should get, if she should get any?

Dawn Botkins: She's getting the punishment for what she's done. [unclear: "I'm in" / "And"] the judicial system, in the tabloids, everything's already done it on the first one. So why should she even bother fighting anymore? Actually, he has a point on that one. No matter what, you guys aren't going to believe her. She's had a death penalty since the day she was born.

Audience Member: But you don't justify what she did?

Dawn Botkins: No, I don't justify murder. I told you my brother was murdered. And I don't justify that.

Geraldo Rivera: [unclear: "That's Terri" / "That's fair"]. Of course, Terri Humphreys is the daughter of Lee Wuornos's sixth victim. Now, I know it's not easy for Terri to hear the confessed murderer of her beloved father talking about this awful event. But I had to ask Ms. Wuornos how she felt about all seven of the men she had gunned down. We saw the first one here; on to the next six.

Geraldo Rivera [interview Footage]: Do you feel any remorse for Spears or Carskaddon? Do you feel bad?

Aileen Wuornos: Well, as I'm trying to tell you, [unclear: "I have remorse now" / "you have remorse now"].

Geraldo Rivera: What about for the missionary? His family says he wasn't looking for a prostitute. Is that true?

Aileen Wuornos: Yes, he was. He accepted $30 for head.

Geraldo Rivera: He might not have been looking for a prostitute.

Aileen Wuornos: He picked me up hitchhiking. I told him I was a prostitute. He accepted $30.

Geraldo Rivera: He gave you $30?

Aileen Wuornos: He didn't give me any money.

Geraldo Rivera: Did he scare you?

Aileen Wuornos: Yeah.

Geraldo Rivera: I mean, did you feel it necessary to kill him?

Aileen Wuornos: I feel like, in a sense, what he was doing, yeah.

Geraldo Rivera: Really? Honestly, you search your soul now, your newly religious soul, it was necessary to kill the 65-year-old missionary?

Aileen Wuornos: The way he made me so mad at the time, of what he was doing at that time, yes. I mean, now, I'm talking about then. Now, if I could turn the hands of time around and do this over, I know I wouldn't kill him.

Geraldo Rivera: He's one you would not kill.

Aileen Wuornos: Yeah, I would not kill him.

Geraldo Rivera: So you feel sorry for him?

Aileen Wuornos: He would have told me he was a missionary... He didn't tell me.

Geraldo Rivera: How many times did you shoot him?

Aileen Wuornos: I don't remember.

Geraldo Rivera: What about this Burress? Eugene Burress?

Aileen Wuornos: Burress, I think his name is.

Geraldo Rivera: Burress, a bad guy?

Aileen Wuornos: He had a knife. He had a switchblade and a camouflage knife. And he tried to rape me while we had the blanket in front of the truck.

Geraldo Rivera: And what about the Humphreys?

Aileen Wuornos: It's Humphreys. Oh, God. That creep told me he was a cop for Wildwood and showed me this badge.

Geraldo Rivera: His family is going to be in the studio. His wife complains that you tortured him, shot him in the gut, made him die.

Aileen Wuornos: We struggled with the gun. I mean, when I shot him first, when he was coming at me with the handcuffs and the billy club, after I got out. He put me in the back seat, shut the door and told me, "Wait right here, I'll be right back." And that's when I shot him in the shoulder, and he hit the ground on his knee, and I said, "You better stay right there. You come any closer to me, man, I'll shoot you again." And he just got up, he said, "You son of a bitch," and got up and started coming at me. I shot him about three or four times, I think.

Geraldo Rivera: What about Antonio?

Aileen Wuornos: I just knew I had to shoot, shoot.

Geraldo Rivera: Did Antonio, did you have to shoot, do you know Antonio [unclear: "Wilson" / "will, son"]?

Aileen Wuornos: Antonio, oh yes, okay, I remember him.

Geraldo Rivera: Did he try to rape you?

Aileen Wuornos: He pretended to be a police officer. I wasn't even going to touch him, I wasn't even going to kill him. I went and got my gun, and he was coming out with a darn flashlight in his hand and stuff, and I just went and shot him.

Geraldo Rivera: How many times did you shoot him?

Aileen Wuornos: I think the report said four.

Geraldo Rivera: In the beginning you were reluctant to use violence against violence. Did it become easier as it went along? Did the killings become easier?

Aileen Wuornos: The killings didn't come easy, because that hurts. I didn't want to kill anybody. I wouldn't hurt anybody. I mean, I wouldn't hurt no one, I'd help them, if anything. But when you're coming at me, the full assault, full intent to bodily harm to me, possibly kill me, I don't know, I can't stop you and read your mind, you know.

Geraldo Rivera: You feel strongly that you wanted me to know, you wanted me to know in some detail why you killed these people. You don't want me to think, it seems to me like, you don't want me to think you're a cold-blooded killer.

Aileen Wuornos: Because I'm not. I'm not a cold-blooded killer.

Geraldo Rivera: Look right in there, see the camera in there? They are the families of the seven men. Let's take Mallory aside. Mallory was the son of a bitch with a terrible violent past. There's six guys, and the families in there. Do you have anything to say to them? Just look right there.

Aileen Wuornos: [unclear: "I'm not even here now"]. I wish you weren't sexually defunct and deranged, and that... I just think that a lot of men ought to keep their penises in their pants and their wallets in their back pockets, and quit [unclear: "supporting" / "support and"] prostitution, because you are the ones that prey, you are the ones that lure.

Geraldo Rivera: How do you like the label of America's first female serial killer?

Aileen Wuornos: I'm pissed, because it's not true.

Geraldo Rivera: But you did kill seven men.

Aileen Wuornos: It's a series of men killed, but it wasn't serial killing style.

Geraldo Rivera: Okay, so that's her explanation why she shouldn't be called a female serial killer. But I wonder how Terri Humphreys feels about her explanation about her dad.

Terri Humphreys: Everything she says, nothing makes sense. She says that she wouldn't hurt anybody, and that she's, on the other hand, she says she's sorry. [unclear: "She keeps going back to sex" / "You go going back to sex"]. There wasn't any sex involved in my dad's murder. They cut him, they did an autopsy on my dad. They wouldn't release his body for over a week. They cut him from stem to stern. There wasn't any semen there, anywhere.

Geraldo Rivera: Your reaction to just hearing those words from her?

Terri Humphreys: I just hope this man can do what he has set out to do, and save us all the grief and the heartache, because I live with this every day. I miss my dad more than anything in the whole world.

Geraldo Rivera: So you think Aileen deserves an electrocution, a quick death?

Terri Humphreys: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Geraldo Rivera: We'll be right back.

Geraldo Rivera: Okay, I want to get some audience reaction to Aileen Wuornos. I've asked the members of the audience who want to give their reaction just to stand up.

Audience Member: Help should have been there a long time ago. In her case, okay?

Geraldo Rivera: Yes, sir.

Audience Member: She was venting some of her encounter during her childhood. That's the way I feel.

Audience Member: I think that she shouldn't be able to die. I think she should have to suffer. She's the easy way out.

Geraldo Rivera: Interesting. Yes, sir.

Audience Member: There is no justification for murder. It's as simple as that. And what difference does it make whether he's a missionary or not? He's a human being.

Geraldo Rivera: Okay.

Audience Member: I think her abuse led to her acting like she did. I think she could maybe be saved with some therapy instead of [unclear: "electric chair" / "electric jam"].

Geraldo Rivera: Yes. Okay, yeah. Quick.

Audience Member: I don't think she should set out to do it, but she should be killed for it, you know. She killed them. She should [unclear: "be put" / "have said"] to death too.

Geraldo Rivera: Yes.

Audience Member: I agree with the lady. The death penalty is the easy way out.

Geraldo Rivera: Okay. Yes.

Audience Member: I think if she was found guilty and she wants a death penalty, she should get it.

Audience Member: Prostitution should be banned, and I don't think she should die. I'm against the death penalty, and I don't understand why there are not more reforms in prison. There should be more, you know.

Audience Member: I think if she underwent some serious therapy, she may change her mind.

Audience Member: If she did it once, why didn't she get help then?

Geraldo Rivera: All right. It's interesting. I'm sure there's a different reaction to Aileen Wuornos because she's a woman than if a man had killed seven. I doubt that the audience would have been so therapy-oriented if the guy had been the murderer. Aileen Wuornos. Aileen Wuornos is, understandably, a woman without many friends. She has little hope of ever being released. Her life has been obviously painful, for herself, for her many victims' families. What, then, should happen now?

Geraldo Rivera [interview Footage]: Do you then expect the death penalty?

Aileen Wuornos: I'm not afraid of dying. I love the Lord. And matter of fact, I want to die now. I've been through so much hell in this world, and so much shit. The people refuse to listen. The public refuses to care, because of prostitution.

Geraldo Rivera: Why don't you say...

Aileen Wuornos: I'm sorry. I'm sorry I killed those men. I am sorry I killed those men now, now that I'm into religion. I mean, I'm sorry it happened. I wish it never would have happened. But same token, you all gotta look at the facts, that I killed in self-defense, and quit listening to these lying cops.

Geraldo Rivera: But do you understand why they say that you don't show any remorse?

Aileen Wuornos: Because why should I? The cops made me so mad, at all the lying and everything, I can't show any more remorse. But deep down here, I'm [unclear: "not a cop" / inaudible].

Geraldo Rivera: I want you to say you're sorry. Say you're sorry to [unclear: "to defend the" / "the"] innocent families.

Aileen Wuornos: The innocent families?

Geraldo Rivera: These families are innocent.

Aileen Wuornos: Those men are [unclear: "innocent" / "not innocent"]... I'm not giving in. Those men are not innocent.

Geraldo Rivera: Why don't you want to live, for Ty, if you love her so?

Aileen Wuornos: Tyria has her own life now to lead on, and I don't think... I mean, I would love to be back with Ty and everything, but I [unclear: "don't believe" / "believe"] she'd ever come back. I don't know. I don't want to live. Why are you lingering me on death row? You say this execution should be the next day, then good, let me go.

Geraldo Rivera: Let her go. We have to go. Be right back in two minutes.

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Geraldo Rivera: Aileen Wuornos, the convicted killer of seven, our focus. Yes.

Audience Member: I have a question for her attorney. If she truly believes she's innocent by [unclear: "self-defense" / "defense"], and that she had been railroaded, how come she hasn't used her appeal? I mean, as her attorney, aren't you supposed to advise her things like that?

Steven Glazer: Yes. The appeal is automatic in the state of Florida. So whether or not she wants to appeal or not, it's already being done automatically.

Geraldo Rivera: And you're trying to fight it?

Steven Glazer: No. What I did was, when we ended up, Lee changed the plea to guilty in these cases, and we had a penalty phase, [unclear: "decide recommendation" / "a jury recommendation"]. Those things have been done. They're going to be looked at by the Supreme Court. And what I did for Lee basically was this. She said, "Steve, make sure this case doesn't come back." So I read and read and read, and I found out what makes cases come back, what issues come back. So I tried to cover all those issues in the beginning, so that there are no grounds for appeal.

Geraldo Rivera: Vanessa, how long does a person think about staying in the career you're in? Like 10 years, 20 years? How long have you been there, first of all?

"vanessa": Until you're not popular anymore.

Geraldo Rivera: Until you're not popular anymore?

"vanessa": Yeah, there you go.

Geraldo Rivera: So when your johns say your time is up, that's when your time is up?

"vanessa": You have to think about your future and start thinking about, you have to do something else outside of that.

Geraldo Rivera: Evelina Giobbe is on the phone now. She's the founder of a group that helps prostitutes quit the business, a group called WHISPER. Evelina, we have Vanessa in our studio. She is an unredeemed prostitute. She is proud of her profession and wants to stay in it as long as there is demand. On the other hand, you hear Aileen Wuornos's tragic tale, especially tragic not only for her, but for her seven victims and their families. First of all, comment. Is prostitution at play here, as part of what's happening here?

Evelina Giobbe: Well, absolutely, what's going on is about prostitution. And to be as brief as possible, women in prostitution are commonly sexually assaulted, raped, battered and robbed by customers. A study we did here in Minnesota of 20 women, which reflects other studies around the country, showed three-quarters reported assault. More than half were raped by a customer. Almost 80 percent were beaten by customers. Three-quarters of them were robbed by customers. A study presented to the Gender Bias Study Commission of the Supreme Court of Florida showed that in police sting operations, often customers go to prostitutes and they're armed with guns. So I think what Lee is talking about is not uncommon, although the general public is not aware of the amount of abuse. This is not only against street prostitutes. Just recently in the Twin Cities, a brothel, a sauna, if you will, was broken into by four armed men. They kidnapped a woman, held her for eight hours, and gang-raped her.

Evelina Giobbe: So what we're looking at in Lee's case, or what we hear her saying, is that she adequately used deadly force to defend herself against a real or perceived threat. Her lived experience led her to believe that it was a real threat.

Geraldo Rivera: But how do we know that? Terri Humphreys says her dad wasn't even looking for sex.

Evelina Giobbe: You know, I think it's so sad for Terri Humphreys to have to face both the loss of her father and the possibility that he sexually exploited another woman. Unfortunately, what the stats show us around the country is the average American john is white, middle-class, middle-aged, he's married, he has children. This is the dad next door. And we'll never know if Chief Humphreys in fact did attack Aileen, although the stats tell us that it's quite possible, or if she perceived it in the same way [unclear: "her although that" / "as, although"] a Vietnam vet who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder may perceive a threat, when in fact it just triggers something. We also know that right now there's a serial murderer at large in Florida. Eight women are dead, eight women in prostitution are dead. These are unsolved murders.

Geraldo Rivera: Yeah, usually it is the prostitute who is the victim of the serial murderer.

Evelina Giobbe: Aileen's fears are not unfounded. [unclear: "Close to 2,000 men a year. U-turn prostitution. So to save three to six a day, that seven of them may have sexually assaulted, have fixed. We also have six with the stats that are in there."]

Geraldo Rivera: Okay, Evelina, I've got to take a break. Stay tuned, folks, we'll be right back.

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Geraldo Rivera: Thanks, everybody. We just got a hot flash on the phone right now. It's a guy named Tom Evans. Tom could have been a witness for the defense, but they never called him. Tom, you're a trucker. You rode around... We're almost out of time here, but you rode around with Aileen Wuornos for how long?

Tom Evans: I rode around with Aileen Wuornos from May the 2nd of [unclear: "1992" / "1990"] to May the 10th of 1990.

Geraldo Rivera: So you had more than a week together? Did she seem crazy to you?

Tom Evans: No, no, no.

Geraldo Rivera: Did [unclear: "she have" / "you have"] a gun on her then?

Tom Evans: No, she did not.

Geraldo Rivera: Did she ever try anything with you?

Tom Evans: No, she never did.

Geraldo Rivera: Why were you two together for that week or more?

Tom Evans: Well, it's a long story. We don't have much time, so I ain't going to take up the time. I'll just tell you what I know.

Geraldo Rivera: Why didn't you testify on her behalf?

Tom Evans: Well, I tried to. I tried to for two or three months before the trial, but somehow, in other words, in the middle of the case or something like that, the district attorney struck my name [unclear: "from" / "for"] the list.

Geraldo Rivera: Do you think she was railroaded?

Tom Evans: I know she was railroaded.

Geraldo Rivera: Would you testify if she had a retrial?

Tom Evans: I sure will.

Geraldo Rivera: But you know she wants to die now. What's your comment on that?

Tom Evans: Well, Lee, if you're hearing my voice, honey, hang in there and hold your head up and have faith in Jesus Christ. He'll take care of things.

Geraldo Rivera: I want to thank all our guests, and thank you folks at home for watching. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye. [recording ends] ---