Oct. 18
FLORIDA:
Decade later: Remembering the tortured soul that was executed serial killer
Aileen Wuornos
A decade has passed since the nation's foremost serial killer was put to death
by the State of Florida through lethal injection for the shooting deaths of 7
men who had the misfortune of picking up the hitchhiking prostitute along the
region's criss-crossing interstates.
I know a little something about Wuornos' final fate as one of a select few
reporters to witness her execution.
Back then, I was a reporter for the Daytona Beach News-Journal. The other local
reporter was Clare Metz of WESH TV.
I had already logged 18 years in my journalism career as a breaking news and
investigative reporter when Wuornos' execution date was finally set. And having
covered multiple appeals in her case over several years, I was ready to cover
the big story.
The 6 original death sentences handed down at trial were finally to be carried
out. There wasn't enough evidence to legally tie her to a seventh killing,
though she never denied committing the murder. But before I get to the actual
execution, which was as good as it gets in terms of checking out on her own
terms, I wanted to share the prelude to her execution.
The one thing about Wuornos that always stood out was her unpredictable
behavior. She would turn around and look my way and smile after being escorted
to the defense table in shackles. And I would nod.
While her outward demeanor was vile -- she had the look of a train wreck and a
nasty tongue for anyone who stood between her and her stated desire to be
executed -- I saw that anguished and tortured inner child in her eyes in court.
Nearly 10 years after her trial, the courtroom gallery became far less crowded,
to the point where I was sometimes the only person there with the exception of
courtroom personnel. On the outside, though, to those in her line of fire, she
was a viper.
A Michigan teen runaway exposed to drugs and alcohol at a young age, she was
raised by ill-equipped grandparents after her mother abandoned her at the age
of 4 (she never met her father, a rapist who died in prison), had sexual
intercourse with her own brother at 11, and bore a child out of rape by one of
her father's friends at 14. The child was taken by the authorities and given up
for adoption.
And after her 2-year killing spree in 1989-'90 and subsequent trial, including
the killing of a victim named Richard Mallory in woods near Ormond Beach, she
led a tormented existence on death row, often accusing staff of poisoning her
food. Aileen wanted out. To her, life on death row was worse than death itself.
I distinctly remember her final court appearance. Her latest set of appeals
were kicked back by the High Court for the sentencing judge to determine her
competency in granting her wish to be put to death. That decision was left to
Circuit Judge R. Michael Hutcheson. The trial judge, Uriel Blount, died years
earlier.
The drama in the courtroom reached its peak when told her attorneys to
basically sit down and shut up. I had seen the outbursts many times before,
starting off with polite hushed words to bursting into tears and letting loose
with angry tirades.
The stakes were much higher for this time around and Wuornos learned to play
the game of making nice. There was Hutcheson, a soft-spoken jurist who wasn't
afraid to bring down the hammer in applying the full weight of the law.
Then there were the state appeals prosecutors, with support from charismatic
State Attorney John Tanner in the background, well-schooled in the Holy Bible.
Not one to shy away from death sentences, he also saw it as his duty to try and
save souls, even praying with even-more notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, just
before his execution. It didn't matter that Bundy's nationwide killing spree
spared Tanner's circuit.
And on the defense side, sitting alongside Wuornos were two state-appointed
appellate attorneys. Wuornos lived for the drama. It was all the excitement she
had left. But it was different this time. She told the judge in a reasoned and
calm voice that she understood that the men she killed were true victims of
robbery -- not the sadistic opportunists she portrayed them as at trial. When
her attorneys objected, she fired them on the spot, saying she wanted to speak
directly to the judge. He allowed it.
The hearing was not the 1st time Wuornos had changed her story from victim to
perpetrator, but she was more believable. Her calmer demeanor conveying her
message and convincing the judge that she understood the crimes and the
ultimate punishment to be meted out for them.
In the weeks leading up to her execution, one of her attorneys persuaded Gov.
Bush to order a temporary stay of execution, pending one more psychiatric exam.
The results were convincing to the governor that Wuornos understood the nature
of the crimes committed and the sentence and lifted the stay.
Then came the date with death -- Oct. 9, 2002. I sat in the 3rd row of a
cramped viewing room with a white curtain covering a large glass window into
the death chamber. And I was seated directly behind Hutcheson and Tanner.
We were there for what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was a couple of
minutes before the curtain was opened from the other side of the glass and
there was Wuornos strapped onto the gurney with leather restraints just below
her collar bone and across to her arms, her waist, thighs and ankles. The
poisonous needles were already in her left arm on the same side as the window.
She was asked if she wanted to say any final words;Yes, I would just like to
say I'm sailing with the rock, and I'll be back, like Independence Day with
Jesus. June 6, like the movie. Big mother ship and all, I'll be back. I'll be
back."
The rock is a biblical reference.
Then came the pressing of buttons to release the poisons into her. She stared
straight up at the ceiling, swallowing incessantly, her eyes watering, but she
wasn't emotional.
As the first few minutes passed, I couldn't help but hear the humming noise
from a small air conditioner sticking out from the wall opposite wall doorway.
Of the dozen or so witnesses, not one word was spoken. Nobody cried, sighed,
coughed or sneezed.
I was staring intently at Wuornos upper body when I saw that she had stopped
breathing. While her skin began to turn pale in her now lifeless body, the
backs of the necks of Judge Hutcheson and State Attorney Tanner turned red, as
if their blood was boiling. It was hot in that room.
After about eight minutes or so, the attending physician nodded when the warden
asked if she had expired. He then picked up a phone, presumably to the
governor. None of us could hear his words because the audio system was
deactivated after Wuornos spoke.
The warden then nodded to one of the guards and the curtain was drawn closed.
Aileen Wuornos was dead at the age of 46.
We were immediately escorted out to a waiting bus to take us back to the main
prison parking lot. I remember Clare and I comparing notes to make sure we were
accurate in what Wuornos said. And we were.
Ironically, one reporter missed the bus, and as a result, the execution
altogether. Then I did what I do best: I went into overdrive on my laptop and
cranked out the story. It was sent by e-mail (the Internet was far less
advanced back then as far as a writing and delivery tool). My story was the
first to hit the AP.
For an honest day's work, I was later given a breaking news award from the
Society of Professional Journalists, Florida Chapter with the headline, "The
execution of Aileen Wuornos."
In the years since, my name has been mentioned in several published books by
authors from Europe and three years ago, a film crew came to my house in New
Smyrna Beach for an on-camera interview that became part of an episode in a
documentary TV show called "Twisted" that aired in 2010, and is available on
DVD. I never watched it.
For that matter, I never watched the 2003 movie "Monster" with Charlise Theron
playing Aileen Wuornos, for which she won an Academy Award for best actress.
I plan on writing my own book on Wuornos and my thoughts on the death penalty.
It's one of three books in the works for publication over the next 2 years, all
of them related to my journalism career. I was a little taken aback at a recent
local newspaper anniversary story and the triteness at which her execution was
remembered.
The part that bothered me most was the publicity quotes from a local bar owner
who said she had returned from the dead. Then again, there wasn't anything else
for an inexperienced reporter to make a 10-year-old article on deadline seem
fresh.
The life and death of Aileen Wuornos is a story told many times over with lots
of cliches and cheap catchphrases. But being there along the way is a story
worth telling upon greater reflection and with the passage of time.
The other 2 books involve someone famous and the littlest among us, all tragic
and part of the career experiences of a journalist with a love for breaking
news.
(source: About the Blogger -- Henry Frederick, an award-winning breaking news
and investigative journalist, is editor/publisher of Headline Surfer, Florida's
first 24/7 Internet newspaper in New Smyrna Beach, launched April 7, 2008,
accessed via HeadlineSurfer.com, NSBNews.net and VolusiaNews.net; New Smyrna
Beach News)
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