Aileen Wuornos appeared to grow irritated when questioned about the killings
Just before her execution, an intense interview with Aileen Wuornos resurfaced where she seemed to put forward a disturbing theory related to her crimes.
Wuornos had been working as a prostitute during the time she shot, killed, and robbed seven of her male clients across Florida. These murders all took place in a span of just one year, between 1989 and 1990.
Although Wuornos claimed that each killing happened in self-defense after the men assaulted her, she was convicted of the murders and sentenced to death.
In the days leading up to her execution, Wuornos agreed to appear in a true-crime documentary titled Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer, directed by Nick Broomfield.
One particular interview from that documentary has recently gone viral again online. In the footage, Wuornos seems to support a deeply unsettling theory about law enforcement and how they handled her case.
At one point, Broomfield asked her directly why she had ended up killing seven men in such a short amount of time.
Aileen Wuornos argued her crimes were committed in self defense
Lafayette Films
She responded with: “Because the cops let me keep killing them, Nick, don’t you get it?”
Wuornos claimed that the police had already been watching her and suggested that they intentionally let her continue murdering her victims.
When Broomfield pressed her again, pointing out that most people don’t go on to kill others, Wuornos seemed to grow visibly irritated with the questioning.
She then answered: “Oh you are lost Nick, I was a hitchhiking hooker, running into trouble.”
“I shoot the guy if I ran into trouble, physical trouble, the cops knew it.”
“When the physical trouble lot came around, they thought ‘let em clean the streets, then we’ll pull her in’, that is why.”
Wuornos never offered any solid proof to back her statement that authorities allowed the murders to happen. Her execution took place on October 9, 2002, when she was 46 years old.
Filmmaker Nick Broomfield, who spent time with Wuornos during the filming process, later gave his own thoughts on her mental health and personality.
Wuornos was executed on October 9 2002, aged 46
Florida DOC/Getty Images
Speaking in a 2004 interview, Broomfield reflected: “I think this anger developed inside her. And she was working as a prostitute. I think she had a lot of awful encounters on the roads. And I think this anger just spilled out from inside her. And finally exploded. Into incredible violence. That was her way of surviving.”
“I think Aileen really believed that she had killed in self-defense. I think someone who’s deeply psychotic can’t really tell the difference between something that is life threatening and something that is a minor disagreement, that you could say something that she didn’t agree with.”
“She would get into a screaming black temper about it. And I think that’s what had caused these things to happen. And at the same time, when she wasn’t in those extreme moods, there was an incredible humanity to her.”