Women Serial Killers of the 20th Century (21 page)

The Gun used to fire the shots

While, in prison, Aileen received a letter from a "born-again" Christian Arlene Pralle. Arlene was a small, doe-eyed, forty-odd-year-old woman who managed a horse boarding and breeding business near Ocala in Marion County, Florida, where she also bred wolves. Arlene believed that wolves represented a significant part of one’s spiritual life. In her letter to Aileen, she claimed that Jesus had instructed her to write to her. Included in her letter was her home telephone number which Aileen made a collect call to on January 30
th
, 1991.

Arlene Pralle

Aileen, alone and friendless, was easy prey for a woman such as Arlene, and the two women became “friends” or at least that is what Aileen believed. Arlene began visiting Aileen in Volusia County Jail once a week and talked to her every evening on the telephone. Arlene became a thorn in Aileen’s defense lawyer’s side. Tricia Jenkins, one of the defense team, said many times Aileen would not co-operate with them unless they also attended to Arlene’s needs.

Throughout 1991, Arlene would appear on TV and radio talk shows and give interviews to the tabloid press or to anyone else for money. Aileen believed her
“friend” was trying to help her and was unaware, for a while, that she was making money from the interviews she gave. To a Vanity Fair reporter, Arlene said her and Aileen’s relationship was soul binding and that they were like Jonathan and David in the bible.

“It’s as though part of me is trapped in jail with her. We always know what the other is feeling and thinking.”

In a radio interview, Arlene claimed that, “if the world could know the real Aileen Wuornos, there is not a jury that would convict her”.

Arlene and her husband adopted Aileen legally on November 22nd, 1991. Arlene claimed that God had told her to. To reporters Arlene said, “We don't talk about the case, but in my heart I know that Aileen is not a serial killer. She has a heart of gold, and she cares about other people more than herself. God has brought us together."

Aileen believed that she would be acquitted, and after the trial she was planning to go home to her ‘mother’ Arlene and help her with the horses and wolves.

On January 14th, 1992, Aileen Wuornos went on trial in Daytona Beach for the cold bloodied murder of Richard Mallory. Aileen pleaded not guilty
, and her defense was that he had attempted to rape her and in self-defense she had shot him as she feared for her life. Normally, in criminal trials, previous wrongful acts are inadmissible. However, in Florida because of the ‘Williams Rule’ the prosecuting attorneys were allowed to introduce evidence related to Aileen’s other crimes to demonstrate a pattern of criminal activity. The witnesses and evidence piled against her were extremely damaging. In particular that of her former lover Tyria Moore who recounted Aileen returning home and in a relaxed manner stating, as they watched the television, "I killed a man today,” and at no time Tyria said did she make any mention of, or had any noticeable indications of, an attack. During her testimony, Tyria refused to make eye contact with Aileen.

Tyria giving evidence

Aileen was understandably gutted and frequently wiped tears from her eyes as Tyria’s testimony buried her. This was the love of her life for which she had taken 100% responsibility for the crimes to save Tyria from any responsibility for the murders. The prosecution painted a picture of Richard Mallory as an upstanding member of society.

Against her public defender’s advice, Aileen took to the witness stand. The defense team was worried that because of Aileen’s inability to remain calm, she would become her own worst enemy.

Aileen giving evidence

On the stand, Aileen
testified that she shot Richard Mallory to save herself after he had violently raped her. She gave a graphic account of the pain and humiliation she had suffered at the hands of Richard Mallory. The prosecuting attorney, John Tanner, on cross-examination, destroyed any shred of credibility Aileen might have had. He brought up inconsistencies and lies she had given in her statements to the police detectives. During the cross-examination, Aileen became angry and agitated, giving the jury a glimpse of the violent mood swings that had plagued Aileen throughout her life. Her lawyers constantly advised Aileen not to answer questions and twenty-five times she invoked her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Aileen was the only witness for the defense. Sitting in the courtroom, Arlene Pralle prayed continually and at other times sobbed.

Judge Uriel Blount sent the jury out to consider their verdict on January 27
th
. Less than two hours later, the jury returned with their verdict. They had found Aileen guilty of murder in the first-degree. As the jurors left the courtroom, Aileen angrily yelled at them, “I’m innocent! I was raped! Scumbags of America! I hope you all get raped in the ass!"

The following day
, the court convened for the penalty phase of Aileen’s trial.

Expert psychiatric witnesses for the defense stated under oath that Aileen was mentally unstable and suffered from antisocial personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. Aileen’s lawyers argued that her appalling childhood had damaged and ruined her as they pleaded to the jury to spare Aileen’s life. The state’s expert psychologist, Dr George Barnard
, also diagnosed Aileen as suffering from Borderline Personality disorder.

However, for the jury, Aileen’s anger and cursing from the day before was still fresh in their minds. The jurors unanimously recommended that the Judge hand Aileen the death penalty. Four days later, on
the 31st of January in 1992 Judge Blount sentenced Aileen to death by electrocution. Aileen was just thirty-six-years-old.

Aileen was visibly shocked and distraught by the jury’s verdict. On the way out of the court on her way to death row, she said to waiting journalists, “I was raped, I was tortured, and they had the steering wheel, pictures of the steering wheel. It had scratches on it, it was broken. It is proof that I was tied to that steering wheel. I cannot believe that this has happened.”

Outside the courtroom, Arlene Pralle told reporters that the verdict "gives rapists an open door, an encouragement, to kill prostitutes and get away with it."

Death Row

The British documentary film-maker Nick Broomfield paid Arlene in excess of $10,000 to arrange an interview with Aileen following the trial. At the same time, Arlene was telling Aileen that her public defender lawyers were, along with everyone else involved in the case, the attorneys, the detectives, and, especially, Tyria Moore were all attempting to profit from her story. Arlene said she would arrange paid interviews for Aileen and then Aileen could hire a private lawyer.

Arlene persuaded Aileen to fire her public defender legal team and appoint a new lawyer, Steven Glazer. Arlene had hired Stephen Glazer to handle the adoption of Aileen. Stephen Glazer was a bizarre character who had been a struggling musician before becoming a lawyer.
He claimed he had been abused by his parents and had created an imaginary friend, Lowther, to keep him company as a child. As an adult, he had built a replica of his imaginary friend, which resembled a dead, murdered corpse with a scar across his forehead. He said he used him for company and as a deterrent to keep drug addicts away from his house.

Stephen Glazer and ‘friend’

He was hired to defend Aileen in her next murder trial of Dick Humphreys, Troy Burress, and David Spears despite having no experience in death penalty cases. Aileen was extremely lonely and devoid of human contact as she wiled her time away in death row. Arlene persuaded her that her best course of action would be to drop her not guilty plea and to admit to the murders of the three men. Aileen, with lack of advice from elsewhere and still suffering from the betrayal of her lover Tyria Moore, agreed perhaps thinking that in doing this, the court would show her mercy, and she would be spared the death penalty.

On her way to this trial, as she was led to the prison van, she gave no indication to reporters that she was going to change her plea. She only talked to them about having sacked her public defender and had hired a private lawyer, Stephen Glazer.

On March 31
st
, Stephen Glazer, within seconds of being appointed her new lawyer, stunned the court by changing Aileen’s plea from not guilty to one of ‘no contest.’