Another day, another Netflix true crime documentary to binge. But honestly, we're not complaining. With the days getting darker and the nights getting colder, there's nothing we'd rather do than spend a weekend on the sofa with a (large!) bar of chocolate and a true crime documentary on the TV. And Netflix must have read our mind, as the streaming giant just released its newest docu-film, Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers.
The documentary, released on October 30, was directed by Emily Turner and dives into the life of Aileen Wuornos, one of the most recognizable serial killers of the last century. Through insightful archival footage and interviews with those who knew Wuornos—as well as prison interviews with the killer herself—the film "explores the circumstances that shaped her life and crimes, and examines the broader questions surrounding her motivations and the judicial system's response," according to Netflix.
Want to know more? Scroll on for a look at who Aileen Wuornos was and how many victims she had.
Who was Aileen Wuornos?
Born in 1956 in Michigan, Aileen Wuornos had a tough upbringing. After being abandoned by her mother, she was adopted along with her brother by their grandparents, who were allegedly alcoholics (although Wuornos denies this in the Netflix documentary).
This wasn't the only trouble she faced at home. At 14, Wuornos was allegedly raped by one of her grandfather's friends (who was in his 60s), according to the book, Women Who Kill: Profiles of Female Serial Killers.
Following the apparent rape, Wuornos became pregnant and gave birth to a son in 1971. Her grandfather forced her to give the boy up for adoption, and she dropped out of school just months later. Around the same time, Wuornos' grandmother died of liver failure, and at 15, she was kicked out of the house by her grandfather.
Now homeless, Wuornos lived in the woods near her old home, supporting herself through sex work. Over the next decade, she was repeatedly arrested and charged with a string of crimes, including driving under the influence, disturbing the peace, armed robbery, car theft, and more. In the Netflix documentary, Wuornos said that she was raped at least 30 times during this period.
By the late 1980s, Wuornos was still working as a sex worker and in 1989, she committed her first murder.
How many people did Aileen Wuornos kill?
Across 12 months, from November 1989 to November 1990, Wuornos murdered seven men. She said the killings were in self-defence, claiming that all of the men raped or sexually assaulted her.
While this claim has never been proven, and there's no way to substantiate it so long after the fact, many critics have argued that—given her troubled upbringing, during which she was repeatedly sexually assaulted—Wuornos had displayed a psychological reaction to repeated brutality. What's more, her first victim had previously been convicted of rape, suggesting there may have been an element of truth to her story.
These are the names and ages of the men she killed, in the order she killed them:
- Richard Charles Mallory, 51
- David Andrew Spears, 47
- Charles Edmund Carskaddon, 40
- Peter Abraham Siems, 65
- Troy Eugene Burress, 50
- Charles Richard “Dick” Humphreys, 56
- Walter Gino Antonio, 61
Where is Aileen Wuornos now?
Wuornos confessed to six of the seven killings and was sentenced to death by lethal injection in 1992. Wuornos appealed the decision, but this was upheld by the United States Supreme Court in 1996. She was executed by the State of Florida on October 9, 2002.
Stream Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers on Netflix now.
