Monster: Inside the Mind of Aileen Wuornos

Literally caught with his trousers down, and with mitigation in mind, Mallory entered a plea of insanity at his trial on Monday, 2 December 1957. The court ordered that a Dr Harold M. Boselaw examine him and the results make for grim reading: ‘Mr Mallory possesses an extremely strong sexual urge along with a number of other neurotic manifestations with especially compulsive elements.’

Dr Boselaw’s diagnostic opinion of Mallory was that he had a ‘personality pattern disorder linked with a schizoid personality’. In layman’s terms, he was an out-of-control compulsive sexual predator and pervert. But there is more. Dr Boselaw summed up Mallory by adding, ‘Because of his emotional disturbance and poor sexual impulses, he could present a danger to his environment in the future.’

In a nutshell, lady members of the jury, you would not want to hitch a ride with this guy, most certainly not without carrying a handgun – but the lady members of the jury knew nothing of this. However, this was not all the jury that held Lee’s life in their hands did not know.

On Monday, 21 July 1958, Mallory had been committed to the maximum-security Patuxent Institute in Maryland for sex offenders as a defective delinquent for an intermediate period of time ‘without maximum or minimum limit’. He would serve the best part of 11 years. Placing this punishment into a British perspective, a similar example would be one of confinement at Her Majesty’s pleasure at either Rampton, Ashworth or Broadmoor Hospital for the Criminally Insane – home to the likes of Peter Sutcliffe and sundry other sexual psychopaths.

Mallory’s file informs us that he ‘exhibited argumentative behavior and engaged in a number of fights before adjusting to institutional life’. Nevertheless, after settling down and pushing a mop for a year, he wheedled his way into the somewhat cushy post of hospital clerk. This employment had the additional fringe benefit of bringing him into contact with female nurses. He was thrown out of this position on Monday, 22 August 1960, shortly after his arrival, because of his having made ‘a molesting gesture towards the chart nurse with sexual intent’. He grabbed the young woman, fondled her breasts and pushed his hand up between her legs.

The trial jury was also unaware that a determined Mallory had further expressed his dissatisfaction at being detained by escaping from this maximum-security mental asylum on Tuesday, 14 March 1961. After trying to abduct a young girl, he was recaptured while driving a stolen car, and examined by a psychiatrist again. ‘Mr Mallory is possessed with strong sociopathic trends, which are very close to his service, and his controls against them are weak and porous’ was the painfully astute diagnosis. Mallory’s custody file records that he remained quite successfully locked up until Tuesday, 16 April 1968, when he was released on licence. To his credit, he stayed well clear of the law thereafter.

Lee knew nothing of this when she accepted a ride in Mallory’s car, and she knew nothing, and nor did the jury, of what is to follow.

In statements filed by Lee’s attorneys at her appeal, it transpired that potential witnesses presented by her counsel were refused permission to testify as to Mallory’s background. That he liked beating women, trading sex for his clients’ electrical goods and generally being the best customer the sex bars had ever enjoyed cut no ice with the appellate judge at all. For example, Kimberly Guy had made a previous complaint to police that, in addition to having an affinity for prostitution and brutal sex, Mallory was equally interested in masochistic sex and that ‘he frequently travelled with a pair of handcuffs in his briefcase’. In a nutshell, he had attacked her and all but strangled her to death. The officer who took her complaint knew that hookers were often on the receiving end of a john’s bad temper. It came with the territory, so the cops left it that.

If Kimberly had been allowed to give her evidence at Lee’s trial, the jury might have viewed him, and her claims of rape, in a different light. As Kimberly said, ‘The cops, and I am not naming names here, knew all about Mallory and his filthy mind. If I had been Lee Wuornos under those circumstances, I would have shot him too.’

Chastity Marcus also made statements to the police about Mallory’s crippling obsession with sex. She added, ‘He would frequently exchange sexual favours for electronic equipment back at his shop.’ Indeed, on one occasion both Chastity and Kimberly had three-way sex with Mallory. As payment for their services, Kim received a 19-inch colour television while Chastity took home a VCR – both items being the property of one of his trusting clients.

Of course, Lee knew none of this, and the jury, ignoring her desperate pleas that Mallory had raped her, lived in ignorance when they found her guilty of first-degree murder. But was Lee telling the truth? Did Mallory attempt to rape her that fateful night?