Monster: Inside the Mind of Aileen Wuornos

Rhonda and Jim Bailey, who were sitting on their porch drinking lemonade and enjoying the sun, witnessed the spectacular accident. Somewhat bemused, the elderly couple observed two women clamber out of the car. Lee, whose arms were bleeding from the cuts sustained in the crash, started throwing beer cans into the woods and swearing at her fellow passenger, who said very little.

The Baileys noted that the women grabbed a red-and-white beer cooler from the back seat and, still arguing, staggered off along the road. At the approach of other cars, they would dash into the woods and hide, only to reappear after the vehicles had passed. When the coast was clear, they returned to the car.

When neighbourly Rhonda ambled over to offer what little assistance she could, the blonde begged her not to call the police, saying that her father lived just up the road. The two women climbed back in the car and, with some difficulty, managed to reverse it on to the road and drive off. Within moments a front tyre went flat and, with the car now disabled, Lee and Tyria had no option other than to abandon it. They pulled off the rear number plate – Lee had done the same thing with Carskaddon’s vehicle – and threw it, together with the car keys, into the woods before walking away.

A passing motorist, thinking that the women might need help, pulled over and offered assistance. He noticed that the blonde was not only bleeding but also very drunk. When she asked him for a lift, he thought better of it and refused, whereupon Lee became angry and abusive. The man drove away, but he phoned the Orange Springs Fire Department and told them about the injured woman.

Two emergency vehicles were dispatched to the scene and, when they arrived, Lee denied that they had been in the car. ‘I don’t know anything about any accident,’ she snarled. ‘I want people to stop telling lies and leave us alone.’

At 9.44pm, Trooper Rickey responded to the emergency call and found the car. (It was not until almost two months later that homicide detectives learned exactly where the Sunbird had first crashed, or heard the account given by Rhonda and Jim Bailey.) Marion County’s Deputy Lawing was dispatched to investigate the abandoned, smashed-up vehicle. The vehicle identification number was checked, revealing that the missing Peter Siems was the owner. Bloody prints were found in the vehicle, and there were bloodstains on the fabric of the seats and on the door handles.

Items removed from the car by the police included Busch and Budweiser beer cans as well as Marlborough cigarettes and two beverage cosies. They were traceable to EMRO store number 8237, a Speedway truck stop and convenience store at SR 44 and I-75, close to the on-and-off ramps in Wildwood. The same EMRO store and truck stop would later feature in the murder of Charles Humphreys. Peter Siems and his wife were missionaries. They neither drank nor smoked, so the two beverage cosies did not belong to him. Underneath the front passenger seat lay a bottle of Windex window spray with an Eckerd drug store price label attached to it. This ticket was easily traceable to a store on Gordon Street in Atlanta, Georgia. Relatives also stated that the couple had never travelled to Atlanta but that Peter would probably pass close to the city en route to Arkansas.

Peter Siems had borrowed his son Stefan’s suitcase for his trip. Stefan Siems later recognised it among the loot found in Lee’s storage lock-up.

By now a police artist had drawn composites of the two women based on descriptions given by witnesses of the incident with the Sunbird. Armed with these sketches and the bottle of Windex, the investigators travelled to Atlanta to question the manager of the Eckerd drug store. Viewing the pictures, he recalled two women – identical to Lee and Tyria – entering his store on a Friday night. ‘We are in a bad part of town in a predominantly black area, and white people do not venture into this area after dark,’ he said. The police learned that the two women also purchased cosmetics and a black box of Trojan condoms – the same brand as those found near the body of David Spears and inside his car.

Fridays for June 1990 following Siems’s murder fell on the 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th respectively. On which of those days were the two women together in Siems’s car when they purchased the Windex window spray, condoms and cosmetics in Atlanta? As Lee confirmed, she only drove to Atlanta once, and that was with Siems. She also confirmed that he was shot dead there. For her part, Tyria has denied ever travelling to Atlanta with Lee.