Monster: Inside the Mind of Aileen Wuornos

‘Mmm, well, when we were struggling with the gun and everything else, again, he fell to the ground and he started to run back… run away. And I shot him in the back… right in the back.’

‘What did he do then after you shot him in the back?’

‘He just kind of looked at me for a second and he said… he said something like, uh… shit. What did he say? I think he said, “You cunt,” or something like that. And I said, “You bastard,” and I shot him again.’

In just over a year, Lee Wuornos had scattered a trail of middle-aged male corpses across the highways of central Florida.

PART THREE ‘AND MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON YOUR CORPSE.’

CHAPTER TWELVE PARTING COMPANY

‘When she went looking for someone to kill out there on those roads, it was her daddy she was really seeking to hurt.’

CAPTAIN STEVE BINEGAR, ARRESTING OFFICER

Following Captain Steve Binegar’s appeal for information through the newspapers, calls began to pour in and, by mid-December 1990, detectives had a number of firm leads involving the two women suspects.

A man in Homosassa Springs, where Lee asked David Spears to drop her off, said that two women who fitted the composites had rented a recreational vehicle (RV) mobile home from him about a year earlier. After searching through his records, he came up with the names of ‘Tyria Moore’ and ‘Lee’.

A witness in Tampa said two women had worked at her motel south of Ocala, close to where Troy Burress was murdered. Their names, she said, were Tyria Moore and Susan Blahovec, and they let it be known they had bought an RV in Homosassa Springs. The informant remembered that the blonde Blahovec was the dominant of the duo, and she believed she was a truck-stop prostitute. She also told the police that both were lesbians.

The information from these two callers rang immediate alarm bells with the task force. David Spears, Homosassa Springs, RV trailer, two women. Troy Burress, Ocala, RV trailer, the same two women. The investigation was starting to pay off as previously tenuous links started coming together.

Meanwhile, the composite sketches published by the media of the red-lipped blonde with the stringy hair and her dark-haired, moon-faced companion in the baseball cap had been haunting Tyria for weeks. On Friday, 23 November, the day after Thanksgiving, Tyria returned to Florida where the two women met at the airport. Lee was accompanied by a friend called Donald Willingham who had given her a lift. Don had met Lee in a bar the previous year. They had played pool, shared a few drinks and gone their separate ways.

The plane arrived just after noon. Lee presented Tyria with Walter Gino Antonio’s engagement ring as a token of her love, and Don gave the women a ride back to the Fairview Motel where Lee asked him if he could come back a few days later to help them move their belongings. They were being evicted again. Lee pleaded with Tyria not to leave and, as another display of her love, the serial killer threw her nine-shot .22 into the brackish water of Rose Bay.

Upon his return on 3 December, Don asked the two women where they were going with their boxes and suitcase. ‘I guess we’ll have to put it in storage,’ said Lee, before explaining that her girlfriend was going back up north and they were splitting up.

Don took the women to the Greyhound bus station in Daytona where Tyria handed back the ring and they tearfully parted company. From there, he drove Lee to Jack’s Mini-Warehouse on Nova Road, where she deposited several cardboard boxes. The owners, Jack and Alice Colbert, rented the bin to Lee who was using the alias Cammie Greene. The cupboard, in building 43, hall number 1, bin G, was paid up until February.

From Jack’s Mini-Warehouse, they drove to Don’s house and had sex in bed.

‘In going to bed with her, did she charge you money?’ Willingham was asked during his deposition.

‘No. She didn’t charge me any money. I had been hauling her around. As a friend, really,’ he said.

Lee wheedled her way back into Rose McNeill’s affections and back into the Fairview Motel, asking to be moved into another room because number 8 held too many painful memories. Her possessions had now dwindled to a tan suitcase and the single key which opened the storage locker at Jack’s Mini-Warehouse.

At 12.05pm on Friday, 7 December, Lee, still using the alias Cammie Marsh Greene, once again visited the OK pawn shop in Daytona Beach. Her ticket, number 7529, shows that she received a paltry $20 for Walter’s engagement ring.