When murders are often repeated and the similar victims arise experiencing the same trauma or manner of death, then the law enforcers should shift their gears toward looking at this as a case of a serial killing. As early as 1972, a serial murder was termed as a “multicide”. It was described as “a number of homicides committed by one person, but spread over a longer period of time, say months or even years, and generally corresponds to an unfolding, deep-seated psychopathological process”. It is often said that the perpetrator usually chooses the same type of victim and “repeats the murders periodically up to the time of arrest” (Cormier et al. 1972, p. 71). Indeed, it is undeniable that former prostitute Aileen Carol Wuornos (born as Aileen Carol Pittman) was a serial killer as she murdered seven men in Florida until she meted death by lethal injection in 2002.
In a well-known book by Holmes and DeBurger (1988), they took note of a serial murder by its central elements with emphasis on the murderer’s traits:
- repetitive homicide, continuing if not prevented
- primarily one-on-one
- relationship (victim-perpetrator) usually one of stranger or slight acquaintance, strong affiliation seldom
- motivation is to kill; not conventional passion crime or victim-precipitated
- intrinsic motive (not apparent or clear-cut) and ordinarily not for passion, personal gain or profit (p. 18-19).
It is often safe to note that serial killers often commit sex-related crimes that often end up as murders. In history, the most well-known serial killer must be Jack the Ripper, a nickname given to the murderer who perpetrated a killing spree out of prostitutes in London. That was 1888 and until now, the identity of who the real killer was remains a mystery. Moreover, feminist scholarship has recently begun to examine serial murder as “sexual terrorism” or as a perpetuation of gynocide, the systematic crippling, raping and/or killing of women by men (Dworkin, 1976). In Wuornos’ case, it was different because she classified by the FBI as the first female serial killer who preyed on men as her victims.
Working as a prostitute for almost seventeen years before she was arrested in January 1991, “she testified that she had armed herself with a gun when soliciting clients in response to increasing levels of violence” (Basilio, 1996). As she was a woman, Wuornos always reminded that her actions were a form of self-defense: “I’m supposed to die because I’m a prostitute? No, I don’t think so. I was out prostituting. And I was dealing with hundreds and hundreds of guys. You got a jerk that’s going to come along and try to rape me? I’m going to fight. I believe that everybody has a right to self-defend themselves” (Basilio 1996). For Wuornos, it was androcide as she went on to a murder spree killing seven men along a stretch of central Florida freeway. Her modus operandi bore the reckless signature of a dissolute, desolating life: She hitched a ride in a car or truck with a male driver, rattled off a song and dance about wanting to get back to her kids in another state.
Born in a seedy Detroit suburb in 1956, young Aileen’s mother ran out on her and a brother early on. Her father was found out to be a convicted child molester, who would later kill himself in prison. The children were sent to their grandparents in Kallikak, who enthusiastically continued the daily round of brutal abuse, physical and perhaps sexual. Further on, the mean streets furnished Wuornos all the education she ever had. By her early teens, she had already borne a child and given it away. After the termination of a hasty marriage, she returned to her maiden name-strangely alliterative with the oldest profession she had begun to ply. After squandering insurance money from her brother’s early death, she returned to the streets, exchanging sex for meager sustenance. She was occasionally arrested for various petty crimes. In this case, her unruly life, drinking and drugging to wretched excess, gradually eroded her blonde good looks. Nevertheless, one still perceives, in photos and on film, the traces of a curious attractiveness.
In seeing Aileen Wuornois’ profile, we can see her reason as why she turned to killing men because of the several abuses she experienced in her life. This is why a serial killer like Wuornos could present as a challenge to law enforcers because she did not fit in the classification of what traditional serial killers should be. In our time, most serial murders are considered to be high profile cases in law enforcement because it often emanates widespread fear among people and mass media has a tendency to sensationalize the murders by putting it their headlines. The extreme awareness of people about serial murder cases is often not helpful because it will make the entrapment of the serial killer more difficult because he or she will cease to commit another murder to evade being easily caught by the police. In this criminal profile, we can learn how the development of certain characteristics can be associated with a specific type of criminal offender, who is a woman who suffered terrible abuse in the past can turn into a serial murderer.
References
Basilio, M. (1996, Winter). Corporal evidence: representations of Aileen Wuornos. Art Journal, 55(4): 56-62.
Cormier, B. M. Angliker, C.C. J., Boyer, R. & Mersereau, G. (1972). The psychodynamics of homicide committed in a semispecific relationship. Canadian Journal of Criminology and Corrections, 14, 335-44.
Dworkin, A. (1976). Our Blood: Prophecies and Discussions on Sexual Politics. New York: Harper and Row.
Holmes R. M. and DeBurger J. (1988). Serial Murder. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.