Aileen Wuornos

Her mother, Diane Wuornos (born 1939), was 14 years old when she married Aileen's father, 18-year-old Leo Pittman (1936–1969), on June 3, 1954.

On March 14, 1955, Diane gave birth to Aileen's older brother Keith.

After less than two years of marriage, and two months before Aileen was born, Diane filed for divorce.

She gave birth to Aileen at the age of 16.

Wuornos never met her father.

Aileen Carol Wuornos (born Pittman; February 29, 1956 – October 9, 2002) was an American serial killer.

Wuornos was born Aileen Carol Pittman on February 29, 1956, in Rochester, Michigan.

In January 1960, when Wuornos was almost four years old, Diane abandoned her children, leaving them with their maternal grandparents, Lauri and Britta Wuornos, both alcoholics, who legally adopted Keith and Aileen on March 18, 1960.

By the age of 11, Wuornos began engaging in sexual activities in school in exchange for cigarettes, drugs, and food.

She had also engaged in sexual activities with her brother.

Wuornos said that her alcoholic grandfather had sexually assaulted and beaten her when she was a child.

Before beating her, he would force her to strip out of her clothes.

In 1967, Leo Pittman was sentenced to life imprisonment for kidnapping and raping a 7-year-old girl.

Pittman was diagnosed with schizophrenia; he committed suicide by hanging in prison on January 30, 1969.

In 1970, at age 14, she became pregnant after being raped by a family friend.

Wuornos gave birth to a boy at a home for unwed mothers on March 23, 1971, and the child was placed for adoption.

A few months after her son was born, she dropped out of school at about the same time that her grandmother died of liver failure.

When Wuornos was 15, her grandfather threw her out of the house, and she began living in the woods near her old home and supported herself through prostitution.

On May 27, 1974, at age 18, Wuornos was arrested in Jefferson County, Colorado, for driving under the influence (DUI), disorderly conduct, and firing a .22-caliber pistol from a moving vehicle.

She was later charged with failure to appear.

In 1976, Wuornos hitchhiked to Florida, where she met 69-year-old yacht club president Lewis Gratz Fell.

They married quickly, and the announcement of their nuptials was printed in the local newspaper's society pages.

Wuornos continually involved herself in confrontations at their local bar and went to jail briefly for assault.

She also hit Fell with his own cane, leading him to gain a restraining order against her within weeks of the marriage.

She returned to Michigan where, on July 14, 1976, she was arrested at Bernie's Club, in Mancelona, in Antrim County and charged with assault and disturbing the peace for throwing a cue ball at a bartender's head.

On July 17, her brother Keith died of esophageal cancer and Wuornos received $10,000 from his life insurance.

Wuornos and Fell annulled their marriage on July 21 after only nine weeks.

In August 1976, Wuornos was given a $105 fine for drunk driving.

She used the money inherited from her brother to pay the fine and spent the rest within two months buying luxuries including a new car, which she wrecked shortly afterwards.

In 1978, at the age of 22, she attempted suicide by shooting herself in the stomach.

Between the ages of 14 and 22, she attempted suicide six times.

On May 20, 1981, Wuornos was arrested in Edgewater, Florida, for the armed robbery of a convenience store, where she stole $35 and two packs of cigarettes.

She was sentenced to prison on May 4, 1982, and released on June 30, 1983.

On May 1, 1984, Wuornos was arrested for attempting to pass forged checks at a bank in Key West.

On November 30, 1985, she was named as a suspect in the theft of a revolver and ammunition in Pasco County.

In 1989–1990, while engaging in street prostitution along highways in Florida, she shot dead and robbed seven of her male clients.

Wuornos claimed that her clients had either raped or attempted to rape her, and that the homicides of the men were committed in self-defense.

Wuornos was sentenced to death for six of the murders.

She was executed on October 9, 2002, by lethal injection after spending more than 10 years on Florida's death row.

In the feature film Monster (2003), Wuornos' story is described from her first murder until her execution; for her portrayal of Wuornos, Charlize Theron won the Academy Award for Best Actress.