Before her name filled headlines and documentaries, Aileen Carol Wuornos was just a little girl from Rochester, Michigan, born in 1956 to a teenage mother and an absent, violent father. Her mother, Diane, was only fourteen when she married Leo Dale Pittman — a man later imprisoned for assault and who took his own life before Aileen ever met him. Overwhelmed, Diane abandoned Aileen and her brother at a young age, leaving them with their grandparents, Lauri and Britta Wuornos.
Behind closed doors, their home was far from safe. Britta battled alcoholism, and Lauri’s temper often turned cruel. By age eleven, Aileen was trading s****l acts for food and cigarettes. At thirteen, she became pregnant after an assault; her baby was placed for adoption. Soon after, tragedy struck — her grandmother died, and her grandfather took his life.
By her teens, Aileen was homeless and surviving through prostitution. Years later, in Florida, she killed seven men — claiming self-defense. Convicted and executed in 2002, her story remains one of America’s darkest, asking the haunting question: was she born evil, or made by neglect and abuse?
