Serial killer Wuornos' memory lives on 10 years after death

PORT ORANGE — She wanted to wear white jeans, a white shirt and a smile at her funeral.

What she got was the very opposite.

Aileen Wuornos was executed by lethal injection a decade ago this week after she was convicted of robbing and killing six men throughout Florida in the span of about one year while she worked as a prostitute. Wuornos claimed to have killed seven men, but the body of one of the men she says she killed was never found so charges were not filed.

When 34-year-old Wuornos was arrested in 1991 at The Last Resort, a biker bar on South Ridgewood Avenue in Port Orange, it was the start of what would lead to relief for Letha Prater, the sister of one of Wuornos' victims.

Prater, of Micanopy, lost her younger brother Troy Burress when Wuornos killed him in 1989. She said she and her brother liked to go to garage sales and thrift stores and that he was the more outgoing of the two of them.

"He never met a stranger," Prater said. "He could talk with anybody about anything."

She said the loss of her brother was very tough on her family and brought her mother's life to an end faster.

"She just couldn't cope with the fact her baby boy was shot and killed," Prater said.

Prater was present for the Oct. 9, 2002, execution of Wuornos, who initially claimed self-defense in the killings.

In April 2002, Circuit Judge R. Michael Hutcheson approved Wuornos' request to fire her court-appointed attorneys and drop her appeals after she told a panel of psychiatrists she would kill again if she were released.

Prater wanted to see Wuornos die.

"I wanted to go because I wanted to see exactly the end of her," Prater said. "I was just trying to get through it and get over it. It may sound morbid . . . but now I don't have to deal with her anymore."

'I'LL BE BACK'

Before she died, Wuornos had shared some final words about when and how she would come back.

"I'd just like to say I'm sailing with the rock, and I'll be back like Independence Day, with Jesus, June 6. Like the movie, big mother ship and all, I'll be back," Wuornos said.

And to some, she did come back, and it was a lot sooner than expected.

Al Bulling, the owner of The Last Resort, said Wuornos' presence returned to the bar she liked to hang out at just 30 minutes after her execution.

Bulling, who has owned the bar more than 30 years, claims the spirit of Wournos has knocked things off shelves, moved bar stools and more.

"She turns off TVs," Bulling said. "Everybody says they're on timers. TV's ain't on no timers."

For Bulling and his long-time bartender, who only goes by "Cannonball," Wuornos was no different from anybody else who frequented the dimly lit bar where patrons' signatures cover the walls.

"She goes 'my name is Lee, this is my girlfriend Ty, and we're gay,'" Cannonball said about their first meeting. He responded, "Yeah, well my name's Cannonball, and I don't care. Pay for what you get, don't cause me no (expletive), and everything will be square."

Bulling said Wuornos felt safe at his bar and never caused him any trouble.

"She's threatened people at other bars from what I understand, but she behaved herself here because she was welcome here, nobody judged her," Bulling said.

To this day, Bulling and Cannonball steer clear of judging Wuornos, or anyone else for that matter, but agree that she was a very intelligent woman, despite her wrongdoings.

Bulling said he's found that many women feel sorry for Wuornos after they hear about her horrible childhood.

CHRONICLED LIFE OF ABUSE

Wuornos was born Feb. 29, 1956, in Rochester, Mich., about a half-hour north of Detroit. She and her brother were raised by their grandparents after their father, a child molester and psychopath, hanged himself while in prison. Their mother abandoned them when Wuornos was a child, and she got pregnant at 14 years old.

Wournos gave up the baby for adoption and turned to prostitution to support herself after leaving her grandparent's home.

The life of Wuornos has been chronicled in several books, films, TV shows and articles, probably most famously in the movie "Monster," in which Charlize Theron, who portrayed Wuornos in the film, won an Oscar for Best Actress.

Wuornos is often regarded as the country's first true female serial killer for killing men who were complete strangers to her, prior to their close encounters in cars and trucks, and for the violent manner in which she committed the murders.

"But a lot of people's had a hard life. Some become presidents, lawyers, judges, astronauts, stuff like that," Bulling said. "She just took a different path, but she was a very intelligent woman."

Wuornos was arrested at The Last Resort on Jan. 9, 1991, by undercover officers who had been observing her from across the street. Unlike the portrayal of the arrest in "Monster," both Bulling and Cannonball say the bar was not bustling with activity when it happened.

While the bar has been able to profit off of Wuornos' time in the bar with T-shirts, bumper stickers and its identity as the "home of ice cold beer and killer women," the association wasn't initially beneficial.

"Right after (the arrest) happened, you could throw a stick of dynamite in here and not kill nobody but me," Cannonball said.

Bulling said one of the biggest surprises to him was having three different women come in just a few days after Wuornos' arrest asking if he'd ever seen her with their missing husbands.

Once the bad stigma wore off, the bar has hosted visitors from as far as Australia who want to see where Wuornos liked to drink Budweiser and shoot pool. Some stick to shooting pictures of the bar from the inside of their car as they pass by, but others have thrown full-on birthday parties in the bar, complete with a cake that had Wuornos' face on it.

There are plenty of theories as to why Wuornos did what she did, but Bulling thinks she was afraid of losing her girlfriend, Tyria Moore, who is believed to have been Wuornos' first and only lesbian relationship.

Sue Russell, author of the top-selling true crime book "Lethal Intent," agrees.

Russell said she came to the conclusion Wuornos was a robber who killed to leave no witnesses and robbed to survive and take care of Moore.

"I think that her biggest fear in life was losing Tyria," Russell said in a phone interview. "She was a broken human being, and Tyria was the only person who really stuck with her. She confessed, in the end, to save Tyria."

Russell, a California-based journalist, spent about two years researching Wuornos — visiting where the killer was from in Michigan, attending her trial and speaking with victim's families — and initially felt sorry for her because of her horrible childhood. Once Wuornos' trial was in full swing, she found her sympathy lessening.

"There are a lot of people who would rather see a woman as a victim than as a cold-blooded killer," Russell said. "In her heart, Aileen knew what she'd done. She took Windex with her. Now why would she need Windex?"

And when it comes to Wuornos' victims, Russell said she thinks it's a mistake to label all of the men as "johns."

"It's very possible that at least some of these men did indeed give a ride to a woman they thought had to get back to her kids and whose car had broken down," Russell said of the story Wuornos gave many of the men who picked her up.

Throughout the researching and writing experience, Russell said she was most surprised by how much Moore looked like the father Wuornos never met.

What doesn't surprise Bulling, Cannonball and others at The Last Resort is that Wuornos' memory continues to draw all kinds of people to the bar.

"They say it's like Bonnie and Clyde," Bulling said. "It'll never go away."