What really happened to Aileen Wuornos? The true story behind Sarah Paulson's Monster character

This article contains discussion of subjects including sexual assault and rape that some readers may find upsetting.

The latest instalment of Ryan Murphy’s Monster true crime anthology focuses on Lizzie Borden, who was acquitted of the 1892 murders of her father and stepmother.

While Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is about Lizzie (as played by Ella Beatty) and her life before and after the murders, in the fourth episode viewers are taken forward in time to 1988 and introduced to Aileen Wuornos, the infamous serial killer played in the drama series by Sarah Paulson.

Aileen is shown to be fascinated with Lizzie’s story, and in one scene she gets her girlfriend Shelby (Jessie Lee) to read a book on Lizzie’s life. Aileen is also shown to be sympathetic towards Lizzie, believing that the misogynistic treatment Lizzie suffered in her lifetime was similar to what Aileen felt in her own.

Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, series co-creator Ian Brennan explained why Aileen Wuornos appears in The Lizzie Borden Story, alongside alleged serial killer Elizabeth Báthory, who was accused of killing and torturing girls and women in the 16th century.

"It very quickly became that the story we were telling was about female rage," he explained. "Then we were able to develop this triptych of Elizabeth Bathory, Aileen Wuornos and Lizzie Borden, which kept the show from seeming like a stuffy, diorama piece by going through these time periods of women who were each aware of the next. To have those three stories talk to one another made it feel much more contemporary and of the moment."

Read on to find out more about the real Aileen Wuornos and why she is featured in Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story.

What is the true story of Aileen Wuornos, who appears in Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story?

Aileen Wuornos worked as a street sex worker in Florida, and is known to have robbed and killed seven of her male clients between 1989 and 1990.

Wuornos was born in Rochester, Michigan, in 1956. Her mother Diane was just 16 at the time and had already given birth to a son, Keith, the year before, with her husband, Leo Pittman. The couple divorced before Aileen was born, and she never met her father, who was imprisoned in 1967 for the kidnapping and rape of a seven-year-old girl. He died by suicide while incarcerated in 1969.

Aileen and Keith were abandoned by their mother in 1960, and raised by their maternal grandparents, Lauri and Britta. In profiles about her life, it was reported that Aileen had accused her grandfather of physical and sexual assault, and at the age of 14 she became pregnant. Her baby boy was given up for adoption, and following the death of her grandmother in 1971, she went to live in the woods near her family home. From the age of 15 she was supporting herself through sex work.

Over the next few years, Wuornos was arrested for various crimes including disorderly conduct, firing a pistol from a moving vehicle, armed robbery and assault. She briefly married 69-year-old Lewis Gratz Fell when she was 20, but the marriage was annulled after nine weeks.

It is believed that the first man Aileen Wuornos murdered was Richard Charles Mallory in November 1989. She alleged that he had beaten and raped her after picking her up by the side of the road for prostitution services. She claimed to have killed him in self defence, and when his body was found it was clear he had been shot several times.

Over the next 12 months, Aileen killed six more men in Florida. They were David Spears, Charles Carskaddon, Peter Siems, Troy Burress, Charles Humphreys and Walter Antonio.

On 9 January 1991, Wuornos was arrested at a biker bar in Volusia County, Florida. Police asked her girlfriend, Tyria Moore, to help gain a confession from Aileen in return for immunity, and following several phone calls between the two women, monitored by police, Aileen Wuornos confessed to the murders.

Did Aileen Wuornos go to jail?

Aileen Wuornos was initially tried for the murder of Richard Mallory and was convicted on 27 January 1992. Later that year, she also confessed to the murders of four more men, and was given a total of five death sentences. She was given an additional death sentence in 1993 after pleading guilty to a sixth murder. However, no charges were brought against her for the murder of Peter Siems, as his body was never found.

In Nick Broomfield’s 2003 documentary, Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer, she claimed (when she believed the cameras were turned off) that the murders were self-defence but said she had later recanted this to the police because she did not want to spend any more time on death row, and wanted to be executed.

She was executed by lethal injection on 9 October 2002.

Her story was later retold in the drama movie Monster, starring Charlize Theron, who won an Academy Award for her performance as Aileen.

Was Aileen Wuornos fascinated by the Lizzie Borden story in real life?

While Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story depicts Aileen Wuornos as being fascinated by Lizzie Borden, there is no evidence to show she was ever inspired by Lizzie.

In the series it is shown that Aileen and her girlfriend Shelby visited the Borden house in Fall River, and stayed there for the night, but there is no evidence that this happened in real life, and it appears to be a fictionalised storyline for the sake of the Netflix drama.

Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is streaming now on Netflix. You can sign up to Netflix from £7.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky TV and Virgin Media.

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