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Aileen Carol Wuornos, born Aileen Carol Paugh on February 29, 1956, in Troy, Michigan, was an American female serial killer whose life and subsequent crimes became a subject of intense media fascination, legal scrutiny, and ongoing societal debate regarding mental health, gender, and capital punishment. Her early life was marked by severe instability, including alleged physical and sexual abuse, neglect, and a transient existence following the incarceration and eventual suicide of her biological father. Her formative years were characterized by numerous placements in foster homes and a profound difficulty in establishing any semblance of a stable, conventional adult life, setting a trajectory towards persistent antisocial behavior and criminal enterprise. This chaotic upbringing is frequently cited by defense attorneys and criminologists as a contributing factor, though not an excuse, for the later violent acts she committed against male victims. By the time she reached adulthood, Wuornos had accumulated an extensive record of criminal activity, predominantly involving theft, assault, drunk driving, and various forms of minor offenses across several states, primarily Florida, where her most notorious crimes occurred. She drifted from job to job, often working short-term manual labor positions, but relied increasingly on illicit means to sustain herself. The period between 1989 and 1990 marked the escalation of her criminal activity into homicide. Wuornos began soliciting middle-aged men, often those she met while hitchhiking or frequenting roadside bars, under the guise of prostitution or companionship, ultimately leading to their violent deaths. The victims, all identified as middle-aged men, included Richard Mallory, David Spears, Charles Carskaddon, Peter Siems, Troy Burress, Charles "Dick" Humphreys, and Walter Jeno Sr. The geographical span of these murders was concentrated along major Florida highways, demonstrating a pattern of opportunistic targeting within a specific region. Wuornos consistently maintained throughout her legal proceedings that the killings were acts of self-defense, claiming that each man had attempted to rape or seriously assault her after she accepted them into her vehicle or lodging, thereby escalating the encounter into a fatal confrontation. Law enforcement efforts to identify the perpetrator were significantly aided by the discovery of the abandoned car belonging to Peter Siems, which led investigators to Wuornos's boyfriend and accomplice, Charles "Ty" Hoyt, who provided crucial information leading to her eventual arrest in January 1991. Following her capture, the ensuing legal process was fraught with volatility. Wuornos fired several attorneys, often representing herself during critical stages of her trial, leading to self-imposed procedural errors and a perception among observers that she was deliberately sabotaging her own defense strategy. She was ultimately convicted of the murders of all seven men, with the prosecution successfully arguing premeditation and robbery as primary motives, contrasting sharply with her persistent claims of justifiable homicide under extreme duress. Her first conviction, for the murder of David Spears, resulted in a death sentence, and subsequently, she was sentenced to death for the remaining six murders, making her one of the few women sentenced to execution in the modern era of capital punishment in the United States. The media portrayal of Aileen Wuornos was polarized; she was sometimes depicted as a predatory killer devoid of remorse, while other segments of the press and public viewed her through the lens of feminist critique, seeing her as a victim of systemic misogyny and male violence who lashed out in survival mode. This polarized public perception fueled numerous documentaries, books, and the highly publicized 2003 film *Monster*, starring Charlize Theron, which further cemented her status as a unique and controversial figure in American true crime history. During her final years on death row at the Lowell Correctional Institution, Wuornos dedicated time to writing letters, making recorded statements, and offering interviews, continuing to assert her innocence regarding premeditation and using her platform to critique the criminal justice system. Her execution was carried out by lethal injection on October 9, 2002, in Florida, following the denial of final appeals by the US Supreme Court and the subsequent refusal of clemency by then-Governor Jeb Bush, concluding a decade-long legal saga. The case of Aileen Wuornos remains a significant point of study in criminology, forensic psychology, and legal ethics, encapsulating complex debates surrounding the interaction of trauma, gender roles, violence, and the finality of capital punishment.