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                 STARKE, Fla. (AP) — Serial killer Aileen Wuornos was executed
                 Wednesday, more than a decade after she murdered six men along
                 central Florida highways while working as a prostitute.

                 Wuornos, 46, became the 10th woman executed in the United States
                 since the death penalty resumed in 1976, according to the Death Penalty
                 Information Center.

                 She was pronounced dead from lethal injection at 9:47 a.m. in Florida
                 State Prison near Starke.

                 "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 mothership and
                 all. I'll be back," Wuornos said from the execution chamber. The Rock is a
                 Biblical reference to Jesus.

                 Wuronos had fired her attorneys and dropped her appeals despite
                 lingering questions over her sanity.

                 Wuornos was sentenced to death six times for killing middle-aged men in
                 1989 and 1990 and spent a decade on Florida's death row.

                 The death warrant was based on her first murder victim, Richard Mallory,
                 a Clearwater electronics shop owner whose body was found in 1989 in
                 Volusia County.

                 During her 1992 murder trial, Wuornos testified that Mallory raped, beat
                 and sodomized her and that she killed him in self-defense. After standing
                 trial for Mallory's death, Wuornos pleaded guilty to five other murders in
                 Marion, Pasco and Dixie counties.

                 For years, Wuornos claimed she shot the men out of self-defense while
                 being raped and sodomized. Later, she recanted her claims, saying she
                 wanted to make peace with God.

                 "I'm one who seriously hates human life and would kill again," she told
                 the state Supreme Court.

                 Wuornos also claimed to have killed a seventh man. Her life story
                 spawned two movies, several books and the opera "Wournos," by Carla
                 Lucero, which debuted last year.

                 Wuornos gave her last media interview Tuesday to British producer Nick
                 Broomfield, who did a documentary on her in 1993, but she stormed out
                 after about 35 minutes, Broomfield said.

                 "My conclusion from the interview is, today we are executing someone
                 who is mad. Here is someone who has totally lost her mind," Broomfield
                 said Wednesday outside the prison.

                 Fort Lauderdale lawyer Raag Singhal wrote a letter to the state Supreme
                 Court last month expressing "grave doubts" about Wuornos' mental
                 condition. Gov. Jeb Bush issued a stay and ordered a mental exam, but
                 lifted the stay last week after three psychiatrists who interviewed her
                 concluded that she understood why she was being executed.

                 State Attorney John Tanner, who watched psychiatrists interview her for
                 30 minutes last week, said she was cognizant and lucid. "She knew
                 exactly what she was doing," Tanner said.

                 Wuornos joined Judy Buenoano as the only women Florida has executed
                 since resuming the death penalty in 1976. Fifty-one men have been
                 executed by Florida during that span.

                 The state Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected two efforts to stop the
                 execution, one from a private attorney in Tampa who expressed "serious
                 concerns" about Wuornos' competency, the other from an Ohio group
                 that wanted to file an appeal on Wuornos' behalf.

                 Billy Nolas, who represented Wuornos in her 1992 trial in Daytona Beach,
                 said she suffered from borderline personality disorder as a result of
                 neglect and sexual abuse as a child. He said she was "the most
                 disturbed individual I have represented."

            TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - A support group for death row inmates said serial killer Aileen Wuornos is "borderline psychotic" and asked Monday for permission to file an appeal to stop her Wednesday execution.
            Wuornos, 46, has won court approval to fire her state lawyers and drop her appeals. She's scheduled to die by lethal injection at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday for killing six men.

            Florida Support wants to file an appeal on Wuornos' behalf. Its director, Sissel Egeland of Glandorf, Ohio, filed the motion in the state Supreme Court Monday.

            "As long as no close family member has stepped forward on behalf of Aileen to help act to secure that borderline psychotic Aileen receives necessary legal and psychiatric help in this traumatic situation, Florida Support has no other options than to ask ... to be accepted as 'next friend' for Aileen Wuornos," the motion reads.

            "Mental incompetence prohibits Aileen from filing the motion for stay of execution," the motion reads.

            A panel of three psychiatrists last week reported to Gov. Jeb Bush that Wuornos understood the outcome of execution and why she was facing execution. That's the standard for competence to be executed under Florida law.

            Wuornos is one of the nation's few female serial killers. Her case spawned two movies, an opera and several books.

            She was convicted in Volusia County of the December 1989 shooting death of her first victim, Richard Mallory of Clearwater.

            She pleaded no contest to five 1990 murders in Marion, Dixie, Pasco and Citrus counties and received six death sentences.

            Also Monday, state lawyers who represent death row inmates notified the high court that they still represented Wuornos in the case from Dixie County but Bill Jennings, the head of the state office, said the document was meaningless.

            AP-ES-10-07-02 1835EDT

                     STARKE, Fla. (AP) - Serial killer Aileen Wuornos was executed Wednesday,
                     more than a decade after she murdered six men along central Florida highways
                     while working as a prostitute.

                                        Wuornos, 46, became the 10th woman executed in
                                        the United States since the death penalty resumed in
                                        1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

                                        She was pronounced dead from lethal injection at
                                        9:47 a.m. in Florida State Prison near Starke.

                                        "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 mothership and all. I'll be back,"
                                        Wuornos said from the execution chamber. The Rock
                                        is a Biblical reference to Jesus.

                                        Wuronos had fired her attorneys and dropped her
                                        appeals despite lingering questions over her sanity.

                                        Wuornos was sentenced to death six times for killing
                                        middle-aged men in 1989 and 1990 and spent a
                                        decade on Florida's death row.

                                        The death warrant was based on her first murder
                     victim, Richard Mallory, a Clearwater electronics shop owner whose body was
                     found in 1989 in Volusia County.

                     During her 1992 murder trial, Wuornos testified that Mallory raped, beat and
                     sodomized her and that she killed him in self-defense. After standing trial for
                     Mallory's death, Wuornos pleaded guilty to five other murders in Marion, Pasco
                     and Dixie counties.

                     For years, Wuornos claimed she shot the men out of self-defense while being
                     raped and sodomized. Later, she recanted her claims, saying she wanted to
                     make peace with God.

                     "I'm one who seriously hates human life and would kill again," she told the state
                     Supreme Court.

                     Wuornos also claimed to have killed a seventh man. Her life story spawned two
                     movies, several books and the opera "Wournos," by Carla Lucero, which
                     debuted last year.

                     Wuornos gave her last media interview Tuesday to British producer Nick
                     Broomfield, who did a documentary on her in 1993, but she stormed out after
                     about 35 minutes, Broomfield said.

                     "My conclusion from the interview is, today we are executing someone who is
                     mad. Here is someone who has totally lost her mind," Broomfield said
                     Wednesday outside the prison.

                     Fort Lauderdale lawyer Raag Singhal wrote a letter to the state Supreme Court
                     last month expressing "grave doubts" about Wuornos' mental condition. Gov.
                     Jeb Bush issued a stay and ordered a mental exam, but lifted the stay last
                     week after three psychiatrists who interviewed her concluded that she
                     understood why she was being executed.

                     State Attorney John Tanner, who watched psychiatrists interview her for 30
                     minutes last week, said she was cognizant and lucid. "She knew exactly what
                     she was doing," Tanner said.

                     Wuornos joined Judy Buenoano as the only women Florida has executed since
                     resuming the death penalty in 1976. Fifty-one men have been executed by
                     Florida during that span.

                     The state Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected two efforts to stop the execution,
                     one from a private attorney in Tampa who expressed "serious concerns" about
                     Wuornos' competency, the other from an Ohio group that wanted to file an
                     appeal on Wuornos' behalf.

                     Billy Nolas, who represented Wuornos in her 1992 trial in Daytona Beach, said
                     she suffered from borderline personality disorder as a result of neglect and
                     sexual abuse as a child. He said she was "the most disturbed individual I have
                     represented."

            Her eyes. Her eyes betrayed her.
            As newspaper photographers snapped pictures of Aileen Wuornos at her July hearing in Broward Circuit Court, she stared back at their cameras with eyes that fairly flashed insanity.
            Her assertions, set forth in a rambling, hand-written list of complaints against her prison guards, reeked of paranoid delusions. Nothing in that document, the basis of her court hearing, eased qualms that the woman demanding her own quick execution was mentally unraveled.
            Raag Singhal, appointed to represent Wuornos in her complaint against Death Row guards, found himself with a client whose demeanor varied wildly from one meeting to the next. Finally, on his last attempt to see Wuornos on Sept. 9, Wuornos refused to see him. She yelled at him through her cell door.
            Singhal was faced with a peculiar ethical dilemma, ``with having to do something against my client's wishes.''

            GRAVE DOUBTS

            On Sept. 17, he wrote the Florida Supreme Court: ``I have grave doubts about her mental condition and specifically whether she is competent to be executed.''
            The lawyer wrote this letter mindful that a few months before, the court had castigated lawyers for intervening, uninvited, on behalf of another ''volunteer'' for the death penalty, Rigoberto Sanchez-Velasco. He was executed Wednesday.
            Wuornos has been equally vehement about ending her appeals. ``Ms. Wuornos has not authorized me to write this letter in her behalf. In fact, she would likely consider this letter to be the opposite of that which she asks of the court, a speedy execution.''
            But Singhal persisted. He noted her peculiar complaints against her prison keepers. And added: ``In court and in jail, she exhibits bizarre behavior, laughing and crying at inappropriate times and obsessing on points having no importance to her cases.''
            Singhal's letter prompted the governor to order a quickie psychiatric evaluation. Three psychiatrists, all at once, met with her for a few hours Tuesday.
            She was found ''competent'' -- competent enough to kill under the state's low standards. Her execution was set for this Wednesday -- a rush job for the state's most famous surviving Death Row inmate, the Damsel of Death, the inspiration for books and movies.

            SUICIDAL INTENT

            It's not as if Aileen Wuornos is trying to put one over on Gov. Jeb. She's been trying for months and months to get the state to kill her. Although her suicidal intent might have been deduced a decade ago, after her first murder conviction, when she fired her public defender and replaced her with the lawyer who had handled her ''adoption'' to a Bible-quoting horse trainer. The lawyer promptly had Wuornos plead guilty to five more murder charges complete with the death penalty. He and Aileen Wuornos' adoptive mother then split the movie rights.
            Wuornos' dismal life history might have given the state's psychiatrists pause last week before they pronounced her mentally fit.
            Her father hanged himself in prison, where he was doing time for rape and kidnapping. Her mother abandoned her. She was raped and impregnated at 14, possibly by her grandfather (who also committed suicide), was forced to give up the baby, then was tossed out to survive on her own. At 16, she was on a career path as a street hooker.
            Add evidence of a mental disorder brought on by head trauma and a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. And since she has been on Death Row, first her appeals lawyers and now Singhal have argued, against her will, that their client was quite obviously insane.
            Wuornos isn't faking, trying to get off Death Row. All she wants to do is die.
            The question, as her execution date looms, is whether the governor and the state of Florida ought to be parties to a state-administered suicide. Particularly with the legality of executions unclear.
            A virtual moratorium on state executions has been in place while the Florida Supreme Court reconsiders the death penalty law in light of decisions earlier this year by the U.S. Supreme Court that put new limitations on capital punishment.
            All Death Row appeals have been put on hold. But Wuornos, like Rigoberto Sanchez-Velasco, had dropped her appeals, removing the mechanism that would postpone their executions.
            The issue here is not whether Wuornos is evil and deserves the punishment. She's a killer with six murder convictions and should get the ultimate punishment, whatever that might be once the Florida Supreme Court sorts out the law.
            But it's unseemly, maybe uncivilized, to rush someone into the death chamber on the basis of a quickie gang examination on a single afternoon eight days before her execution date.
            There's no risk here, other than lost political points, to order a serious mental evaluation. If she's found incompetent, it only means Aileen Wuornos will be sent to a forensic hospital until she's deemed competent. Then, if there's still a valid death penalty, she'll be shipped back to Death Row.
            If Aileen Wuornos is sane, then she'll get what she deserves.
            As Singhal said in his futile letter to the state Supreme Court: ``It would seem to me that we should not be eager to execute an individual simply because she is a volunteer.''
            Singhal acknowledged the victims' families long, dreary wait for this case to end, but he added:
            ``Societal closure cannot come about by executing an individual who may be mentally ill.''
But it looks like society, shrugging off those mad, staring eyes, will give it a try come Wednesday.

FORT LAUDERDALE -- Condemned serial killer Aileen Wuornos, who has dropped her appeals,
complained Friday that state prison guards were trying to harass her "to death" and drive her to suicide.
In a 25-page handwritten court filing, she accused the prison staff of tainting her food, spitting on it and serving her potatoes cooked in dirt. Outside court, her attorney said she also complained her meals arrived with urine.
"Ms. Wuornos really just wants to have proper treatment, humane treatment until the day she's
executed," said her attorney Raaj Singhal.
Circuit Judge Paul Backman set a hearing Aug. 19 for a full airing of her allegations. The state
promised in court to investigate, but a Corrections Department spokesman later rejected the
allegations.
Wuornos, 46, a former prostitute who lived in Volusia County, was sentenced to death for
murdering six men along Central Florida highways more than a decade ago by shooting each with a handgun. One of them was Clearwater businessman Richard Mallory, whose body was found in a wooded area near Ormond Beach in 1989.
Her story has been portrayed in two movies, three books and an opera.
Wuornos' liveliest response in court came when Backman raised the question of her mental
competency based on reports by previous attorneys that she suffers paranoid delusions.
"I'm sick of hearing this 'she's crazy' stuff," Wuornos said. "I'm competent, sane and I'm telling the truth."
Singhal suggested that Wuornos' competency may come into question again if the judge rejects her claims of prison abuse.
"If the allegations don't have any truth to them, she's clearly delusional," he said. "She believes what she's written."
Maxine Streeter, senior assistant attorney general, asked Backman to delay the hearing because Wuornos' 25-page filing was delivered after business hours Thursday.
The hearing was called on the basis of a two-page letter written in January to the clerk of the state Supreme Court. The note ended, "P.S. Happy New Year!"
Wuornos, who calls herself a model prisoner, complained about eight sergeants and officers assigned to the women's death row unit at the Broward Correctional Institution after she dropped her death appeals.
"Our guards at Broward who work on the wing where she is being housed have not been exhibiting this type of behavior, and the Department of Corrections will firmly deny any of these allegations," said spokesman Sterling Ivey.
Wuornos accused the prison staff of waging psychological and physical warfare against her and wants the eight officers to be transferred "until my X," her shorthand for execution. She also wants the old staff returned.
In a list of 17 complaints, the 11th complaint said, "To overhearing conversations in trying to get me so pushed over the brink by them I'd wind up committing suicide before the X.' "
Singhal said the issue of suicide was a real concern because her father hanged himself in prison and a grandfather committed suicide.
Wuornos also reported overhearing staff conversations about "wishing to rape me before execution" and "on the way to Starke, in transport or at Starke itself." Death row inmates are executed at Florida State Prison near Starke. Wuornos was raped by a relative.
She also complained of strip searches, being handcuffed so tightly that her wrists bruise any time she leaves her cell, door kicking and frequent window checks by guards, low water pressure, mildew on her mattress and "cat calling . . . in distaste and a pure hatred towards me."
Wuornos threatened to boycott showers and food trays when the eight officers are on duty.
 "In the meantime, my stomach's growling away and I'm taking showers through the cell of my sink," she wrote.  Wuornos told Singhal that conditions improved after he was appointed two weeks ago. In court, she frequently broke into a broad smile.
The state Supreme Court has set a hearing Aug. 21 to decide how a U.S. Supreme Court decision affects Florida's death penalty.
The nation's high court said last month that juries should have the final say on punishment in death penalty cases. Florida law allows juries to make recommendations that judges can reject. Wuornos' jury recommended death.
Gov. Jeb Bush said Tuesday that he may sign Wuornos' death warrant next. She volunteered for execution last year and obtained Florida Supreme Court permission to fire her appellate attorneys.  Information from News-Journal archives contributed to this report.
News-Journal Corporation
 

Lawyer Tells High Court of 'grave Doubts' About Wuornos
By Jackie Hallifax Associated Press Writer    Published: Sep 24, 2002

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - A lawyer representing condemned serial killer Aileen Wuornos has written the state Supreme Court to share his "grave doubts" about her mental condition.  Wuornos, scheduled to die by lethal injection Oct. 9, does not want to fight her execution and won permission from Florida's high court in April to fire her state lawyers and drop her appeals.
But Wuornos, 44, accuses prison guards in a lawsuit of trying to harass her "to death" and drive her to suicide. In her 25-page handwritten court filing, Wuornos has accused the prison staff of tainting her food, spitting on it and serving her potatoes cooked in dirt.
Fort Lauderdale attorney Raag Singhal was appointed this summer to represent Wuornos in that lawsuit, which is pending before a Fort Lauderdale judge.
"The specific claims she raises ... if untrue appear to be evidence of delusional behavior," Singhal wrote the Supreme Court in a Sept. 17 letter.
Wuornos, one of the nation's first known female serial killers, was convicted of fatally shooting six middle-aged men along the highways of north and central Florida in 1989 and 1990. Her story has been portrayed in two movies, three books and an opera.
A spokeswoman for Gov. Jeb Bush said Tuesday that the governor "absolutely" believed Wuornos was competent when he signed her death warrant on Sept. 5.
"We have received no new information," said Katie Muniz, adding that Bush needed to review Singhal's letter but had not yet seen it.
Singhal told the court in the letter that Wuornos, who has refused contact with him since Bush signed her death warrant, had not authorized the letter and would probably oppose it.
"I am writing simply to ask that Ms. Wuornos be evaluated by a team of Court-ordered psychologists prior to any further proceedings in her cases," he wrote.
Singhal said he spent several hours with Wuornos over the summer.
He said Wuornos acts strangely, laughs and cries unexpectedly and obsesses on unimportant points.
"Based upon the totality of my contacts with Ms. Wuornos, I have grave doubts about her mental condition and specifically whether she is competent to be executed," he wrote.
Wuornos' claims are pending before Circuit Judge Paul Backman. The state Department of Corrections has rejected her allegations.
At a hearing in July, Wuornos told Backman she was "sick of hearing this 'she's crazy' stuff. I'm competent, sane and I'm telling the truth."
Wuornos, who calls herself a model prisoner, complained about eight sergeants and officers assigned to the women's death row unit at the Broward Correctional Institution after she dropped her death appeals.
She accused the prison staff of waging psychological and physical warfare against her and wants the eight officers to be transferred "until my X," her shorthand for execution. She also wants the old staff returned.
Singhal said the issue of suicide was a real concern because her father hanged himself in prison and a grandfather committed suicide.

                            Female Serial Killer Wants Death
                                      DAYTONA BEACH, Florida, June 20, 2001

Sobbing that "there's no sense in keeping me alive," one of the nation's first known female serial killers won a court victory Friday in her bid to fire her attorneys and hasten her execution.
"I am a serial killer. I would kill again," Aileen Wuornos said during one-and-a-half hours on the witness stand.
She said she wanted to fire her state-appointed attorneys and end her appeals because she wants to come clean and make her peace with God.
"I wanted to clear all the lies and let the truth come out," she said. "I have hate crawling through my system."
Circuit Judge Michael Hutcheson said he would recommend to the Florida Supreme Court that Wuornos is competent to make such a decision. He told Wuornos it would put her on the "fast track" to be executed.
"I'm not scared by it," Wuornos said. "I know what the heck I'm doing."
Wuornos, 45, was sentenced to death six times for killing middle-aged men when she worked as a prostitute along the highways of central Florida in 1989 and 1990. She has been on death row for nearly a decade.
Wuornos, the subject of a television movie "Overkill: The Aileen Wuornos Story" and an opera that recently opened in San Francisco, testified during her 1992 trial that she killed men who assaulted her and made her fear for her life.
But Friday, she said she had lied in an attempt to beat the system: "I killed those men in the first degree, robbed and killed them."
She apologized to her victims' families and said there was no point in spending more taxpayers' money on her defense.
"There's no sense in keeping me alive," she said. "This world doesn't mean anything to me."
One of her attorneys, Richard Kiley, said Wuornos didn't understand the ramifications of what she was doing, and her behavior raised questions about her mental health.
 Lawyers from the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, the state agency that handles post-conviction death-sentence appeals, will try to have Wuornos declared incompetent.
Letha Prater, whose 50-year-old brother, Troy Burress, was killed by Wuornos in 1989, said she was glad the decision would end the appeals.
"I don't hate her. I hate what she did," Prater said. "Hatred is lost on her."
 Burress' daughter, Wanda Pouncey, added: "It's time for all this to be done instead of dragging this on."
Wuornos had the opportunity to end her appeals at a hearing in February, when a judge ruled she was competent to make decisions about her case. She chose to continue her appeals, later saying CCRC lawyers misled her about her ability to drop them.
Wuornos sent several letters to the Florida Supreme Court asking to end her appeals, and the court ordered Friday's hearing.

    Aileen Wuornos tells the Florida Supreme Court to end her appeals
        AND set an execution date for killing six men in 1989 and 1990.
             By CHASE SQUIRES  -St. Petersburg Times, published May 19, 2001

Serial killer Aileen Wuornos says it's time to save the taxpayers money, it's time to spare her victims' families some grief, and it's time for her to die.
Convicted of six murders across the state, including the 1990 murder of Charles Carskaddon in Pasco County,Wuornos sent a hand-written, one-page letter to the Florida Supreme Court.
In the letter, the 45-year-old death row inmate asks the court to end her appeals and set an execution date.
Referring to her earlier unsuccessful efforts to end her appeals, Wuornos said she has confessed to everyone she could and will continue to do so until the court orders state-appointed attorneys to stop appealing her sentences.
 "Having refuted every bit of self-defense to Channel 2, Channel 10, Court TV, BBC and much more of which, I'll continue, because it is the right thing to do," she wrote in a letter dated April 26.
"The information being withheld from all of you is that: I've come clean!" Wuornos wrote to the justices.
She wrote that she "would prefer to cut with the chase then and get on with an execution -- of which I've been sentenced under six times. Taxpayers' money has been squandered, and the families have suffered enough, especially with all this courtroom bullarky with Capital  Collateral."
She signed the letter, "In full integrity, yours truly," and drew a crucifix over her signature.
Capital Collateral is the state-supported organization responsible for filing appeals for death row inmates.
Her former Capital Collateral attorney, Joe Hobson, argued her appeal before Circuit Judge Wayne Cobb in Dade City last year, claiming the attorney representing her in 1992 and
1993 in Dade City was ineffective.
Cobb rejected the appeal. Hobson no longer works for Capital Collateral.
Her new attorney, Ruck Deminico, was not available for comment Friday.
Wuornos was a hitchhiking prostitute who killed six men along Florida interstates in 1989 and 1990 and received six death sentences.
In Pasco County, she pleaded guilty in 1992 to killing Carskaddon, a Missouri resident whose naked body was found in woods near Interstate 75 in central Pasco.
Wuornos' Capital Collateral attorneys also filed an appeal on her behalf in Ocala earlier this year claiming she was the victim of childhood sexual abuse but that her attorney never
brought that up during sentencing.
 A judge has not ruled on that appeal.

Governor Jeb Bush says he plans to sign serial killer Aileen Wuornos's death warrant soon. Wuornos is on death row for the murders of six men across Florida in 1989 and 1990. She has fired her attorneys and refused future appeals. The governor says he plans to continue signing death warrants even though Florida's capitol punishment law is being debated in the courts. Gov. Jeb Bush says "She's a multiple killer. Her appeals have been exhausted. She wants to meet her creator. She's on my list, absolutely.
I have not talked to legal counsel, Charles Canady, my legal counsel, about what, when it would be appropriate to sign the warrant, I've been busy, and I'll talk to him probably next week."
 
 

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