Serial killer Wuornos' last hours at hand

With a last-minute appeal rejected Tuesday by the state's high court, the nation's highest-profile female serial killer is set to be put to death this morning by lethal injection.

Only the third woman ever to be executed in Florida, Wuornos is scheduled to be ushered into the lethal injection room at Florida State Prison in Starke at 9:30 a.m. today for killing a half-dozen middle-aged men along Central and North Florida's interstates. The former Volusia County prostitute and drifter usually packed a .22-caliber pistol in her purse.

Twenty witnesses -- half reporters and half relatives of victims -- have been selected to watch Wuornos' execution.

Security will be tight at the prison, where reporters are expected to gather by dawn, along with demonstrators on both sides of the death penalty issue.

On Tuesday, the Florida Supreme Court unanimously rejected a request by an Ohio group that wanted to file an appeal on behalf of Wuornos, 46. The group, Florida Support, had asked the court Monday for permission to file an appeal for Wuornos, whom it called "borderline psychotic."

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

If Wuornos is executed, she will join Judy Buenoano as the only women Florida has killed since resuming the death penalty in 1976. Fifty-one men have been executed by Florida during that span.

Wuornos has repeatedly begged the state Supreme Court to allow her to meet her maker and was granted that wish in April after Circuit Judge R. Michael Hutcheson ruled in Volusia County that she was mentally competent. Gov. Jeb Bush lifted a temporary stay of execution last week after Wuornos was examined by a team of psychiatrists and ruled competent.

With last-minute preparations under way for her execution, Wuornos turned down a special "last meal request" for condemned inmates -- instead choosing to eat the prison menu for the evening Tuesday -- barbecued chicken, mashed potatoes and sliced tomatoes, said Florida Department of Corrections spokesman Sterling Ivey.

He said Wuornos would have a private visit from 9 p.m. to midnight with her childhood friend, Dawn Botkins of Michigan. Botkins also has agreed to take Wuornos' remains after her execution for private burial in Michigan, he said.

Patrons at Wuornos' favorite hangout, the Last Resort bar in Port Orange, where she was arrested for the killings, will remember her the morning of her execution with a toast, but otherwise have no special plans, said Al Bully, the owner.

"Aileen Wuornos is ancient history now -- we're getting ready for Biketoberfest," Bulling said. "We don't have time to worry about a cold-blooded killer."

Wuornos' case has inspired movies, an opera and several books. Her killing spree began Dec. 13, 1989, when the body of Richard Mallory, 51, a Clearwater electronics shop owner, was found in a wooded area outside Ormond Beach. Wuornos admitted killing six others in a two-year period leading up to her 1990 arrest.

An idiotic response, adding nothing to the discussion. I always felt Westerfield was guilty and was unsurprised by the verdict. The OJ comment is even more inane. I have a feeling I probably do know more about this case than anyone else on this thread, and even then I am unsure how I feel. None of the responses to my post add anything to my or anyone elses understanding of this case. What's the point of your comment? Humor? It wasn't particularly funny.

Credible conservatives who support the death penalty have qualms about this case. My own knowledge of this case leaves me uncertain about whether this woman deserves the death penalty. There are serious questions as to whether Wuornos was "of sound mind" when she committed these crimes. Perhaps, like another poster, issues of mental competence mean nothing to you. How primitive.

The OJ comment is even more inane. I have a feeling I probably do know more about this case than anyone else on this thread, and even then I am unsure how I feel.

FWIW, I'm one of the view people who think both OJ juries got it right. The difference was the first trial was "beyond a reasonable doubt" and the second was a "preponderance of the evidence". In other words, the first jury had to be 95% sure he did it. The second jury just needed to be 51% sure. I believe the "Dream Team" was successful in calling into question the integrity of the blood evidence and this provided reasonable doubt. This was further supported by later revelations that the LAPD often planted evidence at crime scenes - exactly what the "Dream Team" alleged.

But there were too many other factors, plus the introduction of the Bruno Magli shoes to not convict him in the second trial with the lower burden of proof.

I am familiar with that site, but had not read the Wuornos section there. I'm looking at it now, and while it clearly takes the editorial position that she is deserving of the penalty she received, the opening paragraph here contains this passage:

On March 31 she pleaded no contest to the murders of Dick Humphreys, Troy Burress and David Spears, saying she wanted to “get right with God.” In a rambling statement to the court she said, “I wanted to confess to you that Richard Mallory did violently rape me as I’ve told you. But these others did not. [They] only began to start to.” She ended her monologue by turning to Assistant State Attorney Ric Ridgeway and hissing, “I hope your wife and children get raped in the ass!” On May 15, Judge Thomas Sawaya handed her three more death sentences. She made an obscene gesture and muttered, “Motherfucker.”

While Wuornos made changes to her story as the noose tightened, one constant to all of it was that she stuck to the story that all the men she killed had tried to rape her. She didn't make any friends at the trial and did not participate in her defense in any effective fashion. Whether she acted out of murderous rage or self-defense, she stole property of her victims.

But Wuornos was a prostitute, and almost certainly had been raped before. The "true psychotic" defense arose from the idea that she was not in control of her actions once someone started to rape her. Wuornos is certainly a demented personality, and few doubt her guilt in these crimes. Several of her victims were shot several times, with at least one victim shot in the back (after being shot in the stomach or chest first) so she certainly used excessive force if she was defending herself.

I just can't get past the fact that she may have been defending herself from rapists (another theory, equally valid, is that she killed men because they refused to pay her for her services.) I guess given the circumstances, I would feel more comfortable giving her a life sentence. Unlike other women executed in Texas in the last few years - I'm thinking of Karla Faye Tucker, who helped butcher two people and claimed she had an orgasm during the killing, and an older woman who claimed her husband beat her, but had also killed another husband who certainly did not beat her - there seems to be at least the possibility that Wuornos tale could be true. Honestly, if those guys tried to rape her, they deserved what they got. And we'll never know what happened. (Another tragic facet of this case is that many people have serious questions about the character of her victims, especially the first one. While congress with a prostitute is certainly not an executable offense, the families and friends of these victims will always wonder just what the hell the victims were up to when they were killed.)

I suspect you disagree with that, and that's fine. You were civil in your response to me, and I hope I have been civil in mine to you. I am very tired with the constant anger and belligerence responses that pop up here recently. The character of FR is changing and I am tired of seeing people jumped on by people who have nothing valuable to add to a discussion - they merely insult, or whine that someone is wrong without offering any kind of information or argument. This behavior has long been a feature of any internet bulletin board, but seems to have gotten worse here in the last year or so.

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