Female Serial Killer: The Case of Aileen Wuornos

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Female Serial Killer: The Case of Aileen Wuornos
There is this erroneous cultural assumption that woman, going by their nature, are not capable of being serial killers. This is a very deadly misconception as research has since proven that one in every six serial killers is a female. Female serial killers are also able to kill for longer periods of time without detection because of the society view women as nonaggressive and emotional beings that are incapable of such atrocities and, therefore, are least suspected in such cases (Cohen 37). A serial killer is defined as a murderer of three victims or more, spaced out at regular intervals that could be a week, a month or any period exceeding a week (Cohen 42). Women, just like men, are capable of being serial killers as is the case with Aileen Wuornos. This paper analyzes female serial killers by taking Aileen Wuornos as the case study.
An Overview of Wuornos Life
Aileen Wuornos was born in the year 1956 in Rochester, Michigan. She was sexually abused and as a teen she was thrown out of her home (Silva and Danielle 1). Having found herself on the wrong side of the law previously, she decided to venture in sex for money as a commercial sex worker in streets of Florida. Her first victim was her client, a man, who had taken her in for her sex services, and this was in 1989 when she was 33 years old (Silva and Danielle 1). She continued with her killing spree going on to kill five men or more before eventually being caught. She was convicted and placed and subsequently slapped with a death penalty. Even if her sanity was in doubt, Wuornos was finally put to death in 2002 through lethal injection (Silva and Danielle 2).
Vicious, Abusive Early Years
As a young girl, Wuornos went through a terrifying tumult. Her father took away his life while serving his jail term having been convicted of child molestation and her mother her alongside her elder brother Keith leaving both to be raised by the grandparents (Silva and Danielle 3). The grandparents were not any better: the grandmother was an alcoholic while the grandfather was a horrifying and violent force that made their lives even more difficult. Wuornos is said to have had sexual relationships with the brother and was also sexually abused by the grandfather.
Vagabond life
Having had violent and abusive early life, the adult Wuornos resorted to a vagabond existence. She hitched and engaged in commercial sex to survive (Silva and Danielle 5). In the mid-1970s, she had a wrong encounter with the force of law and got arrested and charged with assault and disorderly conduct. She then moved to Florida where she mat and fall in love with Lewis Fell, a wealthy yachtsman. The two got married in 1976, but the union soon got annulled following Wuornos arrest in a different altercation. She got involved in several crimes later on and after about a decade, she met Tyria Moore a 24-year-old man in Florida where the two resorted to a romantic relationship (Silva and Danielle 6).
Possible factors making one to become a serial killer
Many psychologists have outlined several experiences in life that mould one into a serial killer. Several research findings have pointed out that the early liv...