195 Judge Hutcheson was presiding over the Volusia appeals. Wuornos wrote to him to request the right to “waive off everything.”
196 Likely a “stun belt.” The belt is fitted around the prisoner, and, when activated via remote control, 50 kV of electricity is delivered over eight seconds.
197 Linda and Laura.
198 Dawn had agreed to help Wuornos send official letters to the judges of all the counties in which she was being tried, as well as other officials, stating that she wished to be executed.
199 Wuornos was preparing for a 3.850 hearing. A 3.850 motion is a challenge to a prior judgment. Often, these motions are based on ineffective counsel. In this case, Wuornos was first made to pass a competency hearing in order for the 3.850 hearing to be held. She was found to be competent on July 20, 2001, which allowed her to waive her plea.
200 Erich Anton Paul von Däniken, author of Chariot of the Gods (mentioned in the prior letter). His writing centers around purported interactions between early human civilizations and extraterrestrials.
201 A reference to “Outlaw Man” by the Eagles.
202 Richard Mallory had previously been imprisoned in Maryland for assault with intent to rape.
203 Bush made no such comment in his inaugural address. On February 13, 2002, he did sign Executive Order 13257, “President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons,” and on February 25, 2003, he signed National Security Presidential Directive 22, which included the language “The United States opposes prostitution and any related activities, including pimping, pandering, and/ or maintaining brothels as contributing to the phenomenon of trafficking in persons. These activities are inherently harmful and dehumanizing. The United States Government’s position is that these activities should not be regulated as a legitimate form of work for any human being.”
204 Wuornos had sent Dawn photocopies of articles about Ring v. Arizona, in which the Supreme Court held that a defendant had the right to a jury determination of the aggravating factors necessary for a death sentence. Florida had a case similar to Arizona’s Ring case, so all executions were halted until the outcome of Ring v. Arizona was known.
205 Rodolfo Hernandez, sentenced to death for the murder of five men, had his leg removed due to complications with diabetes. His request to receive a prosthetic limb before his execution on April 30, 2002, was denied.
206 Presumably, the local chapter of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, a motorcycle gang comparable to the Hells Angels.
207 Dawn’s son David’s wife. 207. Director of the Academy Award winning film Monster, based on Wuornos’s life story.
208 An interview with Nick Broomfield, presumably later seen in his documentary Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer.
209 Wuornos had filed a complaint stating, among other things, that she had overheard prison staff conspiring to have her raped, and that staff are putting spit and urine into her food. 210. Ring v. Arizona was decided on June 24, 2002.
210 Likely a reference to lawyer Raag Singhal, appointed to represent Wuornos in her suit alleging prison abuse. (Singhal went on to write to the Florida Supreme Court without Wuornos’s consent, expressing his “grave doubts” concerning her mental condition and her competence to be executed.)
211 Most likely Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer. The film was released in 2003.
212 Deuteronomy 22:25 – 27 (New International Version): “But if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. Do nothing to the woman; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor, for the man found the young woman out in the country, and though the betrothed woman screamed, there was no one to rescue her.”
213 Although Patty Jenkins never did have the opportunity to meet Wuornos in person, she had access to Wuornos’s letters when writing the script.
The correspondence reproduced in this collection was written by Aileen Wuornos, a death row prisoner with a long history of violence, emotional turmoil, and psychiatric issues. Wuornos was executed in 2002 and is therefore no longer available to comment on her thoughts, beliefs, and motivations in writing these letters. The statements and opinions included in these letters by no means represent the views of the publisher or editors. The publisher is printing this body of letters as a historical document only, and readers should not assume that any letter reproduced by the editors states the truth. Some names have been changed and details omitted in an effort to protect the privacy of individuals mentioned in the letters.
Copyright © 2012 by Lisa Kester and Daphne Gottlieb. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
eISBN : 978-1-593-76459-3
Soft Skull Press
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Dear Dawn Page 41
