In July 1990, while enjoying a drink at The Last Resort bar in Port Orange, Florida, local prostitute Aileen Wuornos was arrested on suspicion of murdering seven customers.
Eyewitness reports and forensic evidence had initially linked the 31-year-old to the string of fatal shootings, but it was a secretly-recorded confession Wuornos had made to then-girlfriend Tyria Moore that sealed her conviction.
Audio of the gut-wrenching telephone call can be heard in full for the first time in a chilling new Netflix documentary, Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers, which was released earlier today (30 Oct).
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The feature-length film uses both historical footage and powerful first-person interviews with those who knew the 'damsel of death' the best, including her adoptive mother and Moore herself.
What did the 'damsel of death' do?
For those unfamiliar with Wuornos infamous life and crimes, the troubled Michigan teen endured a childhood defined by neglect and abuse - domestic and sexual, as well as a heavy reliance on both drugs and alcohol.
As a young runaway, she felt forced to turn to sex work to support herself. Wuornos continued 'hooking', in her own words, across Florida even after she met Moore at a lesbian bar in Daytona Beach, Florida in 1986.
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Between the years 1989 and 1990, however, she was later found to have lured away and murdered Richard Mallory, David Spears, Charles Carskaddon, Troy Burress, Charles Richard 'Dick' Humphreys, Peter Siems and Walter Geno Antonio.
Despite police later determining that Moore had no involvement in the murders, it was found that she'd been informed about then by her partner, and that she and Wuornos had even gone on to pawn a number of precious items stolen from the victims.
Sensing that investigating officers were drawing closer to Wuornos after a media campaign published a description of the killer, Moore encouraged the serial murderer to turn herself in.
How was Aileen Wuornos caught?
And just hours after first being picked up by police, Wuornos did just that - confessing to each of the seven murders and turning down the police's suggestion of a lawyer.
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"Well, like, what’s an attorney going to do?" she is seen asking police in the eerie doc. "I know what I did. I’m confessing to what I did. Go ahead and put the electric chair to me."
Wuornos was firstly tried in court for the murder of Richard Mallory, which she claimed had been committed in self-defence after her raped, beat and threatened to kill her.
During the trial, however, the jury heard the phone call that Moore had recorded prior to Wuornos' arrest, during which she discreetly recorded her confession, before handing it to police.
Wuornos' confession call
The call was heard was follows:
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TM: Hello?
AW: Ty?
TM: Yes.
AW: Hi!
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TM: Hey. What the hell’s going on, Lee? They’ve been up to my parents’ again. They’ve got my sister now, asking her questions. I don’t know what the hell’s going on.
AW: Huh. What are they asking your sister questions for?
TM: *crying* I don’t know.
AW: Hmm.
TM: Lee, they’re coming after me, I know they are.
AW: No, they’re not, Ty.
TM: Why are they asking me so many questions then?
AW: Honey, listen, listen, listen. Do what you gotta do, okay?
TM: I’m gonna have to because I’m not going to go to jail for something that you did. This isn’t fair. My family is in a nervous wreck up there. My mom has been calling me all the time. She doesn’t know what the hell’s going on.
AW: Ty?
TM: What?
AW: I’m not going to let you go to jail.
TM: I don’t know whether I should keep on living or if I should…
AW: No, Ty. Ty, listen…
TM: What if they don’t believe me?
AW: Ty?
TM: What?
AW: I love you. If I have to confess everything just to keep you from getting in trouble, I will.”
TM: Okay.
AW: Don’t worry, okay?
TM: Okay.
AW: I love you.
TM: Well, do it now. Get it over with.
AW: Right at this very moment?
TM: Yes, get it over with.
AW: Alright.
TM: Okay? You can call me back later.
AW: Okay. But be careful. Alright?
TM: Alright. Okay, bye.
A killer is sentenced
During the trial, prosecutors had used a a legal tactic not usually permissible in court, whereby evidence related to her other of Wuornos' alleged crimes were used to show a pattern of illegal activity, and as such, she was found guilty of all seven murders.
After being handed the death penalty, she remained at the Florida Department of Corrections Broward Correctional Institution for nine years.
The documentary also features archival footage of a conversation Moore had with former Dateline correspondent Michele Gillen, filmed after Wuornos was sentenced to death.
Asked why she felt compelled to turn in the woman she allegedly loved, Moore claimed it was her girlfriend's disturbing level of intelligence that spurred to speak out: "At the time, I didn’t do it for the police. I did it for myself."
She went on to insist: "I was just living with her for four and a half years. I know her better than anyone else does. I think she’s very intelligent - she knows how to work around things.
"She would lie her way out of anything, and that’s mainly why I wanted her to confess to the murders, because I knew she could lie her way out of it."
One individual that has long been convinced that Moore had a more considerable part to play in Wuornos' crimes, is the killer's mother, Arlene Pralle, who adopted her in 1992 with her husband Robert following a religious epiphany.
For reference, the 'born-again Christian' felt compelled to reach out to Wuornos ahead of her first trial, convinced her soul could still be saved.
"I saw her picture in the newspaper and I get butterflies," she recalled in the documentary. "Then, when I was out on the lawnmower like 10 days later, Jesus asked me to reach out to her. ‘I want you to write her a letter and tell her about me. I want you to help her’.
"I wanted to be a mom forever, it was awesome. I mean, just unbelievable."
Of Moore's knowledge of the killings, Pralle went on to add: "[Wuornos] didn’t kill a single person before she met Tyria Moore - think about that.
"Tyria Moore was the catalyst that pushed her over the edge."
Topics: Crime, Documentaries, Netflix, True Crime, US News
Rhianna Benson