Aileen Wuornos, one of America’s most infamous female serial killers, left the world with a chilling message before she was executed by lethal injection in Florida in 2002.
Wuornos had been sentenced to death six times for the murders of seven men between 1989 and 1990.
A former sex worker, she claimed the killings were acts of self-defense, saying the men either raped her or attempted to. Despite this, she was found guilty of the murder of Richard Mallory and later confessed to six more, per Biography.
Her seventh victim, Peter Siems, was never officially confirmed due to the absence of a body, but her palm print was found inside his car.
During a recorded confession, Wuornos showed no sign of remorse. “I killed those men, robbed them as cold as ice. And I'd do it again, too. There's no chance in keeping me alive or anything, because I'd kill again. I have hate crawling through my system,” she said.
After a decade behind bars at the Broward Correctional Institute in Florida, Wuornos was reportedly eager for the state to carry out her sentence.
In 2001, she pleaded with officials to end what she described as a costly and unnecessary delay, insisting she was a danger to society and would reoffend if released.
Facing witnesses in the execution chamber, Wuornos reportedly smiled before making her last statement, per the Mirror.
“Yes, I would 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 mother ship and all, I'll be back, I'll be back,” she said.
Her words sent a shiver down the spine of those present, sealing her legacy as one of the most unsettling figures in true crime history.
Her disturbing story became the subject of two documentaries by director Nick Broomfield — Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer and Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer. In them, Wuornos discusses her crimes in increasingly erratic and intense interviews.
In one moment, Broomfield asks her directly why she committed the murders. Clearly agitated, Wuornos yells that the police allowed her to kill and snaps at the filmmaker: “You’re so lost.”
It was also the inspiration for the 2003 movie, Monster, starring Charlize Theron.
Wuornos declined a final meal and instead asked for a simple black coffee.