Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers has landed on Netflix, detailing the widely debated true crime case of Aileen Wuornos. The documentary offers fresh insights through never-before-seen footage, including on her girlfriend at the time, Tyria Moore.
While the true crime genre has recounted the stories of countless serial killers over the years, the case of Aileen Wuornos is a rarity for the simple fact that she was a woman. But it’s her motives and moral complexity that sparks the most debate.
Wuornos’ complex psyche, her troubled past, and the traumatic experiences that shaped her into the killer she became have been detailed in multiple documentaries over the years, even inspiring Charlize Theron’s Oscar-winning performance in the 2003 movie, Monster.
Now, Emily Turner is revisiting the case in Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers, which seeks to better understand Wuornos, who shot and killed multiple men in Florida between 1989 to 1990. Warning: some may find this content distressing.
Where is Tyria Moore now?
Tyria Moore, longtime girlfriend of Wuornos during the killer’s spree, disappeared from the spotlight after the high-profile case unfolded in 1991. Today, reports suggest that the now-63-year-old resides in Pennsylvania, US, with a new wife and family.
Born in Ohio in 1962, she moved to Florida in the mid-1980s where she met Wuornos in a Daytona Beach bar in 1986. The pair fell in love, moved in together, and Moore stopped her motel maid job while Wuornos supported them through sex work.
Their relationship lasted roughly four years and coincided with Wuornos’ string of highway murders between 1989 and 1990. As is revealed in the Netflix documentary, Moore’s involvement came under intense scrutiny: she initially claimed she was unaware of the killings, but later admitted to being told about one.
On November 30, 1989, Aileen shot and killed Richard Mallory, a man she claimed tried to rape her. In court, Moore testified, “We were sitting on the floor watching TV. She just come out and said, ‘I have something to tell you.’ And I asked her what. And she said she had shot and killed a man that day.”
Eventually, Moore cooperated with police in exchange for immunity. Investigators placed her in a hotel and had her make several recorded phone calls to Wuornos, urging her to confess. In one of those calls, Wuornos repeatedly told Moore she didn’t want her to “get in trouble”.
“I’m not gonna let you go to jail. Ty, I love you,” Wuornos said. “If I have to confess everything just to keep you from getting in trouble, I will.” On January 16, 1991, Wuornos told Moore the truth to protect her, admitting to killing seven men.
Moore was never charged for the crimes thanks to the immunity deal in exchange for her testimony. In the 1992 trial, she gave evidence against Wuornos, who cried when the recorded phone calls were played.
After Wuornos was convicted, Moore withdrew from public view. Since then, she has remained out of the spotlight, declining to participate in later media projects (including the 2003 film Monster).
How did Aileen Wuornos die?
Wuornos was executed by lethal injection on October 9, 2002, at Florida State Prison. She became only the second woman ever put to death in Florida since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Her execution marked the end of more than a decade on death row, having been convicted of six counts of first-degree murder between 1992 and 1993 and receiving six death sentences.
Her first conviction came on January 27, 1992, for the murder of Mallory, with the jury taking just over an hour to reach its verdict. The new true crime documentary on the case looks at Wuornos’ self-defense argument, presenting her testimony of the brutal sexual assault Mallory allegedly committed.
It also reveals that records of Mallory’s prior attempted‑rape conviction and years of treatment at a facility for sexual offenders were not presented as evidence in the trial. After the Mallory conviction, Wuornos pleaded no contest to five more killings and was not charged for the seventh.
Following her sentencing, Wuornos spent more than 10 years on Florida’s death row at Broward Correctional Institution. During her incarceration, she became increasingly erratic and paranoid due to her mental health issues.
She eventually fired her legal counsel and refused to appeal her sentence further. Multiple documentaries have examined Wuornos’ troubled upbringing, having been neglected, abused, and abandoned from an early age.
What was her last meal?
Wuornos’ last meal was a cup of coffee. She refused the traditional last meal allowance of up to $20, reportedly telling prison staff she wasn’t hungry. Her last words reflected her anticipation to meet God and punish those who abused her.
As reported by the Guardian, the then-46-year-old’s “willingness to die only exacerbated her former lawyers’ fear that she was not mentally competent to decide to sack them and abandon objections to her execution.”
When asked if she had any last words, she responded, “I’d 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, on the big mothership and all. I’ll be back, I’ll be back.”
Wuornos’ final moments were just as infamous as her life and crimes, with Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers portraying the duality in a woman so often seen in black-and-white terms.
Director Emily Turner resists the temptation to sensationalize those moments. Instead, the documentary pulls back the curtain on the real Wuornos behind the headlines, examining the systems of abuse and exploitation that shaped her life.
It doesn’t ask viewers to forgive her, but to understand her. “It’s so much easier to write off someone who’s done such heinous acts as a cold-blooded murderer [rather than] a deeply damaged human,” Turner told Netflix’s Tudum. “Actually, she was made, and that’s chilling.”
“I think my hope is that two people watch this and come to quite different views,” Turner added. “I kind of want people to feel confused.”
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