{"id":13807,"date":"2026-10-08T10:42:38","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T10:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/realnewsz13.store\/?p=13807"},"modified":"2026-10-08T10:42:38","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T10:42:38","slug":"aileen-wuornos-haunting-last-letter-to-childhood-friend-before-execution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/realnewsz13.store\/?p=13807","title":{"rendered":"Aileen Wuornos\u2019 haunting last letter to childhood friend before execution"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Aileen Wuornos spent more than a decade waiting to die for murdering six men, but seven days \u201cbefore the end,\u201d the notorious serial killer wrote one final letter to the childhood friend who never abandoned her.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Only months after her arrest on Jan. 9, 1991, Aileen Wuornos wrote to Dawn Botkins from jail, reconnecting with a friend she had known as a teenager and offering an ominous hint about the murder accusations surrounding her.<\/p>\n

It was the first of hundreds of letters later published in \u201cDear Dawn: Aileen Wuornos in Her Own Words.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d love to tell you what\u2019s going on. Here, me in jail and the case. But I would Jeopardize a very severe matter (or) matters if I did,\u201d the \u201cDamsel of Death\u201d wrote in the April 1 letter, later adding, \u201cAs for what really went down. The world will be surprised to learn at trial time.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The world would soon learn plenty about Aileen Wuornos<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2018Hitchhiking and hookin\u2019 24\/7\u2019<\/h2>\n

By her own admission, the Michigan-born Wuornos was \u201chitchhiking and hookin\u2019 24\/7\u201d along Florida\u2019s highways, where she killed seven men between 1989 and 1990, People<\/a> reports.<\/p>\n

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As investigators closed in, they turned to Wuornos\u2019 girlfriend, Tyria Moore, who had left Florida and returned to Pennsylvania. Police persuaded Moore to cooperate, bringing her back to Florida and using recorded phone calls between the women to get Wuornos talking about the killings until she eventually confessed.<\/p>\n

\u2018I have hate crawling through my system\u2019<\/h2>\n

By January 1992, Wuornos was on trial for the first-degree murder of Richard Mallory, whom she maintained she had shot in self-defense after he attacked her. The jury found her guilty and unanimously recommended the death penalty, and Wuornos later pleaded guilty or no contest in five other murder cases, leaving her with six death<\/a> sentences.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI killed those men, robbed them as cold as ice. And I\u2019d do it again, too,\u201d Wuornos said, according to CNN<\/a>. \u201cThere\u2019s no chance in keeping me alive or anything, because I\u2019d kill again. I have hate crawling through my system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although she also confessed to killing Peter Siems, she was never charged in his death because his body was never recovered.<\/p>\n

\u2018Highway Hooker\u2019 meets Lizzie Borden<\/h2>\n

More than three decades later, Wuornos is back in the spotlight as notorious cases continue to fuel fascination around women associated with extreme violence.<\/p>\n

On Sept. 30, convicted killer Christa Pike<\/a> survived Tennessee\u2019s attempt to execute her by lethal injection, once again putting a notorious female killer at the center of national attention.<\/p>\n

Wuornos has resurfaced for a very different reason.<\/p>\n

Netflix has brought her into Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story<\/em>, where Sarah Paulson portrays Wuornos alongside Borden, the Massachusetts woman accused of killing her father and stepmother with an axe in 1892 \u2013 a century before \u201cHighway Hooker\u201d left a trail of dead men along Florida\u2019s highways.<\/p>\n

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