Mallory, a sexually aggressive loner, especially when fuelled by drink (and he drank to excess) was also excessively paranoid. He had a massive ego and considered himself a ladies’ man. With huge debts piling up, verging on financial ruin, he did what so many men do in similar circumstances: he entered the world of sexual fantasy and escapism again and again. The rented false adoration of women kept his ego inflated, albeit at a high cost, while his world slowly collapsed.
With Mallory’s temper still cooling from the long traffic delay, he saw Lee standing alone. The long, late-night drive, the booze, the intimacy of a warm car travelling the interstate, his financial worries forever creeping into his head, the conversation had to turn to sex once again. A deal was struck and then, with a flick of a switch, his alter ego came to the fore.
This time, however, he had chosen the wrong woman. This hooker was armed with a pistol, and she was prepared to use it. Sexually, mentally and physically abused from her formative years onwards, Lee was not the kind of woman to be hurt again, so she exploded into lethal violence.
‘I’ve got respect for myself. Always did have. Weird, right?’ she said to me.
It was a fatal mistake for Richard Mallory to treat her otherwise.
CHAPTER FIVE
DAVID SPEARS
WE WERE GETTING NUDE AND EVERYTHING AND WE WERE SCREWING AROUND AND ALL THAT STUFF, GETTING DRUNK AND EVERYTHING AND, UH, THEN HE… HE WANTED TO GO IN THE BACK OF THE TRUCK AND ALL I REMEMBER IS THAT, I THINK THERE WAS SOME KIND OF A LEAD PIPE OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT AND WE WERE IN THE BACK OF THE TRUNK AND WHEN I GOT BACK THERE, HE STARTED GETTING VICIOUS WITH ME AND I JUMPED OUT OF THE TRUCK AND HE JUMPED OUT OF THE TRUCK, RAN TO THE… TO THE CAR, I MEAN, TO THE DOOR, OPENED THE DOOR, GRABBED MY BAG, GRABBED THE GUN OUT, AND I SHOT HIM… QUICK AS POSSIBLE. I SHOT HIM AT THE TAILGATE OF THE TRUCK. AND THEN HE RAN AROUND TO THE DRIVER’S SIDE TRYING TO GET IN THE TRUCK TOWARDS ME, WHICH WAS WEIRD, TOWARDS ME, AND I JUST RAN INTO THE TRUCK TOWARD HIM AND I THOUGHT, WHAT THE HELL YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING, DUDE, YOU KNOW… YOU KNOW I… I AM GOING TO KILL YOU BECAUSE YOU WERE TRYING TO DO WHATEVER YOU COULD WITH ME. AND I SHOT HIM THROUGH THE… THROUGH THE DOOR AND THEN HE WAS KIND OF… WENT BACK AND I WENT RIGHT THROUGH TO THE DRIVER’S SIDE AND SHOT HIM AGAIN, AND HE FELL BACK. AND, THAT’S ALL I REMEMBER ON THAT ONE.
As ex-husbands go, 43-year-old David Spears was ideal. Practical, predictable, honest and hardworking, he was a man people counted on, the sort of guy you would want living next door to you. Earning his living as a construction worker, David lived in Winter Garden near Orlando, travelling south-west each day to Sarasota where he worked at Universal Concrete. A shy, softly spoken giant of a man, six foot four inches tall, bearded, greying and weather-lined from his outdoor lifestyle, he cared enough about his former wife, Dee, to give her a regular chunk of his monthly pay cheque. However, the thoughts going through David’s mind on the day he picked up Aileen Wuornos were probably not so charitable.
The story of David’s premature undoing begins just before lunchtime on Friday, 18 May 1990 when he called Dee and told her to expect him to call in some time between 2 and 2.30 the next day. On Saturday, he left work at about 2.10pm, a little later than planned, and started on his way in his old cream pickup north along I-75 to Tampa. He headed north-east up I-4 and then hit US 27. He was not seen alive by anyone again – apart from his killer.
David spotted Lee somewhere near the point where US 27 intersects with I-4, about 26 miles south of Winter Garden, and offered her a ride. She explained that she needed to get to Homosassa Springs, which straddles US 19 on the state’s west coast. Lee’s destination was right out of David’s way; in fact, it was at least 75 miles in the opposite direction to which he was heading. This was a 150-mile round trip and, as we recall, he had promised to meet with Dee around 2.30. More perplexingly, he would have had to pass within three miles of Winter Garden on the outward leg. Nevertheless, for some inexplicable reason, he agreed to take Lee.
Lee explained that they drove along US 27, then west on Highway 50, crossed I-75 on to Highway 90 and ended up pulling off the road on US 19 close to Homosassa Springs where David drove so deep into the woods ‘he was worried that his truck would get stuck’. Whether we believe Lee’s account of the murder or not, the facts are these: David Spears’s truck was found abandoned ten miles west of Orange Springs near CR 318 and I-75 in Marion County on Sunday, 20 May; a blonde hair was found on the steering wheel and a ripped ‘Trojan’ condom packet was found on the floor of the vehicle; all his personal property, including tools, clothing and a one-of-a-kind ceramic statue of a panther which he had bought as a present for Dee, was missing. As in the previous killing of Richard Mallory, the driver’s seat was pulled too close to the steering wheel for a man of his height, indicating to the police that someone else had driven the truck after the owner had been killed.
On Friday, 1 June, a man found the body of a male lying in a clearing amidst pine trees and palmettos. Mathew Cocking had just walked past an illegal dumping site on Fling Lane, a dirt road south of Chassahowitzka and running adjacent to US 19 in Citrus County, when he spotted the corpse. Mathew ran to the nearest payphone where he called 911.
When the police arrived, they found a badly decomposing body, nude except for a camouflage baseball cap which sat jauntily atop a ravaged head. On the ground near the body was a used Trojan condom, its torn black packet and several empty cans of Busch and Budweiser beer.
At first, because of the state of the body, the police were unable to determine the sex, age or likely cause of death. The corpse lay on its back, legs apart, arms outstretched, palms facing skywards. Lee had stolen her victim’s wages, his daughter’s graduation money and a quantity of cash he had hidden in his truck for emergencies amounting to about $600. She had hit pay dirt.
Dr Janet Pillow carried out the autopsy on Monday, 4 June. The man who weighed around 195 pounds in life had been reduced to 40 pounds by the time his body was discovered. Six .22-calibre bullets were recovered from the remains. Dental impressions identified the victim.
Everyone who knew Spears claimed that he could not and would not hurt a fly; he was incapable of the violent attack which his murderer would allege she had to defend herself against.
Five days later, another body was found.
CHAPTER SIX
CHARLES ‘CHUCK’ CARSKADDON
THAT GUY, HUH, THE DRUG DEALER… HE HAD $20. HE WASN’T GOING TO GIVE ME ANY MORE MONEY. THE ONE WITH THE .45 ON TOP OF HIS HOOD. HE CRAWLED IN THE BACK SEAT AND I CRAWLED IN THE BACK SEAT AND HE SAID, ‘YOU FUCKING BITCH’ AND ALL THAT STUFF, AND I THOUGHT, YOU FUCKING BASTARD. I SHOT HIM IN THE BACK SEAT AND THEN I GOT OUT AND KEPT SHOOTING. I SHOT HIM MORE THAN… OVER NINE TIMES, BEAUSE I WAS PISSED WHEN I FOUND THE .45 ON TOP OF THE CAR.
In Great Britain, less than 20 per cent of serious crime and less than 10 per cent of murders are committed by women, in a society where they outnumber men. In the USA, only 12 per cent of murders are committed by women.
Ninety per cent of the victims of women who kill are men, a statistic which speaks volumes. The vast majority of murders committed by women are, for want of a better phrase, crimes of passion. They are instigated by abuse or jealousy. Women generally are not as violent or physically aggressive as men, who may kill in brawls or during the course of crime. Without doubt there are different social controls on women which offer them less opportunity to be placed in a position to kill. It is a sign of the times, for instance, that they are not as free to roam the streets and bars at night. As we can see, Lee was an exception. Sometimes society and circumstance throw up a female killer who, because of the nature of her crimes and, indeed, because she is a woman, stuns and sickens us all. Lee Wuornos was that very rare specimen.