Watching Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers Through a Cop’s Eyes

I spent thirty years carrying a badge, chasing shadows, and cleaning up messes. Homicides, trafficking, organized crime, the kind of stuff that sticks to your shoes. I’m off the clock now, but the job never really leaves you. You still look at everything like it’s a crime scene, always asking: What’s the real story here? And what are they trying to hide?

So when Netflix dropped Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers, I didn’t watch it for kicks. I watched it like it was an old file I’d pulled from the archives—closed on paper, but still smelling like trouble.

Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat, no fancy talk:

Now, the fact is, and in her own words, Aileen Wuornos was a serial killer.

Seven dead men. A pattern clear as day. Robbery. That ain’t no accident; that’s a run of crimes.

But that’s just the headline. The documentary digs into the murders, the hunt, the trial. It brings back the old mugshots, the screaming headlines. And if you listen close, it also kicks up a lot of dirt, a lot of questions nobody ever really answered.

I ain’t here to make excuses for her, and I ain’t here to cheer for the state. I’m just walking the perimeter, pointing out where the ground still feels uneven.

Aileen: The Woman on the Tape

The film’s got Aileen all over it: jailhouse interviews, courtroom meltdowns, sound bites for the evening news. She’s a live wire—furious, scared, sometimes just plain gone.

Her story? It twists and turns like a back road in the dark. Early on, she’s all about self-defense. Men picking her up, trying to rape or kill her, and her fighting back. Later, she’s colder, talking about robbery, about just taking them out. Two different stories for the same dead men.

You spend enough time in interrogation rooms, you see this. People lie. People tell the truth. People mix it all up until they can’t tell the difference themselves. You throw in a life full of abuse, bad breaks, and a head full of static, and you ain’t getting a straight line.

The documentary doesn’t try to tell you which version is gospel. It just plays the tape. And that’s probably the smartest thing it does.

But it leaves you with a woman who, in the end, called herself a serial killer. And a whole lot of earlier claims that don’t quite fit that final confession.

The Men Who Didn’t Make It Home

Seven men ended up in the morgue:

• Richard Mallory – Electronics shop owner, the first one on the list.
• David Spears – Construction worker, found naked on the highway.
• Charles Carskaddon – Rodeo guy, dumped off a dirt road.
• Peter Siems – Retired sailor; his car turned up with Aileen, but his body never did.
• Troy Burress – Delivery driver, vanished on his route.
• Charles “Dick” Humphreys – Ex-Air Force, child abuse investigator, found shot and half-dressed.
• Walter Antonio – Trucker, ex-security guard, also found naked and shot.

These weren’t just names on a report. They were somebody’s husband, father, son. They had lives. They got cut short. That’s the bottom line. The film reminds you of that, which is more than some of these true crime shows bother to do.

But when you dig into some of these guys, especially Richard Mallory, the picture ain’t so simple.

Richard Mallory: The First One, The Complicated One

If this whole case has any rot, it’s the Mallory killing.

In court, the story was simple: he picked up a hooker, and she killed him. Aileen said he was violent, tried to rape and kill her, and she shot him to save her own life. The evidence didn’t scream “self-defense”—multiple shots, not just one desperate squeeze. The jury heard that, and they made their call.

But here’s the kicker, the piece of the puzzle that got buried: Mallory had a record as a convicted sex offender. Documented fact. Not rumor.

Now, that doesn’t give anyone a license to kill. The law doesn’t work that way. But if you’re trying to figure out if that first killing was a cold-blooded hit or a desperate fight, his past ain’t just background noise.

You put that in front of a jury, and you gotta wonder:

• Does it make Aileen’s story about him being violent sound a little more believable?
• Does it make them think twice about whether this was just a simple robbery gone bad, or something uglier that spiraled out of control?

The documentary touches on Mallory’s past, but it doesn’t linger. It’s like they’re afraid to get too close to it. But for me, that’s the key. That’s the moment where the whole narrative could have shifted.

Would it have changed the verdict? The sentence? Who knows. But it sure as hell would have changed how that first killing was seen—from the defense table to the jury box to the headlines.

The Criminal Pattern: Clear as a Bell, Cold as Ice

Strip away the drama, and the pattern of these killings is stark:

• Bodies dumped in the boonies, off the main roads.
• Victims often naked or half-dressed.
• Multiple gunshots.
• Cars and wallets gone, later traced back to Aileen and her partner, Tyria Moore.

That’s not random. That’s a signature. That’s why, when I say “serial killer,” it’s not just a label. It’s what the evidence screams.

The documentary shows how the cops pieced it together:

• Missing persons reports matching abandoned cars.
• Witnesses seeing two women with those vehicles.
• Pawn shop receipts linking stolen goods to Aileen.
• Tyria Moore, under pressure, flips on Aileen, her lover.

It was good, old-fashioned police work. No magic. Just grinding it out.

But even with a clear pattern, that first killing still nags at you. Did it start the same way the last one ended? Or was there a moment, just one, where she truly believed it was kill or be killed?

The film doesn’t answer that. It just lays out the facts and lets you chew on them.

The Investigation and the Circus

The cops did their job. They caught her. But around that, the whole thing turned into a media circus.

Everyone wanted a piece of Aileen. Book deals, movie rights, interviews—the whole nine yards. Some of the people involved in the case, badges and all, were chasing those paychecks.

Now, is it illegal to make a buck off a big case? No. But does it make you wonder if every decision, every angle, every piece of information was handled with pure justice in mind, or with an eye on the big payday?

The documentary shows the frenzy—the cameras, the screaming headlines. But it doesn’t really dig into how that might have twisted things. For me, that’s a big blind spot. When a case becomes a commodity, the truth can get lost in the shuffle.

Did it change what stories got told? What facts got pushed to the front, and what got buried? Maybe. Maybe not. We’re left to guess.

The Trial: Fair Fight or Fixed Game?

On paper, the trial was legit:

• She had lawyers.
• She faced a jury.
• Appeals were filed.
• The state had a mountain of evidence.

That’s the rulebook. That’s how it’s supposed to work.

But “by the book” ain’t always “fair.”

Aileen was a train wreck on the stand. The film shows her—angry, yelling, contradicting herself. Jurors see that, and they shut down. They stop listening. It’s human nature. A defendant who looks like a raving lunatic ain’t getting much sympathy, no matter what the facts are.

Then you had the way the prosecution was allowed to bring in evidence from other killings. Once a jury hears you’ve killed seven people, it’s damn near impossible for them to look at any single killing and think “self-defense.”

And what about the stuff they didn’t hear, or didn’t hear enough of? Like Mallory’s past. If the people deciding her fate didn’t get the full picture of the men she killed, or the life she lived before she started killing, how fair was that verdict, really?

You can follow every rule and still end up with a result that leaves a bad taste in your mouth. That’s what I see here.

Victim, Killer, or Just a Mess?

People like things simple. Good guys, bad guys. Aileen Wuornos blows that up.

Before she ever pulled a trigger, she was a victim. Abused, abandoned, beaten, used up. That doesn’t excuse the murders. But it sure as hell explains how she got to that point.

Then she became a killer. Hunting men, robbing them, taking their lives. At least one of those men might have been dangerous themselves. Some might have been just unlucky to pick up the wrong trick.

Both things can be true. She was a victim. She was a killer.

For women who’ve been through hell, her story is a gut punch. It screams:

• Keep quiet, and you’re invisible.
• Speak up, and they won’t believe you.
• Fight back, and if someone dies, they’ll erase every bad thing that ever happened to you and just call you a monster.

The documentary shows her past—the trauma, the instability, the years of being used. It doesn’t make her a hero. It doesn’t make her a saint. It just shows you the raw material.

The question is, can our justice system, can we, handle someone that complicated? Someone who was both hunted and hunting? Based on this case, I’m not so sure.

The Case Is Closed, The Questions Ain’t

So what’s the takeaway from Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers?

Here’s what I got:

• Seven men are dead. Aileen Wuornos killed them.
• In her own words, she was a serial killer.
• That first killing, of Richard Mallory, still feels like a loose end once you factor in his past.
• The cops did their job, but the whole thing was wrapped in a media circus that makes you wonder.
• The trial followed the rules, but maybe not every truth got its day in court.
• Aileen was a victim, then a killer. Is the system built to see both?

Did justice get served? Or did we just close the file on a dangerous woman and, in doing so, miss a chance to look harder at how someone gets pushed to that edge?

I don’t have those answers. The film doesn’t either.

All I know is this: the case is closed, but the questions are still out there, hanging in the air like cigarette smoke in an old school corner diner. And maybe that’s how it should be.

Remember, folks, every crime has a story. My mission. Tell it.

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