You're listening to Facing Evil, a production of iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals participating in the show and do not represent those of iHeartRadio or Tenderfoot TV. This podcast contains subject matter which may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.
Hello everyone, welcome back to Facing Evil from Tenderfoot TV and iHeartRadio. We are your hosts. I'm Roschia Pecureiro.
And I am Eve Genteelay and here as always with our amazing producer Trevor Young.
Hey there, how's it go?
Hello? Hi Trevor, Oh my god. Okay, so I have to tell you too about what I hope, pray beg for the two of you and all of our listeners to binge watch immediately. And again we are not sponsored, but if if you want to sponsor us, please tell us Amazon Prime. But a league of their own, the reimagined series from creator Abby Jacobson, and she's also one of the stars in it. She's the co creator. But it's so incredible. I have to tell you a little bit about this series and why. Of course, as the
card holding lesbian that I am. Of course I want to watch, you know, the reimagining of a baseball you know, female baseball players, you know baseball show. But there's two reasons that I want all of our listeners and for
the two of you to watch it. One, In Petty Marshall's original movie in the nineties, she only alluded to the fact that there were African American women that played baseball during that time, right, but they weren't allowed to play in the All American you know, girls professional Baseball League, which is what this series is based on. It took place,
I believe in nineteen forty three. She like did like a little to it, just like one scene, but she didn't allude at all to the queer scene of that time. And in the new series, they allude, not only allude, they slap you in the face with it beautifully. They bring in beautiful characters and people of color. And it's absolutely brilliantly incredible, laughing, crying, all the things. So please, please, please, please please please watch it.
Absolutely And what did you say?
It was on again? Amazon?
No?
Amazon Prime?
Oh, Amazon Prime. Okay, yeah, I can't wait to watch. It's so interesting that you say that because I was just on a plane to New York and I just watched for the first time forty two. But Chadwick Boseman, and you know the story about Jackie Robinson, and that was amazing and just to think about you know what, you know, Jackie endured during that time, and I could
imagine the same for those those women back then. Yeah, I mean you had to be fierce, you know, just the insults and the hate that was being thrown out there. So yeah, I can't wait to watch that. But forty two is amazing as well. Yep, all righty well, Trevor, will you please take us through today's.
Case, but now a story of unnatural violence, the case and confessions of a female serial killer.
She was tired of being in the spotlight. She was tired of reporters and police and lawyers, everyone making a career off of her. There are many people who were abuse, his children, who were raped. They don't pick up a gun and kill No. I wasn't born bad. You guys got it stand time tell you man.
They lied, They lied so bad to you all.
Eileen Warnos was a Florida based serial killer who murdered seven men between nineteen eighty nine and nineteen ninety. Eileen had a troubled upbringing. At the age of four, she was abandoned by her parents and adopted by her maternal grandparents. Her grandparents were alcoholics and known to be abusive, both verbally and sexually. At age eleven, Eileen reportedly engaged in sexual activity at school for drugs and cigarettes, and at age fifteen, she was thrown out of the house by
her grandfather. She survived through sex work and frequently got into trouble with the law. Then, in November of nineteen eighty nine, she committed her first murder. According to Eileen, she shot the man because he had raped her. Over the next year, she would kill six more men in a similar fashion. Eileen was eventually captured and sentenced to death for the murders, and in October of two thousand
and two, she died by lethal injection. The following year, a biographical film called Monster premiered, which revealed a new layer to Eileen, depicting her not just as a killer, but also he was a victim of the circumstances in which she was brought up, and so who was Eileen warnos what drove her to murder seven men, and to what degree was she just as much a victim as the people she killed?
This is such an incredibly wild story. I mean, I think the case of Eileen Warnos is so important because it really brings up a question of who the victim really is in a case like this.
Right, Like, everyone I believe during that time was so quick to think that Eileen was this man hating, lesbian, cold blooded killer who went on this murder spree, right, But in reality, let's face it, she was, I believe, truly a victim herself. Of course, the people that she took the lives of were victims as well. But I think that both can be true, and I think not enough people actually talk.
About that exactly. But you know, there is no denying that she was a killer. But however, she also lived a life of abuse and neglect. Eileen was a woman who was mistreated from the very first day, like I mean, all the way until the end of her life. She was born into a violent lifestyle where she literally had to fight to survive. Yeah, but you know, like you said, she also murdered at least seven men, And no matter
what we say today, it's an incredibly complicated case. People are on both sides, in the middle, all over the place. But you know we're going to dig into all the sides today. And one quick note before we get going. One of the accounts of Aileen Weoronos's life that sheds so much light on her victimhood is the phenomenal sometimes hard to watch because it's so intense, but the phenomenal
film two thousand and threes Monster. It is an absolutely incredible film that truly captures who Eileen was as a person and as a human being. And the director of that film is the great, the most phenomenal, one of the most phenomenal humans I've ever met in my entire life. Patti Jenkins and Patty is going to be joining us for an interview on the next episode of Facing Evil. Yes, we are so excited to talk to Patty. And for
those who don't know, Patty is our Ohanna. She is the one who brought our mother's life story to fruition and we have always wanted to talk to her about Eileen Warrenos. So definitely, you must, you must look out for this episode.
Absolutely, it's going to be incredibly fantastic. And even though we've known Patty for years, we've never talked to her about Eileen. So with that said, stay tuned for that. But we are going to start talking about Eileen right now, and let's learn about Eileen's early life.
Yeah. So Eileen was born in Rochester, Michigan, on February twenty ninth of nineteen fifty six, and her mother, Diane, was only sixteen at the time of giving birth to Eileen. Her father was Leo Pittman, and he was nineteen at the time of her birth, so her parents had been married when Diane was only fourteen, which is kind of wild. They also had a son named Keith, who was born before Eileen.
Oh wow.
Yeah, so Diane was super young when she was having kids.
Yeah.
But the couple divorced two months before Eileen was even born, so this was already kind of a tumultuous situation, potentially a recipe for disaster. And Leo was supposedly a pretty trouble guy. Reportedly he had issues with alcohol. So as you can imagine, Diane as a teenager, you know, just age sixteen, wasn't really prepared to deal with children and an alcoholic husband. So they divorced and then she was just kind of all alone with these kids.
Yeah, and then Diane actually she abandoned both of her children. There's this one story where Diane left Eileen and Keith with a babysitter for one night, and then she called later to say that she wouldn't come back. Can you imagine. Can you guys imagine being the babysitter on the other line and you have two kids and the parents says, I'm not coming back.
I'm surprised she called at all.
That's just wild.
Yeah.
But eventually Eileen and her brother were adopted by Diane's parents.
Yeah. I mean, so both of her grandparents where she now lived, they were both incredibly abusive. They were also both alcoholics. Diane Warno's Eileen's mom would say that both of her parents were very verbally abusive to her and to Eileen, and Eileen would also say that her grandfather at some point sexually assaulted her.
So she never had a chance.
No, Yeah, I mean, she's a kid, and she's already dealing.
With all those right Sadly, you know, it started to catch up with her, and at the tender young age of eleven, you know, she reportedly started having sex with her classmates in exchange for food, drugs, and cigarettes. So she basically became a sex worker at the age of eleven.
Yeah, it's all heartbreaking and just horrible, you know.
Eileen also struggled with behavioral problems, everything ranging from truancy not going to school to fights at school. She was also diagnosed with different disabilities, and that had to have had a huge impact on all of the other issues and factoring middle school, Eileen was diagnosed with hearing and visual problems and they tested her IQ and she only scored eighty one, which is technically considered borderline intellectual functioning.
And basically, so many things were stacked up against Eileen.
Yeah, I think a lot of people don't know about that.
No, I don't think so.
I remember there's a story that one of the school officials spoke to her grandparents and they were urging her to get her special counseling, but her grandmother refused to provide any treatment. They were asking or telling I should say, you know, can you help you know your granddaughter, and they said no, And so the school went as far as to give Eileen a mild tranquilizer. And I guess is that normal for like back then where they gave kids tranquilizers.
I don't know, but definitely not.
I don't think you'd get away with that today, but.
Definitely not today. But that didn't work either. I mean, she was clearly showing problems and nobody was helping her.
Yeah, So anyways, there are some other unfortunate things that happen. In nineteen seventy Eileen is reportedly raped by a friend of her grandfather's, so this is a much older man, and at the age of fourteen, as a result of this, Eileen became pregnant. So during her pregnancy she was actually sent to a home for unwed mothers. And then on March twenty first of nineteen seventy one, Eileen gave birth to a son, and that child was placed up for adoption,
and Eileen then dropped out of school entirely. I don't think we know who that son is or what happened to them, and I don't think Eileen ever met them.
I don't don't believe either.
But can you imagine, Yeah, the getting sexually assaulted like that and then having to deal with that at fourteen, and she.
Was sent to an unwed mother's home, and you know, We've heard that story before because our own grandmother, that's our mother's story. Our grandmother, Tomorrow Hodell was sent to an unwed mother's home when she got pregnant with our mother at the age of fifteen.
Oh really, she was actually fourteen.
Oh wow, she was fourteen, gave birth at fifteen.
Yeah, that's a really interesting parallel.
Yeah, I think that's what they did during that time, right, Yeah, although this was this was nineteen seventy one, but when it happened Tomorrow it was twenty years earlier, so in nineteen fifty one. But yeah, So.
The idea of being there is that like when women, you know, something shameful happens to them or something like that, that you just kind of shuffle them off and like hide them away.
Until they have the baby and then they get placed up for dubtion.
Yeah. And so later that very same year, in nineteen seventy one, Eileen's grandmother died of liver failure, and then her grandfather kicked Eileen out, so she was left to fend for herself at the age fifteen, and she took up sex work to survive. She even lived in the woods, she knows, right, Yeah, yeah, she just went back to what she'd been doing from the times she was eleven and according to the Tampa Bay Times here and this is a quote, at fifteen, Eileen was left to fend
for herself. She spent nights sleeping in abandoned cars or seeking the refuge of homes in the area. Family and neighbors told investigators that's.
Like, you know, when you think about that, like they just left her out to be a wild animal.
Right.
Anyhow, Eileen left Michigan, and rightfully so. But she sort of becomes a vagabond, like she's traveling and she's hitchhiking across the country.
We know that.
On May twenty seventh, nineteen seventy four, Eileen was arrested in Colorado for a DUI and she was also arrested for disorderly conduct for firing a pistol out of a moving car. And so she was then charged with a f Well, you're to appear in court, so obviously she never showed it up for that, right, So she's you know, hitchhiking across country. She's handling guns and getting into trouble with the law. I mean, this all just seems like a bad situation, getting.
Worse, right, Yeah, things are definitely starting to spiral at this point. And eventually she makes her way down I seventy five all the way to Florida, and this is where really most of the story takes place. This is where Eileen lives when she eventually murders seven men. And we'll get into that right after we take a quick break.
So I want to point out a few more notable things that happen with Eileen before her murdering spree begins. First, in nineteen seventy six, she met and married a sixty nine year old man named Louis gratz Fell. During their marriage, Eileen beat Louis with his very own cane, and Louis ended up getting a divorce from Eileen and even took out a restraining order against her. And he would be quoted as saying, Wernos has a violent and ungovernable temper
and threatened to do bodily harm end quote. What do we think about this?
It's weird. I mean, this marriage clearly doesn't last very long for a good reason, right, I mean, is I guess the first case we have of Eileen being incredibly violent, you know, especially to somebody She's I supposedly romantically involved with.
I wonder how much of that was just survival, right, Yeah, And you know, things proceeded to go even more downhill from there. And in nineteen seventy eight, at the age of twenty two, Eileen attempted suicide by shooting herself in the stomach. And that wasn't even her first suicide attempt. I think it was her sixth suicide attempt, her first time that she had tried to kill herself she was only fourteen years old.
Yeah, and then at that point it was just seemingly crime after crime that she was caught for throughout the years. Just a couple of notable examples, she robbed a convenience store in nineteen eighty one. She tried to cash forwards checks at a bank. She was also arrested in Miami in nineteen eighty six for car theft and for resisting arrest. And then also that year she robbed a man at gunpoint, demanding two hundred dollars. So this is unfortunately Eileen's life. Now it seems like, well.
It's been that way forever. It feels like, yeah, exactly, She's like.
Now she's resorting to violence, right.
Crime and violence. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely gone to the next step.
Yeah, And everything is spiraling out of control with her, right. But then she meets someone who is very, very important in this story. She meets a hotel maid named Tyra Moore. And for anyone who had didn't seen Monster, she is portrayed by the great Christina Ricci. And this character that Christina Ricci plays, her name is Selby in the movie. In the movie Monster, But this is really the beginning of a love story. When she meets Tyra.
I mean, I don't know, but it might have been the only like glimmer of light in Eileen's life, and the two of them, you know, begin a very enduring but very tumultuous and difficult relationship. And Eileen was thirty and Tira was twenty four years old at this point. They moved in together not long after meeting, like the typical lesbians. I can joke about that because hello, we do that, you haul really fast. So they of course,
you know, we're living together. And the only way that Eileen could support Tyra was by doing sex work, and that's how they survived. You know, I'm sure this was hard on them as a couple, But to be honest, I'm I'm just glad that Eileen had Tira for however brief a time.
As you alluded to though Russia, this doesn't last very long because in nineteen eighty nine the murders begin, and let's go through them in order rather quickly. So on November thirtieth, a fifty one year old man named Richard Charles Mallory picked up Eileen in his car, and supposedly this is for Eileen to provide him with sexual services. So Eileen would claim that Mallory tied her to the steering wheel of his car and raped her. And then after this assault, she pulls out her gun and shoots
him multiple times. So two of those shots punctured his left lung, killing him. Eileen then dumped his body in the woods nearby. The police wouldn't discover the body until December thirteenth, a few weeks later, and this is officially eileen first killing.
Yeah. I want to say that Eileen did this first one in self defense, but as much as I want to defend Eileen for everything that she's been through, this happens six more times, not once, not twice, six more times.
Yeah, and we only have her account, right, Like, we don't have anybody else to back the story up or say that something else happened, you know.
So yeah, just Silene's testimony, right, just Sileen's recollections of this.
So.
On June first of nineteen ninety, police discovered the naked body of forty seven year old David Andrew Spears, who had also been shot to death, and just a few days later, on June sixth, they found the body of forty year old Charles Edmund Carkcadon, wrapped in an electric blanket. In both of these cases, investigators determined that they had been killed with a twenty two caliber gun. Was later spotted driving Carskannan's car, and she had also pawned a gun that was in his name. Crazy.
It just seems like she's not covering any tracks.
I mean she Yeah, I don't think she really had any concept of covering her tracks, you know. I think she was just in these very probably desperate situations and just reacted. I mean that said, like she could have had the I don't know, the thought to throw evidence away, maybe not like drive that person's car around. I don't know. So Anyways, the next victim is Peter Abraham Siams, and on July fourth, police find his car, but they never
find his body. To this day, they've actually never found his body, but Eileen and Tyra had been spotted leaving his car a few days earlier, and they also find Eileen's handprint on the inside door handle.
Again not thinking. She probably wasn't even thinking about it. She was just trying to survive, trying to Oh my god, I just killed another person. What do I do next? I mean, I don't know I'm kill her. I don't know what her mind was like, but yeah, I'm just thinking about what you were just saying.
And you know she had to, you know, in the moment, of course, you're not thinking about that, in the hype of doing all the things that she's done. But eventually she has to know that it's going to catch up.
To her, right right, you would think. So, I think this is where it was a pivotal point in where everything changed for Eileen. And this is depicted so beautifully in the movie Monster by Patty Jenkins. And you're just like riveted, You're like, what is going on? So a witness actually sees Eileen and Tyra in you know, Peter seems car and she sees them get into a car accident, and they don't ask for help from her. They freak the f out and take off. So this woman is like,
what just happened? And you see that in the scene in the movie, and it actually happened in real life. So this witness was able to give you know, full descriptions of Tyra and Eileen to the authorities. And then basically, I mean we're supposed to say man hunt, but the woman hunt.
Began, So I mean, yeah, exactly. Up until this point, there was not really a big connection between all of these different murders. You know, I think they were sort of figuring out what was going on eventually, but now they're seeing like, oh, like these women are probably behind this. They had the victim's car. You know, a lot of things are lining up now. So a couple more murders happened before they actually catch So the next victim is
fifty year old Troy Eugene Burris. He was found on August fourth of that year, and victim number six is Charles Richard Humphries, who was found on September twelfth. And then the final victim was sixty two year old Walter Gino Antonio and he was found on November nineteenth. And this is nineteen ninety so it's now been a full year since Eileen started killing.
It's just so crazy, all of that in one year, that's seven victims.
Well, you know, it doesn't take police very long to figure out that it is Eileen that has been behind all of these murders, and they do finally track her down. And as we said, I mean, Eileen wasn't covering her tracks very well for that year of all of those murders. She was pawning her you know, her victim's belongings at pawnshops all around Florida, and her fingerprints were actually found
on one of the pawn shop receipts. And then so once they matched up that print that was on the pawn shop receipt, authorities put out a warrant for her arrest finally after that year of her killing.
Yeah, and of course at this point it's just a matter of time, right, So finally, on January ninth of nineteen ninety one, Eileen is arrest did at Last Resort, which is a biker bar in v Lucia, Florida. So technically police arrested her for an outstanding warrant for something else. She was under the assumption that the warrant was related to one of the many fake names that she had been using going around using.
She didn't think she was getting arrested for murder.
Okay, yeah, I mean, she had no idea that investigators had linked her to these murders at all, or that she was under suspicion for them at all. So anyways, she's arrested, taken into custody, and then we'll talk about what happens after we take another quick break.
So after the police arrest Eileen on January ninth, they find Tyra the next day in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where she I guess she was staying with her sister. They don't charge her, but they do question her about Eileen's activities.
So I do want to read this quote from Crime Library about what Tyra told them at that time. And just side note here, Tyra always called Eileen Lee, so she's going to be referring to Lee here in this quote. She had known about the murder since Lee had come home with Richard Mallory's Cadillac. She said Lee had openly confessed that she had killed a man that day, but Moore told her not to say anything else. I told
her I didn't want to hear about it. She had her suspicions, she admitted, but wanted to know as little as possible about Lee's doings. The more she knew, she reasoned, the more compelled she would feel to report Lee to the authorities. And she didn't want to do that. I was just scared, she said. She always said she'd never heard me, but then you can't believe her, So I don't know what she would have done. End quote.
Hmmm, we do know, like Tyra genuinely loved Eileen, you know, and she wanted to protect her. But I don't know. Like at the same time, she's saying that you can't believe her, but she's like, I don't know, right, I'm not one hundred percent sure.
Because she knows that she's killed people.
Yeah, I don't know if Tyra really trusts her or not.
Yeah, because you can love someone and not trust them.
But as the quote kind of says, she was willfully ignoring it or like trying not to believe it, right, which is I think a thing that happens in relationships that involve some sort of like dark behavior on one part of the relationship, right, the other person in the relationship tends to kind of like block it out of their head and pretend it's.
Not a problem, right, compartmentalize exactly.
So deep down Tyra knows, but she's trying to like crush it down, just move along and trust her. But like deep down knows that like Aileen's probably not trustworthy.
Probably not.
Yeah, that said, police do convince Tied to speak with Eileen on a recorded phone line, and they persuade her to confess. In exchange for this, they offer Tira immunity from prosecution. So the first call happens on January fourteenth, when Tyra calls Eileen, who is in jail, but Eileen does not confess at first. In fact, Eileen was under the impression, as we said before, that she was only in jail for a minor weapons violation and a traffic ticket.
That's just crazy.
I also read that Eileen was speaking in code words on that entire phone conversation, which obviously suggests that she knew more about the situation than she led on. I mean, she she had to have been just playing it cool.
She knew, Yeah, she knew she was being recorded. Yeah, I mean, she knew that it was only a matter of time.
Right.
But on the third day of phone calls, which was January sixteenth, Eileen finally agreed to confess in order to protect Tira. So here's another interesting quote from crime Library quote. Moore became more insistent that the police were after her, and it became clear that Wernos knew what was expected of her. She even voiced suspicion that Moore was not alone, that someone was there taping their conversations. But as time passed, she became less careful about what she said. She would
not let Moore go down with her. Just go ahead and let them know what you need to know, what they want to know or anything, she said. And I will cover for you because you're innocent. I'm not going to let you go to jail. Listen, if I have to confess, I will end quote.
Right. So when it comes down to the final decision, Eileen decides to choose Tira over herself, and she does ultimately confess. So Eileen goes in to confess, but there are two big points she insists on. While she is confessing. One is that Tyra had nothing to do with any of the murders, and two that none of this was
any of her fault Eileen's. That is, so, she claims that all of these murders were done in self defense, that each of the victims had either assaulted her, threatened her, or raped her, and this idea becomes essentially the mantra of Eileen during the entire trial and all of this process of her defending herself. It is important to note that investigators during the confession said that her story kind
of seemed to develop as she told it. So when she thought she'd said something that was like kind of incriminating, like when she caught herself, she would like back up and rewind and be like no, no, no, actually retracked, yeah, and then she would retell it, changing little details to kind of like fix it along the way. So it's again kind of hard to trust Eileen's account, at least according to the investigators.
To me, this was clearly self defense, especially for the first one. That's my opinion. She was fighting for her life against violent men who were not trying, but who had raped her.
But do you think it was self defense? After that? Point, or you know, do you think like she was making up the self defense part for the ones after the first one? And that seems to be a big question in this case.
You know, that's the difficult thing about this case, is like you don't really know, but I just have to say, for me, I feel like the first victim was clearly self defense. The other six I don't think.
So. Yeah, So let's talk about the trials then. So Eileen's first trial, which is for the murder of Richard Charles Mallory, begins on January fourteenth of nineteen ninety two. So because police had already connected her to the other murders by this point, prosecutors here were able to bring
in all the evidence from those other cases. And this is something that's kind of unique to Florida law, which says that you can actually pull in evidence from other cases if you can demonstrate that there's a pattern between all the different cases, right, or that there's a pattern of behavior evident in comparing all the cases.
Do we are we okay with this law? I'm like, I'm not really sure, do you know what I mean? Because it's like, I feel like that first murder was self defense, but I can see why they're allowed to bring in other evidence because they're trying to prove that it was a pattern, because it wasn't only Richard Mallory, it was Richard Mallory and six other people. But now that the jury knew right about all of those murders, that made Eileen's claim of self defense against Richard way
less probable because it happened six more times. So to them this looked much more like a serial killer killing spree. Right.
Well, there was also this to consider. The was the videotaped confession, and to be honest, this didn't really help the whole self defense case either. So supposedly Eileen appears very confident and unbothered by the stories of rape and resulting murder that she was confessing to. So she also made apparently quote easy conversation with her interrogators, and she even told her public defender to be quiet multiple times. So she apparently just seemed very in control of the
situation throughout. So I don't really know what to make of that. To me, that's just that account seems very sexist in nature, like she wasn't emotional enough as a woman about these terrible things, like they wanted her to be more like, oh, no, this is such a terrible thing that happened.
I wanted to say, yeah, yeah, I.
Mean that said, it's also a bit I don't know, sociopathic to like, no matter what who you are, to talk about like murdering people and ever like callus. And I can see why the jury would hear that and be like, ooh, this person does not have a lot of remorse for killing. So you know, I think that's really what the jury saw here.
Yeah, so unsurprisingly, Eileen, like you just said what, The jury was convicted of first degree murder for killing Richard Charles Mallory on January twenty seventh. The jury deliberated for less than two hours before determining she was guilty. And then as she left the courtroom, Eileen exploded into this rageful shouting fit. And this is so incredibly hard for me to even say these words, but this is coming
from her mouth, and she says, I'm innocent. I was raped, and I hope you get raped, scumbags of America.
Thankes well. The next phase of her trial was the penalty phase, and that's to determine what punishment she gets. The defense argued, that Eileen was quote mentally ill and suffered from borderline personality disorder, and that her tumultuous upbringing had stunted and ruined her. So her lawyer basically pleaded to the jury to save Eileen's life by saying that, you know, she was too mentally ill to know what she was doing. However, this argument really didn't have much
impact on the jury. They pretty quickly recommended the death penalty, and on January thirty, first Judge Guriel Blunt sentenced Eileen to death by electric chair for Mallory's murder. Do you think this was justified? The death penalty?
Is the death penalty ever justified?
No?
I don't know if we want to go there, but I can go back to like talking about, you know how she was just thrown away. She was literally thrown out to fend for herself like a wild child, and she, you know, was born on that mentality either she was going to get killed or she was going to kill them, right, That was rage that was inside of her.
So I think this is where I'm really torn, right because I feel so bad for Eileen, because you know, we always say on this show, you're not born a victim. But it's almost like she didn't have a chance. You know, I'm surprised she lived as long as she did without killing herself. Yeah, killing herself, killing anyone. I mean, she did attempt to take her own life, you know, half a dozen times. Like it's heartbreaking to me, But I
don't believe she should have been killed. I think she should have been given a chance to get mental health help.
I want to point out something that I think a lot of people don't think about when it comes to something like Eileen. She's one of the very few female serial killers out there, right, there was not a ton
of precedent for someone like Eileen. So when she's going through this trial, when she's going on the stand, they're not just viewing her as a serial killer, they're viewing her as a woman, right, And so a lot of their lens is very clouded by perceptions of womanhood, how a woman should act, and that compounds a lot on the again, the perceptions of the jury. And so I think part of her sentence was, you know, based on a lot of probably misogyny or at least misunderstanding of
what women go through. And there was just a lot working against her and A big part of that was just that people listening to her story or trying to understand her just had nothing to work.
With, right. And I wonder too, like with the death sentence, did they do that to make an example of her.
That's a very valid point that you just made, Trevor. And it's like, you know, the jury, the judge, they all have this kind of cookie cutter image of what a woman is supposed to be, right, and that is not what they were looking at, you know, in their eyes. They weren't looking at you know, what this woman had endured, you know, her whole life. They were looking at, you know, well, this is this is a monster.
Yeah.
And I do wonder, like just theoretically, like what if it was only the first murder, what if it had just been Richard Charles Mallory, Like, would she still had been convicted the same way or not? And my theory is that she would have really because I think to that jury and that judges, it didn't matter if it was one man, didn't matter, if it was seven, it didn't matter, if it was self defense, didn't matter, if it was cold blooded, you know, thrill of the kill.
I think, to them, a woman who was out of control, and who killed who was had the lifestyle that she had was already condemned, you know before she walked in that courtroom.
Wow, especially especially during that time. You're absolutely right, Trevor, and in Florida. Yep, absolutely right.
Mm hmm.
So on March thirty first, it was decided that Eileen would not stand trial again, and Eileen pleaded no contests to the other murders, and she pleaded no contests to the murders of Charles Richard Humphries, Troy Eugene Burris, and David Andrew Spears. In a statement about this, Eileen would say, quote, I wanted to confess to you that Richard Mallory did violently rate me as I've told you, But these others did not. They only began to start to end.
Quote.
So yeah, there you go. So that that changes the game right there.
So in total, even though we believe Eileen killed seven men, she ends up with only six total death sentences. And that's because the seventh death sentence couldn't be carried out for the murder of Peter Abraham, seems because his body, like Trevor said, was never found.
So Eileen's lawyers spent much of the next decade trying to appeal her sentences, but apparently Eileen wasn't interested in having her sentence changed. In fact, in two thousand and one, Eileen petitioned to have her lawyers dismissed and cancel all of her penning the pills.
She just gave up.
Yeah, exactly. This is a quote. This is what she said. She said, I killed those men. I rob them as cold as ice, and I do it again too. There's no chance in keeping me alive or anything because I kill again. I have hate crawling through my system. That's heavy.
Yeah.
Yeah. And one thing that did happen is she requested that her method of execution be changed to lethal injection instead of electric chair. And I think rightfully so. And the Florida Supreme Court did agree to all those requests that you laid out, Yvetts, so they dismissed the appeals and her lawyers.
On October ninth, two thousand and two, Eileen Wrenos was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison. She declined a last meal, just asking for one single cup of coffee instead. In her final statement before her execution, she seemed to accept her fate, and I'll be honest, I googled it, I tried to look it up. I was trying to decipher this last quote that I lean left with the world, and I couldn't make sense of any
of it. But I'm going to read it to you and maybe you can figure it out, and please tell me if you do. Quote, I'd just like to say, I'm sailing with the rock and I'll be back like Independence Day with Jesus June sixth, like the movie Big Mothership and all I'll be back. End quote.
So my understanding is that the last few years of Eileen's life she was not well mentally right, so maybe there is some sense to be made here, But I kind of when I read that, I chalked it off to Okay, those are the last semblances of lucidity coming through.
So yeah, Well after those words, Eileen was pronounced dead at nine forty seven PM. She was the first woman to ever be executed in the state of Florida, and only the tenth woman to ever be executed in the entire country since capital punishment had been restored in the United States in nineteen seventy six. She was cremated and her ashes were spread in Michigan by lifelong friend Don Botkins, and the song Carnival by Natalie Merchant was played at Eileen's funeral.
There's a lot more to talk about here about Eileen's life and the way that she was treated, and we're going to do a deep dive into that on the next episode when we sit down with our friend, our Ohanna, Miss Patty Jenkins, so please please stay tuned for that for this week's EMUA. There are two sides to this to think about. First of all, most importantly, we want to remember those whose lives were taken violently, the victims in this terrible case, and their families.
But we also want to recognize that Eileen was a victim herself, a victim of jenn generational abuse and generational trauma. That she was undoubtedly a product of the system that she was born into.
But with proper resources and a more carrying upbringing, Eileen might have got the help she needed. But instead she was subject to physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, and that set her on the crash course to becoming a monster.
And we hope that people think about the consequences that their actions have on others. Break the cycles of trauma of abuse and instead of blame, try to seek understanding and love onward and upward. Emua, emua. Well, that's our show for today. Make sure to tune in for our next episode where we interview the amazing Patty Jenkins. Well.
As always, we'd love to hear what you thought about today's discussion and if there is a case that you would like us.
To cover, find us on social media at Facing Evil Pod or email us at Facingable Pod at tenderfoot dot tv. And one request, if you haven't already, please find us on iTunes and give us a review and a good rating. If you like what we do, your support is always cherished.
Until next time. Aloha.
Facing Evil is a production of iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. The show is hosted by Russia Pacuerero in a Vet Schintila, Matt Frederick and Alex Williams, our executive producers on behalf of iHeartRadio, with producers Trevor Young and Jesse Funk, Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay, our executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV, alongside producer Tracy Kaplan. Researcher is Claudia Dafrico,
original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Find us on social media or email us at facingevilpod at tenderfoot dot tv. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio or Tenderfoot TV, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.