LETHAL INTENT-Sue Russell

motel where her lesbian lover was waiting. In nineteen ninety her killing spree kicked into high gear, with three men slain in as many weeks. Of the six of her seven male victims whose bodies were found somewhere nude, all had been shot dead and robbed. In January nineteen ninety one, pawnshop records led to the rest of Aileen Carol Warnos, thirty five, a KA Lee. An abusive, alcoholic man hater with a murderous hair trigger temper. Wernos began prostituting herself

at age twelve for cigarettes and beer. At fifteen, she bore an illegitimate child. At sixteen, she took to the highways as a hitchhiking hooker. In nineteen eighty six, with a lengthy rap sheet and prison term under her belt, she entered into a relationship with Tyra Moore twenty four. Tired of turning twenty dollars tricks, Warno's decided to rob her customers of everything they had, including their lives. Her rest in trial prompted a worldwide media frenzy. Ultimately, Warnos

received six separate death sentences. Here is the definitive account of a killer who confounded the profiling experts, forever changing their concepts of the crimes of which a woman is capable. The book that we're featuring this evening is Lethal Intent, with my special guest, journalist and author Sue Russell. Welcome back to the program, and thank you very much for greeing this interview.

years and living with this story. Certainly you know who Aileen Warnos really was and where she really came from, So tell us starting with her father is very interesting the again the genetic background of this person and where he is and yees. So anyways, let's talk about Leo Pittman and let's let's go back to her father.

But meanwhile, Leo had a bit of a criminal bench, shall we say, and he really came undone as he should have done, of course, when he abducted a seven year old girl from outside of school, took her in his car, took her across state lines, raped her, drove her back, and left her outside the school. Sort of strange bit of courtesy there mixed in with a completely

heinous crime. Very odd, but anyway, we're glad the little girl was taken back to the school, but she was and when she had to testify against her attacker, and when she saw him, she broke out him Weltz all over her skin. You know, it was just a very visceral reaction. So Leo Pittman was put away now like Eileen, who of course they didn't know each other, but he also committed a capital crime, because kidnapping and rape across

state lines was a capital crime, probably still is. And so quite independently, these two people who never met committed capital offenses. I think that's pretty interesting, don't you, Dan, Yes.

couldn't have done because he took his own life. So that was, you know, a rocky start to any child's life.

All that going on in the background, even though she may not have been aware of it, the waves in families, the emotional turmoil, the discord, and in the case of the grandparents that she was living with with her brother Keith, a lot of abuse there too, in terms of the grandfather would take her leather belt to Eileen, and there was a lot of verbal abuse, and both grandparents had alcohol issues, so it was, you know, it was not a happy home. But it was an odd home because

the grandparents had two other children. Diane Warnoffs had siblings, Laurie, who be with my wife and mother and I met her when I was writing the book, and Barry brother who also got married, et cetera and had kids. But you know, the Laurie and Barry, well, Barry had kind of left home, but Laurie was still in the home when Eileen and Keith were brought into the home. So it was one of those odd family arrangements where they

were known as the grandparents. Wouldn't sort of call them their children, but they were really their grandparents and Laurie called them her siblings, but she was really their aunt. If we can follow that, you're a better man than I am. It's a bit convoluted, isn't it. Sorry, I hope you can keep up with that. Yeah, so it was a dysfunctional household to say them. And you know,

there's no question Dan that she was abused. For any child I think to be selling sex and charging for sex and charging a packet of cigarettes or thirty five cents for a sexual act at age eleven, you know, we can assume that there was sexual abuse in there somewhere. It's hard to know who was the perpetrator with Eileen because her stories changed on everything, just literally back and forth,

back and forth. So at the end of the day, I can't tell you definitively you know who did abuse her, but there's no doubt in my mind that she was abused.

left out of a lot of things. You tell a story about how at an early age she managed to arrange a party at the home and then the people came over to the party, but then kicked her out and let her stay in the backyard.

so very very sad, and she was very isolated. And she had this explosive temper which we've talked about before, Dan, which really hampered her ability to fit into life as other people do you know, she would just blow up out of nowhere, and others were afraid of her. They didn't want to be around her, they didn't want to be near her, and you never knew when she was

going to fly off the handle about something. And one time there was a babysitting incident where she approached her sister Laurie, who was doing the babysitting, and held a kitchen knife to her throat. You know, this kind of thing meant that, of course people stayed away from her. They were afraid of what would happen if they got too involved with her. And you know, yes, she was scary, I think to even her own sister slash aunt.

really was at a young age. Again, you did the research, and so there was an account of a friend, the neighborhood friend, actually witnessing her having sex with her brother. So she had sex. She was very promiscuous and that will lead to you know, her decisions later in life as she gets a little bit older, she kind of turns around this sort of to at least it's to

a certain degree. Anyway, the idea that you know, she is very promiscuous, very interested in sex, and is constantly negotiate at an early age, and I thought she was as interested.

her actual sexual appetite. I honestly don't know, but I know that you know, she was desperate to be accepted, and you know, as you know, her peer pressure, et cetera, she was particularly vulnerable I think, to that kind of thing happening, and because she'd had some exposure to it in another environment, which as I've admitted to you, I

simply do not know. I mean, at different times she cited and they the hood man and Elvis look alike, a truck driver who stopped over her grandfather, one of the neighborhood boys, and then she would go back and you know, she named her rapist as all these different people and kept changing her story. So I can't tell you who did it, but we know somebody did so by then, you know, she'd lost her virginity, and I think it was it was, you know, a way to

engage with people in a way. To me, that was the feeling I was left with that as much as a sex drive, it had as much to do with this wish for money, which carried on through the rest of her life, because she saw it as a way of buying friends, you know, as you mentioned that very poignant. You know, she threw a party and then she was booted out of it herself, but she saw money as a way to try to improve her life. I think that makes sense.

of that as well. If you look at it, I sort of liken it to a stack of dominoes, you know, you line them up and eventually there's so many of them that they just start tipping. And all these strikes against her. You know, she had a hearing problem and that was never really addressed. Her grandmother didn't take her to the doctor. And I don't know how much she struggled in school, but there's every reason to think she did. A teacher wrote in one school report, this child needs help. Now.

That was ignored, but someone noticed that something was wrong. You know, there were just all these sort of opportunities that were missed, I suppose, and in a very dysfunctional family. And then of course when her brother Keith died of cancer at age twenty one. That was a terrible blow to her. Her grandmother died alcoholism, we think, but certainly she was, you know, a sort of closet alcoholic, it turned out, you know, certainly drinking heavily. But I think

many around her have used the term alcoholic. And then the grandfather, you know, who took his own life ultimately, so you know, there's suicide around her, there's alcoholism. There's just nothing that is sort of life affirming. Really, let's take.

taken away. It was a boy and put out for adoption, and somewhere he's out there wondering, you know, probably completely unaware that his mother is Eileen Warnos. You know his birth mother is Eileen Warnos, because all those records are sealed. But Eileen then went home again and she everything escalated with the grandfather and he threw her out, and you know, she's pretty soon afterwards she was living in the woods.

And that was the period in her life when her friend Dawn Bopkins, who came back into her life during the death row years, was a good friend to her and her only real close friend. I think so. But you know, she would sleep in cars, in people's driveways, in trailers, in people campus in people's driveways with permission,

you know, or in the woods. And god, if you've been Commichigan in the winter where you're Canadian, you should know, you know, we're talking about some pretty miserable freezing conditions there. I don't know how she got through it all, and certain people did try to help her, but but you know what a life really yeah, and some of the.

did she so a prostitution. I think maybe she could have got a job in a McDonald's or a Pizza Heart or something, you know, where she didn't need to be able to, you know, have a college degree or any of the other kind of loftier qualifications. She could have perhaps got that kind of job, But I personally feel she wouldn't have lasted very long because I can't see her dealing with the customers, you know, I think she'd have been throwing something at some boy pretty quickly.

So what do we go back to? You know, what she started out with. She could always make a buck with the prostitution. It came at a high price. I'm sure she was raped multiple times. I don't, as you know, believe it was by those men on those days when she.

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and it was getting harder for her. But in those early days, I think that that's probably what she fell back on. I don't know what else she could have done. Really. There was some talk of her going for a job interview or two. I tried to follow up with a company where she supposedly interviewed for a job, but they didn't have any records. It was too long ago, et cetera. I never actually came up with any job she'd actually ever held other than the prostitution and interviewing men who

she'd been with, et cetera. So as far as I know, that was pretty much Yet. Now, Dawn always has said I didn't interview Dawn personally. But Dawn always has said that she didn't know Eileen was a prostitute when she was in school and was turning up with this money. She just knew she would disappear for a while and come back with money, and then they'd go buy beer or whatever. So she was secretive about it too, you know, so there was probably some shame around it. I'm sure.

But a list of crimes over the years. We're talking about a young woman going into prostitution and then when the trouble hits or when the murder starts, she's in her mid thirties, like you say, so in this time she acquires this record, but it's it's categorized by her using aliases. So tell us a little bit about some of the things that she encounters police with, and tell us a little about all these aliases that she uses.

church people. Several times they gave her a place to stay, and after she'd gone, things would be missing, you know, she'd taken them. But her encounters with the law tended to be I mean, other than a bit of sort of shoplifting as a teenager were pretty mine or often traffic related, having a fight on a bus with a driver,

this kind of thing. The biggest incident and the one that put her behind bars for three and a half years, was when she and her then boyfriend had a fight and she thought they were going to break up, and she got up in the morning and she took a gun and she went off in her bikini in a you know, bone shaker car, and she bought a bunch of beer and got very drunk, and she went in and held up a little mini milet so armed robbery. You know, that's a serious crime. And the woman behind

the counter was scared to death. And you can't blame her because somebody drunk waving a gun at you is you know, scary in many ways, let's face it. So that was her bigger fence, and that was where she got her real record. There was an incident somewhere along the way where she shot herself in the stomach, you know, suicide attempt of some kind. But she wasn't a big time criminal or anything. But she had a capacity for

being right full of righteous indignation. You know, if the police stopped her for something, and she would give them false idea and everything else, but she'd be livid with them for having the goal to question her, etc. So she had you know, it was very interesting in a way that she didn't have a feeling of oh my god, you know I've got the wrong I've got somebody else's idea. They're going to catch me. No, no, there was none

of that. It was I'm going to you know, get them fired from their jobs, and quite a bit of grandiosity, if you will, about her powers and potential impact on events that of course, was completely out of line with reality.

sour rapidly. And her sister Laurie has said since that she's ashamed to say that when she was interviewed by the police, and they said, you know, Eileen said that Lewis Fell her husband beat her with a cane, but Louis Fell said that Eileen beat him with a cane. Laurie had said, you know that Eileen was telling the truth, but years later she admitted that, you know, she's ashamed to say that she liked She was just too embarrassed to admit that her sister had beaten an elderly man

with a cane. But in fact it was Eileen who beat Lewis Fell with a cane. And you know, we're talking a few months here. That was it. They were apart, and it was just an odd, short lived event, probably not terribly meaningful in the overall scheme of things.

many ways. But yes, the thought of losing him. And this is why I've always debated the fact that you know, she was a lesbian. Dan and I think we talked about this before, because I met quite a number of men she'd had sex with of her own volition, with no money involved, and she liked being involved with men. I think that later the two women she got involved with, it was an emotional bond as much as a sexual bond. I think she did like sex with men. And I

don't even know that i'd call her a man. Hated her myself. I've always said she sort of was an equal opportunity hater. She and others in the other characters would agree with that that she hated the world. She thought the world was out to get her, and she hated everybody at times, just those few trusted people. So yes, when she thought he was going to dump her, she freaked out, and of course ultimately destructed, you know, the

relationship destructed. That doesn't sound right, destroyed the relationship herself by ending up in you know, So that drove the wedge between them. I don't know if they would have broken up or not. But she was difficult to be with. That man told me very difficult to be with, very volatile, mercurial mood swings, drama, etc. So I don't know how long it would have lasted. But he was quite loyal to her in many ways, and he did go visit her,

and she looked forward to his visits. But meanwhile, she was writing letters to men through the personals and she'd lined up a couple of penpal guys that one of whom she went to when she was released from prison and stayed with for a while in another state. So she was an interesting character in many ways.

an outgoing personality. She'd had an accident of some sort knocked her teeth out, and she got some insurance money for this, and she had the choice between having her teeth fixed or getting a ticket and moving to Florida. And she'd chosen to move from her home in Ohio to Florida. And she never did get those teeth fixed. So, but she had a very good friend in Cammy Green.

She had another very good friend in Sandy Russell, who featured quite prominently in the book because they spent quite a lot of time around her, and certainly around Tyrea. And Tyrea, you know, was a loyal friend. She loved the children. She loved Cammy's children, they were happy having her live with them, etc. So she seemed quite sort

of stable person until Eileen came into her life. But she certainly did like to drink and there was that side of her too, So when the two of them got together, it was a recipe for well, it didn't enhance Tyrea's career, let's put it that way, you know. But she was a feisty gowl and they were no question that she was as strong as Eileen, and that they used to wrestle apparently, and you know, they gave each gave as good as they got. And Tira had a fight with one of the managers at the hotel

one time. But basically was looked back on as a good worker by people and a nice, nice young woman. So that was a backdrop to Tyra and a family of siblings up in Ohio who seemed quite close as best I could tell.

she knew. But there was this little bit of what should we say, a little bit of role playing early on, where that was how she presented herself as someone with a job. And she did have a relationship. Her only other relationship that I know of with another woman preceded Tyrie, and it was somebody who did have such a business. I don't believe she was involved in it. I don't believe at that time she was doing anything with that business.

Maybe it was a story that felt natural to her because she had lived with someone working in that field. But yeah, so Tyree, she didn't want her hooking, she didn't want her going out, you know, and being in danger. But at the same time, she liked the spoils of her going out and coming back with the money. So it was one of those situations where somebody had to keep bringing the money in and Tira that she did

have this job, and then she lost that job. But they moved around a lot, and they stayed in mobile homes. They lived a bit in the woods briefly themselves. They had you know, a room in a house. They motel rooms. They stayed with one of Tyree, yeah, which tyrants coworkers briefly for a while, who couldn't wait to get rid of them. And I said, you know, you're not coming back if you bring her with you, meaning Eileen, because there was so much sort of spy and screaming and

shouting and she just couldn't take it. So I think her life got steadily more chaotic, let's put it that way. And the drinking. They would drink a case of beer together in an evening, so you know, that's not really conducive to holding down a job either. But Tyria did

have jobs for periods of time. She did. But you know, they were both They liked to drink, and they liked to go to bars, and they like to shoot guns in the woods and really pretty much do what they wanted, you know, not disciplined, not disciplined life in any fashion.

her odd, disrespectful, violent behavior. So but even though, like you depict in the book, and like you have mentioned through this whole interview, there really wasn't this again, in some people's mind, are stereotypical man and woman in this relationship, they were very much They were very much, very similar in a lot of ways, these two people, Tyria and Yeah,

and certainly one wasn't a submissive personality. But in terms of Aileen, Eileen she saw this as at least in one aspect, that she wanted to be a supporter of her, her woman, her her significant partner, and provide for her, didn't she She did?

in the woods for any length of time. For example, even though there was a sort of laziness to the lifestyle and you know, very laid back compared to anyone who's ever held down a nine to five job and very unstructured lifestyle, I don't think that Tyria would have stuck around for that. I think the money was a critical element. And for Eileen, yes, she did want to look after her, I think, but she also did not

want to lose her personally. I think not wanting to lose it was probably as strong as wanting to look after her. Or maybe they were just inextricably woven together.

And yes, she did have this desire for fame. She had a desire for some kind of gangster status if you will. Maybe gangster's not the right word, but Bonnie and Clyde, yes. And you know, there's also that incident where she approached a guy she wanted a book written about her, but this is pre the murders, prior to the murders, and told him, you know, I'm going to

tell you some stuff that nobody knows about. And so I always say the murders we know of, because we really don't know that Richard Mallory was her first victim. She may have seen something and not participated in it in another era in her life when she was hanging out with some bikers or whatever. I don't know, but She definitely wanted fame, celebrity, and she knew the name of a couple of crime writers and she wanted them to write about her. All of this pre the murders,

so you know what they were going to write. I'm not exactly sure, but her plan was always to be a hero to women, a Bonnie and Clyde type.

but the same of them, the celebrity of the notoriety exactly. Yeah.

rent or otherwise. And that were other things that were there as well that Alien sold or used or at least that Tyria was aware of.

she said, ty I killed a man today. And ty was sort of disbelieving first, you know, but she did see the car outside, and she did see the goods that came in the house. And years later, or at least after the trial, she did admit to me, Taria, that I said, well, what were you thinking? You know, what was going through your mind? And she said, and it was really kind of stunning in a way to me. She said, well, I knew she was angry, and I knew she was angry at men, and I thought she'd

got it out of her system. She did ultimately believe that she'd killed this man, and of course, you know, obviously she had killed a man that day that night, but she thought she'd got it out of her system, and she I think felt some regret as she should have done that. When the cars kept coming and news stories accelerated, and in one case they had a car for over a month, you know, she could have perhaps saved some lives if she'd opened her eyes a bit

more and actually taken action, but she didn't. And you know, when we got to the end of the killing spree, right before the arrests, Tyria went up to her family in Ohio for Thanksgiving, and there was always this business of oh, I couldn't leave Aileen because I was afraid of her, But in reality, she didn't have to come back after Thanksgiving and she came back and there was another murder. So I don't buy that personally, that she

was so afraid. That would have been her perfect opportunity to make the break, wouldn't it.

her to wear a wire. So we're jumping together a little bit now, Yes, the what are the Well, let's start with Richard Mallory because because you describe it in great detail, and later she again has a defense in court that later we find out through your great book that there's a confession and it's and it's very very comforting to the families because it is a heinous allegation to deal with along with that their loved one was killed.

So tell us about Richard Mallory and the again, what was maybe the first murder?

drinking and talking. And then this is where it gets murky, because Eileen, initially, when she was arrested, said that she shot him because she thought he was going to rape her. She thought he wasn't going to pay her. He had given her the money he was going to but she thought he would take it back. Variations on that scene

nothing at all like these stories. She came out with it a trial a year later, where he'd brutalized her, tied her to the steering wheel, she'd fought him off, killed him in an attempt to save her own life during a violent rate. Nothing like that now here, Dan. We have to look at the facts, and we have

to look at the evidence. Richard Mallory was fully clothed, he was in the driver's seat the first bullet entered his I'm trying to think which side now, because I'm from England drive on the different side, and I'm not sure which side you drive on but okay, she was in the passenger seat, leaning across that chair seat, and the first bullet went into his arm and threw on

into his chest. He jumped out of the car and tried to escape, obviously, and she ran around the front of the car and fired three more bullets into him. And it was, according to the medical examiner, a slow,

agonizing death. So, you know, we're dealing with a man here who is fully closed and behind the behind the behind the wheel in his own car when he was killed, which is not the same as in the middle of her you know, her being tied to the steering wheel and him anally raping her and things that she later claimed at the trial. She also claimed, you know, she was bloodied and beaten and battered, but Tyra said there was not a mark on her that night, nor did

she complain about having been attacked. So then we look

at what she did next. If it was the first time she'd killed somebody, or even if it wasn't, she you know, you'd think she'd be so freaked out she would run, But no, she not only did she try to cover the body with bits of old carpet and twigs, but she turned inside out his pockets and she took his money, and then she made off with his car and his goods, and she buried some of his possessions in one spot, some in another, and you know, made a real attempt to cover up the evidence, as it were.

So there's a big, big chasm here really between what has been popularized as what Eileen did and what you know has been put in movie. The facts don't bear that out. That's not how the bullets went in, not the scenario, you know. And if you've just been brutalized in such a fashion, I don't think you're going to lean down and you know, this dying man turn his pockets inside out and take his money and everything. You're

just going to high tail it out of it. I would have thought, you know, But it was just such a vastly different account. So this is where it gets a bit tricky, because yes, the two of them were going to have sex, that was the original intention. But she enjoyed talking. He enjoyed talking to her, and he said, oh, you should be a psychologist or counselor you know, you're really a good listener. You're good at this. They had a nice time together, hanging out for hours and then suddenly.

Now I've since talked for the new edition of Lethal Intent, I've since talked to a forensic psychiatrist and others who said, you know, what she thought was happening may have had nothing to do with what was actually happening between her and this man. It may have been something completely inside her own head, you know, more like a PTSD type experience. But in any event, you know, there was no brutal

rape with that man that day. Yes, there was sex with the two victims who were found nude, no question, But there were other victims who were not found nude, and who I do believe there was a good chance gave her a lift. She was in shorts and a T shirt, hitch hiking on the freeway. She had a photograph of a family children that she would show them and say, look, these are my kids. They're in a motel. They're waiting for me to come back. They're hungry. Can you give me a ride? Now there are men who

would say yes to that. And the thing is that we have seven dead men, six actually, because Peter Seines has never been found to this day, his body. She can't remember where she left it. But you know, where not only are they murder victims, but they are also labeled as rapists. And this was tremendously painful for the families, as you can imagine. So and with no evidence, by

the way, to support that. I mean, we're talking about a woman who traveled with a bottle of wind decks, with her gun in her kill bag, and who said a killing day is much like any other day, and she cleaned down fingerprints. She was very methodical about it. She wanted to know how the police caught her. She thought she'd been very careful. So, you know, to see, these families have the double whammy of having their loved ones murdered without evidence. I'm not saying that none of

them raped. He I can't know, Dan, but I do know we can't prove it and we don't know for sure, and there was no evidence of that. And some of them were shot in the back, the back of the head. You know, there was just nothing really supported any of that. So when she finally turned around before her execution, well you know, in that last year or two and said there was no self defense. You know, I didn't kill in self defense. The families did take some comfort in that.

At least those who were still alive. As you can imagine, there was some comfort in that was a little too late, but not too late. It gave some comfort.

he screamed too, and ran out. So that was the encounter, and he was sent to an institution. He was just shy of going into the army. He was nineteen years old, and he was institutionalized rather than incarcerated. I think you would say for four years or so. And of course, okay, so he's nineteen, so say mid twenties. So by the time we get to the murders, we've got twenty five years of no incidents, no records, no arrests, no nothing. So as far as the judge was concerned, it was

all just too distant in time. Yes, it was an ironic twist. But I did talk to hookers who were with Richard Mallory, who knew Richard Mallory, and who said he'd never been violent, he had some problems. He was about to go into the army, and you know, maybe he had some kind of sexual addiction thing going on. I don't know. I don't know. He was an acne ridden youth at the time, and it's hard to know. But yes, he did indeed break into this woman's home. I don't know if the door was locked, but let's

say that it was. He broke in, and he did go upstairs, and his intent was to have sex with her. So there's no denying that, but the only thing you can say is that, well, what can you say, Dan, I don't know really, but that's I mean. I did get the records of the time he served and where he served it, and there was one incident while he was in there where I think he raised his hand to one of the prison guards, a female, something that

got him a bit of extra time. But anyway, legally speaking, it was just too distant in time to be considered as a mitigating factorer. You know that the defense, the defense that you know, could used to say anything. I'm sorry, as Dan knows, I'm suffering a bit under a cold here, so I'm trying to think clearly, no and everything.

fact that he had something in his past. But because back then between the states, it was not all computerized and interconnected as things are much more today, the defense didn't have the full file I don't believe at the time of the trial, and that was why Dateline was able to come out later and say, guess what this guy had? You know this in his past. Something was known.

I guess he told his girlfriend Jackie, who took the stand at one point and as she I can't remember now if it was in front of the jury or not, but it did come up that he had something in his background, but the full details of it emerged after the trial.

ends up involved. So it was a real super media circus. So tell us a little bit about the trial and the media and the world's attention on this what they really deemed her the America's first serial killer. Tell us about the media circus.

little town as you would have imagined. Somehow, it really or maybe as I've seen in other cases, let's put it that way. I mean, it was, it was a big case. But I think the whole thing of first female serial killer, I mean, yes, there've been women who've killed multiple times. I think the whole label thing, you know, really sprang from the fact that she killed in male fashion, I killing strangers in different locations with a cooling off period in between, which at the time was the FBI's

part of the FBI's definition of a serial killer. And women, as you know, don't tend to kill that way. They tend to kill people in their care. They tend to kill husbands for insurance money, to poison them, and there's all kinds of other ways that they kill. But to kill three people on different occasions in different locations, it

was kind of a shock at the time. And that was really why the case sort of captured the imagination of so many and including myself, I must add, because that was why I was so fascinated to learn what made Eileen tick, and that was why I decided to cover the trial and write a book. And that was nineteen ninety nineteen ninety one, I'll.

much through the ten years. However, when all the appeals, you know, the appeals that are automatic of course, whether she wanted them or not, took place. And then when it came time where she'd run out of those options, it became an issue of do you really want it carried out, Eileen, you know, because it's one thing to say it, but you have to waive your rights to further appeals. At a certain point, you can't kind of

keep changing your mind. And so she did ask us some extra time, she wanted to think about it further. But then she came back and yes, she did want She'd made up her mind. She wanted to go be with God, and that was her decision. Now, volunteers for execution are very rare. I've forgotten the number of volunteers in the last twenty years in the US, but very

small number. And I talked to someone who'd done a study of people who volunteer, and one common thread with them was often a Christian person in their lives, or an influence in their lives where they had in their minds through their own belief or believes that became sort of instilled over time through other people influencing them that

they were going to go be with God. Now, for Eileen, she had to tell the truth and had to get right with God before she could take that step that was in her mind necessary to get into heaven, which of course is where she wanted to be. So, you know, there are those volunteers, and then there are some who volunteer because they are suicidal, and there are some who say that they are mentally ill, and some who say they're not mentally ill and basically try to gain the system,

as it were. If they've made up their minds they want to have their execution carried out, they've got to fight against all the Bianca jaggers of this world and the anti death penalty protesters who come out in force. And Ileen was very annoyed when those people rose up and said, you can't execute this woman. She's mentally ill. She was furious. She wasn't mentally ill. You know, she never thought of herself as mentally ill. You could guarantee to anger her if you called her mentally ill or

mad or crazy. Those words would drive her crazy.

food was being tampered with, et cetera, et cetera. But again, you know, as one of the experts pointed out to me, you know, if you talk to a banker and he says someone spat in his food in the canteen, you know you have to sort of think, Okay, is this guy paranoid or is he sane, etc. But when it's in prison, people do spit in food, and they do much worse, as he said, so it's you know, it's not a sign of any insanity to make such claims.

So she did make those claims, and so there was a separate issue going on with her complaints about various warders who she felt added in for her, and that they were going to rape her before she was executed,

and other things. She also believed, as did Dawn, who was her close confidante during those years before the execution, that the police had not arrested her as early as they could, That they knew who she was long before, but they didn't her because they wanted to wait because the more people she killed, the more money they would get from selling their story, which of course is ludicrous because Dan, if you know anything about the way the police operate, as you do, and I do you know,

we're talking I think five counties here, to have a conspiracy between the police in five counties that they were going to not arrest a known serial killer. I mean all of the cops wanted to find and wanted to arrest her. So it's a ludicrous claim, but she did,

you know. That was one of her ongoing issues, was she killed as many people as she did because they didn't want to stop her because it would have made more money for them, made a better movie, made a better whatever, you know, So she did have some she did have some distorted thinking, there's no question about it. Insane, no, but distorted thinking, yes for sure. Yeah, yeah.

But also, like you said, you mentioned in the book, and this is very strong reaction I had when the families got that little semblance of not closure, but little semblance of peace in that she had confessants that it was not self defense and that their loved ones were not rapists, right.

So she wanted the money. She identified the fact they'd got money, and she killed them. And that was you know, she was a robber who killed So.

this aspect that the police had forced. Well, Tyria didn't have much of a choice, but she was wired and basically confessions from Eileen, and Eileen knew that she was being recorded, and so tell us, I mean not to say there's any there's too many redeeming aspects of Eileen Werno's but what does she do, what does she attempt to do for Tyrea?

of state in another. Whatever, she had alibis for several and they really didn't think she was along on the murders, but certainly they were able to use that to their advantage. And just to address the Christian thing, Aileen had always had this streak in her she'd you know, of reading the Bible. I think I mentioned she stayed with some Christian people a couple of times, and one place where they put a roof over her head and then she walked out and took belongings from them, et cetera. But

she she came to religion back and forth. So I think Arlene probably was a catalyst and it was what Aileen needed at that time, but she wasn't the She didn't take her from being you know, an eight is to a Christian. For example, there was always that fight to Eileen that was interested in religion and God and believed I think so, but of course Arlene really strengthened that. And one of the messages she hammered home was you have to tell the truth.

bit of a power trip that went with that. You know, she allocated and more money went to Dawn Botkins say than to Arlin Praley, who had traveled back and forth, back and forth, who had taken I know, having taken collect calls from death row that they're darned expensive and they can only call collect. You know, she'd spent a lot of money and she got twenty five hundred dollars out of one payment and I think Dawn was supposed to get four or whatever. But yes, that was interesting

to find out. And the fact that the filmmaker Jacqueline Jeru told me that she had set up this po box for them to write to one another. I was pretty surprised, I have to say, you know, that took me aback and that was when I was writing the update, just you know, the end of last year. So yes, what a turn up for the book. They I would like to know what else was said between them, And it's very interesting that Eileen would send her money, but that came out of a letter between Eileen and Dawn.

I think if I remember correctly that bit of information about the thousand.

certainly had a rough life. However, she really did deserve what she got.

write about it and to make the discoveries. But then, you know, it was also heartbreaking to get to know those families and get to know what they went through and what happened to those loved ones, and what kind of men some of them were, you know. So yeah, it was an interesting journey, and you're right, you know, she did have those sociopathic traits in her and stealing with nothing and using somebody else's identification was nothing, and taking some things from people who were good enough to

give her a place to stay with nothing. And yet when the chips were down, she stepped up and told the police so that Ty wouldn't be in trouble. I did it, I did it alone. I killed these men, And so it's you know, it's an unusual story in that regard, isn't it, Because usually, you know, people if they're sociopathic or worse psychopathic, you know, they go all

the way with that. But Eileen sort of had these acts that would just throw you off course, just when you were thinking she was one thing, she would do something that showed a different side of her.

what she did. Again, very very misguided person, yes, But certainly she has caught the attention of people throughout the world.

And this is why this story is still enduring. And of course it helps with such a great book like Lethal Intent to really really talk about and really explore like I said, we had just an hour, an hour really just touches on the entire story, especially because you've covered the victims' families because it was such a uh it's it's such a heartbreaking story from their aspect and their positions, and so you have access all that information.

the conventional postal service. So that's on demand now ebooks and if somebody is really you know, has a spur of the moment idea, well there it's available to them immediately. Now Audible paves the way with downloadable audiobooks, and so congratulations on this book being available for everyone, even the experience.

And I don't know if people have experienced audiobooks, but I have in the past, and now I just think it's great that you can get them downloadable even more affordable, and Audible has like one hundred and fifty thousand titles, so it's just amazing. So congratulations not having lethal intent.

on mobile devices and wiles away the time. And a lot of people are actually accessing this through their iPhones and other androids. So it's great for those people that are tied up but really want to maximize their entertainment time and listen to a great book like ethal Intent so on audiobooks so and.

you know, that costly. What I want to say about Audible too, is that for people that don't know ab Audible is the biggest provider of radio and television programs and also audio versions of magazines and newspapers. So really they are you know, I didn't know that until I just looked at it myself, and again it's it's right. Another I think I think Audible is going to be able to provide people, I think, an experience that they're

they're just not accustomed to. And I just wanted to mention too, that they have a thirty day free trial right now, and you can get the audiobook that you desire just by signing up for that thirty day trial. So that's my big plug for Audible, and I'm glad we could work that into the conversation with Eal Intent being finally offered as an audiobook with Audible.

just withdrawal from not listening to program. And so I want to thank you for ushering in the new year, the fifth year of True Murder, with coming on and talking about your great book, Lethal Intent.