What Happened To Aileen Wuornos's Son?

If Charlize Theron hadn't played her in a movie (and earned the 2003 Best Actress Oscar for her efforts), would Aileen Wuornos still be remembered? Probably, because Wuornos has the dubious distinction of being one of the few convicted female serial killers in the United States. (Which is probably why Charlize Theron played her in a movie, come to think of it.)

As told by Biography and nearly everyone else, Wuornos's story is the stuff of modern American tragedy. Her parents were teenagers when they married; her mother abandoned her and her brother to their maternal grandparents, who adopted the children. She never met her father, who was in prison when she was born and who was later convicted of sex crimes against children. By the time she was 11, Aileen was performing sex acts at school for food and cigarettes. She later said she was sexually abused by her grandfather and was raped by one of his friends when she was all of 14. By the next year her grandmother had died, her grandfather had thrown her out, and she was trying to survive by engaging in prostitution and living in the woods. A marriage resulted in an annulment after only nine weeks, and in time she became, and remained, romantically involved with a hotel maid, Tyria Moore, asserting her love for Moore until the very end.

Wuornos's record included doing time in prison for armed robbery. She was also arrested for assault, passing bad checks, car theft, and theft of a firearm and ammunition. In an interview with the Orlando Sentinel quoted by the LA Times, Wuornos said, "I'm not a man-hater. (I am) so used to being treated like dirt that I guess it's become a way of life. I'm a decent person." In time she was arrested for murder and confessed to killing six men (she is suspected of a seventh), all of them johns, many found with their pants down, all shot at point-blank range, and all of whom, she said, raped or tried to assault her. She pleaded self-defense but was convicted of murder in 1992. She later pleaded no contest to other killings, saying that she wanted to "get right with God." She was given several death sentences and despite psychiatric evaluations indicating she was a psychopath and had both borderline personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder, after 20 years on death row in Florida, she was executed by lethal injection October 9, 2002.

As for that rape, when she was 14? That crime resulted in a pregnancy. She gave birth to a son at a home for unwed mothers. The boy was given up for adoption.