This day in history: Serial killer Aileen Wuornos meets first victim, a Clearwater man

Athina Morris
·2 min read
21

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — On this day 34 years ago, a Clearwater man became the first victim of one of America’s most notorious serial killers, Aileen Wuornos.

On Nov. 30, 1989, Richard Mallory locked up his business, a TV repair store in Palm Harbor, and made his way onto Interstate 4 to head toward Volusia County.

The next day, Mallory’s car was found abandoned on Ormond Beach. Two weeks later, his body was found in a Daytona Beach junkyard.

Mallory was the first known victim of Aileen Wuornos, the first woman ever profiled by the FBI as a serial killer. Wuornos is often referred to, mistakenly, as America’s first female serial killer, a title that some historians say belongs to Jane Toppan, who killed 12 in Massachusetts between 1895 and 1901.

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Wuornos had been working as a prostitute along Florida’s highways and approached unsuspecting men under the guise of needing a ride before robbing and shooting them to death.

Serial Killer Aileen Wuornos waves members of the court and thanks Judge Victor Musleh as she leaves courtroom 4A in the Marion County Judicial Center in Ocala, Florida Thursday afternoon February 22, 2001. Wuornos was in court on an appeal hearing. Wuornos is presently on death row for the murder of 6 men that stretched from 1989-1990 in Central Florida. Wuonos was convicted of one murder and plead no contest to 5 other murder charges. (AP Photo/Doug Engle)

She reportedly shot Mallory with a .22-caliber pistol she kept in her purse.

Wuronos confessed to killing Mallory and six other men while engaging in sex work along Florida’s Interstate 75 corridor. She was only found guilty of killing six, as the body of the seventh was never found.

At her trial, Wuronos testified that she killed her victims in self-defense and claimed Mallory had raped, beat and sodomized her, but later recanted.

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Mallory did have a history of sexual violence. In 1957, he reportedly broke into a Maryland woman’s home, grabbed her from behind and tried to assault her. After pleading insanity, he served a 10-year stint at a prison mental institution.

Wuornos was raised by her grandparents and claimed she was sexually abused by her grandfather as a teen. Her father, a convicted child molester, committed suicide in prison.

Wuornos was sentenced to death for the murders and was executed by lethal injection on Oct. 9, 2002.

Actress Charlize Theron’s portrayal of Wuornos in the 2003 film “Monster” won her an Academy Award for Best Actress.

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