Putting this here because I doubt there is a real answer, but for consideration -
Eileen W. was a female serial killer, she would hitch hike and when picked up, would apparently convince the guy to pull over somewhere private, get the guy to undress, and she would shoot them and rob them.
If one picked her up but declined sex, would they have survived? Like I said, unless she responds to a ouija board, we are not going to get an answer [unless a few guys turned up who picked her up and didn’t end up dead?]
It’s impossible to know. Wournos’s own accounts of the murders varied over time; sometimes she said she was defending herself from attempted rape or sexual assault; other times she said her motive was robbery. Because of her own psychotraumatic condition, it’s entirely possible that Wournos perceived men as attempting or intending sexual assault when they were not, or that she perceived men as wanting to have sex with her when they did not. Traumatised people perceive the world differently, and they can experience situations or encounters as dangerous, violent or existentially threatening when they are not.
I like @UDS1’s answer. I might add that, thinking very practically, an MO of getting a guy to undress before attacking him might make sense for a female assailant who even with a gun might feel at higher risk of being overpowered if she just flat-out went on the attack while her victim was fully dressed and not necessarily, shall we say, “distracted.”(*) A naked man expecting sex would probably be easier to rob and kill. So yeah, a man who flatly declined sexual favors might have a much higher chance of surviving. They’d never make it to a secluded spot in the first place, one assumes.
(*) That’s a dreadful run-on sentence, but I think I’ll leave it as is, and admire how far it runs before it finally gets to the period.
While several of Wournos’ victims were found undressed, others were dressed. And even those who were found undressed did not necessary undress in the expectation of sex; they may have been compelled to undress at gunpoint. There’s really no way of knowing.
I rather like CairoCarol’s thought, and can also agree that the naked men could have been ordered to disrobe, but given she was working as a prostitute in the bars, it would make sense that she would hitch as a prostitute as well. Sort of feeds into UDS1’s comment about her seeing everybody as wanting sex, or even offering to assault her, but then again, hitch hiking has never actually been all that safe, even back in hippy dippy days. She could also have been intending to ‘work’ her way down that road, but there might have been dozens of guys that picked her up hitching, did sex and nothing happened to flip that killer switch, then bam, one dead john.
Been diving into youtube and wiki, so today and yesterday were serial killer days =)
Looking at the timeline of the murders themselves, it sorta seems like she had been “in the biz” for awhile, then killed one. Then ~7 months later another, then the rest in rather quick succession, every 2-4 weeks. Then things went quiet until her arrest ~ 4-5 months later.
Sounds like she had developed an MO that worked and a taste for killing. Not sure what else one can say.
I’m not defending her, but she had one of the most horrifying childhoods I have ever read about in my whole life. Something that surely must have affected her brain.
She had a shitty childhood, that’s for sure. And was closely related to a psycho, which certainly ups the odds she was psycho too regardless of her upbringing.
But child abuse and child sexual abuse is so commonplace in our society as to hardly warrant mention. She had a nasty upbringing, but probably only in the bottom 5% of what USAians experience, not the bottom 0.00001%.
Agreed, the reason I am the godmother to and have guardianship papers on [while they were under 21] my godsprogs from her was because her father is [was, he passed a few years back] and while her grandmother was alive, she didn’t want to do anything to him, or associate with him, or let him potentially get his hands on her daughters. She knew that I would have no hesitation about doing whatever it took to keep the girls safe and alive, even if that meant taking my power of guardianship seriously and bringing them back to Connecticut with me, or shooting the asshat if needs came to it.
Despite her being abused, she was an exemplary mother. At least with her the chain was broken.
In November 1991, Wuornos was legally adopted by 44-year-old Arlene Pralle who saw her photo in a newspaper.
My very brief research on adult adoptions, primarily the article below, shows it’s usually sought for inheritance or insurance reasons. Are there other reasons to adopt a 35 year old inmate?
How could I not step up? I would do the same for total strangers at a need.
I don’t think men get anywhere near the support that they need, they feel constrained from being emotional, constrained from seeking mental help, sometimes it seems that the only way for some people to get help is to join a religious order [they end up getting peaceful space and some gentle counseling if what my friend M went through about 7 years back =) ]
Good point. I think in many ways that if one is dealt a good hand in life it’s easier being a man than a woman. But of one is dealt a poor-ish hand, it’s easier being a woman than a man. At least in the US culture I’m most familiar with.
Which is a very different question from which gender is more often dealt a good, or poo-ish, or truly awful hand. That is a very different question indeed.
In the case of some former friends, he was a 20 something really good guy with a rough life and no living relatives and she was a 40 something good friend who had known him for years and is probably past the point of realistically having kids. She thought he should have family to look after him, so when she found out she could adopt him as an adult, she did. It’s meant a lot to both of them.