Catching Killers (2021–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Clan Connected Killers - full transcript
This time: Clan Connected Killers. In Ohio, Toledo detectives Tom Ross and Bill Adams bring down a pair of brothers that terrorize a city by raping and killing young couples. And in Florida, investigators Phil Redstone and Tom White hunt cousin that impersonate cops as they capture, rape and kill. Bad blood indeed.
- [frogs croaking]
- [birds chirping]
[suspenseful music plays]
[Jarvis] When I arrived,
I noticed that there was
a dirt road that runs into the forest.
[sinister sting]
And all I knew was that,
somewhere down that road,
there was a body.
- [sinister music plays]
- [animal sounds continue]
The first indication of the body
was the smell of decomposition in the air.
[chaotic sting]
[indistinct radio chatter]
- [disorienting sting]
- It was facedown.
There was a lot of blood.
- He was a white male...
- [young Jarvis] Uh-oh.
...approximately 50 years of age.
- [young Jarvis grunts]
- When we turned the body over,
we noticed that there was
a company logo on one pocket
and the name "Troy" sewn above the other.
- Nothing in that right front pocket, Tim?
- No, empty, Brian.
[Jarvis] This matched up
with a report we had of a missing person
just several days earlier,
and that was the name of Troy Burress.
[dramatic music plays]
How did he get to this area?
How did that body end up up there
and why was it up there?
Who did it?
Looking back on the investigation,
we didn't know how big
or how bad this might get.
[dramatic sting]
[opening theme music plays]
[fire crackles]
[music fades]
[reporter] Fifty-year-old Troy Burress
worked as a truck driver
for a Florida sausage company.
He had planned on quitting his job
because he hated life on the road.
Burress was found shot in the head.
[brooding music plays]
[Jarvis] I was a detective sergeant
supervising the major crimes detectives.
And I would report to Captain Binegar,
who was over the entire
Criminal Investigation Division.
- [man speaking indistinctly]
- I'm Steve Binegar.
[man] Watch your head.
[Binegar] I'm 63 years old.
Usually, I'm in sweats and Crocs.
That's my new uniform of the day
since I retired.
- [man] I like my Crocs too.
- Yeah.
I probably blew that.
- You're gonna have to...
- [woman laughing]
I need a teleprompter.
[relaxed country music plays]
I had about 50 people at the time
that were in my division.
I would say it was a big job,
especially being 32 years old.
Somebody said
I might've been the youngest captain
in the sheriff's office history
since 1845, but I don't know.
I can't say that for sure.
Hey, Jarvis. How've you been?
- I'm doing good.
- Great.
This is a picture of me in 1998
when I was appointed sheriff.
I was with the sheriff's office
for eight and a half years,
and I was in the FBI four years.
I always gravitated towards
the jobs that I called "day on, stay on,"
so you're constantly on call.
[music fades]
[ominous music plays]
It was, uh, after hours,
I was getting ready
to have dinner with my family.
My pager went off.
Another body
had been discovered in Marion County.
It was possible homicide.
[shrill sting]
When I got there,
you could see the body
off to the side of the pavement,
actually almost
into the... the weeds itself.
[whoosh]
The victim looked like
he had been shot from different angles.
Almost like he was spinning
to try to get away as he was being shot.
[dramatic sting]
Seems like a lot of rage.
There was a lot of anger
in the way the crime was committed.
I'm gonna be honest,
walking up to this crime scene
after 30 years, uh,
you know, the...
the sad part
that somebody lost their life right here,
a few feet from us,
it kind of rushes over you.
You know, what struck me
was there was no vehicle.
It looked like it was
the same sort of scenario
that we're dealing with
with the other case.
You know, we had middle-aged men
shot multiple times.
We start to see that as a pattern.
So, we sent Sergeant Jarvis
to the autopsy.
[Jarvis] Seven shots.
So, it was a very, very,
uh, angry killing.
His name was Charles Richard Humphreys.
The medical examiner
said he had been killed
with a .22 caliber weapon.
A .22 is the same
as the Troy Burress homicide.
[exciting music playing]
The ammunition was all the same,
and it was being fired
out of a similar firearm
- each time.
- [stopwatch ticking]
We started to realize
there was a good possibility
that we were dealing with the same killer.
[dramatic whoosh and sting]
I worked straight through the night
and through the next day.
[female reporter] Charles Humphreys was
a 56-year-old former Alabama police chief.
A man who was considered
anything but naive.
They took away someone who loved life.
And, of course, the big part of my life.
[Jarvis] So, we had Troy Burress.
- [dramatic music plays]
- And we had Humphreys as well.
We followed leads as they came in,
but there was very little
to go on initially.
And, at one point,
we decided to look at the bulletins
of unsolved homicides in Central Florida.
We noticed there was a similar case
in Citrus County, David Spears,
and a similar case
in Pasco County, John Doe.
The victims were
all middle-aged white men,
traveling alone
on Central Florida highways.
In each case,
.22 caliber weapons were used.
Also, six months
before the death of David Spears,
there was another potential victim
in Volusia County, a neighboring county.
His name being Richard Mallory.
He had property stolen from the vehicle.
A radar detector
and a 35-millimeter camera.
The rest of the victims
had items taken as well.
We noticed that
the driver's side seat in the vehicles
was pulled in the forward-most position.
But if you looked at our victims,
they were anywhere
from five-foot-ten to six-foot-five.
So, they wouldn't be driving a car
with the seat pulled up that far.
[dramatic music plays]
I thought back to an incident
that occurred on July the Fourth
in Marion County.
[eerie music plays]
We recovered a vehicle
in the Orange Springs area
that belonged to a missing man
by the name of Peter Siems.
The vehicle had been damaged,
and the seat was
all the way forward in the driver's side.
Same as the other cases.
Even though
we didn't find a body in that case,
we identified some witnesses
who had seen
two females leaving the vehicle.
One was kind of short and really heavyset.
The other was kind of taller with blond...
A little shoulder-length blond hair.
They took off
from the church in the woods.
The tall blond,
she had a scar on her forehead.
And she had blood on her.
So, uh, we had an artist
put the composites together for us
on these females.
[sinister music plays]
We didn't have any idea
what their connection would be.
Could they have stolen the vehicle?
We didn't know.
But what we did know
is that, if we found them,
we'd be able to get some answers.
[ominous music plays]
At this point, we had five bodies,
as well as a missing person,
all in the space of about four months.
[dramatic music plays]
The realization
that we might have a serial killer
was overwhelming.
It's something
we had never dealt with before.
We knew, at this point,
we had to ramp up our investigations.
We reached out
to dozens of law enforcement.
It became evident that
we really needed to work together on this.
So, we knew that every victim
was shot with a .22.
It was copper-jacketed, hollow point.
The striations in the barrel
that make the bullet spin,
uh, were all the same,
always a right twist.
It's almost like
a fingerprint for the bullet.
This is the same gun
being used in all these homicides.
It's a smaller weapon,
it gives less kickback,
so it could be
that somebody either smaller or weaker
might be using a .22.
We all started leaning
in that same direction,
that, uh, this could
very well be a female.
[music swells, fades]
A female serial killer.
[mysterious music plays]
[Jarvis] A few weeks later...
Mr. Humphreys' car was found,
and a receipt was located
underneath the front driver's seat
of the vehicle.
[dramatic music plays]
It had the name
of the truck stop in Wildwood, Florida,
at Interstate 75 and County Route 44.
We went in, we talked to the clerk.
We asked her about Charles Humphreys
and showed her a photo of him.
She didn't recognize him
or remember him being in there.
So, we showed the clerk
the two composite drawings.
[suspenseful music plays]
And she said, "I saw them in here."
"They... they purchased something
and they left."
"But these girls
were acting kind of giddy,
they got my attention."
This lead was really phenomenal
because, now,
this was our first real connection
to two women tied
into a missing person case,
possibly being involved in the death
of Charles Richard Humphreys.
But we still didn't have any names,
so we had to try
and find out who these people were.
It was at this point
that we had another homicide occur.
[eerie sting]
That of Walter Gino Antonio.
[dramatic music plays]
His vehicle was found.
The license plates had been removed,
and the driver's side seat
was in the forward-most position.
[Binegar] He was killed
with the same type of weapon,
same type of ammunition.
This brought the victim count to six,
with the possibility
of a seventh with Peter Siems.
The killer was making a circle around us
and dropping bodies
and victims' vehicles along the way.
But that's a very volatile situation.
[Jarvis] You know,
we just cannot let this go on.
We have to do more.
[dramatic music rising]
[music fades]
[Binegar] So, we made the decision
to release the composites to the press.
If nothing else,
from a public safety standpoint.
But I think we underestimated
what kind of media interest
this would generate.
[camera shutters clicking]
It was like a feeding frenzy,
like a bunch of piranhas.
[chuckles]
The information that we've received,
there were a variety of scenarios.
This was bigger than anything
I had handled up to that point.
We don't know that at this point.
Right off the bat,
they realized this was a story.
[reporter] Police say,
for the first time in criminal history,
these killers may be murdering
with a feminine touch.
The main suspects are two young women
who play damsels in distress
along the roadway
and then become dames of doom.
We don't know how the suspects
are getting close enough to our victims
to, uh...
break down the natural tendency
to be wary of strangers.
She may be offering, uh, a sexual favor
or asking for some sort of assistance.
[reporter continues] Florida drivers
aren't stopping for anyone,
especially female hitchhikers.
It's just scary, in a way, because, uh...
Knowing somebody's
doing something like that.
I get all these white hairs carrying a gun
hoping nobody catches me with it
and put me in jail.
I'd rather have the sheriff
here in this county catch me with it
than two women catch me without it.
[phones ringing]
I'd say that the pressure
kind of went through the roof.
It kind of blew the top off of it.
[phone rings]
Once we went public, almost immediately,
calls started coming in.
- [phones ringing]
- [dramatic music plays]
We had obtained over 400 leads
on who these composites might be.
Of those 400 leads,
four of them gave us good information...
- [keyboard clacking]
- ...and they all named the same people.
Tyria Moore and her girlfriend, Lee.
They described Tyria Moore
as the short, heavyset individual,
and her friend, Lee, as the taller blond.
It was just amazing that, finally,
we have something concrete to work with.
- [dial tone beeping]
- [phone rings]
The next day, we receive another lead
from a detective in Port Orange.
The detective said he had gotten tips
from a confidential source
on who these girls might be.
And from what the source told him,
their last known address
was the Fairview Motel in Port Orange.
[suspenseful music plays]
Investigators check on the Fairview,
they talk to the clerk,
and they show the clerk the composites.
The clerk looks at them
and says, "Oh, yeah."
"Those girls have been in here.
They stay here regularly."
"They always want room number eight."
The tall blond, who went by the name Lee,
signed in under the name
of Cammie Marsh Greene.
[dramatic sting]
A name that we hadn't heard before.
We found that she lived
in Holly Hill, Florida,
which is just outside of Daytona Beach.
[dramatic music plays]
We checked and determined
that she was not involved.
She had not stayed at the Fairview.
So, we knew someone else
had used that name
and had assumed her identity as well.
[dramatic music continues]
The next thing we do
is we check the pawn shops.
We knew
that the victims had property stolen,
and we wanna find out if anyone
using any of the names that we had
pawned any items.
The detectives in Daytona Beach...
find a pawn ticket.
And it's in the name
of Cammie Marsh Greene.
[dramatic whoosh]
It's for a box of tools.
And this was an item
that had been stolen from the vehicle
that belonged to David Spears.
They find a second pawn ticket.
For a radar detector
and a 35-millimeter camera.
[dramatic sting]
We know those are the same items
stolen from Richard Mallory.
At the time in Florida,
the pawn dealers
were supposed to get thumbprints
of people pawning items.
On the first pawn ticket,
with the radar detector and the camera,
they failed to get that thumbprint.
But on the second one,
there was a thumbprint.
[dramatic music rises, fades]
We checked it out
through the fingerprint system,
it came up as what we call a "No Hit."
There was no record on file
for that thumbprint.
So, the only thing they could do
would be do a manual fingerprint search.
[suspenseful music plays]
And they came back
in about 15 minutes with a match.
It was a girl by name of Lori Grody.
Yet another name
that we hadn't heard before.
But you have that "aha" moment
where something comes together.
It was one
of the breakthroughs in the case.
I mean, fingerprints are great.
Next to DNA,
they're the best thing
you got identifying somebody.
[Jarvis] When we checked,
a person using the name of Lori Grody
had been arrested in Florida
for possession of a weapon
and skipped out on bond,
so we had an arrest warrant
and booking photos.
And, as we ran the background
on the... the criminal history,
we found
that the actual name of the individual
was not Lori Grody.
[music rising]
[music fades]
It was Aileen Wuornos.
We found that Aileen
was actually a Michigan native.
She was born there.
[dramatic sting]
She was listed
as about five-foot-four-inches tall.
Five-foot-four would be a pretty good size
for somebody driving closer
to the steering wheel.
We contacted the Michigan State Police,
and they did
a comprehensive background on her
that painted a picture.
It showed that she had
a horrible family life.
She didn't have
a mother or a father figure.
Her father was a career criminal.
She went out on her own.
[sinister music plays]
By the age of 13, 14,
she was now
prostituting herself for cigarettes.
She lived in an old car
in the woods for a while.
At one point, she bought a gun
and was gonna rob a convenience store.
Got arrested for that.
So, at this point in the investigation,
we were able to determine
that the people we were looking for
was definitely Aileen Wuornos,
based on the fingerprints,
and her girlfriend, Tyria Moore.
[eerie music plays]
We're thinking,
"Here are two cold-blooded murderers."
We're concerned
that somebody else could die.
The problem was
we didn't know where they were.
[music fades]
[dramatic sting]
All the information
that we had developed up to that point
indicated that
they always seemed to gravitate
- back over to the Daytona Beach area.
- [suspenseful music plays]
That's when we got Mike Joyner
- involved in the case.
- [solemn country music plays]
One of the best
undercover guys I've ever met.
We had used him previously
where we put him in jail
with a possible suspect... [chuckles]
...to try to see if the suspect
starts talking about the case.
And he was good, he was really good.
[Joyner] I have worked undercover in...
- [clacks]
- ...contract killings, drug deals,
extortion cases,
homicide cases.
I've done it
to get the baddest of the baddest
off the streets if I could.
But this was the first time
that I worked a case of this magnitude
that women were the suspects.
[dramatic whoosh]
Captain Binegar was a leader
and demanded quality work.
He didn't want you to half-ass do nothing.
And they said, "Mike, what do we do?"
"How do we catch them?"
"What's your suggestion?"
I said, "They're barflies."
"Take us to Daytona,
let us start working all the bars.
Eventually, we're gonna run into them."
[dramatic music plays]
Daytona was wild. Full of bikers.
You're looking for a barfly
in a party town.
[music rises]
[music fades]
I think we were over there
for like eight, nine, ten days.
I have no idea how many bars I went into.
If they served a beer, I went in it.
[suspenseful music plays]
We went to a bar in, uh,
Port Orange.
- [pool balls clacking]
- [indistinct conversations]
When I headed up to the bar
and got me a beer,
I looked over and...
[rock music playing over stereo]
I seen the lady.
The picture looked just like her,
- but the scar is what alerted me to her.
- [ominous music plays]
It was Aileen.
She wasn't with anybody.
Tyria wasn't with her.
I told my partner, "Go tell my captain."
"Let him know
I found her and I'm staying."
"I'm not letting her out of my sight."
[Binegar] I got the word
that they had located her.
It's like a needle in a haystack.
- It was like a miracle moment.
- [ominous music plays]
[chuckles] I'm like,
"This can't be really happening."
"This is unbelievable."
And driving from Ocala
to over there, you know,
I just felt like I was on cloud nine.
[Joyner] I eased my way over there
where she was, at the side of the bar,
and I asked her, I said,
"Can I buy you a beer?"
- [indistinct conversations]
- I had a wad of money in my pocket.
Money can open up anybody's mouth.
And maybe get her confidence
to maybe say something
that nobody else would know
about the homicides.
And that was our goal.
- [clinks]
- [rock music plays]
That woman, though,
she can drink a beer now, I promise you.
She was very friendly.
Until she got enough to drink in her
she turned.
I've been known
to take a shot from a pool stick.
- [music fades]
- [whack]
And she hit me across the back with hers.
I went to my knees.
[dreamy guitar music plays]
I just got up and I said,
"You... effing idiot!"
"Why did you hit me?"
She reached out there,
and hugged my neck and said,
"Honey, I don't know."
"It just comes over me."
And I let it go.
But it makes you keep your guard up.
If she could've killed seven people...
why not eight?
[mellow bluegrass music plays]
She come up with the idea
we need to go to The Last Resort.
It is a unique place.
Very much a biker bar.
[music becomes ominous]
We had a surveillance team out front.
I told her I was going to gas up my truck.
So, when I did, I met some of the guys,
and they put a wire on me.
- [mic crackles]
- [young Joyner] Let me know you hear me.
- You hear me?
- [man] Yep.
[young Joyner] Okay, bud.
[music fades]
[Binegar] I was actually
just down the street
listening to the conversations
- on the body mic.
- [indistinct radio chatter]
But there's a lot
that's out of your control.
She might have been carrying a gun.
A .22 revolver.
It's... It's risky.
- [Aileen laughs]
- [young Joyner] Grab me a beer.
[Joyner] We started drinking again.
She kept saying she had nowhere to live,
no money.
That's why I kept pulling out my money
and buying stuff.
[Aileen] Yeah, I'd definitely like
to stay in contact with you and all.
You're my type.
[mic crackles]
It wasn't a flirting, it was a
baiting for the next victim.
[Aileen] It's just that,
you know, I am so fucked up,
- and so hurt that...
- [Young Joyner] Why you hurting so bad?
- [Aileen sobs]
- What's wrong?
[Aileen] I lost somebody
I was in love for five years... with.
[young Joyner] Run off
and left you or something?
[Aileen] Yep.
[Joyner] And then
she started telling me about Tyria.
She was very upset that Tyria had left.
[young Joyner] How long
y'all been broke up?
- [Aileen] Two weeks. You want it?
- [young Joyner] That's hard.
But the thing about it,
you come into this world,
you had nothing
but a naked ass and not a dime,
and you made it, didn't you?
- Huh?
- Yes.
[young Joyner] All right.
By God, you can do it again, then.
[Joyner] She loved Tyria so much.
She just was devastated.
[dramatic music rising]
[music continues more gently]
She said, "Let's go out tonight."
"I'll show you a big time."
"Bring all your money,
and I know some places we can go."
Well...
I kind of figured what that was.
So, I excuse myself to the bathroom,
and I told my backup team,
I said, "Guys, this is...
This is it, okay?"
If we leave,
I'm gonna be your next victim.
And I said,
"Piss on the fire and call in the dogs."
"This hunt's over with."
I walk outside...
[young Joyner] Hey,
if you hear me, she wants to walk.
Blow the horn if you hear me.
She wants to walk now.
- [car honks softly]
- Okay, buddy.
We're gonna try
to get her outside first, right?
All right, is everybody ready?
[Joyner] Even though we didn't have enough
to charge her
with a homicide at that point...
[young Joyner] Come here, baby!
...I said we gotta arrest her
on the outstanding warrant
under the name of Lori Grody
for carrying a concealed firearm.
[speaking indistinctly]
Gotta take her down.
[young Joyner and Aileen
talking indistinctly]
Sheriff's department, Volusia County.
Step over there a minute.
[man] What's your name, pal?
Hey.
My name's Jones, man. What's wrong?
My name is investigator Horzepa
with the sheriff's office.
- Volusia County Warrants Division.
- Yeah?
- Can I see some ID?
- I ain't got none, man.
I don't want her to know
I'm an undercover cop.
I want her to try to talk to me some more.
- Let me see some ID.
- I ain't got no identification.
Let me see some...
[young Joyner] I ain't got
no fucking identification!
I ain't got none!
I ain't got no fucking felony, man!
[Binegar] You can see Mike
getting combative with the officers.
He was really playing the part.
I wanna know
what the hell is going on here.
- I'll tell you, you're under arrest.
- For what?
- For a warrant!
- For what warrant?
A warrant!
Four years ago,
you didn't show up to court.
And then they just put us
in the back of the patrol car.
They left us there for me to try
to get some more out of her if I could.
- [young Joyner] What's going on, girl?
- I don't know!
[young Joyner] What do they mean
by a warrant?
[Aileen] I have no idea.
Honey, you're probably one
of these little undercover suckers that...
Doing some kind of shit
that I don't know what's going on and...
- Who you talking about?
- You ain't...
- Who the fuck you talking about?
- I don't know what's going on!
I don't know
what the fuck's going on either!
Neither do I!
We got no confession,
no mention of the homicide.
No gun.
We didn't have... anything.
- You don't even remember me, do you?
- [officer] Yeah, I do. [chuckles]
[transceiver whines]
[suspenseful music plays]
Did we have
enough evidence to convict her?
No.
[ominous music plays]
[Jarvis] When I heard the news,
I was in the sheriff's office.
There was really no time
to sit back and relax,
because getting a confession
under these circumstances
is gonna be very difficult.
We had to decide how to approach Aileen,
and Mike was a key part
of this investigation
because now we know
she felt so strongly about Tyria.
Mike was very adamant
that she would do anything for her,
so we knew we had to locate her.
[dramatic music plays]
We received a lead
that had named Tyria Moore
and given a phone number for her.
The detectives
brought her back down to Florida,
and they interviewed her.
[Binegar] If Tyria
decided to not cooperate,
then we'd kind of be back to square one.
She was key to this case.
[music intensifies, fades]
[static crackles]
[man] Okay, first of all,
how do you know Aileen?
Um, I met her in a gay bar
in South Daytona in June of 1986.
We lived together for four years,
and started out as lovers,
and later we were just like sisters more.
[Binegar] I think...
think she was very nervous.
But it was a relief
that she was so cooperative.
She came home one morning
with a two-door Cadillac.
[man] Now, this would have been when?
In December of '89.
We were sitting on the living room floor,
and she openly confessed
that she had shot
and killed a man that day.
[intriguing music plays]
[Binegar] She's talking about
the Mallory homicide in Volusia County.
That Aileen told her
that she had shot a guy that day.
And, at first, I didn't believe her.
'Cause she lies about a lot of things.
But I saw it
about a week later on the news.
- I heard.
- [man] You heard...
It's like taking a big exhale.
If there was ever
any doubt in anybody's mind
that we were after the right person,
you know, the pieces
were all starting to fit together.
[Jarvis] If you're looking
at the letter of the law,
she had a responsibility to report that,
and she didn't.
Could you charge her? Yes.
But it was a prosecutor's decision
to say, "We wanna use her as a witness,
not as a co-defendant."
[Joyner] I mean, she was scared to death
that she was
gonna have to go to prison also.
[dramatic whoosh]
So, Tyria flipped and said
she would help us get a confession...
- [music fades]
- ...out of Aileen.
[heavy, dramatic music plays]
So, we set her up
in a motel room in Daytona
and had her make contact with Aileen.
She wrote out a letter
and sent it to her in the jail
and said,
"I'm at this motel, here's the number."
"Call me, I'm scared."
[Joyner] I iterated to Tyria,
"Prove to her how scared you are
and make Aileen believe it."
[Binegar] We were hopeful
Aileen would do what she needed to do
as far as trying to keep Tyria
as much out of this as possible.
[music fading ominously]
[Joyner] Tyria was sitting on the bed.
[phone rings]
It would be like church bells going off.
Everybody stood up and sprang up.
[phone rings]
- Tyria answered the phone. It was Aileen.
- [clicks]
- [Tyria] Hi.
- [Aileen] Hey.
[Tyria] What the hell's going on?
They've called.
They've been up to my parents' again.
They've got my sister now
asking her questions.
I don't know what's going on.
[Aileen] Huh.
Why are they asking your sister questions?
- [Tyria] I don't know.
- Hmm.
Lee, I think they're coming after me,
I know they are.
[Aileen] No, they're not, you're innocent.
- I'm not gonna let you go to jail...
- [sobs]
...you hear me?
[Tyria] You evidently
don't love me anymore,
you don't trust me or anything.
You're gonna let me get in trouble
for something I didn't do.
- [Aileen] I said I'm not!
- [Tyria sniffles]
Tyria was very emotional,
and that was not put on.
- [Tyria] Why in the hell did you do this?
- Huh?
- [Tyria] Why did you do this?
- [sobs] I don't know.
[Tyria sniffles]
- Listen, Ty.
- What?
[Aileen] I'm probably never
gonna see you again, you know that?
[Tyria] Yes.
[Aileen] I love you.
I mean, you can't help but it pull
at your heartstrings a little bit.
- [melancholy music plays]
- [both sobbing]
[Aileen] If I have to confess everything
just to keep you
from getting in trouble, I will.
- [Tyria] Okay.
- So, don't worry, okay?
[Tyria] Okay. [sobs]
- [Aileen] I love you.
- [scoffs]
[Tyria] Well, do it now, get it over with.
- [Aileen] Right this very moment?
- Yes, get it over with.
- [Aileen] All right.
- [sobs] Okay.
- [Aileen] All right. I love you.
- Okay, bye. [sniffles]
[Binegar] Aileen really cared about Tyria.
She really did.
Probably the most stable relationship
she had in her entire life.
[tense music plays]
Within an hour
of her getting off the phone with Tyria,
she reached out
to corrections officers at the jail.
[music rises, stops]
She was ready to talk.
- [sighs]
- [ominous sting]
[man] Okay, so then what you're telling us
is you're voluntarily
coming forward to talk to us now.
Yeah, to let you know
that I'm the one that did the killing.
[melancholy music plays]
The truth comes out.
I know that I don't want
my girlfriend involved.
She did not do anything,
and I'm trying to make this clear,
that's why I'm confessing.
Just, uh... She was protecting Tyria,
but she was also being truthful.
I just felt a...
You know, a great relief.
But what I did,
I don't understand why I did it,
I just don't.
[sobbing] I... I just don't.
I should have never done it.
See, most of times, I was drunk as hell,
and I was a professional hooker.
[Binegar] You know, she had a tough life.
But there's a lot of people out there
that's had tough lives,
and they don't go on a killing spree.
They were bad,
'cause they were gonna hurt me.
This person was either gonna
physically beat me up,
rape me or kill me.
And I don't know which one.
And I just turned around
and did my fair play
before I would get hurt.
[dramatic sting]
[Binegar] I don't know that anybody,
including her,
knows exactly why she did it.
Some people,
that's all they wanna concentrate on,
but that, uh...
That really wasn't my job.
My job was to figure out
who committed these murders
and put that person
where they needed to be,
and that was, you know, behind bars.
[dramatic sting]
There was never
any evidence that indicated
that Tyria Moore was responsible
for any of these homicides.
She was critical to making,
uh, the case against Wuornos.
- She loved you, didn't she?
- [Tyria] Yes.
She said she'd do anything for you,
didn't she?
Yes, she did.
And in order for her to say
what you wanted her to,
you lied to her.
- Right?
- Yes.
[tense music rising]
- [music fades]
- [birds chirping]
[thunder rumbles in distance]
In Deland, Florida, tomorrow,
a judge will sentence
the first female serial killer
ever brought to trial in this country.
Today, the jury in the case recommended
that Aileen Wuornos
get the electric chair.
Wuornos is a prostitute.
She was convicted of killing a man
who picked her up for sex.
[tense music plays]
[Jarvis] There was something
that would flip her off,
like a switch going off
to where she went into this mode
where she was
that aggressor, that predator,
and she would, uh, be out for the kill.
[melancholy piano music playing]
There's no sense
in keeping... keeping me alive,
because I just would
absolutely kill again.
I've got too much anger,
too much hatred in me.
[Jarvis] Thirty years
after the deaths of these men,
there's this fascination
from people that they're looking at
a real true crime story
that could just as well be fiction,
as wild as it is.
Huh.
You see a picture of her,
and they even got her victims up there.
I didn't know that.
[Binegar] I just retired last year,
and, uh, we're still talking about it.
[chuckling] So, I guess
it's gonna follow me to the grave.
I don't know.
[man] So, Steve,
just watch the mic for us. Yeah.
- [mic thuds softly]
- [sighs]
[man chuckles, speaks indistinctly]
[Joyner] I wouldn't have done
anything any different.
I'm glad that no one had to suffer
because of her hands anymore.
But I'm sad that she killed seven people.
And my part of it is over with.
I crawl back in my dirt hole,
I hide from the public
and wait for the next time.
[dramatic bluegrass music plays]
[music fades]
- [birds chirping]
[suspenseful music plays]
[Jarvis] When I arrived,
I noticed that there was
a dirt road that runs into the forest.
[sinister sting]
And all I knew was that,
somewhere down that road,
there was a body.
- [sinister music plays]
- [animal sounds continue]
The first indication of the body
was the smell of decomposition in the air.
[chaotic sting]
[indistinct radio chatter]
- [disorienting sting]
- It was facedown.
There was a lot of blood.
- He was a white male...
- [young Jarvis] Uh-oh.
...approximately 50 years of age.
- [young Jarvis grunts]
- When we turned the body over,
we noticed that there was
a company logo on one pocket
and the name "Troy" sewn above the other.
- Nothing in that right front pocket, Tim?
- No, empty, Brian.
[Jarvis] This matched up
with a report we had of a missing person
just several days earlier,
and that was the name of Troy Burress.
[dramatic music plays]
How did he get to this area?
How did that body end up up there
and why was it up there?
Who did it?
Looking back on the investigation,
we didn't know how big
or how bad this might get.
[dramatic sting]
[opening theme music plays]
[fire crackles]
[music fades]
[reporter] Fifty-year-old Troy Burress
worked as a truck driver
for a Florida sausage company.
He had planned on quitting his job
because he hated life on the road.
Burress was found shot in the head.
[brooding music plays]
[Jarvis] I was a detective sergeant
supervising the major crimes detectives.
And I would report to Captain Binegar,
who was over the entire
Criminal Investigation Division.
- [man speaking indistinctly]
- I'm Steve Binegar.
[man] Watch your head.
[Binegar] I'm 63 years old.
Usually, I'm in sweats and Crocs.
That's my new uniform of the day
since I retired.
- [man] I like my Crocs too.
- Yeah.
I probably blew that.
- You're gonna have to...
- [woman laughing]
I need a teleprompter.
[relaxed country music plays]
I had about 50 people at the time
that were in my division.
I would say it was a big job,
especially being 32 years old.
Somebody said
I might've been the youngest captain
in the sheriff's office history
since 1845, but I don't know.
I can't say that for sure.
Hey, Jarvis. How've you been?
- I'm doing good.
- Great.
This is a picture of me in 1998
when I was appointed sheriff.
I was with the sheriff's office
for eight and a half years,
and I was in the FBI four years.
I always gravitated towards
the jobs that I called "day on, stay on,"
so you're constantly on call.
[music fades]
[ominous music plays]
It was, uh, after hours,
I was getting ready
to have dinner with my family.
My pager went off.
Another body
had been discovered in Marion County.
It was possible homicide.
[shrill sting]
When I got there,
you could see the body
off to the side of the pavement,
actually almost
into the... the weeds itself.
[whoosh]
The victim looked like
he had been shot from different angles.
Almost like he was spinning
to try to get away as he was being shot.
[dramatic sting]
Seems like a lot of rage.
There was a lot of anger
in the way the crime was committed.
I'm gonna be honest,
walking up to this crime scene
after 30 years, uh,
you know, the...
the sad part
that somebody lost their life right here,
a few feet from us,
it kind of rushes over you.
You know, what struck me
was there was no vehicle.
It looked like it was
the same sort of scenario
that we're dealing with
with the other case.
You know, we had middle-aged men
shot multiple times.
We start to see that as a pattern.
So, we sent Sergeant Jarvis
to the autopsy.
[Jarvis] Seven shots.
So, it was a very, very,
uh, angry killing.
His name was Charles Richard Humphreys.
The medical examiner
said he had been killed
with a .22 caliber weapon.
A .22 is the same
as the Troy Burress homicide.
[exciting music playing]
The ammunition was all the same,
and it was being fired
out of a similar firearm
- each time.
- [stopwatch ticking]
We started to realize
there was a good possibility
that we were dealing with the same killer.
[dramatic whoosh and sting]
I worked straight through the night
and through the next day.
[female reporter] Charles Humphreys was
a 56-year-old former Alabama police chief.
A man who was considered
anything but naive.
They took away someone who loved life.
And, of course, the big part of my life.
[Jarvis] So, we had Troy Burress.
- [dramatic music plays]
- And we had Humphreys as well.
We followed leads as they came in,
but there was very little
to go on initially.
And, at one point,
we decided to look at the bulletins
of unsolved homicides in Central Florida.
We noticed there was a similar case
in Citrus County, David Spears,
and a similar case
in Pasco County, John Doe.
The victims were
all middle-aged white men,
traveling alone
on Central Florida highways.
In each case,
.22 caliber weapons were used.
Also, six months
before the death of David Spears,
there was another potential victim
in Volusia County, a neighboring county.
His name being Richard Mallory.
He had property stolen from the vehicle.
A radar detector
and a 35-millimeter camera.
The rest of the victims
had items taken as well.
We noticed that
the driver's side seat in the vehicles
was pulled in the forward-most position.
But if you looked at our victims,
they were anywhere
from five-foot-ten to six-foot-five.
So, they wouldn't be driving a car
with the seat pulled up that far.
[dramatic music plays]
I thought back to an incident
that occurred on July the Fourth
in Marion County.
[eerie music plays]
We recovered a vehicle
in the Orange Springs area
that belonged to a missing man
by the name of Peter Siems.
The vehicle had been damaged,
and the seat was
all the way forward in the driver's side.
Same as the other cases.
Even though
we didn't find a body in that case,
we identified some witnesses
who had seen
two females leaving the vehicle.
One was kind of short and really heavyset.
The other was kind of taller with blond...
A little shoulder-length blond hair.
They took off
from the church in the woods.
The tall blond,
she had a scar on her forehead.
And she had blood on her.
So, uh, we had an artist
put the composites together for us
on these females.
[sinister music plays]
We didn't have any idea
what their connection would be.
Could they have stolen the vehicle?
We didn't know.
But what we did know
is that, if we found them,
we'd be able to get some answers.
[ominous music plays]
At this point, we had five bodies,
as well as a missing person,
all in the space of about four months.
[dramatic music plays]
The realization
that we might have a serial killer
was overwhelming.
It's something
we had never dealt with before.
We knew, at this point,
we had to ramp up our investigations.
We reached out
to dozens of law enforcement.
It became evident that
we really needed to work together on this.
So, we knew that every victim
was shot with a .22.
It was copper-jacketed, hollow point.
The striations in the barrel
that make the bullet spin,
uh, were all the same,
always a right twist.
It's almost like
a fingerprint for the bullet.
This is the same gun
being used in all these homicides.
It's a smaller weapon,
it gives less kickback,
so it could be
that somebody either smaller or weaker
might be using a .22.
We all started leaning
in that same direction,
that, uh, this could
very well be a female.
[music swells, fades]
A female serial killer.
[mysterious music plays]
[Jarvis] A few weeks later...
Mr. Humphreys' car was found,
and a receipt was located
underneath the front driver's seat
of the vehicle.
[dramatic music plays]
It had the name
of the truck stop in Wildwood, Florida,
at Interstate 75 and County Route 44.
We went in, we talked to the clerk.
We asked her about Charles Humphreys
and showed her a photo of him.
She didn't recognize him
or remember him being in there.
So, we showed the clerk
the two composite drawings.
[suspenseful music plays]
And she said, "I saw them in here."
"They... they purchased something
and they left."
"But these girls
were acting kind of giddy,
they got my attention."
This lead was really phenomenal
because, now,
this was our first real connection
to two women tied
into a missing person case,
possibly being involved in the death
of Charles Richard Humphreys.
But we still didn't have any names,
so we had to try
and find out who these people were.
It was at this point
that we had another homicide occur.
[eerie sting]
That of Walter Gino Antonio.
[dramatic music plays]
His vehicle was found.
The license plates had been removed,
and the driver's side seat
was in the forward-most position.
[Binegar] He was killed
with the same type of weapon,
same type of ammunition.
This brought the victim count to six,
with the possibility
of a seventh with Peter Siems.
The killer was making a circle around us
and dropping bodies
and victims' vehicles along the way.
But that's a very volatile situation.
[Jarvis] You know,
we just cannot let this go on.
We have to do more.
[dramatic music rising]
[music fades]
[Binegar] So, we made the decision
to release the composites to the press.
If nothing else,
from a public safety standpoint.
But I think we underestimated
what kind of media interest
this would generate.
[camera shutters clicking]
It was like a feeding frenzy,
like a bunch of piranhas.
[chuckles]
The information that we've received,
there were a variety of scenarios.
This was bigger than anything
I had handled up to that point.
We don't know that at this point.
Right off the bat,
they realized this was a story.
[reporter] Police say,
for the first time in criminal history,
these killers may be murdering
with a feminine touch.
The main suspects are two young women
who play damsels in distress
along the roadway
and then become dames of doom.
We don't know how the suspects
are getting close enough to our victims
to, uh...
break down the natural tendency
to be wary of strangers.
She may be offering, uh, a sexual favor
or asking for some sort of assistance.
[reporter continues] Florida drivers
aren't stopping for anyone,
especially female hitchhikers.
It's just scary, in a way, because, uh...
Knowing somebody's
doing something like that.
I get all these white hairs carrying a gun
hoping nobody catches me with it
and put me in jail.
I'd rather have the sheriff
here in this county catch me with it
than two women catch me without it.
[phones ringing]
I'd say that the pressure
kind of went through the roof.
It kind of blew the top off of it.
[phone rings]
Once we went public, almost immediately,
calls started coming in.
- [phones ringing]
- [dramatic music plays]
We had obtained over 400 leads
on who these composites might be.
Of those 400 leads,
four of them gave us good information...
- [keyboard clacking]
- ...and they all named the same people.
Tyria Moore and her girlfriend, Lee.
They described Tyria Moore
as the short, heavyset individual,
and her friend, Lee, as the taller blond.
It was just amazing that, finally,
we have something concrete to work with.
- [dial tone beeping]
- [phone rings]
The next day, we receive another lead
from a detective in Port Orange.
The detective said he had gotten tips
from a confidential source
on who these girls might be.
And from what the source told him,
their last known address
was the Fairview Motel in Port Orange.
[suspenseful music plays]
Investigators check on the Fairview,
they talk to the clerk,
and they show the clerk the composites.
The clerk looks at them
and says, "Oh, yeah."
"Those girls have been in here.
They stay here regularly."
"They always want room number eight."
The tall blond, who went by the name Lee,
signed in under the name
of Cammie Marsh Greene.
[dramatic sting]
A name that we hadn't heard before.
We found that she lived
in Holly Hill, Florida,
which is just outside of Daytona Beach.
[dramatic music plays]
We checked and determined
that she was not involved.
She had not stayed at the Fairview.
So, we knew someone else
had used that name
and had assumed her identity as well.
[dramatic music continues]
The next thing we do
is we check the pawn shops.
We knew
that the victims had property stolen,
and we wanna find out if anyone
using any of the names that we had
pawned any items.
The detectives in Daytona Beach...
find a pawn ticket.
And it's in the name
of Cammie Marsh Greene.
[dramatic whoosh]
It's for a box of tools.
And this was an item
that had been stolen from the vehicle
that belonged to David Spears.
They find a second pawn ticket.
For a radar detector
and a 35-millimeter camera.
[dramatic sting]
We know those are the same items
stolen from Richard Mallory.
At the time in Florida,
the pawn dealers
were supposed to get thumbprints
of people pawning items.
On the first pawn ticket,
with the radar detector and the camera,
they failed to get that thumbprint.
But on the second one,
there was a thumbprint.
[dramatic music rises, fades]
We checked it out
through the fingerprint system,
it came up as what we call a "No Hit."
There was no record on file
for that thumbprint.
So, the only thing they could do
would be do a manual fingerprint search.
[suspenseful music plays]
And they came back
in about 15 minutes with a match.
It was a girl by name of Lori Grody.
Yet another name
that we hadn't heard before.
But you have that "aha" moment
where something comes together.
It was one
of the breakthroughs in the case.
I mean, fingerprints are great.
Next to DNA,
they're the best thing
you got identifying somebody.
[Jarvis] When we checked,
a person using the name of Lori Grody
had been arrested in Florida
for possession of a weapon
and skipped out on bond,
so we had an arrest warrant
and booking photos.
And, as we ran the background
on the... the criminal history,
we found
that the actual name of the individual
was not Lori Grody.
[music rising]
[music fades]
It was Aileen Wuornos.
We found that Aileen
was actually a Michigan native.
She was born there.
[dramatic sting]
She was listed
as about five-foot-four-inches tall.
Five-foot-four would be a pretty good size
for somebody driving closer
to the steering wheel.
We contacted the Michigan State Police,
and they did
a comprehensive background on her
that painted a picture.
It showed that she had
a horrible family life.
She didn't have
a mother or a father figure.
Her father was a career criminal.
She went out on her own.
[sinister music plays]
By the age of 13, 14,
she was now
prostituting herself for cigarettes.
She lived in an old car
in the woods for a while.
At one point, she bought a gun
and was gonna rob a convenience store.
Got arrested for that.
So, at this point in the investigation,
we were able to determine
that the people we were looking for
was definitely Aileen Wuornos,
based on the fingerprints,
and her girlfriend, Tyria Moore.
[eerie music plays]
We're thinking,
"Here are two cold-blooded murderers."
We're concerned
that somebody else could die.
The problem was
we didn't know where they were.
[music fades]
[dramatic sting]
All the information
that we had developed up to that point
indicated that
they always seemed to gravitate
- back over to the Daytona Beach area.
- [suspenseful music plays]
That's when we got Mike Joyner
- involved in the case.
- [solemn country music plays]
One of the best
undercover guys I've ever met.
We had used him previously
where we put him in jail
with a possible suspect... [chuckles]
...to try to see if the suspect
starts talking about the case.
And he was good, he was really good.
[Joyner] I have worked undercover in...
- [clacks]
- ...contract killings, drug deals,
extortion cases,
homicide cases.
I've done it
to get the baddest of the baddest
off the streets if I could.
But this was the first time
that I worked a case of this magnitude
that women were the suspects.
[dramatic whoosh]
Captain Binegar was a leader
and demanded quality work.
He didn't want you to half-ass do nothing.
And they said, "Mike, what do we do?"
"How do we catch them?"
"What's your suggestion?"
I said, "They're barflies."
"Take us to Daytona,
let us start working all the bars.
Eventually, we're gonna run into them."
[dramatic music plays]
Daytona was wild. Full of bikers.
You're looking for a barfly
in a party town.
[music rises]
[music fades]
I think we were over there
for like eight, nine, ten days.
I have no idea how many bars I went into.
If they served a beer, I went in it.
[suspenseful music plays]
We went to a bar in, uh,
Port Orange.
- [pool balls clacking]
- [indistinct conversations]
When I headed up to the bar
and got me a beer,
I looked over and...
[rock music playing over stereo]
I seen the lady.
The picture looked just like her,
- but the scar is what alerted me to her.
- [ominous music plays]
It was Aileen.
She wasn't with anybody.
Tyria wasn't with her.
I told my partner, "Go tell my captain."
"Let him know
I found her and I'm staying."
"I'm not letting her out of my sight."
[Binegar] I got the word
that they had located her.
It's like a needle in a haystack.
- It was like a miracle moment.
- [ominous music plays]
[chuckles] I'm like,
"This can't be really happening."
"This is unbelievable."
And driving from Ocala
to over there, you know,
I just felt like I was on cloud nine.
[Joyner] I eased my way over there
where she was, at the side of the bar,
and I asked her, I said,
"Can I buy you a beer?"
- [indistinct conversations]
- I had a wad of money in my pocket.
Money can open up anybody's mouth.
And maybe get her confidence
to maybe say something
that nobody else would know
about the homicides.
And that was our goal.
- [clinks]
- [rock music plays]
That woman, though,
she can drink a beer now, I promise you.
She was very friendly.
Until she got enough to drink in her
she turned.
I've been known
to take a shot from a pool stick.
- [music fades]
- [whack]
And she hit me across the back with hers.
I went to my knees.
[dreamy guitar music plays]
I just got up and I said,
"You... effing idiot!"
"Why did you hit me?"
She reached out there,
and hugged my neck and said,
"Honey, I don't know."
"It just comes over me."
And I let it go.
But it makes you keep your guard up.
If she could've killed seven people...
why not eight?
[mellow bluegrass music plays]
She come up with the idea
we need to go to The Last Resort.
It is a unique place.
Very much a biker bar.
[music becomes ominous]
We had a surveillance team out front.
I told her I was going to gas up my truck.
So, when I did, I met some of the guys,
and they put a wire on me.
- [mic crackles]
- [young Joyner] Let me know you hear me.
- You hear me?
- [man] Yep.
[young Joyner] Okay, bud.
[music fades]
[Binegar] I was actually
just down the street
listening to the conversations
- on the body mic.
- [indistinct radio chatter]
But there's a lot
that's out of your control.
She might have been carrying a gun.
A .22 revolver.
It's... It's risky.
- [Aileen laughs]
- [young Joyner] Grab me a beer.
[Joyner] We started drinking again.
She kept saying she had nowhere to live,
no money.
That's why I kept pulling out my money
and buying stuff.
[Aileen] Yeah, I'd definitely like
to stay in contact with you and all.
You're my type.
[mic crackles]
It wasn't a flirting, it was a
baiting for the next victim.
[Aileen] It's just that,
you know, I am so fucked up,
- and so hurt that...
- [Young Joyner] Why you hurting so bad?
- [Aileen sobs]
- What's wrong?
[Aileen] I lost somebody
I was in love for five years... with.
[young Joyner] Run off
and left you or something?
[Aileen] Yep.
[Joyner] And then
she started telling me about Tyria.
She was very upset that Tyria had left.
[young Joyner] How long
y'all been broke up?
- [Aileen] Two weeks. You want it?
- [young Joyner] That's hard.
But the thing about it,
you come into this world,
you had nothing
but a naked ass and not a dime,
and you made it, didn't you?
- Huh?
- Yes.
[young Joyner] All right.
By God, you can do it again, then.
[Joyner] She loved Tyria so much.
She just was devastated.
[dramatic music rising]
[music continues more gently]
She said, "Let's go out tonight."
"I'll show you a big time."
"Bring all your money,
and I know some places we can go."
Well...
I kind of figured what that was.
So, I excuse myself to the bathroom,
and I told my backup team,
I said, "Guys, this is...
This is it, okay?"
If we leave,
I'm gonna be your next victim.
And I said,
"Piss on the fire and call in the dogs."
"This hunt's over with."
I walk outside...
[young Joyner] Hey,
if you hear me, she wants to walk.
Blow the horn if you hear me.
She wants to walk now.
- [car honks softly]
- Okay, buddy.
We're gonna try
to get her outside first, right?
All right, is everybody ready?
[Joyner] Even though we didn't have enough
to charge her
with a homicide at that point...
[young Joyner] Come here, baby!
...I said we gotta arrest her
on the outstanding warrant
under the name of Lori Grody
for carrying a concealed firearm.
[speaking indistinctly]
Gotta take her down.
[young Joyner and Aileen
talking indistinctly]
Sheriff's department, Volusia County.
Step over there a minute.
[man] What's your name, pal?
Hey.
My name's Jones, man. What's wrong?
My name is investigator Horzepa
with the sheriff's office.
- Volusia County Warrants Division.
- Yeah?
- Can I see some ID?
- I ain't got none, man.
I don't want her to know
I'm an undercover cop.
I want her to try to talk to me some more.
- Let me see some ID.
- I ain't got no identification.
Let me see some...
[young Joyner] I ain't got
no fucking identification!
I ain't got none!
I ain't got no fucking felony, man!
[Binegar] You can see Mike
getting combative with the officers.
He was really playing the part.
I wanna know
what the hell is going on here.
- I'll tell you, you're under arrest.
- For what?
- For a warrant!
- For what warrant?
A warrant!
Four years ago,
you didn't show up to court.
And then they just put us
in the back of the patrol car.
They left us there for me to try
to get some more out of her if I could.
- [young Joyner] What's going on, girl?
- I don't know!
[young Joyner] What do they mean
by a warrant?
[Aileen] I have no idea.
Honey, you're probably one
of these little undercover suckers that...
Doing some kind of shit
that I don't know what's going on and...
- Who you talking about?
- You ain't...
- Who the fuck you talking about?
- I don't know what's going on!
I don't know
what the fuck's going on either!
Neither do I!
We got no confession,
no mention of the homicide.
No gun.
We didn't have... anything.
- You don't even remember me, do you?
- [officer] Yeah, I do. [chuckles]
[transceiver whines]
[suspenseful music plays]
Did we have
enough evidence to convict her?
No.
[ominous music plays]
[Jarvis] When I heard the news,
I was in the sheriff's office.
There was really no time
to sit back and relax,
because getting a confession
under these circumstances
is gonna be very difficult.
We had to decide how to approach Aileen,
and Mike was a key part
of this investigation
because now we know
she felt so strongly about Tyria.
Mike was very adamant
that she would do anything for her,
so we knew we had to locate her.
[dramatic music plays]
We received a lead
that had named Tyria Moore
and given a phone number for her.
The detectives
brought her back down to Florida,
and they interviewed her.
[Binegar] If Tyria
decided to not cooperate,
then we'd kind of be back to square one.
She was key to this case.
[music intensifies, fades]
[static crackles]
[man] Okay, first of all,
how do you know Aileen?
Um, I met her in a gay bar
in South Daytona in June of 1986.
We lived together for four years,
and started out as lovers,
and later we were just like sisters more.
[Binegar] I think...
think she was very nervous.
But it was a relief
that she was so cooperative.
She came home one morning
with a two-door Cadillac.
[man] Now, this would have been when?
In December of '89.
We were sitting on the living room floor,
and she openly confessed
that she had shot
and killed a man that day.
[intriguing music plays]
[Binegar] She's talking about
the Mallory homicide in Volusia County.
That Aileen told her
that she had shot a guy that day.
And, at first, I didn't believe her.
'Cause she lies about a lot of things.
But I saw it
about a week later on the news.
- I heard.
- [man] You heard...
It's like taking a big exhale.
If there was ever
any doubt in anybody's mind
that we were after the right person,
you know, the pieces
were all starting to fit together.
[Jarvis] If you're looking
at the letter of the law,
she had a responsibility to report that,
and she didn't.
Could you charge her? Yes.
But it was a prosecutor's decision
to say, "We wanna use her as a witness,
not as a co-defendant."
[Joyner] I mean, she was scared to death
that she was
gonna have to go to prison also.
[dramatic whoosh]
So, Tyria flipped and said
she would help us get a confession...
- [music fades]
- ...out of Aileen.
[heavy, dramatic music plays]
So, we set her up
in a motel room in Daytona
and had her make contact with Aileen.
She wrote out a letter
and sent it to her in the jail
and said,
"I'm at this motel, here's the number."
"Call me, I'm scared."
[Joyner] I iterated to Tyria,
"Prove to her how scared you are
and make Aileen believe it."
[Binegar] We were hopeful
Aileen would do what she needed to do
as far as trying to keep Tyria
as much out of this as possible.
[music fading ominously]
[Joyner] Tyria was sitting on the bed.
[phone rings]
It would be like church bells going off.
Everybody stood up and sprang up.
[phone rings]
- Tyria answered the phone. It was Aileen.
- [clicks]
- [Tyria] Hi.
- [Aileen] Hey.
[Tyria] What the hell's going on?
They've called.
They've been up to my parents' again.
They've got my sister now
asking her questions.
I don't know what's going on.
[Aileen] Huh.
Why are they asking your sister questions?
- [Tyria] I don't know.
- Hmm.
Lee, I think they're coming after me,
I know they are.
[Aileen] No, they're not, you're innocent.
- I'm not gonna let you go to jail...
- [sobs]
...you hear me?
[Tyria] You evidently
don't love me anymore,
you don't trust me or anything.
You're gonna let me get in trouble
for something I didn't do.
- [Aileen] I said I'm not!
- [Tyria sniffles]
Tyria was very emotional,
and that was not put on.
- [Tyria] Why in the hell did you do this?
- Huh?
- [Tyria] Why did you do this?
- [sobs] I don't know.
[Tyria sniffles]
- Listen, Ty.
- What?
[Aileen] I'm probably never
gonna see you again, you know that?
[Tyria] Yes.
[Aileen] I love you.
I mean, you can't help but it pull
at your heartstrings a little bit.
- [melancholy music plays]
- [both sobbing]
[Aileen] If I have to confess everything
just to keep you
from getting in trouble, I will.
- [Tyria] Okay.
- So, don't worry, okay?
[Tyria] Okay. [sobs]
- [Aileen] I love you.
- [scoffs]
[Tyria] Well, do it now, get it over with.
- [Aileen] Right this very moment?
- Yes, get it over with.
- [Aileen] All right.
- [sobs] Okay.
- [Aileen] All right. I love you.
- Okay, bye. [sniffles]
[Binegar] Aileen really cared about Tyria.
She really did.
Probably the most stable relationship
she had in her entire life.
[tense music plays]
Within an hour
of her getting off the phone with Tyria,
she reached out
to corrections officers at the jail.
[music rises, stops]
She was ready to talk.
- [sighs]
- [ominous sting]
[man] Okay, so then what you're telling us
is you're voluntarily
coming forward to talk to us now.
Yeah, to let you know
that I'm the one that did the killing.
[melancholy music plays]
The truth comes out.
I know that I don't want
my girlfriend involved.
She did not do anything,
and I'm trying to make this clear,
that's why I'm confessing.
Just, uh... She was protecting Tyria,
but she was also being truthful.
I just felt a...
You know, a great relief.
But what I did,
I don't understand why I did it,
I just don't.
[sobbing] I... I just don't.
I should have never done it.
See, most of times, I was drunk as hell,
and I was a professional hooker.
[Binegar] You know, she had a tough life.
But there's a lot of people out there
that's had tough lives,
and they don't go on a killing spree.
They were bad,
'cause they were gonna hurt me.
This person was either gonna
physically beat me up,
rape me or kill me.
And I don't know which one.
And I just turned around
and did my fair play
before I would get hurt.
[dramatic sting]
[Binegar] I don't know that anybody,
including her,
knows exactly why she did it.
Some people,
that's all they wanna concentrate on,
but that, uh...
That really wasn't my job.
My job was to figure out
who committed these murders
and put that person
where they needed to be,
and that was, you know, behind bars.
[dramatic sting]
There was never
any evidence that indicated
that Tyria Moore was responsible
for any of these homicides.
She was critical to making,
uh, the case against Wuornos.
- She loved you, didn't she?
- [Tyria] Yes.
She said she'd do anything for you,
didn't she?
Yes, she did.
And in order for her to say
what you wanted her to,
you lied to her.
- Right?
- Yes.
[tense music rising]
- [music fades]
- [birds chirping]
[thunder rumbles in distance]
In Deland, Florida, tomorrow,
a judge will sentence
the first female serial killer
ever brought to trial in this country.
Today, the jury in the case recommended
that Aileen Wuornos
get the electric chair.
Wuornos is a prostitute.
She was convicted of killing a man
who picked her up for sex.
[tense music plays]
[Jarvis] There was something
that would flip her off,
like a switch going off
to where she went into this mode
where she was
that aggressor, that predator,
and she would, uh, be out for the kill.
[melancholy piano music playing]
There's no sense
in keeping... keeping me alive,
because I just would
absolutely kill again.
I've got too much anger,
too much hatred in me.
[Jarvis] Thirty years
after the deaths of these men,
there's this fascination
from people that they're looking at
a real true crime story
that could just as well be fiction,
as wild as it is.
Huh.
You see a picture of her,
and they even got her victims up there.
I didn't know that.
[Binegar] I just retired last year,
and, uh, we're still talking about it.
[chuckling] So, I guess
it's gonna follow me to the grave.
I don't know.
[man] So, Steve,
just watch the mic for us. Yeah.
- [mic thuds softly]
- [sighs]
[man chuckles, speaks indistinctly]
[Joyner] I wouldn't have done
anything any different.
I'm glad that no one had to suffer
because of her hands anymore.
But I'm sad that she killed seven people.
And my part of it is over with.
I crawl back in my dirt hole,
I hide from the public
and wait for the next time.
[dramatic bluegrass music plays]
[music fades]