How was Aileen Wuornos caught? Details explored as Netflix drops Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers

Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers arrives on Netflix with a clear question front and center: how was Aileen Wuornos caught? The film retraces the case with police tapes, courtroom video, and archival reporting.

Between late 1989 and November 1990, Aileen Wuornos killed seven men across Florida. She claimed self-defense, saying the men raped or tried to rape her. Detectives, facing a string of roadside homicides, began to find links through ballistics, pawn slips, and a hit-and-run crash. The new film keeps the focus on those steps, showing how routine police work spun a tight net.

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Case overview of Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers

Wuornos lived on Florida highways, meeting men while doing sex work. The victims were middle-aged motorists. Bodies turned up near roads and logging tracks. A .22 caliber revolver tied several scenes, and stolen items surfaced in area pawnshops. She used aliases and moved often, which slowed the search.

Bodies were found near Florida highways during 1989 and 1990 (Image via Unsplash)

Her story carried two tracks. On one side were the killings and the stolen property trail. On the other was, her stated claim that she acted to stop sexual assaults. The documentary shows both, then returns to the paper trail that put a name and face to the suspect.

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How Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers traces the capture

The break came after a July 1990 crash involving victim Peter Siems’s car. Two women fled the scene. Witnesses reportedly gave descriptions that produced composite sketches released to the media.

Soon, investigators picked up more pieces. Pawnshop receipts for items tied to victims showed the name and thumbprint of a woman already known to police. Her prints from the pawn slips matched a latent print from Siems’s car.

Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers (Image via Netflix)

With that match, the search narrowed to Aileen Wuornos. On January 9, 1991, officers arrested her at The Last Resort bar in Volusia County. The next day, they located her girlfriend, Tyria Moore. Moore reportedly cooperated in exchange for immunity and made recorded phone calls from a motel, urging Wuornos to speak plainly about the killings. Days later, Wuornos confessed.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, police linked the crash to the suspect through prints and pawn records, arrested Wuornos at The Last Resort on January 9, 1991, and obtained a confession after Moore’s taped calls.

“I have hate crawling through my system.” -Aileen Wuornos, 2001

The film places that stark line beside the case files so viewers can weigh her words against the evidence.

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Why the arrest stuck in Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers

Physical evidence anchored the case. There were prints in a victim’s car, signed pawn slips for victims’ property, and witnesses who placed Wuornos with a crashed vehicle. Moore later testified about the calls and about their life together during the period of the crimes.

At trial in 1992, prosecutors presented the murder of Richard Mallory first, and the court allowed pattern evidence to show a series, not a one-off event. The jury convicted her. She later pleaded no contest to five additional killings. One victim’s body was never found, which meant no trial in that case.

Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers closes the loop by showing that the arrest was not a single moment but a chain. A crash that drew attention. Paper records that did not lie. A bar in Port Orange where officers made the grab. And phone calls that, reportedly, brought a confession.

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Also read: 5 key details about Aileen Wuornos’s brutal crimes as Netflix drops Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers

Edited by Preethika Vijayakumar