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Speaker 2: Hello everyone, welcome back to Facing Evil from Tenderfoot TV
Speaker 2: and iHeartRadio. We are your hosts. I'm Roschia Pecureiro.
Speaker 3: And I am Eve Genteelay and here as always with
Speaker 3: our amazing producer Trevor Young.
Speaker 1: Hey there, how's it go?
Speaker 2: Hello? Hi Trevor, Oh my god. Okay, so I have
Speaker 2: to tell you too about what I hope, pray beg
Speaker 2: for the two of you and all of our listeners
Speaker 2: to binge watch immediately. And again we are not sponsored,
Speaker 2: but if if you want to sponsor us, please tell
Speaker 2: us Amazon Prime. But a league of their own, the
Speaker 2: reimagined series from creator Abby Jacobson, and she's also one
Speaker 2: of the stars in it. She's the co creator. But
Speaker 2: it's so incredible. I have to tell you a little
Speaker 2: bit about this series and why. Of course, as the
Speaker 2: card holding lesbian that I am. Of course I want
Speaker 2: to watch, you know, the reimagining of a baseball you know,
Speaker 2: female baseball players, you know baseball show. But there's two
Speaker 2: reasons that I want all of our listeners and for
Speaker 2: the two of you to watch it. One, In Petty
Speaker 2: Marshall's original movie in the nineties, she only alluded to
Speaker 2: the fact that there were African American women that played
Speaker 2: baseball during that time, right, but they weren't allowed to
Speaker 2: play in the All American you know, girls professional Baseball League,
Speaker 2: which is what this series is based on. It took place,
Speaker 2: I believe in nineteen forty three. She like did like
Speaker 2: a little to it, just like one scene, but she
Speaker 2: didn't allude at all to the queer scene of that time.
Speaker 2: And in the new series, they allude, not only allude,
Speaker 2: they slap you in the face with it beautifully. They
Speaker 2: bring in beautiful characters and people of color. And it's
Speaker 2: absolutely brilliantly incredible, laughing, crying, all the things. So please, please, please,
Speaker 2: please please please watch it.
Speaker 3: Absolutely And what did you say?
Speaker 2: It was on again? Amazon?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Amazon Prime?
Speaker 3: Oh, Amazon Prime. Okay, yeah, I can't wait to watch.
Speaker 3: It's so interesting that you say that because I was
Speaker 3: just on a plane to New York and I just
Speaker 3: watched for the first time forty two. But Chadwick Boseman,
Speaker 3: and you know the story about Jackie Robinson, and that
Speaker 3: was amazing and just to think about you know what,
Speaker 3: you know, Jackie endured during that time, and I could
Speaker 3: imagine the same for those those women back then. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean you had to be fierce, you know, just
Speaker 3: the insults and the hate that was being thrown out there.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I can't wait to watch that. But forty
Speaker 3: two is amazing as well. Yep, all righty well, Trevor,
Speaker 3: will you please take us through today's.
Speaker 2: Case, but now a story of unnatural violence, the case
Speaker 2: and confessions of a female serial killer.
Speaker 1: She was tired of being in the spotlight. She was
Speaker 1: tired of reporters and police and lawyers, everyone making a
Speaker 1: career off of her. There are many people who were abuse,
Speaker 1: his children, who were raped. They don't pick up a
Speaker 1: gun and kill No. I wasn't born bad. You guys
Speaker 1: got it stand time tell you man.
Speaker 2: They lied, They lied so bad to you all.
Speaker 1: Eileen Warnos was a Florida based serial killer who murdered
Speaker 1: seven men between nineteen eighty nine and nineteen ninety. Eileen
Speaker 1: had a troubled upbringing. At the age of four, she
Speaker 1: was abandoned by her parents and adopted by her maternal grandparents.
Speaker 1: Her grandparents were alcoholics and known to be abusive, both
Speaker 1: verbally and sexually. At age eleven, Eileen reportedly engaged in
Speaker 1: sexual activity at school for drugs and cigarettes, and at
Speaker 1: age fifteen, she was thrown out of the house by
Speaker 1: her grandfather. She survived through sex work and frequently got
Speaker 1: into trouble with the law. Then, in November of nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine, she committed her first murder. According to Eileen,
Speaker 1: she shot the man because he had raped her. Over
Speaker 1: the next year, she would kill six more men in
Speaker 1: a similar fashion. Eileen was eventually captured and sentenced to
Speaker 1: death for the murders, and in October of two thousand
Speaker 1: and two, she died by lethal injection. The following year,
Speaker 1: a biographical film called Monster premiered, which revealed a new
Speaker 1: layer to Eileen, depicting her not just as a killer,
Speaker 1: but also he was a victim of the circumstances in
Speaker 1: which she was brought up, and so who was Eileen
Speaker 1: warnos what drove her to murder seven men, and to
Speaker 1: what degree was she just as much a victim as
Speaker 1: the people she killed?
Speaker 3: This is such an incredibly wild story. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think the case of Eileen Warnos is so important because
Speaker 3: it really brings up a question of who the victim
Speaker 3: really is in a case like this.
Speaker 2: Right, Like, everyone I believe during that time was so
Speaker 2: quick to think that Eileen was this man hating, lesbian,
Speaker 2: cold blooded killer who went on this murder spree, right,
Speaker 2: But in reality, let's face it, she was, I believe,
Speaker 2: truly a victim herself. Of course, the people that she
Speaker 2: took the lives of were victims as well. But I
Speaker 2: think that both can be true, and I think not
Speaker 2: enough people actually talk.
Speaker 3: About that exactly. But you know, there is no denying
Speaker 3: that she was a killer. But however, she also lived
Speaker 3: a life of abuse and neglect. Eileen was a woman
Speaker 3: who was mistreated from the very first day, like I mean,
Speaker 3: all the way until the end of her life. She
Speaker 3: was born into a violent lifestyle where she literally had
Speaker 3: to fight to survive. Yeah, but you know, like you said,
Speaker 3: she also murdered at least seven men, And no matter
Speaker 3: what we say today, it's an incredibly complicated case. People
Speaker 3: are on both sides, in the middle, all over the place.
Speaker 3: But you know we're going to dig into all the
Speaker 3: sides today. And one quick note before we get going.
Speaker 3: One of the accounts of Aileen Weoronos's life that sheds
Speaker 3: so much light on her victimhood is the phenomenal sometimes
Speaker 3: hard to watch because it's so intense, but the phenomenal
Speaker 3: film two thousand and threes Monster. It is an absolutely
Speaker 3: incredible film that truly captures who Eileen was as a
Speaker 3: person and as a human being. And the director of
Speaker 3: that film is the great, the most phenomenal, one of
Speaker 3: the most phenomenal humans I've ever met in my entire life.
Speaker 3: Patti Jenkins and Patty is going to be joining us
Speaker 3: for an interview on the next episode of Facing Evil. Yes,
Speaker 3: we are so excited to talk to Patty. And for
Speaker 3: those who don't know, Patty is our Ohanna. She is
Speaker 3: the one who brought our mother's life story to fruition
Speaker 3: and we have always wanted to talk to her about
Speaker 3: Eileen Warrenos. So definitely, you must, you must look out
Speaker 3: for this episode.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's going to be incredibly fantastic. And even though
Speaker 2: we've known Patty for years, we've never talked to her
Speaker 2: about Eileen. So with that said, stay tuned for that.
Speaker 2: But we are going to start talking about Eileen right now,
Speaker 2: and let's learn about Eileen's early life.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So Eileen was born in Rochester, Michigan, on February
Speaker 1: twenty ninth of nineteen fifty six, and her mother, Diane,
Speaker 1: was only sixteen at the time of giving birth to Eileen.
Speaker 1: Her father was Leo Pittman, and he was nineteen at
Speaker 1: the time of her birth, so her parents had been
Speaker 1: married when Diane was only fourteen, which is kind of wild.
Speaker 1: They also had a son named Keith, who was born
Speaker 1: before Eileen.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Diane was super young when she was having kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But the couple divorced two months before Eileen was even born,
Speaker 1: so this was already kind of a tumultuous situation, potentially
Speaker 1: a recipe for disaster. And Leo was supposedly a pretty
Speaker 1: trouble guy. Reportedly he had issues with alcohol. So as
Speaker 1: you can imagine, Diane as a teenager, you know, just
Speaker 1: age sixteen, wasn't really prepared to deal with children and
Speaker 1: an alcoholic husband. So they divorced and then she was
Speaker 1: just kind of all alone with these kids.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then Diane actually she abandoned both of her children.
Speaker 3: There's this one story where Diane left Eileen and Keith
Speaker 3: with a babysitter for one night, and then she called
Speaker 3: later to say that she wouldn't come back. Can you imagine.
Speaker 3: Can you guys imagine being the babysitter on the other
Speaker 3: line and you have two kids and the parents says,
Speaker 3: I'm not coming back.
Speaker 2: I'm surprised she called at all.
Speaker 3: That's just wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But eventually Eileen and her brother were adopted by Diane's parents.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, so both of her grandparents where she
Speaker 1: now lived, they were both incredibly abusive. They were also
Speaker 1: both alcoholics. Diane Warno's Eileen's mom would say that both
Speaker 1: of her parents were very verbally abusive to her and
Speaker 1: to Eileen, and Eileen would also say that her grandfather
Speaker 1: at some point sexually assaulted her.
Speaker 2: So she never had a chance.
Speaker 1: No, Yeah, I mean, she's a kid, and she's already dealing.
Speaker 2: With all those right Sadly, you know, it started to
Speaker 2: catch up with her, and at the tender young age
Speaker 2: of eleven, you know, she reportedly started having sex with
Speaker 2: her classmates in exchange for food, drugs, and cigarettes. So
Speaker 2: she basically became a sex worker at the age of eleven.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all heartbreaking and just horrible, you know.
Speaker 2: Eileen also struggled with behavioral problems, everything ranging from truancy
Speaker 2: not going to school to fights at school. She was
Speaker 2: also diagnosed with different disabilities, and that had to have
Speaker 2: had a huge impact on all of the other issues
Speaker 2: and factoring middle school, Eileen was diagnosed with hearing and
Speaker 2: visual problems and they tested her IQ and she only
Speaker 2: scored eighty one, which is technically considered borderline intellectual functioning.
Speaker 2: And basically, so many things were stacked up against Eileen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think a lot of people don't know about that.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think so.
Speaker 3: I remember there's a story that one of the school
Speaker 3: officials spoke to her grandparents and they were urging her
Speaker 3: to get her special counseling, but her grandmother refused to
Speaker 3: provide any treatment. They were asking or telling I should say,
Speaker 3: you know, can you help you know your granddaughter, and
Speaker 3: they said no, And so the school went as far
Speaker 3: as to give Eileen a mild tranquilizer. And I guess
Speaker 3: is that normal for like back then where they gave
Speaker 3: kids tranquilizers.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but definitely not.
Speaker 1: I don't think you'd get away with that today, but.
Speaker 3: Definitely not today. But that didn't work either. I mean,
Speaker 3: she was clearly showing problems and nobody was helping her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So anyways, there are some other unfortunate things that happen.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy Eileen is reportedly raped by a friend
Speaker 1: of her grandfather's, so this is a much older man,
Speaker 1: and at the age of fourteen, as a result of this,
Speaker 1: Eileen became pregnant. So during her pregnancy she was actually
Speaker 1: sent to a home for unwed mothers. And then on
Speaker 1: March twenty first of nineteen seventy one, Eileen gave birth
Speaker 1: to a son, and that child was placed up for adoption,
Speaker 1: and Eileen then dropped out of school entirely. I don't
Speaker 1: think we know who that son is or what happened
Speaker 1: to them, and I don't think Eileen ever met them.
Speaker 2: I don't don't believe either.
Speaker 1: But can you imagine, Yeah, the getting sexually assaulted like
Speaker 1: that and then having to deal with that at fourteen,
Speaker 1: and she.
Speaker 2: Was sent to an unwed mother's home, and you know,
Speaker 2: We've heard that story before because our own grandmother, that's
Speaker 2: our mother's story. Our grandmother, Tomorrow Hodell was sent to
Speaker 2: an unwed mother's home when she got pregnant with our
Speaker 2: mother at the age of fifteen.
Speaker 3: Oh really, she was actually fourteen.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, she was fourteen, gave birth at fifteen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really interesting parallel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's what they did during that time, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: although this was this was nineteen seventy one, but when
Speaker 2: it happened Tomorrow it was twenty years earlier, so in
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty one. But yeah, So.
Speaker 1: The idea of being there is that like when women,
Speaker 1: you know, something shameful happens to them or something like that,
Speaker 1: that you just kind of shuffle them off and like
Speaker 1: hide them away.
Speaker 3: Until they have the baby and then they get placed
Speaker 3: up for dubtion.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so later that very same year, in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy one, Eileen's grandmother died of liver failure, and then
Speaker 2: her grandfather kicked Eileen out, so she was left to
Speaker 2: fend for herself at the age fifteen, and she took
Speaker 2: up sex work to survive. She even lived in the woods,
Speaker 2: she knows, right, Yeah, yeah, she just went back to
Speaker 2: what she'd been doing from the times she was eleven
Speaker 2: and according to the Tampa Bay Times here and this
Speaker 2: is a quote, at fifteen, Eileen was left to fend
Speaker 2: for herself. She spent nights sleeping in abandoned cars or
Speaker 2: seeking the refuge of homes in the area. Family and
Speaker 2: neighbors told investigators that's.
Speaker 3: Like, you know, when you think about that, like they
Speaker 3: just left her out to be a wild animal.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: Anyhow, Eileen left Michigan, and rightfully so. But she sort
Speaker 3: of becomes a vagabond, like she's traveling and she's hitchhiking
Speaker 3: across the country.
Speaker 2: We know that.
Speaker 3: On May twenty seventh, nineteen seventy four, Eileen was arrested
Speaker 3: in Colorado for a DUI and she was also arrested
Speaker 3: for disorderly conduct for firing a pistol out of a
Speaker 3: moving car. And so she was then charged with a
Speaker 3: f Well, you're to appear in court, so obviously she
Speaker 3: never showed it up for that, right, So she's you know,
Speaker 3: hitchhiking across country. She's handling guns and getting into trouble
Speaker 3: with the law. I mean, this all just seems like
Speaker 3: a bad situation, getting.
Speaker 1: Worse, right, Yeah, things are definitely starting to spiral at
Speaker 1: this point. And eventually she makes her way down I
Speaker 1: seventy five all the way to Florida, and this is
Speaker 1: where really most of the story takes place. This is
Speaker 1: where Eileen lives when she eventually murders seven men. And
Speaker 1: we'll get into that right after we take a quick break.
Speaker 2: So I want to point out a few more notable
Speaker 2: things that happen with Eileen before her murdering spree begins. First,
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy six, she met and married a sixty
Speaker 2: nine year old man named Louis gratz Fell. During their marriage,
Speaker 2: Eileen beat Louis with his very own cane, and Louis
Speaker 2: ended up getting a divorce from Eileen and even took
Speaker 2: out a restraining order against her. And he would be
Speaker 2: quoted as saying, Wernos has a violent and ungovernable temper
Speaker 2: and threatened to do bodily harm end quote. What do
Speaker 2: we think about this?
Speaker 1: It's weird. I mean, this marriage clearly doesn't last very
Speaker 1: long for a good reason, right, I mean, is I
Speaker 1: guess the first case we have of Eileen being incredibly violent,
Speaker 1: you know, especially to somebody She's I supposedly romantically involved with.
Speaker 2: I wonder how much of that was just survival, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: And you know, things proceeded to go even more downhill
Speaker 2: from there. And in nineteen seventy eight, at the age
Speaker 2: of twenty two, Eileen attempted suicide by shooting herself in
Speaker 2: the stomach. And that wasn't even her first suicide attempt.
Speaker 2: I think it was her sixth suicide attempt, her first
Speaker 2: time that she had tried to kill herself she was
Speaker 2: only fourteen years old.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then at that point it was just seemingly
Speaker 1: crime after crime that she was caught for throughout the years.
Speaker 1: Just a couple of notable examples, she robbed a convenience
Speaker 1: store in nineteen eighty one. She tried to cash forwards
Speaker 1: checks at a bank. She was also arrested in Miami
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty six for car theft and for resisting arrest.
Speaker 1: And then also that year she robbed a man at gunpoint,
Speaker 1: demanding two hundred dollars. So this is unfortunately Eileen's life.
Speaker 1: Now it seems like, well.
Speaker 2: It's been that way forever. It feels like, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: She's like.
Speaker 1: Now she's resorting to violence, right.
Speaker 2: Crime and violence. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely gone to the
Speaker 2: next step.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And everything is spiraling out of control with her, right.
Speaker 3: But then she meets someone who is very, very important
Speaker 3: in this story. She meets a hotel maid named Tyra Moore.
Speaker 3: And for anyone who had didn't seen Monster, she is
Speaker 3: portrayed by the great Christina Ricci. And this character that
Speaker 3: Christina Ricci plays, her name is Selby in the movie.
Speaker 3: In the movie Monster, But this is really the beginning
Speaker 3: of a love story. When she meets Tyra.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know, but it might have been
Speaker 2: the only like glimmer of light in Eileen's life, and
Speaker 2: the two of them, you know, begin a very enduring
Speaker 2: but very tumultuous and difficult relationship. And Eileen was thirty
Speaker 2: and Tira was twenty four years old at this point.
Speaker 2: They moved in together not long after meeting, like the
Speaker 2: typical lesbians. I can joke about that because hello, we
Speaker 2: do that, you haul really fast. So they of course,
Speaker 2: you know, we're living together. And the only way that
Speaker 2: Eileen could support Tyra was by doing sex work, and
Speaker 2: that's how they survived. You know, I'm sure this was
Speaker 2: hard on them as a couple, But to be honest,
Speaker 2: I'm I'm just glad that Eileen had Tira for however
Speaker 2: brief a time.
Speaker 1: As you alluded to though Russia, this doesn't last very
Speaker 1: long because in nineteen eighty nine the murders begin, and
Speaker 1: let's go through them in order rather quickly. So on
Speaker 1: November thirtieth, a fifty one year old man named Richard
Speaker 1: Charles Mallory picked up Eileen in his car, and supposedly
Speaker 1: this is for Eileen to provide him with sexual services.
Speaker 1: So Eileen would claim that Mallory tied her to the
Speaker 1: steering wheel of his car and raped her. And then
Speaker 1: after this assault, she pulls out her gun and shoots
Speaker 1: him multiple times. So two of those shots punctured his
Speaker 1: left lung, killing him. Eileen then dumped his body in
Speaker 1: the woods nearby. The police wouldn't discover the body until
Speaker 1: December thirteenth, a few weeks later, and this is officially
Speaker 1: eileen first killing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I want to say that Eileen did this first
Speaker 2: one in self defense, but as much as I want
Speaker 2: to defend Eileen for everything that she's been through, this
Speaker 2: happens six more times, not once, not twice, six more times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we only have her account, right, Like, we
Speaker 1: don't have anybody else to back the story up or
Speaker 1: say that something else happened, you know.
Speaker 2: So yeah, just Silene's testimony, right, just Sileen's recollections of this.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: On June first of nineteen ninety, police discovered the naked
Speaker 2: body of forty seven year old David Andrew Spears, who
Speaker 2: had also been shot to death, and just a few
Speaker 2: days later, on June sixth, they found the body of
Speaker 2: forty year old Charles Edmund Carkcadon, wrapped in an electric blanket.
Speaker 2: In both of these cases, investigators determined that they had
Speaker 2: been killed with a twenty two caliber gun. Was later
Speaker 2: spotted driving Carskannan's car, and she had also pawned a
Speaker 2: gun that was in his name. Crazy.
Speaker 3: It just seems like she's not covering any tracks.
Speaker 1: I mean she Yeah, I don't think she really had
Speaker 1: any concept of covering her tracks, you know. I think
Speaker 1: she was just in these very probably desperate situations and
Speaker 1: just reacted. I mean that said, like she could have
Speaker 1: had the I don't know, the thought to throw evidence away,
Speaker 1: maybe not like drive that person's car around. I don't know.
Speaker 1: So Anyways, the next victim is Peter Abraham Siams, and
Speaker 1: on July fourth, police find his car, but they never
Speaker 1: find his body. To this day, they've actually never found
Speaker 1: his body, but Eileen and Tyra had been spotted leaving
Speaker 1: his car a few days earlier, and they also find
Speaker 1: Eileen's handprint on the inside door handle.
Speaker 2: Again not thinking. She probably wasn't even thinking about it.
Speaker 2: She was just trying to survive, trying to Oh my god,
Speaker 2: I just killed another person. What do I do next?
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know I'm kill her. I don't
Speaker 2: know what her mind was like, but yeah, I'm just
Speaker 2: thinking about what you were just saying.
Speaker 3: And you know she had to, you know, in the moment,
Speaker 3: of course, you're not thinking about that, in the hype
Speaker 3: of doing all the things that she's done. But eventually
Speaker 3: she has to know that it's going to catch up.
Speaker 2: To her, right right, you would think. So, I think
Speaker 2: this is where it was a pivotal point in where
Speaker 2: everything changed for Eileen. And this is depicted so beautifully
Speaker 2: in the movie Monster by Patty Jenkins. And you're just
Speaker 2: like riveted, You're like, what is going on? So a
Speaker 2: witness actually sees Eileen and Tyra in you know, Peter
Speaker 2: seems car and she sees them get into a car accident,
Speaker 2: and they don't ask for help from her. They freak
Speaker 2: the f out and take off. So this woman is like,
Speaker 2: what just happened? And you see that in the scene
Speaker 2: in the movie, and it actually happened in real life.
Speaker 2: So this witness was able to give you know, full
Speaker 2: descriptions of Tyra and Eileen to the authorities. And then basically,
Speaker 2: I mean we're supposed to say man hunt, but the
Speaker 2: woman hunt.
Speaker 1: Began, So I mean, yeah, exactly. Up until this point,
Speaker 1: there was not really a big connection between all of
Speaker 1: these different murders. You know, I think they were sort
Speaker 1: of figuring out what was going on eventually, but now
Speaker 1: they're seeing like, oh, like these women are probably behind this.
Speaker 1: They had the victim's car. You know, a lot of
Speaker 1: things are lining up now. So a couple more murders
Speaker 1: happened before they actually catch So the next victim is
Speaker 1: fifty year old Troy Eugene Burris. He was found on
Speaker 1: August fourth of that year, and victim number six is
Speaker 1: Charles Richard Humphries, who was found on September twelfth. And
Speaker 1: then the final victim was sixty two year old Walter
Speaker 1: Gino Antonio and he was found on November nineteenth. And
Speaker 1: this is nineteen ninety so it's now been a full
Speaker 1: year since Eileen started killing.
Speaker 3: It's just so crazy, all of that in one year,
Speaker 3: that's seven victims.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it doesn't take police very long to
Speaker 2: figure out that it is Eileen that has been behind
Speaker 2: all of these murders, and they do finally track her down.
Speaker 2: And as we said, I mean, Eileen wasn't covering her
Speaker 2: tracks very well for that year of all of those murders.
Speaker 2: She was pawning her you know, her victim's belongings at
Speaker 2: pawnshops all around Florida, and her fingerprints were actually found
Speaker 2: on one of the pawn shop receipts. And then so
Speaker 2: once they matched up that print that was on the
Speaker 2: pawn shop receipt, authorities put out a warrant for her
Speaker 2: arrest finally after that year of her killing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course at this point it's just a
Speaker 1: matter of time, right, So finally, on January ninth of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, Eileen is arrest did at Last Resort,
Speaker 1: which is a biker bar in v Lucia, Florida. So
Speaker 1: technically police arrested her for an outstanding warrant for something else.
Speaker 1: She was under the assumption that the warrant was related
Speaker 1: to one of the many fake names that she had
Speaker 1: been using going around using.
Speaker 2: She didn't think she was getting arrested for murder.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I mean, she had no idea that investigators
Speaker 1: had linked her to these murders at all, or that
Speaker 1: she was under suspicion for them at all. So anyways,
Speaker 1: she's arrested, taken into custody, and then we'll talk about
Speaker 1: what happens after we take another quick break.
Speaker 3: So after the police arrest Eileen on January ninth, they
Speaker 3: find Tyra the next day in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where she
Speaker 3: I guess she was staying with her sister. They don't
Speaker 3: charge her, but they do question her about Eileen's activities.
Speaker 2: So I do want to read this quote from Crime
Speaker 2: Library about what Tyra told them at that time. And
Speaker 2: just side note here, Tyra always called Eileen Lee, so
Speaker 2: she's going to be referring to Lee here in this quote.
Speaker 2: She had known about the murder since Lee had come
Speaker 2: home with Richard Mallory's Cadillac. She said Lee had openly
Speaker 2: confessed that she had killed a man that day, but
Speaker 2: Moore told her not to say anything else. I told
Speaker 2: her I didn't want to hear about it. She had
Speaker 2: her suspicions, she admitted, but wanted to know as little
Speaker 2: as possible about Lee's doings. The more she knew, she reasoned,
Speaker 2: the more compelled she would feel to report Lee to
Speaker 2: the authorities. And she didn't want to do that. I
Speaker 2: was just scared, she said. She always said she'd never
Speaker 2: heard me, but then you can't believe her, So I
Speaker 2: don't know what she would have done. End quote.
Speaker 3: Hmmm, we do know, like Tyra genuinely loved Eileen, you know,
Speaker 3: and she wanted to protect her. But I don't know.
Speaker 3: Like at the same time, she's saying that you can't
Speaker 3: believe her, but she's like, I don't know, right, I'm
Speaker 3: not one hundred percent sure.
Speaker 2: Because she knows that she's killed people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if Tyra really trusts her or not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you can love someone and not trust them.
Speaker 1: But as the quote kind of says, she was willfully
Speaker 1: ignoring it or like trying not to believe it, right,
Speaker 1: which is I think a thing that happens in relationships
Speaker 1: that involve some sort of like dark behavior on one
Speaker 1: part of the relationship, right, the other person in the
Speaker 1: relationship tends to kind of like block it out of
Speaker 1: their head and pretend it's.
Speaker 2: Not a problem, right, compartmentalize exactly.
Speaker 1: So deep down Tyra knows, but she's trying to like
Speaker 1: crush it down, just move along and trust her. But
Speaker 1: like deep down knows that like Aileen's probably not trustworthy.
Speaker 2: Probably not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that said, police do convince Tied to speak with
Speaker 1: Eileen on a recorded phone line, and they persuade her
Speaker 1: to confess. In exchange for this, they offer Tira immunity
Speaker 1: from prosecution. So the first call happens on January fourteenth,
Speaker 1: when Tyra calls Eileen, who is in jail, but Eileen
Speaker 1: does not confess at first. In fact, Eileen was under
Speaker 1: the impression, as we said before, that she was only
Speaker 1: in jail for a minor weapons violation and a traffic ticket.
Speaker 2: That's just crazy.
Speaker 3: I also read that Eileen was speaking in code words
Speaker 3: on that entire phone conversation, which obviously suggests that she
Speaker 3: knew more about the situation than she led on. I mean,
Speaker 3: she she had to have been just playing it cool.
Speaker 2: She knew, Yeah, she knew she was being recorded. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, she knew that it was only a matter
Speaker 2: of time.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But on the third day of phone calls, which was
Speaker 2: January sixteenth, Eileen finally agreed to confess in order to
Speaker 2: protect Tira. So here's another interesting quote from crime Library quote.
Speaker 2: Moore became more insistent that the police were after her,
Speaker 2: and it became clear that Wernos knew what was expected
Speaker 2: of her. She even voiced suspicion that Moore was not alone,
Speaker 2: that someone was there taping their conversations. But as time passed,
Speaker 2: she became less careful about what she said. She would
Speaker 2: not let Moore go down with her. Just go ahead
Speaker 2: and let them know what you need to know, what
Speaker 2: they want to know or anything, she said. And I
Speaker 2: will cover for you because you're innocent. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to let you go to jail. Listen, if I have
Speaker 2: to confess, I will end quote.
Speaker 1: Right. So when it comes down to the final decision,
Speaker 1: Eileen decides to choose Tira over herself, and she does
Speaker 1: ultimately confess. So Eileen goes in to confess, but there
Speaker 1: are two big points she insists on. While she is confessing.
Speaker 1: One is that Tyra had nothing to do with any
Speaker 1: of the murders, and two that none of this was
Speaker 1: any of her fault Eileen's. That is, so, she claims
Speaker 1: that all of these murders were done in self defense,
Speaker 1: that each of the victims had either assaulted her, threatened her,
Speaker 1: or raped her, and this idea becomes essentially the mantra
Speaker 1: of Eileen during the entire trial and all of this
Speaker 1: process of her defending herself. It is important to note
Speaker 1: that investigators during the confession said that her story kind
Speaker 1: of seemed to develop as she told it. So when
Speaker 1: she thought she'd said something that was like kind of incriminating,
Speaker 1: like when she caught herself, she would like back up
Speaker 1: and rewind and be like no, no, no, actually retracked, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then she would retell it, changing little details to
Speaker 1: kind of like fix it along the way. So it's
Speaker 1: again kind of hard to trust Eileen's account, at least
Speaker 1: according to the investigators.
Speaker 3: To me, this was clearly self defense, especially for the
Speaker 3: first one. That's my opinion. She was fighting for her
Speaker 3: life against violent men who were not trying, but who
Speaker 3: had raped her.
Speaker 1: But do you think it was self defense? After that? Point,
Speaker 1: or you know, do you think like she was making
Speaker 1: up the self defense part for the ones after the
Speaker 1: first one? And that seems to be a big question
Speaker 1: in this case.
Speaker 3: You know, that's the difficult thing about this case, is
Speaker 3: like you don't really know, but I just have to say,
Speaker 3: for me, I feel like the first victim was clearly
Speaker 3: self defense. The other six I don't think.
Speaker 1: So. Yeah, So let's talk about the trials then. So
Speaker 1: Eileen's first trial, which is for the murder of Richard
Speaker 1: Charles Mallory, begins on January fourteenth of nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 1: So because police had already connected her to the other
Speaker 1: murders by this point, prosecutors here were able to bring
Speaker 1: in all the evidence from those other cases. And this
Speaker 1: is something that's kind of unique to Florida law, which
Speaker 1: says that you can actually pull in evidence from other
Speaker 1: cases if you can demonstrate that there's a pattern between
Speaker 1: all the different cases, right, or that there's a pattern
Speaker 1: of behavior evident in comparing all the cases.
Speaker 2: Do we are we okay with this law? I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm not really sure, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Because it's like, I feel like that first murder was
Speaker 2: self defense, but I can see why they're allowed to
Speaker 2: bring in other evidence because they're trying to prove that
Speaker 2: it was a pattern, because it wasn't only Richard Mallory,
Speaker 2: it was Richard Mallory and six other people. But now
Speaker 2: that the jury knew right about all of those murders,
Speaker 2: that made Eileen's claim of self defense against Richard way
Speaker 2: less probable because it happened six more times. So to
Speaker 2: them this looked much more like a serial killer killing spree. Right.
Speaker 1: Well, there was also this to consider. The was the
Speaker 1: videotaped confession, and to be honest, this didn't really help
Speaker 1: the whole self defense case either. So supposedly Eileen appears
Speaker 1: very confident and unbothered by the stories of rape and
Speaker 1: resulting murder that she was confessing to. So she also
Speaker 1: made apparently quote easy conversation with her interrogators, and she
Speaker 1: even told her public defender to be quiet multiple times.
Speaker 1: So she apparently just seemed very in control of the
Speaker 1: situation throughout. So I don't really know what to make
Speaker 1: of that. To me, that's just that account seems very
Speaker 1: sexist in nature, like she wasn't emotional enough as a
Speaker 1: woman about these terrible things, like they wanted her to
Speaker 1: be more like, oh, no, this is such a terrible
Speaker 1: thing that happened.
Speaker 2: I wanted to say, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Mean that said, it's also a bit I don't know,
Speaker 1: sociopathic to like, no matter what who you are, to
Speaker 1: talk about like murdering people and ever like callus. And
Speaker 1: I can see why the jury would hear that and
Speaker 1: be like, ooh, this person does not have a lot
Speaker 1: of remorse for killing. So you know, I think that's
Speaker 1: really what the jury saw here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so unsurprisingly, Eileen, like you just said what, The
Speaker 3: jury was convicted of first degree murder for killing Richard
Speaker 3: Charles Mallory on January twenty seventh. The jury deliberated for
Speaker 3: less than two hours before determining she was guilty. And
Speaker 3: then as she left the courtroom, Eileen exploded into this
Speaker 3: rageful shouting fit. And this is so incredibly hard for
Speaker 3: me to even say these words, but this is coming
Speaker 3: from her mouth, and she says, I'm innocent. I was raped,
Speaker 3: and I hope you get raped, scumbags of America.
Speaker 1: Thankes well. The next phase of her trial was the
Speaker 1: penalty phase, and that's to determine what punishment she gets.
Speaker 1: The defense argued, that Eileen was quote mentally ill and
Speaker 1: suffered from borderline personality disorder, and that her tumultuous upbringing
Speaker 1: had stunted and ruined her. So her lawyer basically pleaded
Speaker 1: to the jury to save Eileen's life by saying that,
Speaker 1: you know, she was too mentally ill to know what
Speaker 1: she was doing. However, this argument really didn't have much
Speaker 1: impact on the jury. They pretty quickly recommended the death penalty,
Speaker 1: and on January thirty, first Judge Guriel Blunt sentenced Eileen
Speaker 1: to death by electric chair for Mallory's murder. Do you
Speaker 1: think this was justified? The death penalty?
Speaker 2: Is the death penalty ever justified?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: I don't know if we want to go there, but
Speaker 3: I can go back to like talking about, you know
Speaker 3: how she was just thrown away. She was literally thrown
Speaker 3: out to fend for herself like a wild child, and she,
Speaker 3: you know, was born on that mentality either she was
Speaker 3: going to get killed or she was going to kill them, right,
Speaker 3: That was rage that was inside of her.
Speaker 2: So I think this is where I'm really torn, right
Speaker 2: because I feel so bad for Eileen, because you know,
Speaker 2: we always say on this show, you're not born a victim.
Speaker 2: But it's almost like she didn't have a chance. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm surprised she lived as long as she did without
Speaker 2: killing herself. Yeah, killing herself, killing anyone. I mean, she
Speaker 2: did attempt to take her own life, you know, half
Speaker 2: a dozen times. Like it's heartbreaking to me, But I
Speaker 2: don't believe she should have been killed. I think she
Speaker 2: should have been given a chance to get mental health help.
Speaker 1: I want to point out something that I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't think about when it comes to
Speaker 1: something like Eileen. She's one of the very few female
Speaker 1: serial killers out there, right, there was not a ton
Speaker 1: of precedent for someone like Eileen. So when she's going
Speaker 1: through this trial, when she's going on the stand, they're
Speaker 1: not just viewing her as a serial killer, they're viewing
Speaker 1: her as a woman, right, And so a lot of
Speaker 1: their lens is very clouded by perceptions of womanhood, how
Speaker 1: a woman should act, and that compounds a lot on
Speaker 1: the again, the perceptions of the jury. And so I
Speaker 1: think part of her sentence was, you know, based on
Speaker 1: a lot of probably misogyny or at least misunderstanding of
Speaker 1: what women go through. And there was just a lot
Speaker 1: working against her and A big part of that was
Speaker 1: just that people listening to her story or trying to
Speaker 1: understand her just had nothing to work.
Speaker 2: With, right. And I wonder too, like with the death sentence,
Speaker 2: did they do that to make an example of her.
Speaker 3: That's a very valid point that you just made, Trevor.
Speaker 3: And it's like, you know, the jury, the judge, they
Speaker 3: all have this kind of cookie cutter image of what
Speaker 3: a woman is supposed to be, right, and that is
Speaker 3: not what they were looking at, you know, in their eyes.
Speaker 3: They weren't looking at you know, what this woman had endured,
Speaker 3: you know, her whole life. They were looking at, you know, well,
Speaker 3: this is this is a monster.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I do wonder, like just theoretically, like what if
Speaker 1: it was only the first murder, what if it had
Speaker 1: just been Richard Charles Mallory, Like, would she still had
Speaker 1: been convicted the same way or not? And my theory
Speaker 1: is that she would have really because I think to
Speaker 1: that jury and that judges, it didn't matter if it
Speaker 1: was one man, didn't matter, if it was seven, it
Speaker 1: didn't matter, if it was self defense, didn't matter, if
Speaker 1: it was cold blooded, you know, thrill of the kill.
Speaker 1: I think, to them, a woman who was out of control,
Speaker 1: and who killed who was had the lifestyle that she
Speaker 1: had was already condemned, you know before she walked in
Speaker 1: that courtroom.
Speaker 3: Wow, especially especially during that time. You're absolutely right, Trevor,
Speaker 3: and in Florida. Yep, absolutely right.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: So on March thirty first, it was decided that Eileen
Speaker 2: would not stand trial again, and Eileen pleaded no contests
Speaker 2: to the other murders, and she pleaded no contests to
Speaker 2: the murders of Charles Richard Humphries, Troy Eugene Burris, and
Speaker 2: David Andrew Spears. In a statement about this, Eileen would say, quote,
Speaker 2: I wanted to confess to you that Richard Mallory did
Speaker 2: violently rate me as I've told you, But these others
Speaker 2: did not. They only began to start to end.
Speaker 1: Quote.
Speaker 3: So yeah, there you go. So that that changes the
Speaker 3: game right there.
Speaker 2: So in total, even though we believe Eileen killed seven men,
Speaker 2: she ends up with only six total death sentences. And
Speaker 2: that's because the seventh death sentence couldn't be carried out
Speaker 2: for the murder of Peter Abraham, seems because his body,
Speaker 2: like Trevor said, was never found.
Speaker 3: So Eileen's lawyers spent much of the next decade trying
Speaker 3: to appeal her sentences, but apparently Eileen wasn't interested in
Speaker 3: having her sentence changed. In fact, in two thousand and one,
Speaker 3: Eileen petitioned to have her lawyers dismissed and cancel all
Speaker 3: of her penning the pills.
Speaker 2: She just gave up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. This is a quote. This is what she said.
Speaker 3: She said, I killed those men. I rob them as
Speaker 3: cold as ice, and I do it again too. There's
Speaker 3: no chance in keeping me alive or anything because I
Speaker 3: kill again. I have hate crawling through my system. That's heavy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And one thing that did happen is she requested
Speaker 1: that her method of execution be changed to lethal injection
Speaker 1: instead of electric chair. And I think rightfully so. And
Speaker 1: the Florida Supreme Court did agree to all those requests
Speaker 1: that you laid out, Yvetts, so they dismissed the appeals
Speaker 1: and her lawyers.
Speaker 2: On October ninth, two thousand and two, Eileen Wrenos was
Speaker 2: executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison. She declined
Speaker 2: a last meal, just asking for one single cup of
Speaker 2: coffee instead. In her final statement before her execution, she
Speaker 2: seemed to accept her fate, and I'll be honest, I
Speaker 2: googled it, I tried to look it up. I was
Speaker 2: trying to decipher this last quote that I lean left
Speaker 2: with the world, and I couldn't make sense of any
Speaker 2: of it. But I'm going to read it to you
Speaker 2: and maybe you can figure it out, and please tell
Speaker 2: me if you do. Quote, I'd just like to say,
Speaker 2: I'm sailing with the rock and I'll be back like
Speaker 2: Independence Day with Jesus June sixth, like the movie Big
Speaker 2: Mothership and all I'll be back. End quote.
Speaker 1: So my understanding is that the last few years of
Speaker 1: Eileen's life she was not well mentally right, so maybe
Speaker 1: there is some sense to be made here, But I
Speaker 1: kind of when I read that, I chalked it off
Speaker 1: to Okay, those are the last semblances of lucidity coming through.
Speaker 2: So yeah, Well after those words, Eileen was pronounced dead
Speaker 2: at nine forty seven PM. She was the first woman
Speaker 2: to ever be executed in the state of Florida, and
Speaker 2: only the tenth woman to ever be executed in the
Speaker 2: entire country since capital punishment had been restored in the
Speaker 2: United States in nineteen seventy six. She was cremated and
Speaker 2: her ashes were spread in Michigan by lifelong friend Don Botkins,
Speaker 2: and the song Carnival by Natalie Merchant was played at
Speaker 2: Eileen's funeral.
Speaker 3: There's a lot more to talk about here about Eileen's
Speaker 3: life and the way that she was treated, and we're
Speaker 3: going to do a deep dive into that on the
Speaker 3: next episode when we sit down with our friend, our Ohanna,
Speaker 3: Miss Patty Jenkins, so please please stay tuned for that
Speaker 3: for this week's EMUA. There are two sides to this
Speaker 3: to think about. First of all, most importantly, we want
Speaker 3: to remember those whose lives were taken violently, the victims
Speaker 3: in this terrible case, and their families.
Speaker 2: But we also want to recognize that Eileen was a
Speaker 2: victim herself, a victim of jenn generational abuse and generational trauma.
Speaker 2: That she was undoubtedly a product of the system that
Speaker 2: she was born into.
Speaker 3: But with proper resources and a more carrying upbringing, Eileen
Speaker 3: might have got the help she needed. But instead she
Speaker 3: was subject to physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, and that
Speaker 3: set her on the crash course to becoming a monster.
Speaker 2: And we hope that people think about the consequences that
Speaker 2: their actions have on others. Break the cycles of trauma
Speaker 2: of abuse and instead of blame, try to seek understanding
Speaker 2: and love onward and upward. Emua, emua. Well, that's our
Speaker 2: show for today. Make sure to tune in for our
Speaker 2: next episode where we interview the amazing Patty Jenkins. Well.
Speaker 3: As always, we'd love to hear what you thought about
Speaker 3: today's discussion and if there is a case that you
Speaker 3: would like us.
Speaker 2: To cover, find us on social media at Facing Evil
Speaker 2: Pod or email us at Facingable Pod at tenderfoot dot tv.
Speaker 2: And one request, if you haven't already, please find us
Speaker 2: on iTunes and give us a review and a good rating.
Speaker 2: If you like what we do, your support is always cherished.
Speaker 3: Until next time. Aloha.
Speaker 1: Facing Evil is a production of iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV.
Speaker 1: The show is hosted by Russia Pacuerero in a Vet Schintila,
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick and Alex Williams, our executive producers on behalf
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio, with producers Trevor Young and Jesse Funk, Donald
Speaker 1: Albright and Payne Lindsay, our executive producers on behalf of
Speaker 1: Tenderfoot TV, alongside producer Tracy Kaplan. Researcher is Claudia Dafrico,
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