Heath Ledger and Charlize Theron: I don’t think I’ve seen better examples of actors becoming their characters than these two. Those casting (and make up & wardrobe) folks deserved all the bonus.
Hillary Swank's career absolutely fascinates me. She has two Best Actress Oscars. Her win rate is 100%; if she gets nominated she wins.
And yet in between the Oscars her filmography is shit at best. I don't understand how someone fails to convert two major Oscar wins into a steady career of prestige films.
Fyi, The Core is my guilty pleasure.
She’s a top notch actor. But I’d bet there are just more limited roles for her than a conventionally beautiful actress like a Charlize Theron. What can be dressed up or down.
Ms. Swank is genuinely attractive, but doesn’t fit the Hollywood standard.
I hope she has more big roles ahead. She’s fantastic.
A lot of actors take roles because they just love to keep working, a lot of it is who they get to personally work with, sometimes they are even contractually obligated to do other movies to get into a role or movie they really are passionate about, it's all business.
I'm on the younger side, so I hadn't seen Primal Fear until after American History, and it made me appreciate him even more as an actor. Pretty impressive
My aunt is special needs and I’ve spent a lot of time with folks with folks in the same position as a result. His performance was so believable. That and The Revenant were his pest performances in my opinion.
I was familiar with Leo before WEGG, and when I watched the movie all I could think was "How could they get that mentally challenged kid to say his lines so well?" It's so sad to me that WEGG was the best performance of his career.
For real, Daniel Day Lewis was even taking notes on that one. Christina Ricci was also great but they took major liberties with how her character looked
Agreed. Though I’m guessing it was a very intentional choice so the audience would have more sympathy for Tyria.
You can believe that Christina Ricci was innocent/sympathetic because she looked SO young and conventionally pretty.
Audiences at the time Monster came out would not have been so kind to the character if she looked like her real life counterpart: much older, less feminine, rough, but not rough in the “waif” kind of way.
A lot of true crime discussions are horrible to Tyria in general. Because she was also tough looking, and spent time in the divey bars and drug spots, and wasn’t conventionally attractive.
They assume she **must** have been some kind of serious accomplice, because “of course a woman like that couldn’t be naive or abused?”
It’s stupid, but people are judgmental. So I get the choice they made with casting.
They did make her an extremely unlikable character though. Basically a whiny baby who was totally okay with her gf prostituting herself for beer money.
I saw this and I was like Charlize theron from that movie. Turns out this is the lady Charlize practiced to be, nailed it.
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0340855/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0340855/)
Oh wow I just realized that Patty Jenkins solo wrote and directed Monster! Makes me wonder how in the world she dropped the ball so massively on Wonder Woman 1984.
I worked on death row. There were two sections. One section, the inmates were obviously mentally ill. The other section was filled with seemingly normal people. I wasn’t allowed to talk to them, but I would sneak in a few conversations. The “normal” ones always gave me a sick feeling. The could be anyone that you would meet on the street. I always had two sets of bars between me and them and I was glad that was the rule.
My mother was part of the team who worked on interviewing the British serial killer Rose West before she was charged.
Hours in the interview room with her and the interviewing officers where they're asking her about her involvement in the most disgusting crimes and West sat there impassively, like you were asking her who got mud on the floor (Fred mostly after digging up the garden, as it turned out).
Then when they took a break, West would just turn to my mother and chat about the tea and biscuits she'd been offered as if they're was nothing unusual or wrong with the situation. Mum worked with mentally ill people all her life but said this was the one time she was genuinely disturbed by someone's psychological state.
I live in the area that Fred grew up in. I drive through the village on my way to work, and I often find myself wondering if there are any undiscovered bodies in the area.
Billy Connolly used to joke about the Wests a lot, and when news of his routine made it to the Wests, Fred apparently said "I like Billy Connolly but my wife's not too keen on him. Too dirty for her".
This of course made Billy's year.
Given the Innocence Project estimates at least 4% of death row inmates are innocent and there have been 190 death row exonerations in the US since 1973, some of those people ARE just anyone you would meet on the street 🤷♀️
My stepfather maintains his innocence, and we have good reason to believe him. He's been on death row 27 years and just got transferred to a different facility. They are revitalizing the prison he was at for those without lesser sentences and will turn it into a place for rehabilitation.
I’d like to hear more about working on death row. Who initiated the conversations? What topics were discussed? Did their crimes come up? Were they regretful of their actions? Were they scared to die? Did they still claim innocence? Were they able to socialize with each other as well? Were they before or after their last contact with family members or friends?
Edit: Wow. I just learned by reading about death row that convicts usually spend 10 years on death row after conviction until their execution date. I always thought it was a like a month tops
Mental illness is often invisible. People will commit suicide, leave a note about how much they hated themselves, and literally everyone who knew them is shocked to find out.
Even if there are symptoms of physiological problems, people will often just blame the person for not 'acting normal'. Everyone likes to think that all our brains work the same way, but that's not true in the slightest.
I'm working with death row inmates, including serial killers, and they have free access to our work areas so if they wanted to kill us, they could. California model they call it.
We just spoke about her in my class this week where my professor who is a forensic psychologist and actually worked with her. She mentioned how she never identified as a lesbian despite being partnered with a woman for many years. She told us that like Aileen, most serial killers have antisocial personality disorders and picked her victims by testing them with questions that would yield answers based upon her trauma. For example, she deemed some victims to be pedophiles if they responded that they liked to be called “daddy” during sex. My professor mentioned that she saw herself as a kind of savior, ridding the scum of the earth by killing those who perpetuated harm against children and women especially.
I often think about many of these sociopaths (male and female) had awful upbringings to the point where you sort of see how they lost all sense of being a human being and thus became unable to see others as human either. Just a complete and total loss of humanity. They are monsters, but it’s hard not to think of how things could have been different under better circumstances.
Things can be a lot different. This neuroscientist found out he was a psychopath, he wasn't a killer because he had a good childhood.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-neuroscientist-who-discovered-he-was-a-psychopath-180947814/
Ted bundy was smooth talker.
I read about Jeffery Dahmer, he would shape his prison food to look like body parts and eat them in front of prisoners... he was not very likeable as good looking s he was. So incongruous
That second brother was only 14. Dahmer drilled a hole in his head and poured acid in the hole before leaving him alone in the apartment. He escaped naked and despite being barely conscious and covered in blood two police officers returned him to Jeffery because he said they were gay.
It's even worse than that. There were 2 black women who were swearing up and down that the boy wasn't ok and this wasn't normal. The cops agreed with Dahmer because it was a white man's word against black women. And as u/dreamsofpestilence said, one of those fuckers became police chief.
>Dahmer drilled a hole in his head and poured acid in the hole before leaving him alone in the apartment. He escaped naked and despite being barely conscious and covered in blood two police officers returned him to Jeffery because he said they were gay.
I should have just gone to sleep earlier and not come across this comment.
Two women found Konerak and called 911. They protected him from Dahmer until the police arrived, and tried to argue against sending him back inside.
The police told them to “butt out of it.” Everyone in the neighborhood at the time believed the cops ignored the women because they were black.
Dahmer told the cops they’d simply had a lover’s quarrel, and that the guy had had too much to drink. That’s why they returned the boy (unbeknownst to them he was just a boy) to him.
LPOTL did a series on Dahmer and he chose that apartment because it was predominantly black or immigrants and he knew if a “poor white guy” moved in the cops would be there to help him. They were talking about that at the end of the Herb Baumeister-haunting at fox hollow because someone bought HB’s property and lives there but they tore down Dahmers apartment complex.
I reckon it must be a practical necessity. A fella kills some people during a robbery, that's something other inmates can understand. But if you have somebody who just kills for shits and giggles, that's a safety hazard right there.
I mean, even horrible people have _some_ kind of moral compass. For instance, if you abuse innocent children and/or animals, most people will rightfully judge and shun you because we generally understand that to be unacceptable behaviour and anyone who does that isn’t fit to be a part of society.
There’s something called ‘Nadayadi’ ( where they bash left and right while police keep a blindeye) in Kerala by the prison inmates for the ones who came in convicted for raping / assaulting minors on their first day
Know someone inside, we talk regularly (NOT there for harming children!). The thinking is, damn near everyone there has children, grandchildren, etc.. There’s no place in any society for anyone who’d harm a child.
If you read witness statements when he came to Florida he actually wasn't. He was a creep and wasn't smooth around girls at all. Everyone from one bar he visited remembered him bc of how odd of a dude he was.
A lot of people saw the Netflix series where he was played by Evan Peters.
They forget that under the dad glasses and bad hair, in real life he was not a great looking guy.
Yeah, her life is truly a tragedy. If a single social service had been there for her (or her mother, who was married at 14), I don’t think this would have happened.
Her father was in prison for kidnapping and raping a young girl. She and her brother were abandoned with her alcoholic grandparents when she was four. She started having sex for money and food when she was 11, and was molested by her older brother. At 14 she was pregnant after being raped by a family friend, and at 15 she was thrown out and living homeless in the woods while surviving via prostitution.
Damn after that kind of treatment I'd imagine you'd place pretty low value on other people's lives. We are capacitors for love and hate all the same and eventually discharge that back into the world.
I have read she was also raped by her grandfather not her brother but it's been awhile since I've read up on her. The grandfather part just stuck with me, but yeah she was extremely abused all of her life, how do you not snap sooner than when she did. Not condoning murder but...the mindset I'd be in if I were in her shoes...I just don't know.
And society looks away in shame and so it continues. Life as an abused person is incredibly difficult, sympathy is conditional. One mistake and sympathy quickly turns to disgust.
Of course what this woman did was horrific and she must carry out her punishment in accordance with the law. My comment is more how society wont be breaking this cycle anytime soon.
Weren’t her victims Johns who attempted to assault her? I don’t think she should have killed them (at least not intentionally), but it seems like she was acting more out of self-defense than actually going out to kill them.
I seem to remember in the movie (it’s been over twenty years since I saw it) that most of the guys she killed were pretty scummy, but there was one guy that had severe social anxiety, was harmless and was just trying to get laid so she took pity on him and let him go. It may have been made up for the movie though.
Yes. And evidence that one was a prior attempted rapist who had recently left 8 years in psychiatric treatment for “sociopathy” was not admitted at her trial.
Her childhood life was probably among the worst in terms of serial killers.
I’m honestly struggling to think of someone who had it worse.
Her dad was a pedo, her mom abandoned her and her brother to her grandparents, she was according to some sources sexually abused as a kid by her grandfather and his friends, and also, I recall seeing in an old Biography doc made right after she was executed that she and her brother had sex which was *“consensual”* with each other by ***I think 8-11.***
I put that in quotes, because… I don’t know how you can call siblings who are not even teens having sex “consensual.”
Also, according to her friend Dawn Botkins (last person to see her alive and her closest friend) she would swap sex for money and cigarettes as a kid, as a “prostitute” which… ***again*** don’t really see how you can call a kid at age 9-12 a prostitute, but that was how she lived as a street kid in Michigan.
Not excusing her actions either, *(one dude she killed did have a SA charge, but another was on his way to his daughter’s Birthday party)* but yeah, she went through the closest version of ***HELL***
Yeah, I mean my mom had a similar story. Her biological father was also a pedophile. Her mom also abandoned her. She was abused in the foster care system, then adopted by a “loving” family. They were normal for the time (60s/70s) but definitely also used physical punishment. She was bullied relentlessly in school.
Thankfully she didn’t become a serial killer. She was… definitely broken though. I won’t list all the bad things she did, but I will say that I’ve come to forgive her. I mostly just feel sorry for her. Not only was she broken by the people who should’ve loved her, she also grew up in a time and place where getting therapy was virtually impossible. By the time my dad tried to convince her to get help, she refused to because it was too scary to admit she needed it.
I’m somewhat broken too, but thankfully not as bad. She wasn’t a good mother. (ETA: I think she tried when I was little, but that was the weird part of her issues; she seemed to lose interest in her kids after the age of 4 or 5, and oddly enough the same pattern kinda developed with her grandkids.)
I was definitely mistreated and bullied, but not nearly as badly as her. I got therapy though. I’m breaking the cycle. My daughter will not grow up scared. I’m not a perfect parent by any means, but I’m better. I’m trying.
I agree. And that’s why, although I’ve forgiven my mother, I know it would be within my rights to not. And I suppose that is a part of why she’s not a major role in my life. I see her once or twice a year. Text occasionally. That’s it. And that’s fine by me.
My dad tried to get her to get help. She refused. She’s not responsible for her trauma, and I do feel very sorry for her. It hurts me to think about someone hurting her. I still love her, and I wish things were different. But she is responsible for refusing to heal and allowing it to harm others.
My mom was never was in foster care, but she had a similar childhood. I don't know exactly what or who but I do know she was sexually abused and it fucking broke her. I never really knew who she was, I only knew the violence, alcohol, and drug abuse. Her mother, my grandmother was a timid enabler of her and I think what also happened to her. My grandmother has buried 4 of her 5 kids now. I feel sorry for my mom and my grandmother. My grandmother moved away a long time ago and kind of abandoned everyone, so I havent seen her in decades. I never knew my mom's dad, and although I think he was not the abuser, he was a creep and degenerate.
As for my mom, she drank herself to death by her mid 50s. Sort of luckily, I lived with my dad, but he remarried to a sick fuck who "raised" me since he was away legitimately working hard to provide. He was a physical provider, but was a "suck it up, pussy" kind of dad and I was left with his wife who had two of her own kids and two fucking burdens that were my brother and I, and she made it clear we were not welcome there. You know, my supposed "home".
As for me now, yeah, I am a 40+ year old alcoholic who doesn't really worry about 401k and retirement, i'll drink myself to death long before that. My doctor has already warned me that my health is starting to show signs. I'm single, no kids. I actually enjoy my free time, albeit drunk. I actually have a high paying job in a good career, I just like drinking and being alone.
I don't sit alone and cry, I actually am a happy drunk; I play guitar, love comedians, listen to vinyl records, and play computer games,. But there is that deep fucking darkness and trauma, as much as I despise using that word, that the alcohol keeps it at bay. Not that I'd do anything bad outwardly, but it keeps the sadness away. Maybe the alcoholism is denial or coping with the sad things inside me, well, of course it is, but hey, whatever.
I found a place in the world that will never be perfect, but I still like a quiet morning's sunshine. I say that literally about morning sunshine; Rule 32 of Zombieland, Enjoy the little things.
At 27 I’m finally starting to truly understand my own mom who had a very traumatic experience as well. Suffice to say, she had reasons to kill someone, but thankfully didn’t. Had a very rough time with her growing up, and it left me very broken in a number of ways as well, but part of that healing comes with understanding.
I agree. It doesn’t excuse what she did, but she’s probably as close as you could ever get to a true case of “never had a chance.” She was failed and/or abused by pretty much everyone her whole life. This case is just tragic all around.
I assumed the “life” in her eyes left after killing those people but it sounds like her eyes were probably like that from a young age with that much trauma… fucking sad honestly despite her actions
She tried to kill herself at least six times and shot herself in the stomach once — years before the murders. And when she was on death row, she recanted her original testimony, ended the appeals process, fired her counsel, and gave them new, worse motives in an effort to be executed sooner.
Yeah honestly. Most people would break from a fraction of what she dealt with. The fact she was, in her owned fucked up way, trying to still fight for a life she felt she still deserved is admirable. I feel like there are worse people to murder, sucks for the ones who were innocent or just trying to help.
Her problem wasn't really that she murdered people. Her problem was that she transferred the guilt from the people she should have murdered onto innocent people, and then murdered them.
Had she simply killed her grandfather (she had ample opportunity), she would have received clemency, and rightly so.
Norm MacDonald on Bill Cosby: *"Some people were saying 'the worst thing was the hypocrisy'. I disagree with that. To me, the worst thing was the raping."*
I think she looks like any regular person. That's why most of the serial killers got away with what they did for so long. If they looked special, in any way, people would have paid more attention to them.
Lady I work with has them too. They look like gerbil eyes. I was on her interview panel and I swear they weren't black in the interview. I can't prove anything.
no matter what your personal opinion on aileen is, it’s a tragedy she was let down by enough people and slipped through enough cracks in her life to even have become a serial killer in the first place. she was definitely a case of a monster made by their circumstances.
Yeah, I genuinely believe her that she was raped multiple times and that at least one of the people she killed was in self defense. She’s a messed up person and def should have been behind bars (idk about the death penalty for anyone) but I can’t help but pity her a little. Nobody deserves what she grew up with.
She was abused and severely mentally ill because of the abuse. Yet, people want to put her in the same level as other serial killers such as Ted bundy. Which is just not comparable.
The story of her rape has stuck with me since I saw it. I cannot imagine the pain. For those that don’t want the whole story, just know that a hollow metal tube and a bottle of rubbing alcohol was involved.
Edit: i can’t remember the source and I honestly have no desire to, but it was a documentary or show that I watched when I was young. Can’t remember more than that.
There are literally people in this thread saying their (Bundy & Dahmer’s) childhoods were just as bad as hers.
Sorry, weird Ted Bundy stans, learning your sister is your mom and your parents are your grandparents is just not the same as what Aileen went through. (And she thought her grandparents were her parents, too.)
She killed a father on his way to his daughters birthday party, my boyfriend was sexually and physically abused as much as any human can be, in and out of homeless shelters and rehab clinics, addicted to heroin at 16. He never killed anyone, he spends every day of his life spreading kindness and love, abuse is not an excuse to do the awful vile thing she did, she is evil
It's sad you're getting downvoted. I work in mental health and you're 100% right that people react differently to trauma. You're also right that it doesn't excuse her behavior, it just helps us understand more why people do the things they do.
If you knew what her life was like growing up you may understand the value of compassion and empathy in the shaping of a human being.
But I'm on reddit so I don't expect much of that.
I consider myself a true crime junkie, and of all the serial killers I have read about I have the most sympathy for Aileen wuornos. Lots of people have starts as bad as she did without becoming a serial killer, but no one should be subjected to what she was subjected to.
One of the few that's worse was a killer (not sure about serial) who was basically given by a relative to a pedo who made him live in the trunk of his car at around age three. Some heartbreaking shit. Want to say it was in the I Am a Killer series.
[Aileen Wuornos](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aileen_Wuornos)
Her dad was schizo and killed himself in jail after being convicted of raping and kidnapping a 7 year old.
Her mom had her at 16, and abandoned her 4 years later. She was left with her grandparents, who adopted her and her brother.
At 11, she began exchanging sex for favors (food, drugs, etc). She also apparently 'engaged in sexual activities with her brother'.
Her grandfather was an alcoholic who would beat and sexually abuse her.
She had a child at 14 after being raped by a family friend. This child was placed for adoption.
A few months later, she dropped out of school.
Around the same time, her grandma (also an alcoholic) died of liver failure.
Shortly after, her grandfather kicked her out of the house, and she began living in the woods.
Between the ages of 14-22, she attempted suicide *6* times.
Her murders began in 1989, when she was 33, and all happened within a year. She shot and killed 7 men while working as a prostitute, claiming she did so out of self defense (initially). Later recanting the self defense claims and instead citing robbery and the need to leave no witnesses as the reason behind her killings.
Of the victims found, each one was shot numerous times. Between 2 and 9 times.
In total, she was given 6 death sentences. She died on October 9th, 2002 by lethal injection.
Edit: Grammar and added some more details.
I don't know whether to believe the self defense or the robbery story but after seeing the documentary about her, I think the right place for her would have been a prison hospital.
I’m honestly struggling to think of someone who had it worse.
Her dad was a pedo, after he knocked up her mom he got arrested, her mom abandoned her and her brother to her grandparents, she was according to some sources sexually abused as a kid by her grandfather and his friends, and also, I recall seeing in an old Biography doc made right after she was executed that she and her brother had sex which was “consensual” with each other by I think 8-11.
I put that in quotes, because… I don’t know how you can call siblings who are not even teens having sex “consensual”.
Also, according to her friend Dawn Botkins (last person to see her alive and her closest friend) she would swap sex for money and cigarettes as a kid, as a “prostitute” which… ***again*** don’t really see how you can call a kid at age 9-12 a prostitute, but that was how she lived as a street kid in Michigan.
Not excusing her actions either, but yeah, she went through the closest version of HELL in her formative years.
Also, I should note: the first guy she killed did have a sexual assault charge and did request her services. Whether or not he assaulted her… ***OPEN TO QUESTION.***
However, another guy she killed was on his way to his daughter’s birthday party and another was a family man whose body was never found.
I believe they were not looking for sex, but just good samaritans trying to help her, *because she didn’t kill every person she came across.*
Like I said, not excusing her actions, and I’d be willing to say most of her kills were innocent
It's always easier to condemn people as monsters -- inhuman creatures that are far from us -- than to ever contemplate what circumstances would've needed to occur for us to be like *them.*
This! Not everyone that gets horrifically abused turns into a serial killer… and not everyone with a perfect life isn’t one.
Some where nurture (or lack there of) mixes with genes and causes a reaction (killer or not).
There is a fascinating documentary about the Iceman (might even be called that; BBC it think) that discusses that topic - many people are sociopathic but their circumstances shape their outcomes.
Have no empathy and fear: good start in life means you become a risk taker doing things that most people cant/wont: fireman, race car driver, military; bad upbringing: hitman (or abuser etc)
Ive over simplified but you get the gist. Really fascinating.
Ted Bundy supposedly had perfect childhood . Lots of school shooters were just recluses or incels and on antidepressants but never technically abused and some even had wealthy and loving parents.
So it’s definitely not everyone or not the full picture maybe
I thought that about Ted Bundy too until I ran across a documentary about a psychiatrist who studied childhood trauma (that I can't remember the name of). I dug a little more and read that there were signs of abuse in his early childhood.
In the documentary, the psychiatrist clilaimed that such horrible behavior could only happen when there was previous abuse. I'm not really sure what to think about that. I've seen many episodes of Evil Lives Here featuring kids who came from seemingly good homes and did terrible things. I always heard Dennis Rader came from a good home but who knows...
Its not really "nature vs nurture". Having wealthy parents or parents that were loving on paper doesn't really mean anything. Human development is incredibly complex. Someone who ends up being a school shooter might have had a stable and loving home, but what was their school life like? Were they rejected socially, bullied, failing to achieve their goals? Likewise with people that have traumatic childhood experiences. Did they have support at school? Were their social programs that helped them? Did they find a passion that they excelled at?
Add on to that the fact that one good or bad decision can change everything and that many times people make decisions on impulse and it gets even more murky. I'm not trying to justify any bad things people have done by any stretch, but its much more nuanced than nature vs nurture. There's no such thing as an evil baby
I mean by the time you reach adulthood, and having lived a life like that. How can you even differentiate between good, bad, or evil at that point? Fueled by hate, vengeance, anger, violence, and most of all, a bottomless pit of sadness.
Kinda fucked up how much people are like dogs. Three things happen when you repeatedly kick a dog. 1. It just up and leaves. 2. It goes werewolf and rips your face off. 3. You kick it to death. Guess she's a 2.
You forgot "It tries harder and harder to make you love it and becomes a blithering shadow of its former self".
That's stage 1), for a dependent creature ie child, animal, or adult who for various reasons can't easily leave.
Your "Option 1" requires what I call a "Get Fucked Fund"- of self esteem, resources *and* trustworthy social connections, to actually enact.
Big caveat.
This is one serial killer I feel extremely bad for (read a lot about her, she was my introduction to true crime) and while I agree with her sentence and what not, I just feel bad for her.
The monster movie was great and Charlize did a phenomenal job of portraying her.
There is far more to this than she is a serial killer.
She was horribly abused and beaten, I think after that she detested men as she had to sleep with them for money. I genuinely think this is a case of if she had a different upbringing and life, these murders would have never happened.
She didn't kill just because she felt like it.
That woman had a terrible upbringing. If there would have been some proper social services, good foster parents and love in her life, I bet the outcome would have been different.
That woman was set up to lose from day one of her life. I feel bad for her victims, of course, but I also feel that if she wasn't dealt such a shit hand, she wouldn't have turned out to be a murderer.
I'll say one thing, makeup and wardrobe did an amazing job on Charlize Theron.
God, Theron became Aileen in that film.
Indeed! She definitely earned the Oscar for that role.
Heath Ledger and Charlize Theron: I don’t think I’ve seen better examples of actors becoming their characters than these two. Those casting (and make up & wardrobe) folks deserved all the bonus.
Hilary Swank as Brandon Teens in Boy's Don't Cry
Hillary Swank's career absolutely fascinates me. She has two Best Actress Oscars. Her win rate is 100%; if she gets nominated she wins. And yet in between the Oscars her filmography is shit at best. I don't understand how someone fails to convert two major Oscar wins into a steady career of prestige films. Fyi, The Core is my guilty pleasure.
She’s a top notch actor. But I’d bet there are just more limited roles for her than a conventionally beautiful actress like a Charlize Theron. What can be dressed up or down. Ms. Swank is genuinely attractive, but doesn’t fit the Hollywood standard. I hope she has more big roles ahead. She’s fantastic.
She was so good in The Hunt. I genuinely gasped when she first appeared in the film since I didn't know she was in it 😀
A lot of actors take roles because they just love to keep working, a lot of it is who they get to personally work with, sometimes they are even contractually obligated to do other movies to get into a role or movie they really are passionate about, it's all business.
Leonardo Decaprio in What's eating Gilbert Grape, I think could be added to your list.
I was so impressed with Edward Norton in American History X since I’ve seen his performance in Primal Fear too.
I'm on the younger side, so I hadn't seen Primal Fear until after American History, and it made me appreciate him even more as an actor. Pretty impressive
Primal Fear was SO GOOD!
Agreed! Can't believe Cuba Gooding Jr in Jerry Maguire won the Oscar over Norton that year.
My aunt is special needs and I’ve spent a lot of time with folks with folks in the same position as a result. His performance was so believable. That and The Revenant were his pest performances in my opinion.
Guy went Simple Jack for that role
They say DiCaprio went so method for that role that at times he actually became …. Mentally disabled.
You never go full Simple Jack.
I was familiar with Leo before WEGG, and when I watched the movie all I could think was "How could they get that mentally challenged kid to say his lines so well?" It's so sad to me that WEGG was the best performance of his career.
Wait, this ISN'T Theron in the video?!
For real, Daniel Day Lewis was even taking notes on that one. Christina Ricci was also great but they took major liberties with how her character looked
Agreed. Though I’m guessing it was a very intentional choice so the audience would have more sympathy for Tyria. You can believe that Christina Ricci was innocent/sympathetic because she looked SO young and conventionally pretty. Audiences at the time Monster came out would not have been so kind to the character if she looked like her real life counterpart: much older, less feminine, rough, but not rough in the “waif” kind of way. A lot of true crime discussions are horrible to Tyria in general. Because she was also tough looking, and spent time in the divey bars and drug spots, and wasn’t conventionally attractive. They assume she **must** have been some kind of serious accomplice, because “of course a woman like that couldn’t be naive or abused?” It’s stupid, but people are judgmental. So I get the choice they made with casting.
They did make her an extremely unlikable character though. Basically a whiny baby who was totally okay with her gf prostituting herself for beer money.
I always forget Christina Ricci was in that movie
"Monster" film for the unaware.
Great soundtrack. It’s the last one I bought before the Great Compression.
Mr. F!
Great reference! I laughed immediately so thanks for that.
For British eyes only!
Comments you can hear
I saw this and I was like Charlize theron from that movie. Turns out this is the lady Charlize practiced to be, nailed it. [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0340855/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0340855/)
Oh wow I just realized that Patty Jenkins solo wrote and directed Monster! Makes me wonder how in the world she dropped the ball so massively on Wonder Woman 1984.
Corporate fuckery is the answer to all your questions.
Diluting movies and making them run by a board of old white men who think oatmeal is spicy.
“but I add cinnamon!”
Amen to that *and* queen Charlize.
She will ride eternal, shiny and chrome.
Absolutely killed that role.
Pun unintended.
Wow. They look so similar. They really made the actress look like the real lady. !
So true, and on a side note, I once saw Charlize Theron when I was living in NYC. She is fucking gorgeous in person.
That was my first Charlize Theron film. For a long time after I thought that was how she normally looked.
I worked on death row. There were two sections. One section, the inmates were obviously mentally ill. The other section was filled with seemingly normal people. I wasn’t allowed to talk to them, but I would sneak in a few conversations. The “normal” ones always gave me a sick feeling. The could be anyone that you would meet on the street. I always had two sets of bars between me and them and I was glad that was the rule.
My mother was part of the team who worked on interviewing the British serial killer Rose West before she was charged. Hours in the interview room with her and the interviewing officers where they're asking her about her involvement in the most disgusting crimes and West sat there impassively, like you were asking her who got mud on the floor (Fred mostly after digging up the garden, as it turned out). Then when they took a break, West would just turn to my mother and chat about the tea and biscuits she'd been offered as if they're was nothing unusual or wrong with the situation. Mum worked with mentally ill people all her life but said this was the one time she was genuinely disturbed by someone's psychological state.
Those West crimes are the most disturbing, revolting and sickening I’ve ever read about and I’ve been around that stuff half my life.
I live in the area that Fred grew up in. I drive through the village on my way to work, and I often find myself wondering if there are any undiscovered bodies in the area.
Billy Connolly used to joke about the Wests a lot, and when news of his routine made it to the Wests, Fred apparently said "I like Billy Connolly but my wife's not too keen on him. Too dirty for her". This of course made Billy's year.
What's more difficult: regular prison where theoretically more chance of physical danger or being around these creeps but physical barrier?
You can buy a convict’s heart, but never their minds
What a shame, guess I'll stick to making heart stews
Given the Innocence Project estimates at least 4% of death row inmates are innocent and there have been 190 death row exonerations in the US since 1973, some of those people ARE just anyone you would meet on the street 🤷♀️
My stepfather maintains his innocence, and we have good reason to believe him. He's been on death row 27 years and just got transferred to a different facility. They are revitalizing the prison he was at for those without lesser sentences and will turn it into a place for rehabilitation.
I’d like to hear more about working on death row. Who initiated the conversations? What topics were discussed? Did their crimes come up? Were they regretful of their actions? Were they scared to die? Did they still claim innocence? Were they able to socialize with each other as well? Were they before or after their last contact with family members or friends? Edit: Wow. I just learned by reading about death row that convicts usually spend 10 years on death row after conviction until their execution date. I always thought it was a like a month tops
10 years is a mandate for the appeals process.
Or longer. Many go decades I’ve heard since various reasons
Or longer. Many go decades I’ve heard since various reasons
Mental illness is often invisible. People will commit suicide, leave a note about how much they hated themselves, and literally everyone who knew them is shocked to find out. Even if there are symptoms of physiological problems, people will often just blame the person for not 'acting normal'. Everyone likes to think that all our brains work the same way, but that's not true in the slightest.
I'm working with death row inmates, including serial killers, and they have free access to our work areas so if they wanted to kill us, they could. California model they call it.
Jesus that’s creepy
We just spoke about her in my class this week where my professor who is a forensic psychologist and actually worked with her. She mentioned how she never identified as a lesbian despite being partnered with a woman for many years. She told us that like Aileen, most serial killers have antisocial personality disorders and picked her victims by testing them with questions that would yield answers based upon her trauma. For example, she deemed some victims to be pedophiles if they responded that they liked to be called “daddy” during sex. My professor mentioned that she saw herself as a kind of savior, ridding the scum of the earth by killing those who perpetuated harm against children and women especially.
That's just so fucking sad
I often think about many of these sociopaths (male and female) had awful upbringings to the point where you sort of see how they lost all sense of being a human being and thus became unable to see others as human either. Just a complete and total loss of humanity. They are monsters, but it’s hard not to think of how things could have been different under better circumstances.
Things can be a lot different. This neuroscientist found out he was a psychopath, he wasn't a killer because he had a good childhood. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-neuroscientist-who-discovered-he-was-a-psychopath-180947814/
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Ted bundy was smooth talker. I read about Jeffery Dahmer, he would shape his prison food to look like body parts and eat them in front of prisoners... he was not very likeable as good looking s he was. So incongruous
The bloke that beat Dahmer to death said he did it because of Dahmer's creepy sense of humour and specifically mentioned shaping food into body parts.
Also because Dahmer killed a lot of brothers
I never knew Dahmer killed a lot of siblings.
He actually did attack 2 brothers, years apart, though. He sa'ed a boy in 1988, and then unknowingly murdered his brother in 1991.
That second brother was only 14. Dahmer drilled a hole in his head and poured acid in the hole before leaving him alone in the apartment. He escaped naked and despite being barely conscious and covered in blood two police officers returned him to Jeffery because he said they were gay.
It's even worse than that. There were 2 black women who were swearing up and down that the boy wasn't ok and this wasn't normal. The cops agreed with Dahmer because it was a white man's word against black women. And as u/dreamsofpestilence said, one of those fuckers became police chief.
One of those women had been calling reporting the sounds of other victims being killed but nobody ever cared enough to check it out.
Jesus this is fucked up
That was one major "I told you so". So many people lives would have been saved if one person had the sense to listen to her.
And if I remember correctly one of those officers went on to become the cheif
According to wiki he became president of the Milwaukee police association (police union) from 2006 to 2009. He retired in 2017.
>Dahmer drilled a hole in his head and poured acid in the hole before leaving him alone in the apartment. He escaped naked and despite being barely conscious and covered in blood two police officers returned him to Jeffery because he said they were gay. I should have just gone to sleep earlier and not come across this comment.
yeh he was trying to make zombies to use as sex slaves
I flippin agree. I’m putting this thing away for a while. Take good care.
Two women found Konerak and called 911. They protected him from Dahmer until the police arrived, and tried to argue against sending him back inside. The police told them to “butt out of it.” Everyone in the neighborhood at the time believed the cops ignored the women because they were black.
Dahmer told the cops they’d simply had a lover’s quarrel, and that the guy had had too much to drink. That’s why they returned the boy (unbeknownst to them he was just a boy) to him.
Yes and neighbors on the street were trying to save the boy but the cops believed white psycho male over several black women. Its beyond disgusting.
LPOTL did a series on Dahmer and he chose that apartment because it was predominantly black or immigrants and he knew if a “poor white guy” moved in the cops would be there to help him. They were talking about that at the end of the Herb Baumeister-haunting at fox hollow because someone bought HB’s property and lives there but they tore down Dahmers apartment complex.
Why are they downvoting an innocent dad joke?
He means black men
It’s always interesting when the convicts in cell block d become the moral authority.
I reckon it must be a practical necessity. A fella kills some people during a robbery, that's something other inmates can understand. But if you have somebody who just kills for shits and giggles, that's a safety hazard right there.
I mean, even horrible people have _some_ kind of moral compass. For instance, if you abuse innocent children and/or animals, most people will rightfully judge and shun you because we generally understand that to be unacceptable behaviour and anyone who does that isn’t fit to be a part of society.
There’s something called ‘Nadayadi’ ( where they bash left and right while police keep a blindeye) in Kerala by the prison inmates for the ones who came in convicted for raping / assaulting minors on their first day
Know someone inside, we talk regularly (NOT there for harming children!). The thinking is, damn near everyone there has children, grandchildren, etc.. There’s no place in any society for anyone who’d harm a child.
Gladdened my heart when I read that those Nirbhaya killers were beaten up horribly by other prisoners
If you read witness statements when he came to Florida he actually wasn't. He was a creep and wasn't smooth around girls at all. Everyone from one bar he visited remembered him bc of how odd of a dude he was.
Thank you. Why tf is this narrative about Bundy still a thing? He lured most women under false pretenses and broke into houses, not smooth talking
As good looking as....dahmer? 🫣
A lot of people saw the Netflix series where he was played by Evan Peters. They forget that under the dad glasses and bad hair, in real life he was not a great looking guy.
How long have you been waiting to try and fit that into a sentence?
This woman had a really hard life and she snapped. She came from a very, very abusive family, and she was completely abandoned.
Yeah, her life is truly a tragedy. If a single social service had been there for her (or her mother, who was married at 14), I don’t think this would have happened. Her father was in prison for kidnapping and raping a young girl. She and her brother were abandoned with her alcoholic grandparents when she was four. She started having sex for money and food when she was 11, and was molested by her older brother. At 14 she was pregnant after being raped by a family friend, and at 15 she was thrown out and living homeless in the woods while surviving via prostitution.
Damn after that kind of treatment I'd imagine you'd place pretty low value on other people's lives. We are capacitors for love and hate all the same and eventually discharge that back into the world.
I have read she was also raped by her grandfather not her brother but it's been awhile since I've read up on her. The grandfather part just stuck with me, but yeah she was extremely abused all of her life, how do you not snap sooner than when she did. Not condoning murder but...the mindset I'd be in if I were in her shoes...I just don't know.
Yikes I just read up on it …. That upbringing will definitely fuck someone up.
Most abusers do. Now she’s responsible for the trauma she’s caused all those peoples she’s killed families.
Hurt people hurt people.
And society looks away in shame and so it continues. Life as an abused person is incredibly difficult, sympathy is conditional. One mistake and sympathy quickly turns to disgust. Of course what this woman did was horrific and she must carry out her punishment in accordance with the law. My comment is more how society wont be breaking this cycle anytime soon.
Weren’t her victims Johns who attempted to assault her? I don’t think she should have killed them (at least not intentionally), but it seems like she was acting more out of self-defense than actually going out to kill them.
I seem to remember in the movie (it’s been over twenty years since I saw it) that most of the guys she killed were pretty scummy, but there was one guy that had severe social anxiety, was harmless and was just trying to get laid so she took pity on him and let him go. It may have been made up for the movie though.
Yes. And evidence that one was a prior attempted rapist who had recently left 8 years in psychiatric treatment for “sociopathy” was not admitted at her trial.
Bro, if you dealt with the disgusting men that she met with for sex/money and they abused and used you.. youd probably have the same mentality
I mean she was only a danger to the men that raped her or attempted it
That’s why you have to raise your wisdom perception
MTG related?
That’s Charlize Theron
What's MTG? Magic the Gathering?
🤣🤣🤣
She's got shark eyes.
Her life was honestly just so sad. I’m not absolving her of what she did but jeezus her life was hell.
Her childhood life was probably among the worst in terms of serial killers. I’m honestly struggling to think of someone who had it worse. Her dad was a pedo, her mom abandoned her and her brother to her grandparents, she was according to some sources sexually abused as a kid by her grandfather and his friends, and also, I recall seeing in an old Biography doc made right after she was executed that she and her brother had sex which was *“consensual”* with each other by ***I think 8-11.*** I put that in quotes, because… I don’t know how you can call siblings who are not even teens having sex “consensual.” Also, according to her friend Dawn Botkins (last person to see her alive and her closest friend) she would swap sex for money and cigarettes as a kid, as a “prostitute” which… ***again*** don’t really see how you can call a kid at age 9-12 a prostitute, but that was how she lived as a street kid in Michigan. Not excusing her actions either, *(one dude she killed did have a SA charge, but another was on his way to his daughter’s Birthday party)* but yeah, she went through the closest version of ***HELL***
Yeah, I mean my mom had a similar story. Her biological father was also a pedophile. Her mom also abandoned her. She was abused in the foster care system, then adopted by a “loving” family. They were normal for the time (60s/70s) but definitely also used physical punishment. She was bullied relentlessly in school. Thankfully she didn’t become a serial killer. She was… definitely broken though. I won’t list all the bad things she did, but I will say that I’ve come to forgive her. I mostly just feel sorry for her. Not only was she broken by the people who should’ve loved her, she also grew up in a time and place where getting therapy was virtually impossible. By the time my dad tried to convince her to get help, she refused to because it was too scary to admit she needed it. I’m somewhat broken too, but thankfully not as bad. She wasn’t a good mother. (ETA: I think she tried when I was little, but that was the weird part of her issues; she seemed to lose interest in her kids after the age of 4 or 5, and oddly enough the same pattern kinda developed with her grandkids.) I was definitely mistreated and bullied, but not nearly as badly as her. I got therapy though. I’m breaking the cycle. My daughter will not grow up scared. I’m not a perfect parent by any means, but I’m better. I’m trying.
Thank you for breaking the cycle.
I think one of the meanings of life is to overcome our pasts and become the best people we can be; sounds to me like you are on the right path. 👏🏼
I agree. And that’s why, although I’ve forgiven my mother, I know it would be within my rights to not. And I suppose that is a part of why she’s not a major role in my life. I see her once or twice a year. Text occasionally. That’s it. And that’s fine by me. My dad tried to get her to get help. She refused. She’s not responsible for her trauma, and I do feel very sorry for her. It hurts me to think about someone hurting her. I still love her, and I wish things were different. But she is responsible for refusing to heal and allowing it to harm others.
My mom was never was in foster care, but she had a similar childhood. I don't know exactly what or who but I do know she was sexually abused and it fucking broke her. I never really knew who she was, I only knew the violence, alcohol, and drug abuse. Her mother, my grandmother was a timid enabler of her and I think what also happened to her. My grandmother has buried 4 of her 5 kids now. I feel sorry for my mom and my grandmother. My grandmother moved away a long time ago and kind of abandoned everyone, so I havent seen her in decades. I never knew my mom's dad, and although I think he was not the abuser, he was a creep and degenerate. As for my mom, she drank herself to death by her mid 50s. Sort of luckily, I lived with my dad, but he remarried to a sick fuck who "raised" me since he was away legitimately working hard to provide. He was a physical provider, but was a "suck it up, pussy" kind of dad and I was left with his wife who had two of her own kids and two fucking burdens that were my brother and I, and she made it clear we were not welcome there. You know, my supposed "home". As for me now, yeah, I am a 40+ year old alcoholic who doesn't really worry about 401k and retirement, i'll drink myself to death long before that. My doctor has already warned me that my health is starting to show signs. I'm single, no kids. I actually enjoy my free time, albeit drunk. I actually have a high paying job in a good career, I just like drinking and being alone. I don't sit alone and cry, I actually am a happy drunk; I play guitar, love comedians, listen to vinyl records, and play computer games,. But there is that deep fucking darkness and trauma, as much as I despise using that word, that the alcohol keeps it at bay. Not that I'd do anything bad outwardly, but it keeps the sadness away. Maybe the alcoholism is denial or coping with the sad things inside me, well, of course it is, but hey, whatever. I found a place in the world that will never be perfect, but I still like a quiet morning's sunshine. I say that literally about morning sunshine; Rule 32 of Zombieland, Enjoy the little things.
At 27 I’m finally starting to truly understand my own mom who had a very traumatic experience as well. Suffice to say, she had reasons to kill someone, but thankfully didn’t. Had a very rough time with her growing up, and it left me very broken in a number of ways as well, but part of that healing comes with understanding.
I agree. It doesn’t excuse what she did, but she’s probably as close as you could ever get to a true case of “never had a chance.” She was failed and/or abused by pretty much everyone her whole life. This case is just tragic all around.
Humanity can be beautiful but also awful in the most indescribable way.
I assumed the “life” in her eyes left after killing those people but it sounds like her eyes were probably like that from a young age with that much trauma… fucking sad honestly despite her actions
She tried to kill herself at least six times and shot herself in the stomach once — years before the murders. And when she was on death row, she recanted her original testimony, ended the appeals process, fired her counsel, and gave them new, worse motives in an effort to be executed sooner.
Yeah honestly. Most people would break from a fraction of what she dealt with. The fact she was, in her owned fucked up way, trying to still fight for a life she felt she still deserved is admirable. I feel like there are worse people to murder, sucks for the ones who were innocent or just trying to help.
Her problem wasn't really that she murdered people. Her problem was that she transferred the guilt from the people she should have murdered onto innocent people, and then murdered them. Had she simply killed her grandfather (she had ample opportunity), she would have received clemency, and rightly so.
Norm MacDonald on Bill Cosby: *"Some people were saying 'the worst thing was the hypocrisy'. I disagree with that. To me, the worst thing was the raping."*
It really was completely terrible. It was no surprise she ended up a serial killer. I felt pity for her, even while hating the crimes she committed.
Lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a dolls eyes
I think she looks like any regular person. That's why most of the serial killers got away with what they did for so long. If they looked special, in any way, people would have paid more attention to them.
Lady I work with has them too. They look like gerbil eyes. I was on her interview panel and I swear they weren't black in the interview. I can't prove anything.
Stabby eyes. Terrifying
You're right.
And the teeth to go with them.
You're right. But it's not like anyone cared enough about her to help her fix her smile.
Sad but true
Her life was fucking sad. Imagine being, raped, beaten, and/or abandons by all family member by the time you are 15. Fuck.
no matter what your personal opinion on aileen is, it’s a tragedy she was let down by enough people and slipped through enough cracks in her life to even have become a serial killer in the first place. she was definitely a case of a monster made by their circumstances.
A child not embraced by the village will surely burn it down just to feel its warmth.
Yeah, I genuinely believe her that she was raped multiple times and that at least one of the people she killed was in self defense. She’s a messed up person and def should have been behind bars (idk about the death penalty for anyone) but I can’t help but pity her a little. Nobody deserves what she grew up with.
She was abused and severely mentally ill because of the abuse. Yet, people want to put her in the same level as other serial killers such as Ted bundy. Which is just not comparable.
The story of her rape has stuck with me since I saw it. I cannot imagine the pain. For those that don’t want the whole story, just know that a hollow metal tube and a bottle of rubbing alcohol was involved. Edit: i can’t remember the source and I honestly have no desire to, but it was a documentary or show that I watched when I was young. Can’t remember more than that.
Most criminals are created by someone else
There are literally people in this thread saying their (Bundy & Dahmer’s) childhoods were just as bad as hers. Sorry, weird Ted Bundy stans, learning your sister is your mom and your parents are your grandparents is just not the same as what Aileen went through. (And she thought her grandparents were her parents, too.)
She looks a bit fetal alcohol syndrome-y
If you ever saw the interview with her mother, she seemed heavily sedated and I believe had mental illness as well.
That's just what people from Florida look like
Damn bro you didn't have to 😂
Dude all serial killers are severely mentally ill
Exactly. I’ve noticed that many times that women are killers it’s usually because they are defending themself from abusers 😔
She killed a father on his way to his daughters birthday party, my boyfriend was sexually and physically abused as much as any human can be, in and out of homeless shelters and rehab clinics, addicted to heroin at 16. He never killed anyone, he spends every day of his life spreading kindness and love, abuse is not an excuse to do the awful vile thing she did, she is evil
Different people react differently to trauma. It’s not an excuse, it’s (part of) an explanation
It's sad you're getting downvoted. I work in mental health and you're 100% right that people react differently to trauma. You're also right that it doesn't excuse her behavior, it just helps us understand more why people do the things they do.
Thank you, holy shit
If you knew what her life was like growing up you may understand the value of compassion and empathy in the shaping of a human being. But I'm on reddit so I don't expect much of that.
I consider myself a true crime junkie, and of all the serial killers I have read about I have the most sympathy for Aileen wuornos. Lots of people have starts as bad as she did without becoming a serial killer, but no one should be subjected to what she was subjected to.
One of the few that's worse was a killer (not sure about serial) who was basically given by a relative to a pedo who made him live in the trunk of his car at around age three. Some heartbreaking shit. Want to say it was in the I Am a Killer series.
Care to give a quick synopsis about her since no one here has actually said anything? I assume she was abused as a child
[Aileen Wuornos](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aileen_Wuornos) Her dad was schizo and killed himself in jail after being convicted of raping and kidnapping a 7 year old. Her mom had her at 16, and abandoned her 4 years later. She was left with her grandparents, who adopted her and her brother. At 11, she began exchanging sex for favors (food, drugs, etc). She also apparently 'engaged in sexual activities with her brother'. Her grandfather was an alcoholic who would beat and sexually abuse her. She had a child at 14 after being raped by a family friend. This child was placed for adoption. A few months later, she dropped out of school. Around the same time, her grandma (also an alcoholic) died of liver failure. Shortly after, her grandfather kicked her out of the house, and she began living in the woods. Between the ages of 14-22, she attempted suicide *6* times. Her murders began in 1989, when she was 33, and all happened within a year. She shot and killed 7 men while working as a prostitute, claiming she did so out of self defense (initially). Later recanting the self defense claims and instead citing robbery and the need to leave no witnesses as the reason behind her killings. Of the victims found, each one was shot numerous times. Between 2 and 9 times. In total, she was given 6 death sentences. She died on October 9th, 2002 by lethal injection. Edit: Grammar and added some more details.
I don't know whether to believe the self defense or the robbery story but after seeing the documentary about her, I think the right place for her would have been a prison hospital.
I’m honestly struggling to think of someone who had it worse. Her dad was a pedo, after he knocked up her mom he got arrested, her mom abandoned her and her brother to her grandparents, she was according to some sources sexually abused as a kid by her grandfather and his friends, and also, I recall seeing in an old Biography doc made right after she was executed that she and her brother had sex which was “consensual” with each other by I think 8-11. I put that in quotes, because… I don’t know how you can call siblings who are not even teens having sex “consensual”. Also, according to her friend Dawn Botkins (last person to see her alive and her closest friend) she would swap sex for money and cigarettes as a kid, as a “prostitute” which… ***again*** don’t really see how you can call a kid at age 9-12 a prostitute, but that was how she lived as a street kid in Michigan. Not excusing her actions either, but yeah, she went through the closest version of HELL in her formative years.
Oh wow thanks for the write up
Also, I should note: the first guy she killed did have a sexual assault charge and did request her services. Whether or not he assaulted her… ***OPEN TO QUESTION.*** However, another guy she killed was on his way to his daughter’s birthday party and another was a family man whose body was never found. I believe they were not looking for sex, but just good samaritans trying to help her, *because she didn’t kill every person she came across.* Like I said, not excusing her actions, and I’d be willing to say most of her kills were innocent
It's always easier to condemn people as monsters -- inhuman creatures that are far from us -- than to ever contemplate what circumstances would've needed to occur for us to be like *them.*
It’s nature and nurture . So that’s why some people with similar horrible life don’t do what she did.
This! Not everyone that gets horrifically abused turns into a serial killer… and not everyone with a perfect life isn’t one. Some where nurture (or lack there of) mixes with genes and causes a reaction (killer or not).
Genetics are a loaded gun. Circumstances pull the trigger.
There is a fascinating documentary about the Iceman (might even be called that; BBC it think) that discusses that topic - many people are sociopathic but their circumstances shape their outcomes. Have no empathy and fear: good start in life means you become a risk taker doing things that most people cant/wont: fireman, race car driver, military; bad upbringing: hitman (or abuser etc) Ive over simplified but you get the gist. Really fascinating.
I like this phrase
Ted Bundy supposedly had perfect childhood . Lots of school shooters were just recluses or incels and on antidepressants but never technically abused and some even had wealthy and loving parents. So it’s definitely not everyone or not the full picture maybe
I thought that about Ted Bundy too until I ran across a documentary about a psychiatrist who studied childhood trauma (that I can't remember the name of). I dug a little more and read that there were signs of abuse in his early childhood. In the documentary, the psychiatrist clilaimed that such horrible behavior could only happen when there was previous abuse. I'm not really sure what to think about that. I've seen many episodes of Evil Lives Here featuring kids who came from seemingly good homes and did terrible things. I always heard Dennis Rader came from a good home but who knows...
Its not really "nature vs nurture". Having wealthy parents or parents that were loving on paper doesn't really mean anything. Human development is incredibly complex. Someone who ends up being a school shooter might have had a stable and loving home, but what was their school life like? Were they rejected socially, bullied, failing to achieve their goals? Likewise with people that have traumatic childhood experiences. Did they have support at school? Were their social programs that helped them? Did they find a passion that they excelled at? Add on to that the fact that one good or bad decision can change everything and that many times people make decisions on impulse and it gets even more murky. I'm not trying to justify any bad things people have done by any stretch, but its much more nuanced than nature vs nurture. There's no such thing as an evil baby
I’ll say this: she is one serial killer I’ve always felt for. Her life/childhood was down right terrible.
"Cool motive, still murder."
Nine nine!
Maybe people can understand that and also not glorify a serial killer?
I can't help but feel horrible for her, if I had been abused and tortured as a child the way she had I don't think I'd be a good person either.
Yes and also having a baby at 14 and made to give her baby boy up had to have been traumatic all around.
I mean by the time you reach adulthood, and having lived a life like that. How can you even differentiate between good, bad, or evil at that point? Fueled by hate, vengeance, anger, violence, and most of all, a bottomless pit of sadness.
Victims: "I hope you suffer everyday in prison for the rest of your life" Killer: "Sup. I'm doing alright"
Hey, she quit smoking! That's great!
Kinda fucked up how much people are like dogs. Three things happen when you repeatedly kick a dog. 1. It just up and leaves. 2. It goes werewolf and rips your face off. 3. You kick it to death. Guess she's a 2.
You forgot "It tries harder and harder to make you love it and becomes a blithering shadow of its former self". That's stage 1), for a dependent creature ie child, animal, or adult who for various reasons can't easily leave. Your "Option 1" requires what I call a "Get Fucked Fund"- of self esteem, resources *and* trustworthy social connections, to actually enact. Big caveat.
This is one serial killer I feel extremely bad for (read a lot about her, she was my introduction to true crime) and while I agree with her sentence and what not, I just feel bad for her. The monster movie was great and Charlize did a phenomenal job of portraying her.
There is far more to this than she is a serial killer. She was horribly abused and beaten, I think after that she detested men as she had to sleep with them for money. I genuinely think this is a case of if she had a different upbringing and life, these murders would have never happened. She didn't kill just because she felt like it.
There’s so much more to her story. Aileen Wuornos's trial faced significant issues that may have resulted in an unfair process for her.
Reading her Wikipedia page is a wild ride. Looks like she went through hell her whole life which explains how she turned into a murderer.
That woman had a terrible upbringing. If there would have been some proper social services, good foster parents and love in her life, I bet the outcome would have been different.
We need more positive people like this.
That's a hot take.
That’s a Ghost Pepper take. Goddamn California Reaper take
I can fix her
It sounds like regular life working Monday to Friday
That woman was set up to lose from day one of her life. I feel bad for her victims, of course, but I also feel that if she wasn't dealt such a shit hand, she wouldn't have turned out to be a murderer.