Aileen Wournos

[Annahibiscuits]

I started a thread in chat, after watching the 2 documentaries about her, here;

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2902370-How-on-earth-did-Aileen-Wournos-ever-get-put-to-death

I am NOT trying to justify killing if someone has had 'a shifty life'

I am gobsmacked that a traumatised women with clear MH issues was put to death with no fair trial; corrupt investigators and a bogus lawyer (who said on camera that if he hadn't have been able to persuade her to plead guilty he would have had to resign, as he didn't know how to build a legal case)

I am interested in a Feminist perspective, because I do think her being female, a prostitute and killing men probably played a part in how she was treated by the legal system

Her psyche evaluation before being killed lasted 15 minutes. Yet she said she knew that the prison guards were crushing her mind with sonic rays

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2902370-How-on-earth-did-Aileen-Wournos-ever-get-put-to-death

I looked at that thread and couldn't even finish reading it - so much misunderstanding of this woman's life. From her birth onwards she was used, abused, confused and very mentally unwell, raped as a child and as a woman, and unable to afford a competent legal defence.

Her acceptance of the death penalty was her suicide.

I saw one of the documentaries. I don't recall the lawyer but do recall some awful woman (who adopted her as an adult or something equally odd).

I do not support the death penalty in any circumstances but beyond that I am struggling to find any sympathy for Aileen Wournous.

I find it quite hard to not have sympathy for her strangely, discarded by parents, repeatedly rated from a young age, living in the woods as a young teen & prostituting herself to survive- that's a massive massive failure of the system. From her one and only friends description of this time everyone- all the neighbourgood adulra-knew she was being raped and no one did anything. I believe aw account of the rape and self defense first shooting, it was such a detailed, graphic and emotive description I believe that despite her later recanting and she was clearly psychotic once in jail. With no mh help given.

I have alot of sympathy for her, and struggle to have much sympathy for men who were shot while soliciting sex from a woman.

It's rare I feel this way. Hindely, West, even maxine Carr who claimed bws I have no sympathy for.

With regards to op- I think the emphasis was on showing that women can be just as evil as men (I do believe that, just not in this case) by exicuring her because if they didn't they would need to look at why she did what she did. And it's very easy to see that it was because of men.

If you look at US stats on death penalties actually carried out, it is overwhelmingly the poor, the black and those with MH issues. This case is not an outlier.

I don't support the death penalty all all.

But nor do I have much sympathy for those who have committed awful crimes. Her background does not prevent her knowing right from wrong.

I don't think it does either. I tend to have less sympathy, not more. But first were self defense and the rest seem to be surviving the only way she knew how. She seems so so damaged and so out of touch with the real world between ptsd & untreated psychosis and littleraly being pushed outside of society as a child I doubt the concepts of right or wrong clicked in the same way with her as it does most. She comes across as having the reasoning skills of a child, the development of a child, some truama means peoples brains never develope past childhood lack of abikity to predict consequences, or feel empathy, so right and wrong dont hold thr same meaning to a child than they do to an adult. I think she needed locking up for life, in a secure pysch institution, but not exicuting.

The US is awful for justice if you are poor. If you can't afford a good lawyer the court appointed ones are usually dire due to the low price paid by the government. They can vary between being inexperienced to downright terrible (e.g. falling asleep in court/being drunk). Maybe if she'd had a better lawyer she wouldn't have ended up on death row.

Maxine Carr's only crime was helping her partner cover up evidence after the murders were committed. It's ludicrous to put her in a category with Myra Hindley, though the press will love it if you do.

That's why I was saying I tend to be unsympathetic- I am the child abused by men my mother facilitated and turned a blind eye too. I tend to consider those who help rapists in anyway every bit as bad, I know that's unreasonable to others but being a child victim because of it day in day out makes it feel as if they are just as bad ime.

Yet I look at aw as someone so profoundly damaged by those looking away, those discarding her, damaging her beyond the ability to develop I have sympathy for her. And don't particularly value the lives of johns who were out to rape her anyways. I guess part of me wounders why I didn't become her.

My main issue, is that she was killed without a trial, effectively

Wobbly, I'm so sorry.

wobbly I feel the same about Hindley, Carr etc. It is not because Aileen is a woman that I sympathise

The first killing was self defense against a very violent rapist, who was going to kill her, and yet she was sentenced to death for killing him

Anna that's true of alot of poor people in us, huge race bias also

Lins, don't be, really, long time ago. But changes perspective permenantly.

The lack of trial part I meant. Reads different now you posted again