The Last Resort: Aileen Wuornos’ Haunt

This bar may look like any other motorcycle hangout along Florida’s coastal highways; the weathered wood, the rumble of Harley motorcycles out the front, and the clatter of pool balls inside.

But The Last Resort in Port Orange, Florida, is where police arrested Aileen Wuornos on January 9, 1991, while she sat drinking a beer.

This small biker bar, which is located just outside Daytona Beach, has become an unlikely pilgrimage site for true crime enthusiasts, drawn not just by its place in criminal history but by how openly it embraces its dark legacy.

Wuornos was a regular at The Last Resort, sometimes even staying overnight, making it more than just the location of her arrest – it was one of her haunts. She considered the bar enough of a home that she used it as her mailing address, and according to the current owner, letters addressed to Aileen Wuornos still arrive at the bar to this day.

Once you step inside it becomes apparent that this isn’t just any motorcycle bar. The walls and ceiling are covered with inscriptions, framed newspaper stories about the infamous case and other homegrown memorabilia. They serve cold beer and sell memorabilia for people wanting to take home a piece of true crime history.

Pictures of her plaster the walls, including her mugshot, while a mural on the bar’s wooden fence outside depicts her face alongside a list of her victims.

An airbrushed portrait of Wuornos has become a de facto altar for the former patron, transforming the bar into something between a memorial and a macabre museum.

The murders began in late 1989 and continued into 1990. Across central Florida, six bodies turned up – some dumped in wooded clearings, others left on remote dirt roads. All had been shot, robbed, and then left where they were killed. Eventually, investigators would connect all these deaths to Aileen Wuornos, along with a seventh victim whose remains were never recovered.¹

Wuornos survived by selling sex along Florida’s highways, moving between cheap motels with her girlfriend Tyria Moore. Her method was simple: she’d either proposition men directly or pretend to be stranded, playing the damsel in distress. The media would later dub her the “Damsel of Death.” Sometimes her targets were clients; other times they were simply men who stopped to help what appeared to be a woman in trouble.

The investigation broke open when witnesses spotted two women abandoning a wrecked vehicle in Marion County. That car belonged to Peter Siems, one of the missing men. Inside, detectives recovered a crucial piece of evidence – Wuornos’ fingerprint. Her arrest followed quickly, and a subsequent search of her storage unit revealed a trove of belongings taken from all seven victims.²

When confronted, Wuornos didn’t deny the killings. Instead, she framed them as justified: “Sure I shot them, but it was self-defence. I’ve been raped 12 times in the last eight years and I just got sick of it. So I got this gun and was carrying it around. As soon as I got the gun, it got worse.”³ While investigators initially wondered if Moore had participated, Wuornos insisted her girlfriend knew nothing. Moore would later testify against her.

January 1992 brought Wuornos to trial for her first killing – the murder of Richard Charles Mallory. Public fascination ran high; female serial killers who hunted strangers were virtually unknown in American crime history.

Mallory, a temperamental electronics store owner with a taste for strip clubs, crossed paths with Wuornos somewhere along the sleazy commercial strip where Highway 1 meets Interstate 4. Their encounter on November 30, 1989, would be fatal. Nearly two weeks passed before hunters stumbled upon his bullet-riddled body in woods outside Ormond Beach.⁴

Defence attorney Tricia Jenkins built her case around self-defence, arguing that Mallory, who was Wuornos’ seventh customer that day, had violently attacked her client, who finally fought back after years of abuse. “She defended herself,” Jenkins told jurors. “Not one more time. Not one more time.” The defence painted a picture of Mallory spending the day intoxicated on vodka and marijuana before turning on Wuornos.⁵

State Attorney John Tanner offered a starkly different narrative. He characterised Wuornos as “a predatory prostitute” driven by “appetite and lust for control.” According to prosecutors, Wuornos became enraged when she thought Mallory wouldn’t pay. She pulled a .22-caliber pistol and shot him while he sat behind the wheel. When he tried to escape by crawling from the vehicle, she fired repeatedly, hitting him at least four more times. Prosecutors noted that Wuornos had given contradictory accounts during her confession, at one point claiming they’d fought over her purse after drinking and having sex.⁶

Tyria Moore delivered damaging testimony. She recounted how Wuornos had confessed while they watched television together, even showing Moore a photograph of Mallory. Moore told the court that Wuornos displayed no guilt and never mentioned being attacked or assaulted, offering no explanation for why she’d killed him.⁷

The judge made an unusual ruling that would prove devastating to the defence: he allowed prosecutors to present evidence from all six other murders Wuornos had admitted to, including her videotaped confession. In that tape, Wuornos’ own words undermined her self-defence claims: “Maybe it was self-defence, maybe it was just stupid, just off the wall. Shoot, maybe I could have got away with it. Maybe, I mean, got away from them (the victims). I feel guilty. I am guilty. I’m willing to pay the punishment for that.”⁸

Prosecutors argued that the pattern was unmistakable – seven men killed with the same weapon, some shot in the back, all killed in nearly identical fashion. This wasn’t self-defence; it was calculated murder. Family members of all seven victims took the stand, both to honour their loved ones and to identify possessions found in Wuornos’ storage unit. Their testimony painted pictures of the victims’ final days and systematically dismantled Wuornos’ claims of acting in self-preservation.⁹

The victims came from diverse backgrounds: Mallory owned an electronics shop. David Spears worked construction. Charles Carskaddon travelled the rodeo circuit. Peter Siems had retired from the merchant marines. Troy Burress sold sausages. Charles Humphreys had served as both an Air Force major and a police chief. Walter Antonio worked as a trucker, security guard, and reserve officer. Though never mentioned at trial, Mallory had a conviction for attempted rape. The other victims’ families described them as devoted, hardworking men.¹⁰

Two additional witnesses described narrow escapes. Bobby Lee Copas testified that he’d picked up Wuornos in November 1990 after she claimed she needed to reach Daytona where her sister would help her collect her children from daycare. During the drive, she propositioned him three times. “Up to that point she had been a perfect lady and as far as I knew, she was just a woman in distress,” he recalled. When he refused, she demanded $100 and became hostile. He tricked her into exiting at a gas station and locked the doors. According to Copas, she screamed: “I’ll kill you like them other fat sons of bitches, Copas. I’ll get you, you son of a bitch!” James Della Rosa shared a similar story.¹¹

The defence called just one witness – Aileen Wuornos herself. From the stand, she testified that Mallory had raped and bound her. She claimed they’d gone willingly to a secluded wooded area where the situation turned violent. She explained her failure to mention the assault during her initial confession by saying investigators had cut her off, and that she’d only confessed at all to protect Moore from suspicion.¹²

Everything hinged on credibility. Did the jury believe Wuornos had genuinely feared for her life? After only one hour and 35 minutes of deliberation, they returned a guilty verdict.¹³ They unanimously recommended death. Before sentencing, Wuornos made a final statement: “I had no intentions of killing anyone. I told you I was raped, and that’s what happened. I did what I had to do to protect myself.” The judge imposed the death penalty.

March 1992 saw Wuornos plead no contest to killing Charles Humphreys, Troy Burress, and David Spears, earning three more death sentences. She expressed a desire for quick execution, wanting to escape what she called “a crooked, evil planet.” She later pleaded guilty to murdering Charles Carskaddon and Walter Antonio, receiving two additional death sentences. Peter Siems’ murder was never prosecuted since his body was never located.

Over time, Wuornos abandoned her self-defence narrative, claiming she’d actually been motivated by robbery. However, in a later interview with documentarian Nick Broomfield, she suggested she’d only changed her story because she was exhausted by death row and ready to die.

On October 9, 2002, that wish was fulfilled. Aileen Wuornos was executed at 9:47AM, becoming the tenth woman put to death in the United States since capital punishment resumed in 1976. Her final statement was cryptic and rambling: “Yes, I would just like to say I’m sailing with the rock, and I’ll be back, like Independence Day, with Jesus. June 6, like the movie. Big mother ship and all, I’ll be back, I’ll be back.”¹⁴

Back at The Last Resort, her image still watches over the bar where she once felt at home.

1. South Florida Sun Sentinel, 18 January, 1991 – “Prostitute Suspected in 7 Deaths”
2. Indiana Gazette, 17 January, 1991 – “Woman Linked to Murders; Police Foresee More Charges”
3. Ashbury Park Press, 1 September, 1991 – “The Country’s First Known Female Serial Killer”
4. The Orlando Sentinel, 12 January, 1992 – “Wuornos Trial Has Tabloid TV Flavor”
5. Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 16 January, 1992 – “Self-Defence is Plea of Damsel of Death”
6. Waterloo Region Record, 16 January, 1992 – “Female Killer Tells of Lust for Power Over Men”
7. Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 17 January, 1992 – “Ex-Lover Says Woman Described First Killing”
8. UPI, 23 January, 1992 – “Jury Hears Part of Accused Serial Killer Confession”
9. Ocala Star-Banner, 22 January, 1992 – “Prosecutors Focus on Wuornos’ Gun”
10. The Orlando Sentinel, 22 January, 1992 – “Wuornos Trial Turns Poignant”
11. UPI, 22 January, 1992 – “Motorist Recounts Encounter with Accused Serial Killer”
12. UPI, 24 January, 1992 – “Accused Serial Killer Only Defence Witness at Her Trial”
13. Akron Beacon News, 28 January, 1992 – “Florida Hooker is Found Guilty of Felony Murder in Man’s Death”
14. Associated Press, 9 October, 2002 – “Fla. Executes Female Serial Killer”