Lethal Intent Read online

  About the Author

  Ken Benjamin

  Sue Russell is an internationally syndicated reporter and author. A past associate editor of Woman magazine and U.S. correspondent for the Sunday Express Magazine, she is a regular contributor to the major British magazines and newspapers. Born and educated in London, she is now based in Los Angeles, from where she covers a diverse range of stories. She has written several nonfiction books, and this is her first in the true-crime genre.

  Sue Russell is an award-winning journalist and author based in California. She has written for numerous national publications in the United States, her native Britain, and internationally. She writes regularly about crime, criminal justice, and forensic science. She is currently writing The Illustrated Courtroom: 50 Years of Court Art for CUNY Journalism Press with illustrator/coauthor Elizabeth Williams about five award-winning artists’ work during five decades of sensational trials. As an author, Sue has been featured on numerous television and radio shows, including A&E’s Biography, Investigation Discovery’s Deadly Women, Britain’s This Morning, and Good Morning Australia. Visit her at http://www.suerussellwrites.com.

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  LETHAL INTENT

  SUE RUSSELL

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

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  Title Page

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

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  30

  31

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  34

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  38

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  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  EPILOGUE UPDATE

  Copyright Page

  In the prime of my life,

  must I go through the gates of death

  and be robbed of the rest of my years?

  AILEEN CAROL WUORNOS,

  a born-again Christian since

  April 1991, paraphrasing

  Isaiah 38 while awaiting trial

  in Volusia County Jail, Florida

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I’d like to acknowledge Jackelyn Giroux, a woman of great passion, tenacity and true grit, and to give special thanks to Katherine Grace, my longtime research assistant, who survived another book. Thanks, too, to my friends Randi Kaplan and Jane Lovelle Drache for their support and insight.

  This book involved hundreds of hours of interviews, and special gratitude is due to the victims’ families who shared their memories, however painful it was to do so.

  Thanks to Karen Combs, paralegal with Florida’s Marion County State Attorney’s Office, for her much appreciated cooperation. Gratitude, too, to the many law enforcement officers, attorneys and good people of Florida, Michigan, and Kansas (both named and unnamed in the book), who generously gave of their time. In addition to those interviewees who specifically requested anonymity, I’ve elected to substitute pseudonyms for a handful of other parties unrelated to the crimes. All of their characters are real, however.

  I’m especially grateful to agent Linda Konner, who worked so hard and had faith. To my publisher, Michaela Hamilton and to my editors, Karen Haas and Richard Ember, for their support and enthusiasm. And to Ken Benjamin, whose loving support helped me find the fortitude to see this long project finally come to fruition.

  For their invaluable help: Chris Lavin, Denise Stubbs, Nick Von Klock, Marilyn Greene, Harry Shannon, Roger St. John Webster, Joan Bellefontaine, Tanya Everett, Randy Doh, John Fort, Eddie Sanderson, Jean-Paul Chaillet, Alva and John Lusky. They each know why.

  Last but not least, I’d like to thank my beloved father, Norman Markham Chapman, whose influence propelled me toward writing—and questioning.

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  Aileen Carol Wuornos (Photo courtesy of Lori Grody)

  Keith Wuornos (Photo courtesy of Lori Grody)

  The young Diane Wuornos, Aileen and Keith’s natural mother (Photo courtesy of Lori Grody)

  Leo Pittman, Aileen’s natural father

  Barry, Keith, Aileen and Lori Wuornos (Photo courtesy of Lori Grody)

  Keith Wuornos with his father/grandfather, Lauri Wuornos (Photo courtesy of Lori Grody)

  Aileen and Keith with their grandmother Britta Wuornos (Photo courtesy of Lori Grody)

  Britta Wuornos (Photo courtesy of Lori Grody)

  Aileen in 1969 during a summer vacation (Photo courtesy of Lori Grody)

  Aileen and Keith’s childhood friend Mike Fearn (Photo by Jackye Giroux)

  The Wuornos home (Photo courtesy of John Majestic)

  The Wuornos home in Troy, Michigan (Photo by Jackye Giroux)

  Aileen riding her bike in her Troy neighborhood (Photo courtesy of Lori Grody)

  Tyria Jolene Moore, the big love of Aileen’s life (Photo courtesy of Cammie Greene)

  Shirley and Dick Humphreys (Photo courtesy of Shirley Humphreys)

  Troy ‘Buddy’ Burress with his sister Letha Prater (Photo courtesy of Letha Prater)

  David and Dee Spears (Photo courtesy of Dee Spears)

  The central Florida woods where Lee took her victims (Photo by Jackye Giroux)

  One of the trailer homes that Lee and Ty lived in at Homossassa Springs (Photo by Jackye Giroux)

  Wet Willie’s bar in Daytona, Florida (Photo by Jackye Giroux)

  Aileen Carol Wuornos shortly after her arrest in 1991

  The shrine erected to Lee Wuornos at the Last Resort Bar where she was arrested in 1991 (Photo by Jackye Giroux)

  1

  Snarling with rage, she rammed the barrel of her .22 revolver into Dick Humphreys’ ribs with such violent, malevolent force that it broke the skin right through his shirt, roughly scrap
ing away the top layer of flesh.

  Out of his car, he stumbled backwards in his shocked effort to evade her. Tripping and falling, struggling to regain his balance, back on his feet, then down again. And thinking about dying here and now, out in the middle of nowhere, and Shirley, and the kids … was it all going to end like this?

  Breathing hard, moving in for the kill, she’d shot fast, aiming straight for his torso, wanting to see the flying bullet hit home. One was never enough. He was a big guy, too, this one. Must have been over six feet, around 200 pounds. She pumped a second. Then a third. Later, she’d forget in a haze of violence about the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh. Three of the bullets were fired ruthlessly into the back of a helpless man, twisting, turning, trying to run.

  Blood flew, spattering onto his spectacles and his gold wedding band.

  It was the day after his 35th wedding anniversary, and he didn’t die easily. An ex-police chief, an expert in hostage negotiations, the unlikeliest of victims, none of it mattered now as he groaned, gasping for air. He was slumped down on the ground, right by the concrete culvert he’d stumbled over. And still he was fighting for life. When she heard him making gurgling noises she felt kinda sorry for him and re-aimed her pistol, unloading the shot to the back of his head. Better put him out of his misery.

  Couldn’t let him live. If he lived, he’d rat on her. Her ass would be up on attempted murder. Her face would be plastered all over the place. She could kiss hooking goodbye if that happened. And then what? The only way she could make money was to hustle.

  No, she was definitely going to let him die. Then die.

  Each time it was easier. The fear, the body coursing with adrenalin, and oh God, it felt good. She had her prey. She had the power. She had the control.

  The bastards deserved to die, anyway, she thought bitterly. They probably would have raped her, skipped off without paying her, tried to screw her in the ass, beaten the shit out of her, strangled her, maybe even killed her. Maybe they had a gun, too? Who knows what they might have done? That’s how she had to look at it.

  Well, it wasn’t going to happen. Now she was the one calling the shots.

  You bet, she took their cash and their stuff. That was out of pure hatred. The final revenge. You bastards. Dirty sons-of-bitches. You would have hurt me. Damned right, she’d take their things. Get her money’s worth.

  After they were dead, there were no regrets. It didn’t bother her, what she’d done. They were old. Their fathers and mothers were probably dead. Why worry about it?

  She knew in her heart she was a good girl.

  Shirley Humphreys’ first clue that Dick was home from work was customarily the sound of his Firenza’s tyres scrunching along the curving, pine-needle-scattered driveway of their spacious, tree-surrounded home in Crystal River, Florida. On the evening of Tuesday 11 September 1990, that sound didn’t come at 6.10 as usual and Shirley noted its absence within minutes. Dick ran his life like clockwork and after three and a half decades she knew his orderly patterns as well as her own.

  At 6.30 p.m. she began speculating that he’d had car trouble. At 7 p.m., that he’d stopped for a beer with the fellas. Fifty-six-year-old Dick, an investigator who worked child custody cases for Health and Rehabilitative Services, always made a point of calling, even if he was going to be just a little late, but it was his last day in the Sumter County office; perhaps they’d decided to celebrate? By 7.30 p.m., when the telephone sat silent in its cradle, Shirley began to worry.

  Just the previous night they’d shared a doubly sweet celebration. Dick had taken her for a beautiful prime rib and chicken dinner at the Sheraton Hotel near their home, and they’d toasted 35 years of happy marriage. They’d also toasted life.

  When cancer strikes a family, it has a way of excising extraneous, niggling worries and cutting straight to the heart of everything. So it was for Shirley, also 56, who had been battling the big ‘C’ since 1984 and had learned to savour and cherish the small moments and victories.

  First the cancer struck her mouth, then, in 1987, she’d needed two breast cancer surgeries. On their anniversary night, she was optimistically in remission and she and Dick were counting their blessings anew. Charles Richard Humphreys, known as Dick, was also celebrating a long-anticipated transfer to the Ocala office. He’d been very unhappy with his female supervisor in Sumter County and was content to be making a demotional move to intake community control worker. He’d be behind his new desk on Wednesday. He’d already have been on his way had his old supervisor not asked him to stay just one or two days longer than planned to help them out of a spot.

  The Humphreyses enjoyed full, busy lives, swimming together in their pool, going ballroom dancing, and taking a lively interest in their three grown children. Thirty-two-year-old Elizabeth (nicknamed Libby) and 25-year-old Terry Ann were married and living in Pennsylvania and Georgia respectively. Charles Michael, Mike to his friends, was 22, and lived close by Mom and Dad. Dick was also an active member of the Loyal Order of the Moose in Crystal River, and was a member and past commander of the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars).

  With a serviceman’s stately bearing, Dick Humphreys was an imposing man, but a warm, friendly character with an abiding love for children, particularly those who had been dealt a rough hand in life. He didn’t generally take case work home with him, but often, on a Friday evening, he’d visit Tony, a little fellow he’d placed in a foster home and couldn’t quite get out of his mind.

  He’d tell Shirley: ‘I just had to stop and see Tony tonight, and you should have seen him. He hugged my leg and I bounced him up in the air! He looked great!’

  The son of a tool and dye worker, his father was born in Birmingham, in England’s industrial Midlands. Dick grew up in Detroit, then signed on with the Navy, doing four years of service, spending a year in Vietnam and serving on a ship in Korea. When he came out, he started working for his bachelor’s degree in police administration at Michigan State. Dick and Shirley met at a party on New Year’s Eve, 1954, fell hard, and married nine months later. Dick graduated in March 1960 and informed his wife: ‘I’ve learned policing at this level, now I need to bring it down to street level.’

  They moved to Ann Arbor where Dick pounded the pavements as a patrolman for three years until a recruiter talked him into signing up for the Air Force, where he specialised in security and law enforcement.

  Starting in 1969, the Humphreyses and their three young children spent almost four years in Europe, with Dick based in Germany. Encouraged by Shirley, and looking towards securing their family’s future, while there, Dick began taking external courses towards a master’s degree in business administration at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. With that credential under his belt, he went on to do graduate work in criminal justice at Georgia State, but dropped out short of his doctorate.

  He stayed in the Air Force almost twenty years, eventually holding the rank of Major and working as an adjunct professor at Park College, Missouri.

  Retiring in November of 1981, Dick segued into the post of Police Chief in Sylacauga, Alabama, which he held for two years. The Humphreyses also spent time in Miami where Dick worked in nuclear security for the Wackenhut Corporation.

  On his last day in the Sumter HRS office, Dick cleared his desk, switched off his beeper, and headed out to clear up a couple of final loose ends. There was a medical examiner’s report to be checked on at the Wildwood Police Department, which he did some time after 2.30 p.m., speaking to Assistant Police Chief, David Jesse.

  He also stopped at the Journey’s End Motel (since renamed the Budget Motor Lodge). A then-dingy, brown, two-storey, L-shaped building fringing a pool and set amidst a sandy parking lot, it later bore a sign advertising singles for $23.95 a night and freshly painted turquoise doors. Juxtaposed as it is to the busy Speedway truck stop, with its steady procession of truckers looping around to use the certified scales, re-fuel, and buy Cokes and hot dogs, it is hellishly noisy. At around 3.45, Dic
k checked in by phone with the office secretary at Sumter to see if anyone needed him. All was quiet.

  If the average citizen asked the police for help because their spouse was less than two hours late home from work, they’d get short shrift, but with his history, Dick enjoyed a good rapport with local law enforcement.

  At 8 p.m., Shirley called the Highway Patrol—she needed a phone number for Ken Jones (Dick was his supervisor), who surely would know what was keeping Dick. Highway Patrol referred Shirley back to the Sheriff’s Department, which she had no luck reaching. Next, she called the Wildwood Police Department, with whom Dick worked closely, and asked them please to help her locate Ken Jones. She assumed, correctly, that protocol would prevent them from giving her Ken’s home number. Ken finally responded at around 9.30 p.m.

  ‘Dick hasn’t shown up. Something’s wrong. I know there’s something wrong!’ Shirley told him, her anxiety evident in her voice.

  That anxiety mounted considerably when Ken couldn’t readily explain Dick’s absence. He suggested that she check the Moose Lodge and the VFW. Shirley was certain that if her methodical, disciplined husband had gone to either place he’d have called her to meet him. She checked anyway. Ken notified the Wildwood Police Department, who in turn alerted the Sheriff’s Department, who in turn went to work immediately checking the ditches along Dick’s route home, hoping to spot his blue 1985 Oldsmobile Firenza.

  In a matter of hours, Dick Humphreys, husband, father, and friend, was officially listed in the state’s computer as missing/endangered.

  Shirley Humphreys sat alone with her thoughts through that long night, cold fear gripping at her. An unexplained absence was completely out of character, as was the notion that Dick would take off unexpectedly. That he wouldn’t call her was literally inconceivable.

  She thought about how Dick would have liked to carry a gun, but that to do so would have been against the laws of Florida in his current job. Her husband was a big, highly trained man, but basically defenceless. It seemed as if the night would never end. She prayed he was all right.