Aileen Carol Pittman, later known as Aileen Wuornos, was born on February 29, 1956, in Rochester, Michigan. Her friends and family called her by her nickname, Lee.

Her mother, Diane Wuornos, was just 14 years old when she married Aileen’s father, Leo Pittman However, the marriage quickly fell apart, and less than two years later—two months before Aileen's birth—Diane filed for divorce. Aileen was born when Diane was only 16.

February 29th is Leap Day, and people born on this day are called Leaplings, and have adopted a frog as their unofficial icon. (Richard Ramirez "The Night Stalker" was also born on Leap Day).

When Aileen was a teen, her nickname was "Cigarette Pig."

As early as age 13, she traded sexual favors with boys in the neighborhood for the price of 35 cents, and sometimes, oral sex for cigarettes. They cruelly referred to her as "Cigarette Pig" or "Cigarette Bandit."

Leo Pittman - Aileen's father - was sentenced to life imprisonment for kidnapping and raping a 7-year-old girl. Wuornos has repeatedly said that her grandfather sexually abused her, and forced her to strip. in 1970 at just 14 years old, Aileen was raped by a friend of her grandfather's, and became pregnant.

She gave birth to a boy at a home for unwed mothers on March 23, 1971. The child was placed up for adoption.

A few months after her son was born, she dropped out of school and was kicked out of the house. She began supporting herself by working as a sex worker, sometimes living in the woods while hitchhiking around the country, often under assumed names such as Cammie Marsh Greene and Lori Kristine Grody.

Aileen committed all seven murders in Florida, where she was arrested, and eventually put to death by lethal injection on October 9, 2002.

In 1976 at age 20, Wuornos hitchhiked to Florida, where she met and married 69-year-old yacht club president Lewis Gratz Fell.

On November 30th in 1989, she murdered her first victim - who had been sentenced before for rape. He drove to an isolated area, where he attacked Aileen after tying her hands behind her back - subsequently raping and torturing her. As soon as Aileen got free from the rope, she pulled out her gun and unloaded on him, killing him, and then cleaned the blood from the car. She dumped his vehicle with his wallet, condoms, and an empty bottle of vodka in Ormond Beach in the early morning of December 1st. His body turned up in a Daytona Beach junkyard about two weeks later, with three bullets in his chest.

At age 20, Aileen met her girlfriend Tyria, or “Ty” - who would become the only real love in her life - in a Daytona Beach gay bar called Zodiac. Ty was 24 years old and worked as a hotel maid.

Three of the men that Aileen killer were truck drivers.

On January 9, 1991, undercover police officer Lieutenant Mike Joyner was surveilling random biker bars and encountered Wuornos at The Last Resort in Volusia County. He befriended Aileen by buying her drinks. A team of undercover officers was on standby, and Joyner alerted them once he had her in his grasp. He excused himself to 'go fill his truck with gas,' and while outside, he was wired. From that point on, the entire operation was captured on audio, and soon after, on video when Joyner lured Aileen outside for the takedown. She was arrested under the pretense of an outstanding warrant issued under the name Lori Grody. Joyner continued the act, pretending to resist the police throughout the arrest.

During the investigation, police discovered items from Aileen's first victim at a local pawnshop, with a receipt bearing Wuornos' thumbprint. They then traced other stolen belongings from this victim back to Wuornos. A camera from the victim’s car was found in a rented storage unit, accessed with a key taken from Wuornos. She had rented the unit under an alias. Investigators also tracked other items from the victim’s car to people or pawnshops Wuornos had contacted, giving them crucial leads to her identity. Although they arrested Aileen, these connections alone weren't enough for a solid murder charge.

The police approached Tyria, Aileen's girlfriend, with an offer she couldn't refuse: get Aileen to confess in exchange for immunity. Ty agreed and returned to Florida from her family home in Pennsylvania, where the police set her up in a Daytona motel room.

The first phone call between them took place on January 14, 1991. Aileen was evasive, speaking in vague terms and seemingly using code. Ty kept calling, growing more desperate with each conversation. By the sixth call, Aileen assured Ty she wouldn't let her go to jail. Finally, on January 16, Aileen confessed to the murders of seven men and made it clear that Ty was innocent.

When the calls were played during her trial, Aileen wept openly, feeling the sting of being set-up by the only true love in her life.

At age 46, Aileen's last words before she was executed:

“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."

Her body was cremated and a close friend brought her ashes back to her home state of Michigan, where they were scattered under a tree in the town of Fostoria, Tuscola County.

At Wuornos' request, Natalie Merchant's song "Carnival" was played at her funeral.

Aileen repeatedly listened to the album Tigerlily while on death row.

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I've walked these streets, a virtual stage, it seemed to me
make up on their faces, actors took their places next to me

I've walked these streets in a carnival of sights to see
all the cheap thrill seekers, the vendors and the dealers - they crowded around me

Have I been blind, have I been lost
inside my self and, my own mind
hypnotized, mesmerized, by what my eyes have seen?

I've walked these streets in a spectacle of wealth and poverty
in the diamond markets, the scarlet welcome carpet that they just rolled out for me

I've walked these streets in the mad house asylum, they can be
where a wild eyed misfit prophet on a traffic island stopped
and he raved of saving me

Have I been blind
have I been lost
inside my self and
my own mind
hypnotized
mesmerized
by what my eyes have seen?

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