Geez, I wonder how that adoptee might feel if he finds out his bmom was a
serial killer.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/auto/epaper/editions/today/news_
0414f698e1ce204b0070.html
Aileen & Dawn: A sisterhood haunted by memories and madness
By Paul Lomartire
Sunday, February 29, 2004
For her chance to walk down the red carpet at tonight's Academy Awards,
actress
Charlize Theron first had to drive down a dirt road in rural Michigan, out
past
Flint, to where the blacktop narrows and the broken-down towns shrink.
Theron had to go see Dawn Botkins, the woman who knew serial killer Aileen
Wuornos best.
"Everyone always flies past our dirt road," says Dawn on a dreary, dark
day
recently.
Dawn owns everything Wuornos left in this world: Boxes of court do***ents.
The
jailhouse flip-flops she wore to her execution. The sneakers she signed
because
they might be worth something one day. Her ashes. And her letters,
thousands of
her letters, written in tight cursive during Wuornos' 10 years on Death
Row.
On the night before she was executed, Aileen told Dawn to share the
letters
with Theron, who was playing Wuornos in the movie Monster, and Patty
Jenkins,
the film's director.
So Theron drove out to Dawn's dirt road and into the bizarre mind of
Florida's
infamous highway hooker.
"I was watching Charlize when she was at my house and thinking, 'Maybe she
can
do Aileen,' " Dawn says. "What made me realize she was going to pull it
off was
watching her sitting in a chair reading. She cried reading the letters.
"She was letting Aileen into her heart."
Ridiculed by other kids, looking for love
The notorious Aileen Wuornos -- angry, violent and raging, with wild eyes
--
inspired more hate than heart when she was arrested in 1991 and confessed
to
the murder of seven men, including Peter Siems of Jupiter.
At biker bars, the regulars called her "Lee." Re****ters called her the
"damsel
of death." But to Dawn, Aileen was a teenage pal, a running buddy, a
mercurial
and lost soul, a fellow high-school dropout in their hometown of Troy,
Mich.
What was amazing about Wuornos' childhood, Dawn says, was how much other
kids
hated her.
Abandoned by her birth mother when she was 6 months old, Aileen was raised
by
her grandparents. She never knew her mother and never met her father, Leo
Pittman, who hanged himself in a Kansas prison where he was doing life for
raping a 7-year-old.
Heavy drinkers, Aileen's grandparents couldn't control Aileen, who had a
hair-trigger temper. She started stealing at 9. When she was 13, she got
pregnant, gave birth to a boy and put him up for adoption.
Aileen never mentioned regret, remorse or anything else to Dawn about
giving up
the baby.
And Dawn never brought it up.
"I felt sorry for her. Why would I bring up something that embarrassed
her?"
It's possible that the baby was the result of a rape, Dawn says, but she
claims
that Aileen was never ***ually abused by anyone in her family.
"The books and movies, they wanted Aileen raped by her brother and beaten
by
her father," Dawn says. "It made a better story. But it wasn't true."
One thing was true: Aileen was tolerated, but never loved, by her family.
She was a ninth-grade dropout. When she was 15, her grandmother died, and
her
grandfather released Aileen to the streets. She would sleep in abandoned
cars,
in the woods, or bunk with Dawn whenever she could. She sold *** full
time, and
everyone knew it, Dawn says. Aileen would buy liquor or drugs for teen
parties,
and the other kids used and abused her.
They ridiculed her, Dawn recalls. Often, after Aileen supplied booze for
the
party, the kids would run her off.
"All the guys used to say, 'She's a sleazebag, she's a ****, she's nothin'
but
a ****,' and I know none of them ever went to bed with her," Dawn told the
police in 1991. "How would they know?... They wouldn't touch her with a
10-foot
pole."
At one party out in a field, Aileen was standing, holding a 12-pack of
beer,
when a van came flying toward her. Someone opened a door that slammed
Aileen to
the ground. She was out cold, the 12-pack on her chest.
"Everyone was cracking up," Dawn told the police. "They were looking at
her,
and I'm thinking, 'I can't believe that they did that to her.' "
Another time, after Aileen passed out from drinking at a party, someone
painted
her feet orange.
After Dawn got kicked out of Troy High School, she and Aileen burned off
boredom hitchhiking from town to town. They'd go to the mall, pool hall or
buy
drugs in Detroit. The increasingly street-smart Aileen had strict rules
for
Dawn: Sit in the back seat, let me do the talking. Aileen taught Dawn to
panhandle and shortchange.
"She always had a knife with her, in her bag, and I always knew she'd
never let
anything happen to me," Dawn says.
Whatever they needed at the mall, food or drugs, Aileen bought with her
hooker
money. When the money ran out, Aileen sent Dawn home and disappeared for
hours
or days.
That pattern would be repeated years later when Aileen hustled to take
care of
her lesbian lover, Tyria Moore, in Daytona Beach. Moore would end up
testifying
against Aileen, sealing her trip to the death chamber.
Dawn's days running with Aileen ended in 1975, when they were hitching a
ride
to get something to eat. Dave Botkins and his cousin offered the girls a
ride.
At the end of the night, Dave was smitten with Dawn. Aileen was in the
back
seat with Dave's cousin, who was home from the Navy.
"We were just talkin', and Aileen goes nuts in the back seat," Dawn
recalls.
Turns out, Dave's cousin casually put his arm around Aileen, and she
exploded.
She screamed that Dave's cousin was "sick-en-ing," drawing the word out.
To
this day, it's an inside joke with Dawn and Dave. "You're so sick-en-ing,"
Dawn
repeats, and starts laughing.
Dawn married Dave -- they're still married -- and Aileen headed to Florida
for
good.
Dawn wouldn't hear from Aileen for 16 years, when the first letter arrived
from
Broward Correctional Institution in Pembroke Pines.
"That's the part nobody ever gets," Dawn says. "I knew Aileen Wuornos. I
don't
know anything about Lee Wuornos in Florida, the lesbian stuff, any of it.
When
the cops came to my house (in 1991), I thought they were comin' to tell me
she
was dead. I always figured somethin' would happen to her. But not what
happened."
Who was Lee Wuornos, serial killer?
"Don't know anything," Dawn says, "except what's in the letters."
Who was Aileen Wuornos, her teen friend?
"She's the bravest person I've ever known," Dawn says.
'That's how she wanted to be remembered'
Aileen's letters are a chilling mix of lucidity and lunacy, of girlish
lingo --
Okeedokee! Love ya, gal! Here's a hug! -- and brutal confessions like this
one:
"When I first hit Fort Lauderdale as a teen. 16. I was picked up by a
State
Trooper around 2:30 in the Morn and he played up to me that he just wanted
to
help me find a place to crash. Only to drop me off at some abandoned house
out
there and later bring 2 deputies and 1 more State Trooper to rape my ass
in
that house. Cars parked outside it and all. Afterward telling me that when
the
sun rises -- just split town. If ya snitch about this to anyone we'll kill
ya."
Reading the letters, with her drawings of smiley faces and laughing
cartoon
characters, it is impossible to justify Wuornos' horrific crimes. But it
is
also difficult to despise her.
Though psychiatrists declared Wuornos sane before she was put to death by
lethal injection Oct. 9, 2002, her words reveal her to be less monster
than
madwoman.
"Really, the thing was to ****tray her as a real person," actress Theron
told
one interviewer last year. "There were a lot of things going on -- very
complicated situations."
After reading Aileen's letters, Theron said, "She was in my head. I had to
play
her."
"That's why she gave the letters to us," Theron continued. "That's how she
wanted me to know about her. That's how she wanted to be remembered."
One of her letters detailed where she left Peter Siems' body, which was
never
found.
"He parked the car some 30 feet in from the paved one (road) we got off
of...
He had a sleeping bag (red). He placed it in front of the car... (After he
was
shot), I rolled him off the car path of this dirt road onto the side, with
the
sleeping bag covering him. But he was still on the road. I also left his
wallet
on his hip, I.D. and all cards inside. I did this knowing he would
therefore be
found... and be easily identified and properly buried..."
Siems, on his way to visit family in New Jersey before delivering Bibles
in
north Florida, picked Wuornos up off Interstate 95 north of Daytona Beach.
"He wanted to gain driving time... he told me... that if I was interested
in
him being interested in my hooker offer, then I'd have to wait until we
were
outta Florida," Wuornos writes in a letter dated September 1994. "I said
OK,
since he at first was interested in $100 an hour. I can't remember what
state
we wound up in, but once we reached an area he picked out the offer for an
hour
changed. He then was only interested for straight $35."
As court testimony would show, the fastest way to send Wuornos into a
murderous
rage was to renegotiate the price for ***. When she shot Siems, according
to
her letters, they were haggling over $5.
Siems' widow, Ursula, lives in Hobe Sound. Jupiter police still consider
his
disappearance an open missing person case.
Aileen's letters to Dawn are detailed, particularly one describing what
she
wanted Dawn to do with her body after execution.
"Please have a smile put on my face. Hair loose and lying relaxed around
pillow
and shoulders. Also I'd like a cross in my hands, like a small wooden
one...
also a Bible tucked between my arm and rib cage, as my hands are folded
holding
the cross. Please put a single rose alongside my arm..." she wrote.
"Coffin --
my taste is brown wood one, with light red or white satin exterior design.
Also
my body and coffin sprayed with Emrade (Emeraude) perfume... Hook up a
sound
system at the wake or any ceremony deal you may have of me. Like a
cook-out.
And please play these if you can gather them up. Two (songs) I love
most... are
Time by Allen Parsons Project and Ordinary World by Duran Duran... Any
Moody
Blues stuff, except I'm Just a Singer in a Rock and Roll Band. UK! Can't
stand
that song!...
"I pray Tyria's there. I love her like you, right on into Eternity... You
2 are
the only ones I know I'll think on as I depart..."
Aileen wanted Dawn to play a dedication song to Dawn and Tyria at her
wake: Rod
Stewart's Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?
'I'm leaving you all this to take care of you'
Dawn wrote to Aileen nearly every day for 11 years.
"I'd send her birthday cards for the 10 days before her birthday gettin'
on her
about gettin' older, everything saggin', that kind of stuff," Dawn says.
"She
loved it."
The minute Dawn reconnected with her old friend, she was back with Aileen,
not
Lee. "I kept her from going insane," Dawn says.
Aileen found new friends while on Death Row -- one woman, Arlene Pralle,
even
legally adopted her, and Aileen referred to Arlene as "Mommie Dearest" in
her
letters. But the newfound friends ended up being like the mean kids in
Troy,
Mich. They just wanted to use her. Even Tyria Moore rarely wrote.
When the tabloid TV hosts stopped coming around with their checkbooks, and
the
book and movie offers dried up, so did Aileen's new friend****ps.
In the end, she spent her final hours with Dawn.
They laughed, talked about old times. Aileen refused the prison meal of
barbecued chicken, mashed potatoes, apple crisp and tea. Instead, she
drank
coffee and ate beef jerky.
Dawn broke down crying, but Aileen didn't. "The last thing she said to me
was,
'I love you, buddy, see you on the other side.' "
And then Dawn, sobbing, hugged her friend and turned to leave.
"I just kept saying to myself, 'Don't turn around, don't turn around.' "
Dawn couldn't bear to watch Aileen get the needle. She left the prison and
waited with the crowd outside.
"That death chamber. They'd have to carry me in there. (Aileen) was
worried the
night before about her legs gettin' all wobbly and breakin' down cryin'.
"But she didn't. She walked in there on her own. And she didn't cry."
Dawn keeps a photograph of Aileen, smiling in her Death Row uniform,
alongside
photos of her grandchildren and a bright yellow vase made of smiley faces.
"I
did my best to make her part of my family," Dawn says.
Aileen's stuff -- all the papers, the boxes of prison clothing, the
autographed
L.A. Gear sneakers she was wearing when police arrested her at the Last
Resort
Bar in Daytona Beach, a hairbrush, a note-filled Bible -- takes up space
in
Dawn's small, country house.
As the keeper of Aileen, Dawn is now the prisoner.
"It's been really tough. You know how many times I've wanted to go outside
and
burn all this stuff."
Dawn, who will be 48 on March 8, has had multiple sclerosis for 28 years,
and
it's getting worse.
She's not taking medication because she can't afford it. Her husband,
Dave,
hasn't worked in four years since he tore up his back at the gear factory
in
Rochester. After 26 years on the job, they used the injury settlement to
pay
off bills.
Now they have no money coming in unless someone's willing to pay for an
interview. Dawn held out as long as she could after Aileen urged her in
letter
after letter to cash in. The A&E cable channel paid Dawn $2,500 to appear
in a
Wuornos Biography. Theron and Jenkins flew Dawn and Dave to Los Angeles
and put
them up in a nice hotel for the Monster premiere.
A few hundred bucks come in here and there. Last week, a German TV crew
came to
Dawn's house and paid for an interview.
But it didn't even pay for heat, lights and groceries.
"Aileen always said, 'I'm leaving you all this to take care of you,' " she
says. "But what am I supposed to do with it? I can't sell it. What would
you do
if your kid bought something because it belonged to a serial killer? I'd
kill
my kid if he did."
Outside her kitchen window, Dawn can see the stark little walnut tree
where she
spread Aileen's ashes, according to Aileen's wishes:
"If you would, take my ashes back up with ya and spread them all around
them
walnut trees, alright," Aileen wrote.
Tonight, Charlize Theron is favored to win the Oscar for best actress.
She's
already won the Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild award.
"If Charlize wins," says Dawn, "Aileen wins. And it would mean so much
because
Sunday is Aileen's birthday."
If the lost and unloved Aileen had not become the infamous and murderous
Lee,
she would have been 48 years old today.
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend
will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
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