Was Aileen Wuornos’s Girlfriend Tyria Moore the Reason Why She Killed?

Before she became the subject of documentaries, films and debate, Aileen Wuornos was a drifter trying to survive on Florida’s back roads—and a serial killer. Between late 1989 and late 1990, seven men were found dead, each shot at close range. When police finally caught Wuornos in early 1991, it was partly because of the woman she once called “the love of [her] life,” Tyria Moore. 

The documentary Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers revisits that partnership and poses a provocative question: did her relationship with Moore—and the financial strain of keeping her—help push Wuornos to kill? Their story, from its beginnings in a Daytona Beach, Fla., bar to its end on Florida’s death row, is one of intimacy, betrayal and the desperate search for control in a life defined by chaos.

By the time Wuornos met Tyria Moore at a gay bar in 1986, she had already lived a dozen lives, and most of them had been cruel. Born in 1956 in Rochester, Mich., she never knew her father, who was convicted of abducting and raping a child and died by suicide in prison. Her mother abandoned her before she turned 4 years old. Raised by grandparents who were reportedly abusive, Wournos ran away as a teenager, sleeping in cars, hitchhiking and trading sex for food or shelter.

When she met Moore, a 24-year-old motel maid from Ohio working in Daytona Beach, the two women quickly became inseparable. Moore quit her job, but the relationship was volatile, with the couple often broke, drinking heavily and moving from one cheap motel to another. Wuornos supported them with her work as a sex worker.

For Wuornos, the relationship was more than companionship; it was a rare taste of stability. But it also brought pressure. She wanted to keep Moore fed, housed and happy, and that meant earning money, fast. "The only reason I hustled so hard all those years was to support her," Wournos later told police. 

Wournos also said that she struggled to provide the lifestyle Moore asked for: “The problem was I wasn't supporting her as richly as she wanted. She always wanted a brand-new car or a rented one. She wanted clothes, she wanted an apartment with plush furniture." This admission led many to believe that Wuornos's need to acquire cash to support Moore may have played a role in her move towards darkness. 

In November 1989, Wournos committed her first murder, shooting electronics shop owner Richard Mallory. She allegedly confided to Moore about the killing, but Moore refused to discuss it. Over the next year, six additional men were found dead along Florida highways. All had been shot at close range with a .22 caliber pistol. They were robbed and their cars were missing.

Within months, police found a potential lead after discovering Wournos’s fingerprint on an item owned by one the victims that Wournos had pawned for cash. They also discovered witnesses who’d seen two women driving a victim’s stolen car: Wuornos and Moore.

By late 1990, Moore had grown suspicious of Wournos. She broke off their relationship and moved back home, unaware that police were investigating both her and Wournos in the killings. In early January 1991, police arrested Wournos on unrelated charges, and then tracked down Moore at a relative’s home. Moore denied any involvement but agreed to police's request that she cooperate with them to try to get Wournos to confess. 

Moore was brought back to Florida, where investigators recorded a series of phone calls in which Wournos admitted to the killings, though she claimed they were all in self-defense. When Moore tearfully worried about how she might be implicated, Wournos noted, “I’m not gonna let you go to jail. Ty, I love you. If I have to confess everything just to keep you from getting in trouble, I will.”

Those taped conversations became the backbone of the prosecution’s case. In court, Moore testified calmly, describing their years together and the strange life they had led. Wournos claimed she had committed the murders in self-defense, but Moore said Wournos had never mentioned attacks while they were together. In 1992, Wournos was convicted of Mallory's murder and later pleaded guilty or no contest to five additional murder charges.

Wournos spent nearly 10 years on death row and continued to deny in interviews that Moore had any involvement in the murders. In 2002, she was executed by lethal injection. After Wuornos’s arrest, Moore retreated from public life. She made just one public comment on the case, a 1992 Dateline special in which she discussed their relationship. 

Moore had no involvement in Patty Jenkins’s 2003 film Monster, in which Christina Ricci played a fictionalized version of her named Selby Wall. There are unconfirmed reports that Moore entered the witness protection program, living far from the spotlight she once shared with a woman who became infamous.

More than 30 years after the murders, Wuornos remains a dark figure in American pop culture. Moore, by contrast, remains a shadow, defined by her silence. Together, they form one of the most intriguing love stories in true crime history.