Goodnight, Aileen.

Inspired by Nick Broomfield’s film “Aileen: The Life And Death Of A Serial Killer”, I couldn’t help but wonder what I might find if I calculated a birth chart for “America’s first female serial killer”.  Nick does a wonderful job of showing the human being behind the notoriety.  So much so, that you find yourself wishing that you had known Aileen back when she still might have been saved by kindness and a helping hand.  If you have empathy in you, you can’t help feeling that a few good friends and true support might have made a difference. Would there have been any hope for the lives lost at her hand or the fragments of a life that she was left to work with when her dignity and expectation of a future were beaten and tortured out of her starting in infancy?  I truly did not know what I would find when I began my research..

Aileen Wuornos was born on February 29, 1956.(Sun sign: Pisces, ruling planet: Neptune, element: water, quality: mutable. Moon sign: Libra, ruling planet: Venus, element: air, quality: cardinal) This date being the only extra day in a leap year, Aileen only had a true birthday every four years. I really don’t know what effect this has on a person’s chart and life as a whole. It is something that I will research and possibly write about in a future post. 

The first thing that one notices about this birth date is the qualities of the influencing Sun and Moon.  Pisces is a sign that immediately calls to mind a character of caring and emotion.  Then Libra would tell you that this person possesses much love and the need for balance.  On the face of it- that is.  Anyone who knows a Libra can tell you that they can be a huge pain in expressing their love and their balance.  Without going any further into the chart, I would have, off the top of my head, said that the bulk of Aileen’s difficulties were a direct result of the present life actions of those who were charged with her care when she entered this world.  Certainly abandonment by both parents and extreme abuse by those who received her into their care are at the forefront of what Aileen grew up to be.  There are some particularly difficult aspects in her chart that make her more rebellious than many abused children, though, and her having the moon in Libra I find particularly disturbing.  The reason for this is a first- hand knowledge of how Libra can go to monumental extremes in trying to regain their equilibrium when their scales have been tipped.  Upset the balance in a Libra and get ready for the fireworks!  There is likely to be screaming, swearing, tantrums on the floor (if they are young), bullying, threats of suicide and any other behavior that they can think of to put their world back into balance.  And it need not make sense to anyone else why they are so upset.  They are Libra, and they just are.  Of course, not all Libras are so demonstrative in their angst but when coupled with an emotion driven sun sign like Pisces, the pain and confusion of being thrown off balance and being treated with a total disregard for their gentle and loving nature can produce a ticking time bomb ready to explode when these feelings are aroused again at an age when the intimidation of being a child no longer exists. 

When you consider that Aileen was trading sexual favors for money as young as age nine, one wonders how this kind of behavior manifested so early on.  I can assure you that I was not thinking about anything even remotely related to oral sex that young.  My world was watching cartoons. playing with toys, seeing friends after school, and listening to music.  I realize that this type of information would not be so far from the reach of a nine year old today, but I can tell you for a fact that a child in the years prior to the information age was safely cocooned in a world of GI Joe and My Little Pony.  This kind of knowledge prior to that had to be learned at the hand of an abuser.

Finding herself pregnant at age 13 put an end to Aileen having a home.  Once her child was born and given up for adoption Aileen was kicked out of her grandfather’s house. It is interesting that the state of Michigan did not intervene on her behalf. Child welfare laws did exist in the 1960’s. But somehow Aileen’s situation went unnoticed by the state and the school system.   She began living in an abandoned car in the woods in the dead of a Michigan winter.  I have lived in Michigan in winter time and how she survived this I cannot imagine.  She apparently began her career as a full time prostitute after this, leaving Michigan sometime after to manage that career in a warmer climate.

Though no one can be sure what effect an understanding of Aileen’s personal needs based on what the universe supplied her with at birth would have had, I will make an attempt at conjecture and base it on the most basic needs of Pisces.  People born in Pisces tend to have a dreamy character with an interest in fantasy and fairy tales, love and romance.  They are wonderful when they feel loved and needed.  They can nurture and care for others when the object of their affection might appear to others to be of the lowest dregs of society.  Pisces can find good in them, usually, and will care for their friend, lover, child, whatever, for as long as they feel they are needed. I will venture a guess here and say that if Aileen had found a supportive friend or husband when she was young, who had a character able to balance her need to be protected from her abusers and to feel cared for, she might have managed to lift her soul to a level where her best characteristics could come out of hiding.  She most likely would have been a devoted wife and a nurturing mother if she had children.  I say most likely because it would probably take a lot of love and a spouse/partner with a deep understanding of what she went through as a child.  These kind of people do exist but the luck of Sagittarius would probably have to be on Aileen’s side to have found a gem like this.   Artistic ability is also found in Aileen’s chart.  It is possible that she could have become a free-lance artist.  A sample of her art is shown in Nick Broomfield’s film and it is quite beautiful.  Pisces is a sign, in Aileen’s case for sure, that needs freedom of expression in learning and in setting their own style.  It is doubtful that she would have aspired to a professional or technical career.  The desire to learn in a formal setting such as college does not reside in her chart.   Her balance would have been found in the care of  loved ones, home and family.  Aileen once speculated that if she had not gotten into trouble she might have become a missionary.  This possible vocation actually exists in her chart.  Caring for others is there, prominently.

 At the onset of her violence, Aileen was involved in a relationship with a woman whom she seemed to love very much.  It appears that she felt responsible for the care of her lover and when they were at a point when they were unable to pay the rent and take care of their basic needs the downward spiral for Aileen began.  There is evidence that her first victim was a convicted sex offender.  God only knows what might have transpired during that business transaction, but the need to survive and care for the person that she loved at this particular time, coupled with who knows what she encountered in the company of a known offender set off Aileen’s descent into what eventually ended her life and the lives of 7 men.   I will not defend anything that Aileen did from this moment on.  The decision to take a life is a conscious one made by the individual and not in the birth chart by any means.  I would only acknowledge that the law recognizes the right of people to defend themselves in a life or death situation.  Aileen did plead self defense in court, but I am not here to speculate on the validity of that.  One thing that I would venture speculation on is the fact that under pressure from her lover’s distress over being harassed by police, Aileen decided to plead guilty to the charges against her.  This is so very Pisces.  The need to protect her lover outweighed the extreme situation that Aileen, herself, was in.   That decision sealed her fate.  The belief that she did not have truly effective legal counsel also paved her road to the death penalty.  Whether or not this is the correct remedy for her actions I will leave to you, the reader, but it is a fact that a person who reacts to life’s issues with the ultimate violence cannot be allowed to live freely.

If I were in the position of calculating a chart for Aileen before she crossed the line and set off on a path of no return, I don’t know that there would be any truly helpful advice for her. The reading would have to have taken place when she was so young that her ability to understand and make use of the information likely would not have existed.  Life is difficult to change without deep conviction that you want to, and a constant source of support, for many people. This is especially so when your environment in the critical childhood years  lacks a foundation to build upon. Since Aileen didn’t have that in any sense of the word, if I were to read her chart for her as an adult, anything that I told her would most likely have been met with a reaction something like, “Huh, that’s interesting.” and discarded the minute that she walked out the door, unless she had a friend that she could laughingly relate it to later.

Truly, many people do not get an ounce of  actual support in their lives, and somehow they still manage to live with as much dignity and self respect as they can muster.  As for Aileen, I don’t believe that she would ever have thought to seek out support from anyone.  If that doesn’t exist in your frame of reference somewhere already, you most likely will not see it as an option and wouldn’t believe that you could get it if you tried.  Revisiting her past would have been a nightmare and likely not in her ability to cope with.  Thank god that a life like Aileen’s is the exception and not the norm.  Her title as “The first female serial killer in America.” speaks volumes about what must have gone in to creating such an anomaly. 

If one believes in an afterlife, one can only hope that the afterlife has been kinder to  Aileen Wuornos than her life on planet earth was.  All life starts out with hope for the best that one can be.  If it is not respected and cared for, we can never be sure that this type of tragedy will not be repeated.

NOTE: I cannot say that my source materials are utterly infallible (as no one whom studies astrology can) but I can say that I base my final assessments on the premise that those I profile show the characteristics necessary for me to stand by what I have said based upon my checked and triple checked research. While it is impossible for me to know the time of birth of the people I am profiling, I stand by the accuracy of the information to which I am privy.