Issue: Vincent Corey

Vincent Corey, the first “John” that Lee murders after being raped and brutalized by him, is based on Richard Mallory, the first man Wuornos is known to have killed. In the film, Corey rapes and tortures Lee without provocation and Lee is forced to kill him to escape. After the killing, Lee examines Corey’s car trunk and when she finds a hacksaw she mutters, “Piece of shit”. According to Jenkins’ commentary, this is supposed to confirm Lee’s fear that a serial killer was loose in the area and targeting prostitutes.

This scene is based completely on Wuornos’ testimony during the Mallory trial when she described a similar rape. The problem is that there is no supporting evidence for Wuornos’ claim. Indeed, the trial marked the first time anyone had heard about it. She never specifically mentioned it during her confession to police (she did speak cryptically about self-defense), although that would have provided the perfect opportunity to lay the groundwork for a motive of self-defense. And although she told her soul-mate Moore about the Mallory murder, she never mentioned a rape and showed no sign of injury.

Additionally, Wuornos’ description of the rape did not match either the physical evidence or previous statements made by her. She stated that Mallory was coming toward her, but forensic evidence showed he was shot from behind. Prosecutor John Turner was able to severely damage Wuornos’ credibility causing her to invoke the Fifth Amendment 25 times. And the rope Mallory allegedly used to restrain Wuornos was never found, much less a hacksaw. To make matters worse, Wuornos later recanted her testimony and said no one raped her.

It is interesting to note that in the commentary, Theron claims (apparently with a strait face) that, “her story always stayed the same with the first guy.” If there is one thing that just about everyone who has studied Wuornos’ life could agree on, it would be that her story (in this instance and many others) rarely stayed the same.

In 1992, information concerning Mallory came to light that defenders of Wuornos point to as confirmation of her claims of rape. In her DVD commentary, Patty Jenkins states, “…the first person that Aileen Wuornos killed was a convicted rapist who had served ten years in prison for aggravated rape.” The “ten years” figure is mentioned over and over again as being fact-but it isn’t.

Mallory was arrested in December, 1957 and accused of “housebreaking with intent to rape” when he broke into a Maryland woman’s home. However, the woman resisted and Mallory simply fled the scene. Mallory, who was just nineteen at the time, pleaded insanity and after being declared a “defective delinquent”, was remanded to the Patuxent Institute for psychiatric observation in 1958. He was released in 1962 after four years and placed on a sort of probationary period until 1968 when he was declared to be relieved of his “defective delinquent” status.

The ten-year time period Jenkins and other Wuornos supporters constantly refer to seems to come from the length of time that Mallory was under the jurisdiction of the court. Following this logic, an inmate who is serves four years in prison and six years probation really served ten years in prison. This misstatement of fact seems to serve the desired effect of making Mallory appeared like a dangerous and hardened criminal. But no one has uncovered evidence that Mallory exhibited violent or criminal tendencies of any kind after 1968, and his criminal record remained clean. Mallory apparently was addicted to porn films, strip clubs and the like, but this does not mean he was a violent rapist.

Wuornos’ defense appealed citing the new Mallory revelations. But the court upheld the convictions for several reasons. First, Wuornos’ defense team had been aware of and had access to Jackie Davis, a girlfriend of Mallory’s but chose not to call her to testify. The reason was that Davis would have testified that Mallory was gentle with women and she had no first-hand knowledge of violence on his part. Another powerful reason for denying the appeal was the length of time that had passed between Mallory’s offense and the date of his murder. The justices simply felt that his thirty-year-old crime in the absence of new offenses was not relevant. The forewoman of the Mallory jury later agreed, stating that Mallory was not the person on trial.

On the bright side, the film shows Lee robbing Corey of his car and other possessions including even his dumpy overalls and hat. The real Wuornos robbed every one of her victims, pawning some of the items and storing others. Most of the men she killed had significant sums of money on their person, and some believe Wuornos may have known this and targeted them because of it.

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