“I’ll Be...”: The Bone-Chilling Final Words of Serial Killer Aileen Wuornos Before Execution

Her life is frightening and tragic all at once. Aileen Wuornos was a street s-- worker and one of America's all-time serial killer bad guys. She died without regret, anger, or believing she would "be back." Netflix reimagines her hauntingly sad legacy once again, and her enthusiasts are prepared to take a second ride through her twisted, dark world.

The Lady Who Created the Beast

As per information available, Aileen Wuornos in between the time frame of 1989 and 1990, reportedly murdered seven men. She reasoned that they tried to harm her, and she took action on her right of "self-defense." But the jury didn't find her convincing. She was found guilty of six of them and sentenced to death. Americans were already fascinated by her life. She had a difficult childhood, she spent years on the streets, and she had a steady stream of paying Johns. And then there were the killings, which were gruesome, gory, and couldn't be overlooked.

Scary interview with serial killer Aileen Wuornos, who killed seven people in one year. pic.twitter.com/THOPbB2QfE

— Fascinating (@fasc1nate) April 14, 2025

But it was not finished when the death penalty was carried out in the 1990s. Not by a long shot. Folks debated for years about whether she was a battered victim or a ruthless killer. But Aileen had already expressed her own desires. She appealed to the US Supreme Court to commute her sentence in 1996, and they refused her. She'd had enough by the year 2001. She penned a frightful letter to the Supreme Court of Florida which contained, "I killed those men and robbed them without giving it a thought." I'd do it again, too. You can't keep me alive or anything because I'd kill again. I hate all over my body. Even her lawyers attempted to aver that she was not in sound mind enough to avow that. But Aileen and some psychiatrists said she was absolutely right.

A coffee and a promise to calm down

9th of October, 2002. The Florida prison. Finally, it was all over. Aileen Wuornos, 46, rejected an offer of a last meal that could have cost less than $20 and consumed only one cup of coffee for herself. No food. No drama. Just coffee and determination. Before the lethal injection, Aileen gazed out and uttered one of the strangest, and most repeated dying words in criminal history: "Yes, I just want to say that I'm sailing with the rock and I'll be back with Jesus, like on Independence Day." The film opened on June 6. I'll be back, with the mother ship and everything. Witnesses describe her voice as calm, almost euphoric. She was gone after that. As a death penalty was reinstated in 1976, Aileen Wuornos was the second female executed in Florida and the tenth female executed in the United States.

From Ashes to Ashes

Her one true friend, Dawn Botkins, scattered her ashes beneath a tree in Michigan shortly after her body had been cremated. She stuck with her all through the madness. Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers returns to Netflix. It premieres October 30, before Halloween. Aileen Wuornos is America's scariest criminal, however much you despise her. In death, even, her dying words echo like a ghost's threat: "I'll be back."