Aileen Wuornos murdered seven men along Florida’s highways between 1989 and 1990. She was a transient sex worker who used the guise of her trade to lure men into isolated areas where she would then shoot them with a .22 caliber handgun. The murders gained intense national attention due to the rarity of female serial offenders at the time.

After being arrested in 1991, she faced multiple trials. She was sentenced to death and spent over a decade on Florida’s death row before her execution by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison.

Unlike many death row inmates who utilize the final meal request for a significant meal, Wuornos declined the standard state-provided final meal options entirely. Her request was limited to a single item:

• Single cup of black coffee.

The refusal of a traditional meal by Wuornos is widely viewed by corrections staff and criminal psychologists as a final act of defiance. Her actions throughout her incarceration and the final legal phases were defined by her rejection of the systems managing her.

In the hours leading up to her execution, her conduct was noted as volatile, maintaining the pattern of hostility she had exhibited throughout her high-profile legal battles.