Although some of what transpired during Aileen Wuornos' childhood in Michigan is vaguely alluded to or casually referenced in the film, "Monster" minimizes the specifics. In the film, Aileen is shown as a child with bruises on her face in the opening sequence, which suggests she was physically abused. Later, Aileen reveals that her father and his friend assaulted her, which led to her getting pregnant as a teenager. She had the baby, which she gave up for adoption before getting kicked out of her home.
According to "Dead Ends: The Pursuit, Conviction, and Execution of Serial Killer Aileen Wuornos," by journalist Michael Reynolds, (who first broke Wuornos' story in 1990), Aileen's 16-year-old mother Diane Wuornos was struggling to take care of Aileen and her older brother, Keith Wuornos, so she left them to be raised by their grandparents.
In reality, the man who allegedly abused and molested Aileen as a child was her grandfather, as per Investigation Discovery, as Aileen never met her biological father, Leo Dale Pittman. Pittman was diagnosed with schizophrenia and by the time Aileen was born, he was already serving a life sentence for sex crimes against children, as per "Doctor Know's Guide to Serial Killers." When Aileen talked about her dad dying in prison in the film, she left out that he died by suicide in 1969.
As a kid, Aileen began trading sex for drugs and food from schoolmates, and she also began drinking. While it's much rarer for women to become serial killers, according to "The Role of Psychopathy and Sexuality in a Female Serial Killer" published in the Journal of Forensic Science, the intense trauma of Aileen's childhood and the resulting PTSD from it is partly what contributed to Aileen's becoming a murderer later.
If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
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