Netflix documentary revisits Aileen Wuornos case

A new Netflix documentary premiering Oct. 30 revisits the case of Aileen Wuornos, the Florida sex worker who shot and killed multiple men between 1989 and 1990, was arrested in January 1991, convicted on multiple murder counts, and executed in 2002. The film assembles police recordings, courtroom tapes and in-prison interviews with Wuornos to reexamine her confessions, trial and the criminal justice decisions that led to her death sentence.

Investigators linked a string of shootings on Florida roadways to Wuornos through pawnshop records, fingerprints and witness accounts, authorities said at the time. She was arrested outside a Port Orange bar on January 9, 1991 and, according to recordings included in the documentary, admitted to multiple killings while telling police she acted in self-defense. Wuornos was ultimately convicted of six counts of first-degree murder and confessed to seven killings. She received death sentences that were carried out in October 2002.

The documentary presents archival material that highlights contrasts in how the case was framed. Prosecutors, led at trial by state attorney John Tanner, argued the shootings fit a pattern of robbery and deliberate...