Leo Dale Pittman: What happened to Aileen Wuornos’ father?

Leo Dale Pittman is an American convicted criminal and also the father of Aileen Wuornos. Leo Dale Pittman’s daughter was an American serial killer. In 1989–1990, while engaging in street prostitution along highways in Florida, she shot dead and robbed seven of her male clients.

Leo Dale Pittman: Bio Summary

Leo Dale Pittman was born on March 16, 1936, in Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan United States to his parents Arthur Steward Briggs and Ellen L. Briggs-Westfall (Pittman). Leo’s partner was Diane Kathleen Tuley, and they had two children Keith Wuornos and Aileen Carol Wuornos. Leo Pittman died at age 32 years old on January 30, 1969, in Lansing, Leavenworth County, Kansas, and was buried at Military Prison Cemetery in Leavenworth.

According to Ancientfaces, Leo Dale Pittman’s original surname was Briggs – he was adopted by his maternal grandparents and his name was changed. On his marriage certificate to Diane Kathleen Wuornos in Indiana, he was 18 and said that his parents were Leo H Pittman and Ida Cornell.

However, according to the 1950 federal census, he was living with Leo H and Ida, and his sibling Nancy. Father Leo was a caretaker at the township and his mother Ida who was a homemaker.

ALSO, READ; List of 20 Famous Black Serial Killers- Check the List out

What happened to Leo Arthur Pittman?

Leo Pittman hanged himself in a Kansas prison where he was doing life for kidnapping and raping a 7-year-old. He had served time in Kansas and Michigan mental hospitals. Aileen Wuornos’ father died by hanging, presumably self-inflicted while in prison at Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing, Kansas on January 30, 1969.

According to sources, Wuornos never met her father; he was incarcerated at the time of her birth. Her father a schizophrenic. Diane Wuornos was just at the age of 14 years old when she married 18-year-old Leo Dale Pittman, on June 3, 1954, in Indiana according to her daughter’s Wikipedia. Less than two years into the marriage and two months before Aileen was born, Diane filed for divorce. Aileen’s older brother Keith was born on March 14, 1955.

ALSO, READ; Diane Wuornos: Where Is Aileen Wuornos’ Mother Now?

Leo Dale Pittman’s daughter murdered at least seven people

As said earlier, Leo Arthur Pittman never met her daughter as he was incarcerated at the time of her birth. In January 1960, when Wuornos was almost four years old, her mother Diane abandoned her and her sibling, leaving them with their maternal grandparents, Lauri and Britta Wuornos, both alcoholics, who legally adopted the siblings on March 18, 1960. 

By the age of 11, Leo Arthur Pittman’s daughter began engaging in sexual activities in school in exchange for cigarettes, drugs, and food. She had also engaged in sexual activities with her brother. Wuornos said that her alcoholic grandfather had sexually assaulted and beaten her when she was a child.

Before beating her, he would force her to strip out of her clothes. In 1970, at age 14, she became pregnant, having been raped by a friend of her grandfather. At the young age of 15, her grandfather threw her out of the house, and she began supporting herself through prostitution and living in the woods near her old home.

ALSO, READ; Keith Wuornos: What Happened To Aileen Wuornos’ Brother?

Leo Arthur Pittman’s daughter shot dead and robbed seven of her male clients. Wuornos claimed that her clients had either raped or attempted to rape her and that all of the homicides were committed in self-defense. She was sentenced to death for six of the murders and on October 9, 2002, after 12 years on Florida’s death row, was executed by lethal injection at the age of 46.