I defended female serial killer Aileen Wuornos who slaughtered six – chilling encounter PROVED why she was so dangerous
STARING into the eyes of a serial killer is not for the faint-hearted - but for one lawyer that was his daily reality.
Christopher Quarles, 71, defended 48 people on Death Row - including notorious female serial killer Aileen Wuornos.
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The mum-of-one, killed by lethal injection in 2002, brutally murdered six men after claiming she was raped while working as a prostitute.
Her callous murder spree - between 1989 and 1990 - was the subject of the Oscar-winning 2003 film Monster.
Wuornos was the only female client who Quarles, a public defence lawyer in Florida from 1980 to 2015, represented who was sentenced to death.
Her famous final words were: 'I'd just like to say, I'm sailing with the rock and I'll be back like Independence Day, with Jesus, June 6th.
'Like the movie, big mothership and all. I'll be back.'
Quarles recalled how he was regularly threatened by volatile Wuronos, whose mood would flip at the drop of a hat.
"Aileen was a very sick girl," he told The Sun.
"It was during the pendency of my representation, I would go see her on Death Row, and half the time she would thank me for doing what I was doing.
'The other half, she would accuse me of taking money under the table from the state and storm out of the interview.
'I think her diagnosis was borderline personality disorder. She perceived danger in her encounters with strange men applying her trade as a prostitute.
'Angel of Mercy' serial killer butchered OAPs weeks after release for another murder & modelled himself on Raoul Moat
'She perceived danger where maybe there was no danger, but it's a dangerous occupation, and I'm sure she got beat up and threatened on many occasions.
'You could tell she was having mental issues.'
Quarles - a staunch critic of capital punishment - met Wuornos for the first time after she had already been sentenced to death.
The dangerous killer was arrested in 1991 and went to trial the following year, when she was convicted and handed the death penalty.
Quarles said: "Most of the time we'd just talk about the issues of the case and what I thought was going to win, and what wasn't going to win.
"We didn't really get to know each other that way, we were talking law in her case.
Aileen Wournos' killing spree
IN November 1989, Wuornos shot dead convicted rapist Richard Mallory, 51, in what she claimed was an act of self defense.
His body was found in woods several miles away from his abandoned car.
Construction worker David Spears, 43, was Wuornos' next victim. He was shot six times and his naked body was found by a Florida roadside on 1 June 1990.
Peter Siems, 65, was next on Wornos' hit list. The retired merchant seaman and devoted Christian was last seen alive in June 1990 when he left Florida for Arkansas.
His car was discovered weeks later in Orange Springs, Florida, but his body was never discovered.
Troy Burress, 50, was a sausage salesman whose body was found with two fatal bullet wounds by the road in August 1990.
The most high-profile victim, 56-year-old Charles "Dick" Humphreys, was a former Chief of Police and retired US Air Force Major and child abuse investigator.
His body was found in September 1990 with having been shot six times.
Finally, Walter Jeno Antonio, 62, was a trucker whose half-naked body was found on a remote path in November 1990.
Wuornos was arrested on an outstanding warrant in January 1991, and her girlfriend,d Tyria Moore, agreed with police to help get a confession to the murders, which she did on 16 January.
She claimed all the men had tried to rape her and she was acting in self defense — but she was found guilty and executed on 9 October 2002.
"She seemed mentally ill. Half the time she would thank me and half the time she would accuse me of working for the state.
"There were elements of bipolar and borderline personality disorder, which was her diagnosis.
"Half the time she loved me because she thought I was representing her, and half the time she hated me because she thought I was throwing her under the bus."
Death row killers
As well as Wuornos, Quarles also defended Emilia Carr - at one point the youngest woman on Death Row in the US.
And in 2004, he watched the execution of Johnny Robinson, convicted of the murder of Beverly St George 19 years earlier.
Despite the sick crimes of his clients, he insists it hurts to see them die.
"Some I was closer to than others," he added.
'Some I have developed relationships with and those hurt. Those hurt a lot. Some make me sad, I think it's not right. We shouldn't kill our citizens.'
Carr was originally sentenced to death in 2010 for her role in the murder of Heather Strong, but was later resentenced to life in prison.
She was just 26 years old at the time and would have faced death by lethal injection.
Carr gave birth to her fourth child behind bars. They have all been placed into foster care since then.
Quarles said she actually 'blossomed' while she was on Death Row.
He added: 'Emilia really blossomed in prison, especially on Death Row, because she's pretty much left to her own devices.
'She started reading a lot, she was corresponding with people in Europe and she was learning a language.
'As she was mostly pregnant her whole adult life, with four kids by the age of 26, she never really had a chance to blossom. And that's what being locked up gave her.
'Her children were all dispersed into the foster care systems in the state of Florida, lost in the system forever.'
He added: 'She was telling me more about how she was really enjoying life for change and who her most recent correspondent might be.
'That's what she would talk about, not death. Pen Pal programs that they have access to a lot of Europe.
'I'm against anybody being executed. It's not something that civilised societies do, but in addition to that, she was way less culpable than her co-defendant who basically got a life sentence on the first go around because he had better lawyers than she did at the trial.'
Chilling final words
Quarles only watched one execution after his client Robinson personally asked him to attend.
Robinson was killed by lethal injection in 2004 over the murder of Beverly St George.
He was on parole for a rape conviction in August 1985 when he came across St George's car in Florida after it broke down.
She was abducted at gunpoint by Robinson and an accomplice and taken to a nearby cemetery, where she was raped by bother men and shot in the head.
Robinson was arrested five days after for robbing four people in a disabled car and raping one of them.
He requested Quarles watch him be executed - and the lawyer will never forget his final words.
Quarles said: 'We were in a witness room and we didn't know what was happening.
'They escort you in and you sit there in chairs facing this panel of glass with a ratty curtain closed.
"They had a tiny little speaker up in the corner of the room which provided sound between the execution chamber and where the witnesses were seated.
'And we sat there for a long time, we didn't know what was happening. We found out later that the US Supreme Court was considering whether to grant a stay or not.
'Eventually they opened the curtains and it was just surreal.
"They read the death warrant and asked Johnny if he had any last words. He had told me he wasn't going to look at the witnesses. He was just going to stare at the ceiling.
'When they asked if he had any last words, he said, 'Later', and I smiled."
Quarles told how Robinson's "chest heaved" as it took him up to ten minutes to die.
'The atmosphere was just surreal. I can't believe we're here doing this," he said.
"We had got to know each other better, especially since I got him a new trial and I represented him during that retrial.
'So I got to see him a lot more in the days leading up to his execution.'
Quarles, now retired, insisted he never felt conflicted when representing people who had committed heinous crimes.
He added: 'I'm philosophically opposed to the death penalty, so I don't have a problem no matter how heinous the crime.
'There are so many reasons it's wrong. Economicall,y it makes no sense and there's evidence that this does not serve as a deterrent at all.
'There is no deterrence and it's very expensive. We get it wrong a lot. I guarantee this country has executed at least one, two or three innocent people over the years.'
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