Charles Richard Humphreys

Charles Richard Humphreys, known to friends and family as "Dick," was a man who dedicated his life to public service. At 56 years old, the resident of Crystal River, Florida, had built a distinguished career, first as a major in the United States Air Force, then as a police chief, and finally as a state child abuse investigator for Florida’s Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services. September 11, 1990, was meant to be a day of celebration for the White male; it was his last day of work before a well-earned retirement. Instead, it became the day his life was tragically cut short, marking him as the sixth victim of one of America's most notorious female serial killers.

On September 12, 1990, Mr. Humphreys' body was discovered in a rural area of Marion County, Florida. He was found fully clothed, having been shot seven times in the head and torso with a .22 caliber weapon. His car, which he had been driving when he was last seen, was later found abandoned many miles away in Suwannee County. The discovery of his body added another piece to a terrifying puzzle that had been unfolding across central Florida for nearly a year. Law enforcement agencies in multiple counties were investigating a series of murders of middle-aged men who had been found shot to death along state highways.

The investigation revealed that Mr. Humphreys was a victim of Aileen Wuornos, a drifter who was hitchhiking and working as a prostitute along Florida's roadways. Between late 1989 and late 1990, Wuornos killed at least seven men. Her other victims were Richard Mallory, 51; David Spears, 47; Charles Carskaddon, 40; Peter Siems, 65 (whose body was never found); Troy Burress, 50; and Walter Antonio, 62. Wuornos’s method was consistent: she would be picked up by the men, rob them, and shoot them to death, leaving their bodies in remote locations and often stealing their cars.

A multi-jurisdictional investigation slowly closed in on the killer. After Wuornos and her girlfriend, Tyria Moore, were seen abandoning Peter Siems' crashed car, police composite sketches were distributed. Investigators also tracked items from the victims that Wuornos had sold at pawn shops, eventually matching a fingerprint from a pawned item to one left in Siems' vehicle. The print belonged to Wuornos, who had a prior criminal record. On January 9, 1991, she was arrested at The Last Resort, a biker bar in Volusia County, on an outstanding warrant.

Following her arrest, investigators convinced Tyria Moore to help them obtain a confession in exchange for immunity. In a series of recorded phone calls, Moore pleaded with Wuornos to clear her name. On January 16, 1991, Wuornos confessed to the string of murders, initially claiming that all the men had either raped or attempted to rape her and that she had killed them in self-defense.

Wuornos was first tried and convicted for the murder of Richard Mallory in January 1992 and was sentenced to death. On March 31, 1992, she pleaded no contest to the murders of Charles Humphreys, Troy Burress, and David Spears, telling the court she wanted to "get right with God." In her statement, she admitted that while Mallory had violently raped her, the other men had not. She subsequently pleaded guilty or no contest to the other murders and ultimately received a total of six death sentences.

Over the years, Wuornos’s story about her motives changed several times. She recanted her self-defense claims, stating she killed the men for their money and to eliminate witnesses, only to later suggest again that she had acted in self-defense but confessed to hasten her own execution. After nearly a decade on death row, Aileen Wuornos was executed by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison on October 9, 2002. The case of Charles Richard Humphreys is officially closed, but his death remains a profound loss of a dedicated public servant whose life was stolen on the cusp of his retirement.