To vary her diet, Puente sometimes cooks in her room, making tamales with tortillas, canned chili, cheese and other ingredients bought in the prisons canteen or mail-ordered through a food-delivery service. By 1948, McFaul asked for a divorce and Puente drifted south to California. Vlautin spoke gently about Puente's childhood touching on the traumatic aspects that shaped her life and urged the jurors to see the world through her eyes. Im certain they were just dying of natural causes, and she started burying them so she could keep the checks coming. I wondered how the last two decades had changed her, how she had endured. She recalls the future president and his first wife, Jane Wyman, as her good friends. When I mention the Gippers second wife, Puente frowns. But she has shown too much interest in my visits for me to believe her. When they finished without noticing anything suspicious, Cabrera asked if they could dig in her yard. When she was eight her father died of tuberculosis. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. Ballenger began to suspect Puente of more nefarious behavior after learning that two elderly women in her care had suffered recurring spells of illness that baffled doctors. Puente was found guilty of the murders of 64-year-old Dorothy Miller, 55-year-old Benjamin Fink, and 78-year-old Leona Carpenter. Coverage spanned from the national networks and Time, Newsweek and The New York Times to the National Enquirer, National Examiner and news outlets from as far away as England and France. Frequent quarrels and separations marred the marriage, with much of the discord brought on by Dorotheas appetites for drinking, gambling and other men. Her passivity subdues suspicion. She was the sixth of seven children born to Trudy Mae Gates and Jesse James Gray, whose "lungs were damaged from a gas attack" while fighting in World War I. Shane Bugbee. Round-framed glasses too large for her face magnify a pair of pale blue eyes. The detective had yet to realize that, in the 59-year-old Puente, he had another serial killer on his hands. The infamous home Dorothea Puente lived in is along F Street in Sacramento. In turn, I know that when she receives my letter telling her as much, shell cut off contact. My oldest grandson is 15 and wanted to do this attraction. Those cases were lies, she says, voice flat. The 9/ . Once, when I asked if she ever hears from her surviving siblings or two daughters, she shook her head. [3] Her parents were both alcoholics and her father repeatedly threatened to commit suicide in front of his children. Joy the last person to have seen her alive. The house at 1426 F Street, now painted a shade of gingerbread, appears occupied on the first floor and empty on the second, where she used to sleep. Another tenant, John Sharp, backed her up. Driven by routine, Puente rises by 4:30 a.m. most days, long before her seven cellmates. She recalls the future president and his first wife, Jane Wyman, as her good friends. When I mention the Gippers second wife, she frowns. The two talked through the afternoon, with Willgues both attracted to and wary of the well-dressed stranger who sipped screwdrivers. Dorothea Puente was arrested in 1988 after the dismembered bodies of seven residents were found in the garden of her home in Sacramento, California Being escorted to a police car after her. I could see the joint., A vial of flurazepam found in Puentes home (Courtesy of The Sacramento Archives). For five days, Dorothea Puente was on the lam. Disguised as a kind-hearted boarding house owner, Dorothea Puente allegedly murdered tenants who lived on her property, and buried them in her backyard, according to the Los Angeles Times. I dont give a shit what anyone else thinks., Did you like what you read here? As the minutes pass, I prepare to join the long list of people she has duped. Shes been in for 12 years. A local Spanish-language newspaper that referred to Puente as la doctora (Courtesy of John Cabrera), The unlicensed venture thrived from the start. She is to be considered dangerous, and her living environment and/or employment should be closely monitored. The following year, without a license and in violation of her federal probation, she opened a boardinghouse at 1426 F Street, with enough space for as many as eight tenants. In November 1992, the same month jury selection started, she rejected a plea deal that would spare her the death penalty if she pleaded guilty to all nine murders. Drab and worn, the space, about the size of a single-car garage, has scuffed concrete flooring, dull fluorescent lighting and two windows; one faces a grassy prison courtyard, the other an interior hallway. Sacramento Bee Two more murders She'd. Her father died of tuberculosis when Puente was eight while her mother, an alcoholic, routinely abused her children and died in a motorcycle accident a year later. For years, the disappearances of these so-called shadow people who lived at the margins of society went unnoticed. Her shovel was used to dig the hole that yielded a human leg bone, a decomposed foot inside a dress shoe and what looked like pieces of tattered fabric that in fact were rotting flesh. Some praised the soft-hearted landlady who cooked big meals for her low-income tenants, handed out vegetables from her garden to neighbors and adopted stray cats. Federal probation officers visited her numerous times in the next two years without suspecting she ran a business, lulled by her kindly facade and clean home as much as by her lies that those staying at the house were friends or guests. And then theres the contradiction: beneath this house there are all these bodies. [11], Puente has been featured on numerous true crime television shows, including Crime Stories,[12] Deadly Women,[13] A Stranger in My Home,[14] World's Most Evil Killers,[15] and Worst Roommate Ever.[16]. On the other hand, when these people, as could be expected, would act upat that point, she snapped and decided to kill them., The Puente trial dragged on for five months, with more than 150 witnesses, thousands of pieces of evidence and unrelenting media scrutiny. In the narrative of her life that unfurled at her murder trial and in news reports and books about the case, she grew up poor, deprived in equal measure of material comforts and parental nurturing. Dick Schmidt/Sacramento Bee/Tribune News Service via Getty ImagesDorothea Puente after her arrest in Los Angeles, en route back to Sacramento. Her statement hangs between us. But in reality, he contends, she is the nation's most prolific female serial murderer ever . The next spring, with her husband hospitalized by terminal cancer, the 61-year-old Munroe moved in with Puente to save money. A stream of people tour Dorothea Puente's former home on Sept. 15, 2013. "I was hooked when I saw that she had published a. The serial killer shuffles into the room with a chickens hitched gait. James Gallop, 62, (continued left to right) Dorothy Miller, 64. When they returned to his apartment, he watched in a stupor as Puente helped herself to his checks and cash; before leaving, she slipped a diamond ring off his pinky. He escorted her out of the propertys wrought-iron front gate, a moment captured in a photo lying on the conference table. Vera Faye Martin, 64. The three law officers had stopped by the house to try to learn the whereabouts of Alvaro Bert Montoya, who had gone missing three months earlier. One of the bodies was missing its head, hands and feet, Body parts were also found scattered across the property. [6], In 1968, Gray married Roberto Jose Puente. To give strength to other people. She lifts the paper towel to her eyes. All three revolve around murder, a fact she notes without irony or self-consciousness. [9], Puente continued to accept elderly boarders and was popular with local social workers because she accepted referrals of the "tough cases", including drug addicts and abusive tenants. Sir, she said, I have not killed anybody. She explained that she had buried excess trash in the backyard holes that a tenant mentioned to police, and covered some of them with concrete to stunt weed growth. She created a fake persona, calling herself "Teya Singoalla Neyaarda", a Muslim woman of Egyptian and Israeli descent. The press dubbed Dorothea Puente the 'Death House Landlady.' The name sharply contrasted with her perception in the community. Grandson of killer granny Dorothea Puente, who laced cakes with sleeping pills and then smothered them at her California boarding house, reveals how he shared a 'real connection' with her and. Granddaughter of Dorothea Puente Victim Talks About Her Disappearance The granddaughter of one of Dorothea Puente's victims recalls finding out that Puente had run away from the police. The noise inside the prisons visitors hall amplifies on Valentines Day. Puente cashed in the Social Security checks of the elderly and disabled boarders living in her house. A year later her mother died in a motorcycle accident. Season 1 Episode 2 - Videos 1:11 Preview Dorothea Puente Runs From Police It was too humiliating, too shameful for her to admit responsibility for these crimes. Federal law shields inmate medical records from the public, leaving open the question of whether she has had three surgeries since entering prison. Authorities unearth a corpse buried in the lawn of 59-year-old Dorothea Puente's home in Sacramento, California.Puente operated a residential home for elderly people, and an investigation led to . She resembles a wizened owl. Not everybody running them is being nefarious, but nefarious activity can crop up.. As police exhumed corpse after corpse, TV crews jammed F Street while gawkers scaled trees to peer into the yard. On her lap bounces a pony-tailed girl in a red-buttoned vest who giggles Mama! Two tables over, a stout, fortyish black woman with a toothy smile banters with her parents and younger brother, to judge from the physical semblance. They separated in 1969, and not long after, Dorothea, who had briefly run an unauthorized rehab program for alcoholics, opened a boardinghouse at 21st and F streets. Some touch her shoulder. The guards will come by and go, What you got cooking today? , She marks much of the day reading mind-candy fictionshes a fan of John Grisham and Dan Brownand watching TV; her favorite prime-time shows include CSI, Criminal Minds and Cold Case. During discussions that typically lasted two to three hours, she proved by turns defiant and self-pitying, disavowing she killed anyone while reserving words of sorrow for herself. One was missing its head, hands and feet. No, Dorothea Puente is no longer alive as of 2022 as she died on March 27th, 2011. Eventually, the "Death House Landlady" would then drug her tenants to the point of rendering them incapacitated. ), Thanks to her ties to Reagan, Puente tells me, she met Vice President Spiro Agnew and U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston, and in the mid-70s, she ate dinner with longtime Republican booster Clint Eastwood when he visited town. I stare at the brick and wrought-iron front gate through which Dorothea Puente walked for the last time on Nov. 12, 1988. She turns to look at me. Puente had Chief dig in the basement and cart soil and rubbish away in a wheelbarrow. Puente was convicted in. Play it now! I ask why shes here. Between 1982 and 1989, Puente would take in the vulnerable and homeless people. She was just pure evil, Ballenger says. George Deukmejian and Bishop Francis Quinn decorated her home at 1426 F Street But setting aside such fleeting charity-event encounters, her stories hew closer to fable than fact. She was the sixth of seven children but didn't grow up in a stable family environment. I was on stage when the girl next to me broke her heel and bumped into me. Im here until I die.. They know what shes done., Puente conveys a pride in her renown that, now and then, gives way to embarrassment, or perhaps weariness. Dorothea Puente is an American chronic executioner. Familiar in name, she remained an enigma. Tests revealed high levels of unprescribed drugs in their systems, and in time, the physicians fingered her as the culprit. In the spring of 1948, Gray was arrested for purchasing women's accessories using forged checks in Riverside. I talk about the foggy drive to the prison, she recounts her trip to the visitors hall. Puente died in prison at Chowchilla on March 27, 2011, from natural causes; she was 82. Between 1982 and 1988, she killed nine people, all of whom were renting rooms at her boarding house. They dont have all the facts, she tells me one morning, dismissing those who judge her a murderer. Puente continued to collect Gillmouth's pension and wrote letters to his family, explaining that the reason he had not contacted them was because he was ill. She continued to maintain a boarding house, taking in forty new tenants. Many of them found dead and buried in the boarding house's yard. Puente was convicted of three of the murders, although the jury could not agree on the other six. First off, I was getting the checks. She pled guilty to two counts of forgery, serving four months in jail and three years' probation. Then aged 63 (above), 103 witnesses were called to testify against her in the trial, Suspicion arose in 1988 when Alberto Montoya, a mentally disabled and schizophrenic tenant, was reported missing by a social worker, Puente's victims: (left to right)Everson Gillmouth, 77. Gillmouth's body remained unidentified for three years. But no one noticed. Puente was born Dorothea Helen Gray on January 9, 1929. I am waiting for Dorothea Puente. Judy Moise, an outreach counselor with Volunteers of America, became suspicious when Montoya vanished. An outreach counselor with Volunteers of America, she had visited Puente before placing him in her care. I now see them as tokens of loneliness, trifles to mark the time. She lost her first boarding house after getting caught signing her own name to tenants benefit checks. A 22-year-old soldier who had returned to the U.S. from the Pacific after World War II, he married Dorothea in 1945, and they moved to Gardnerville, Nevada to start a family. A couple who braved the stigma of the house's curse purchased the home, fully aware of the history. The penalty phase of the prosecution was highlighted by her prior convictions introduced by O'Mara. Dorothea Puente right before she fled Sacramento. I watch the scenes unfold from table No. This woman is a disturbed woman who does not appear to have remorse or regret for what she has done, he wrote. Dorothea Puente's former boarding house is at 1426 F Street in Sacramento, California, between 14th and 15th streets. Behind them, a twentysomething blonde clutches the hands of a young man with a sun tattoo on his forearm. In her absence, investigators dug up the whole yard and discovered the body of 78-year-old Leona Carpenter. I realize today will be our last conversation when Puente sits down at my table and makes a request. [4], Gray's first marriage at age sixteen, in 1945, was to a soldier named Fred McFaul, who had just returned from the Pacific theater of World War II. Thats just too much coincidence., Finally, on the 24th day of deliberations, the holdout juror acquiesced, voting guilty on two counts of first-degree murder and one second-degree count. [citation needed], In November 1985, Puente hired a man named Ismael Florez to install some wood paneling in her apartment. The visit was my first of six with Puente, who turned 80 in January. A contrary perception derived from Puentes strong ties to Hispanic residents living in downtown and midtown. A year later her mother died in a motorcycle accident. Nonetheless, with decades to mull what she might say about her case, she sounds as unpersuasive now as during her plane ride from Los Angeles. Six months after her release, she left Riverside. In 1993, after several days of deliberations and a deadlocked jury (due in part to her grandmotherly disposition), Dorothea Puente was ultimately convicted of three murders and received back-to-back life sentences. 'I saw her as a human - despite her crimes.'. Several were referred there by social workers who viewed the home as a last-resort refuge for their ailing or most erratic clients. Cops hauling away body bags. Things happen for a reason., Nov. 12, 1988: Homicide detective John Cabrera (right) ushers Puente out of her home to a nearby hotel. The comments below have not been moderated. Bogle Family Vineyards Ryan, Jody & Warren Bogle Thank goodness the potato crop failed. I ask why the cops targeted her. A year earlier, he had probed the case of Morris Solomon, a Sacramento handyman who would be convicted of murdering six women across the city. Shes not hurting there in prison, he says. Others wave and smile. Dorothea followed up the drugging by carrying out the . Released after three for good behavior, she returned to Sacramento, with her federal probation extended to 1990 due to the state conviction. Time has deepened the creases between her potato-like nose and dumpling cheeks, and her blanched skin has slackened at the neck. The 59-year-old looked like an ordinary grandmother when she was arrested after a five day hunt across California. Her eyes fix on the mural of Winnie the Pooh. Dorothea Puente after her arrest in Los Angeles, en route back to Sacramento. Procedural wrangling moved the trial to Monterey, after a judge ruled that the intense media coverage of Puente in the Sacramento region would preclude her from receiving a fair trial here. She established herself as a genuine resource to the community to aid alcoholics, homeless people, and mentally ill people by holding Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and assisting individuals to sign up to receive Social Security benefits. He remains convinced of her innocence, arguing that her crimes were limited to filching the benefits checks of her tenants. Puente surrendered quietly. [1] Puente's total count reached nine murders; she was convicted of three and the jury hung on the other six. Discovery posts $217 MILLION loss in its streaming business after adding just 1.1M subscribers last quarter - despite HBO Max debuts like White Lotus and House of the Dragon, $113 BILLION on a war with no end in sight: DailyMail.com breaks down Joe Biden's enormous military package for Ukraine on the first anniversary of Vladimir Putin's brutal invasion, DAILY MAIL COMMENT:Make this Ukraine's last year of horror, 'Before the war, we saw Russians alive. After Florez finished the job, Puente had one more request: to build her a six-foot-long box so she could fill it with books and a few other assorted items before the pair of them would bring the box to a storage facility. For someone who insists she worried over the well-being of her tenants, Puente tells me that, after her arrest, she fretted about Sam. Shes got everything she needs, her life is taken care of. He sits in his downtown office, shock of silver hair combed straight back from his high forehead, untucked short-sleeved shirt spilling over his jeans. But 26 years after her conviction - and seven years after her death - a man who claims to Puente's grandson, William Harder, has stepped forward to reaffirm his grandmother's claim that she wasn't always bad. Their theory hardened into subjective truth when they discovered that, following the funeral, the nurse had drained thousands of dollars belonging to Munroe from a joint business bank account. Axel Johansson rates as Puentes favorite of her four ex-husbands, a presumably unwanted distinction. She was ultimately convicted in three of the. Shes dying of cancer. Sometimes she includes small handmade gifts. Dalmane, which is a drug used for insomnia, was found in all seven of the exhumed bodies. After what was then the longest deliberation in a murder case in state history24 daysthe jury convicted her of three killings. Acres of almond trees and farmland border the prison, a vast archipelago of dun-colored, low-slung buildings moored inside electrified fences topped with razor coil. In her note, written on plain lined paper in a grade-schoolers swirling cursive, she invited me to visit. While there, doctors diagnosed her as a pathological liar with an unstable personality. "KRON Newscenter 4 11/13/88 Part 1 of 2", Last edited on 18 February 2023, at 18:08, List of serial killers in the United States, List of serial killers by number of victims, "Death House Landlady Got Drugs From Doctor, Prosecutors Contend", "Dorothea Puente dies at 82; boarding house operator who killed tenants", "Guide to the California Superior Court (Sacramento County) case files for The People v. Dorothea Montalvo Puente (criminal case #18056) CNTY0004", "Dorothea Puente and the Boarding House of Death", "Watch Worst Roommate Ever | Netflix Official Site", "In Print: Dorothea Puente's killer cookbook", "Sacramento serial killer's former home renovated, ready for visits", "Tours, documentary focus on Sacramento house of murderer Dorothea Puente", "No Cause Determined in Deaths of Boarders", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dorothea_Puente&oldid=1140147573. 'Never judge a book by its cover,' said retired police officer John Cabrera in 2018, the lead investigator on the case. In late 1981, his mother, Ruth Munroe, went into business with Puente, leasing and running the restaurant side of the Round Corner Tavern in midtown. Scattered about the house were photos of her with the likes of California governors George Deukmejian and Jerry Brown, who once danced with her at a fundraising ball. Puente arrived at the Central California Womens Facility following her conviction in 1993, and her appeals expired early last year. He called over Cabrera and Brown, and after he scooped away more soil, they saw what resembled a tree root. The psychiatrist diagnosed Puente as suffering from antisocial personality disorder, a condition marked by deceit and manipulation of others without remorse. These people were human beings, they had a right to live-they did not have a lot of possessions-no houses-no cars-only their social security checks and their lives. Puente was supposed to stick around to serve out her probation, but in a sign of things to come she skipped town instead. They wanted to question her about Bert Montoya, her onetime tenant who had been reported missing. I was struck by how pleasant and socially intact and intelligent she was, says Vicary, who works in Los Angeles. Twenty-one minutes laterhe remembers the time preciselyhe exhumed sufficient evidence: the remains of a second body buried about a foot deep in the earth. Arrested for the scam in 1978, court records show, she received five years federal probation, the terms of which proscribed her from operating a boardinghouse. More than 130 witnesses were called to the stand by the prosecution, and eventually the devilish landlady was convicted for three of the murderers and ordered to serve back-to-back life sentences. [10] According to investigators, most of her victims had been drugged until they overdosed; Puente then wrapped them in bed-sheets and plastic lining before dragging them to open pits in the backyard for burial. Its sick., Clausen knows Puentes appeals ran out last year. A few days later I drive to Chowchilla for my final visit with her. Sharp also told police that Puente had hired prisoners on work furlough to dig and fill large holes in the backyard, and that some of the holes were covered with concrete. A lot of people saw your running away as a sign of guilt. Instead, Puente opened up her second boarding house. Dorothea Puente war eine feste Gre in ihrer Gemeinde - sie kmmerte sich um ihre Nachbarn, spendete hufig fr wohlttige Zwecke und nahm diejenigen auf, die die Gesellschaft beiseite geschoben hatte. A man identifying himself as a talent scout for the Radio City Rockettes, the famed New York City dance troupe, sized her up and, on the spot, invited her to fly east for an audition. A dark thought arrived. The forensic psychiatrist, assigned to evaluate the alleged serial killer as her case proceeded toward trial, would spend 12 hours talking with her over the next four years. [17] The result was Cooking with a Serial Killer (2004),[18] which included a lengthy interview, almost fifty recipes, and various pieces of prison art sent to Bugbee by the convicted murderer. Over the next few years, she adapted by working as an in-home caregiver, affecting a matronly mien with her modest dress, oversized glasses and tremulous voice. The checks I cashed, yes. In a cryptic aside, she added, I used to be a very good person at one time., The public heard little from Puente for more than 20 years after that clip aired. She was tough. She killed her husband after he abused her and her kids. A Latino woman with shoulder-length dark hair passes our table and whispers hello to Miss Dorothea. I watch as she pushes away the empty plastic container of fried chicken strips and french fries that she finished eating earlier. Her cancer story, on the other hand, sounds consistent with her peculiar, decades-long charade of claiming to suffer from the disease in a ploy to gain sympathy.
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