If anyone had their suspicions, they didn't voice them. But looks can be extremely deceiving and, in this case, the innocuous landlady was actually a terrifying serial killer who committed at least nine murders inside her boarding house in Sacramento,Californiathroughout the 1980s. When questioned by police initially, Puente remained calm and denied everything. But her behavior didn't change. [citation needed], The defense called several witnesses, who showed Puente had a generous and caring side to her. Judy Moise, an outreach counselor with Volunteers of America, became suspicious when Montoya vanished. 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. Florida family found dead in pool identified as mom reveals dad and kids went on daily swim that came to a 'sudden end'. After their deaths, Puente collected . 1:08. In 1967, she attempted to serve him with a divorce petition[inconsistent], but Puente fled to Mexico; the divorce wouldn't be finalized until 1973. On her way back, she insisted to reporters that she hadnt killed anyone, claiming: I used to be a very good person at one time.. Investigators opened the box and found the badly decomposed and unidentifiable body of an elderly man inside. [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. Meanwhile, Puente's mother did sex work to support the family. ", They added: "You can not judge a book by its cover and she had one heck of a cover.". In Female Serial Killers, Peter Vronsky details how Puente hosted a dinner for social workers and the residents who suffered from alcoholism every few weeks "where the quality of her food and care was put on display.". The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. Thanks for contacting us. Her childhood was not an easy one her mother was an abusive alcoholic who died when she was 10 and her father died when she was 8, Sactown Magazine reported in 2008. First, she hung up fake medical diplomas and sat in on checkups with residents. During her trial, a witness also testified that Puente was sexually abused during her time at the orphanage. For a while, social workers looked past what they considered to be Puente's "eccentricity" and admired her for dealing with "tough cases." She alerted police, who went to the house, where they were met with the same answer that Alvaro was on holiday. She was a tenant of Puente's when she vanished. & Brucato, Gary, Ph.D., The New Evil: Understanding the Emergence of Modern Violent Crime (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books), pp. Puente had a reputation for taking in people considered tough cases recovering alcoholics, drug addicts, the mentally ill, and the elderly. Finding nothing, they asked permission to dig up the yard. She maintained her innocence until her death. But no one noticed. Sacramento, California, serial killer Dorothea Puente. Dorothea followed up the drugging by carrying out the . They were met by Dorothea Puente, an elderly woman with big glasses, who repeated her story that Montoya was simply on vacation. [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. Shortly after, they found a second body. By the time the marriage ended, Puente claimed that the business had amassed a debt of $10,000. Prosecutors said that Puente was one of the most cold and calculating female killers the country had ever seen. Despite the guilty verdict of her . After sixteen months, the couple separated, with Gray citing domestic abuse. The prosecution stated that Puente used sleeping pills to drug her tenants, suffocated them, and then hired convicts to bury them in the yard. 'The contents might be what you'd never expected. Six months after her release, she left Riverside. Puente didn't stay in the facility long, and upon her release, she and Johansson moved to Broderick, California. I can't eat this any more! It is a flame of humanity that has burned inside Dorothea since she was young That is reason to give Dorothea Puente life without the possibility of parole. Stone, Michael H., M.D. Puente ran a boarding house on F Street in downtown Sacramento in the 1980s and was convicted of drugging, killing and burying her tenants in the backyard. Does she have to be killed?" Suspicions first arose about Puente in 1988, after Judy, an outreach counsellor with Volunteers of America, noticed 52-year-old Alvaro Montoya someone shed placed at Puentes house had vanished. But police tracked her down in Los Angeles after a man in a bar recognized her from TV. 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. Seven bodies were eventually found buried on the property.[10]. Meanwhile, Puente started saying that she'd "adopted" a man she called "Chief," a houseless man who suffered from alcoholism, and claimed that he was going to be the handyman. Puente told police that the woman was very depressed because her husband was terminally ill. Convicted of three slayings, Puente earned the nickname the "Death House Landlady." The two-part Oxygen series "Murders at the Boarding House" chronicles Puente's unsettling story. ': Royal fans hit out at King Charles' coronation quiche as Royal wedding baker reveals how Meghan Markle gave her 'specific' brief for the cake - and says it is 'funny Slice to see you! On April 11, 1982, Monroe also moved in with Punente, ostensibly to "save on expenses" since Monroe's husband had entered into hospice care. . Dorothea Puente had several children with McFaul but didnt raise them. When police officers first came to search for Montoya in Puente's house, they didn't find anything suspicious. 104-107. Sadiq Khan confirms plans for new West London Orbital rail link between Hounslow and Hendon that will open Police release CCTV in hunt for a man after a woman in her 30s was raped behind a library. "KRON Newscenter 4 11/13/88 Part 1 of 2", 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, American prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment, Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by California, Serial killers who died in prison custody, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2010, Articles with unsourced statements from June 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from March 2011, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. And since she never reported their deaths, "their social security checks continued to come in, and Puente continued to forge their signatures and collect the cash.". Investigators soon found the decomposing body of an elderly man inside. Dorothea Puente was a California landlady who ran a boarding house in Sacramento during the 1980s. The pensioner contacted local law enforcement who then quickly arrested Puente. The two would continue to have a turbulent relationship, and Gray filed a restraining order in 1975. The docuseries chronicled Dorothea Puente's time as a California landlord who drugged and murdered her tenants. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! Some of them began to disappear. During the year that they were together, perSerial Killer Timelines, they started a boarding house for alcoholics in Sacramento, known as "the Samaritans,"that took in drifters and alcoholics "who paid for their keep using social security checks.". Exploiting her appearance of the sweet old lady, Puente would lure unsuspecting tenants to their grisly deaths by baking them cakes laced with sleeping pills. [2], Puente was born Dorothea Helen Gray on January 9, 1929, in Redlands, California, to Trudy Mae (ne Yates) and Jesse James Gray. But, the next day, as the police started digging up other areas of the garden, she asked permission to go and meet her nephew for a coffee to calm her nerves. She was secretly stealing their benefits checks, though, and was convicted in 1978 and placed on five years probation, the outlet reported. The marriage only lasted two years. Her crimes ranged from drugging and robbery to check forgery and murder, and even when she was blatantly violating her parole, she managed to fly under the radar. One of the bodies was missing its head, hands and feet, Body parts were also found scattered across the property. When police arrived at 1426 F Street, Puente told the cops Montoya was on vacation, but they noticed some undisturbed soil among a vegetable patch in the garden. Their dismembered bodies were then placed in holes in the garden she'd paid ex-convicts to dig. Florez agreed, and Puente assisted him. According to Sactown Magazine, the jury deliberated for 24 days, "the longest deliberation in a murder case in state history," and convicted Puente on three out of the nine killings in August 1993. [1] Puente's total count reached nine murders; she was convicted of three and the jury hung on the other six. Removed from her violent crimes, it actually makes perfect sense to use Puente's image on a cookbook, as she has the perfect visage of a kind old lady who probably knows a secret recipe or two that her tenants all would . For more on Puente's story, watch thenew two-partOxygenspecial "Murders At The Boarding House," airing on Saturday, April 17 and Sunday, April 18 at 7/6c on Oxygen. Dalmane, which is a drug used for insomnia, was found in all seven of the exhumed bodies. In November 1985, Dorothea Puente hired a handyman named Ismael Florez to install some wood paneling in her home. [citation needed]. She was put on trial in 1993 for the nine murders. There, the former prostitute turned back to a life of crime. Her trial commenced in February of 1993 and she was tried for the killings of the following people - which include her former boyfriend and her eight tenants: Dorothea was convicted of three out of nine murder counts and sentenced to life in prison in August of 1993. Dorothea Puente looked like a sweet grandmother but looks can be deceiving. [citation needed], Suspicion was first aroused when neighbors noticed the odd activities of a homeless alcoholic known only as "Chief", whom Puente stated she had "adopted" and hired as her handyman. Dorothea Puente ran a boarding house for the elderly, disabled, or otherwise ailing in Sacramento, California, but her motives were anything but altruistic. Many of her victims had traces of the drug in them (via The Los Angeles Times ). While staying at the Royal Viking Hotel in Los Angeles, Puente tried to go back to her old technique of picking up men at a bar and then proceeding to drug and rob them. Sacramento has had more than its share of serial killers, but none as unlikely as grandmotherly Dorothea Puente. Prosecutors said that Puente was one of the most cold and calculating female killers the country had ever seen.. On November 11, 1988, Dorothea was arrested and detained by Sacramento police officials. In the 1980s, she ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California, and murdered various elderly and mentally disabled boarders before cashing their Social Security checks. In 1966, she and Johansson divorced. According to All That's Interesting, in 1968, Dorothea married Roberto Puente. She spent her teen years bouncing between foster homes and orphanages, and was allegedly sexually abused at one point, according to a 2011 Los Angeles Times article. During the 1992 proceeding, investigators revealed that Puente - who was then 63 - had been killing the tenants for money, making $4,000 a month from cashing their social security checks. [6], In April 1982, 53-year-old Ruth Munroe began living with Puente in her upstairs apartment, but soon died from an overdose of codeine and acetaminophen. Puente had become interested in him after learning he received disability checks, The Los Angeles Times reported. Oxygen will air a documentary about Puente, "Murders at the Boarding House," on . Using the name Donna Johnson, she approached Charles Willgraves at a bar, but once Willgraves realized why "Donna" looked familiar, he called the police. This wasnt the first time Puente had been in trouble with the law. When they came to me, they were so sick, they weren't expected to live.". This story has been shared 102,612 times. She split with her first husband in 1948. Peter Vlautin addressed the jurors in confidential tones, contrasting with O'Mara's shouting: We are here today to determine one thing: What is the value of Dorothea Puente's life? [citation needed]. According to Serial Killer Timelines by Chris McNab, after her first marriage ended, Puente became involved in criminal activity. One decomposed leg was found on one side of the garden, and a foot was found on the other (Pictured: Investigators compile miscellaneous body parts found in the ground, 1988). Dorothea was convicted of three out of nine murder counts and sentenced to life in prison in August of 1993. 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. 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. SACRAMENTO, CA On November 11, 1988, detectives swarmed a Victorian-style home on F Street in Sacramento where guests had a habit of checking in and then never checking out. Seven bodies were discovered, belonging to Bert Montoya, Leona Carpenter, Dorothy Miller, Benjamin Fink, James Gallop, Vera Faye Martin, and Betty Palmer. Once there, Puente drugged him. In 1961, Johansson had Gray briefly committed to DeWitt State Hospital after a binge of drinking, lying, criminal behavior, and suicide attempts. EXCLUSIVE - The anti-monarchist plan to disrupt King Charles's coronation: Republican group plotting protest King Charles is 'desperately trying to heal the royal rift with Harry and Meghan' ahead of his Coronation Former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey who was 'pitched in to help' with 'deep thinking' Charles and History of the humble quiche! James Gallop, 62. [6], In 1978, Gray was charged and convicted of illegally cashing thirty-four state and federal checks that belonged to her tenants. James Gallop, 62, (continued left to right) Dorothy Miller, 64. However, it would be three more years before authorities could identify the body as Everson only happening due to the similarities between him and the bodies being found in Puentes backyard. According to the Los Angeles Times, Puente was an . FacebookDorothea Puente right before she fled Sacramento. It wasn't the first tip authorities had gotten about Puente, either. Instead, Puente opened up her second boarding house. [19] It was then the subject of the 2015 documentary short The House Is Innocent and was again opened to tours for one day in conjunction with a local film festival's showing of the film.[20]. However, according to the Los Angeles Times, there are conflicting reports about Puente's early life, with some accounts claiming that she was one out of 18 children. Puente struck out on her own when she was 16. Around this time, Dorothea Puente became business partners with Ruth Monroe, a 61-year-old woman. She had been drinking at a bar with a man who thought she was acting oddly,later realizingit was Puente, a wanted woman. I made them change their clothes every day, take a bath every day and eat three meals a day When they came to me, they were so sick, they werent expected to live.. Hed been referred to Dorothea Puentes house because of her sterling reputation welcoming people like him. Dorothea Puente fled to Los Angeles. Puente did her best to keep herself busy day-to-day, often getting up at 4:30 a.m. to carry out chores in her cell like gathering dirty clothing to wash. She had access to books and TV and was a . She gave birth to a child in 1946 and another one in 1947, but motherhood didn't seem to interest Puente. Under the law, Puente received life without the possibility of parole. Puente was charged with a total of nine murders: Puente's boyfriend, Everson Gillmouth, 77; and eight tenants who lived at the boarding house: Ruth Munroe, 61; Leona Carpenter, 78; Alvaro "Bert/Alberto" Gonzales Montoya, 51; Dorothy Miller, 64; Benjamin Fink, 55; James Gallop, 62; Vera Faye Martin, 64; and Betty Palmer, 78. During the preliminary hearing, she was even re-arrested for another set of check forgery charges from an additional victim. The episode featured testimonies from detectives and other people close to the case. Theyd gotten so close that Puente had even told her children to Call me Grandma. 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