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. It was a human leg bone, he recalls. 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. I dont think anyone would pick this kind of life, she says, drying tears with a piece of coarse brown paper towel. Puente was born Dorothea Helen Gray on January 9, 1929. Puente died in prison at Chowchilla on March 27, 2011, from natural causes; she was 82. Ruth was not just Puente's friend but was also her business partner and had moved in with her just three weeks before the murder. We hold each others stare. Or about the white-haired woman who turned the yard into a mass grave. 13 and watch the prisons visitors hall gradually fill, my doubts that she will appear grow with the rooms din. Most of the lot has been paved over. As the trial neared, Vicary found her in an agitated, paranoid state. She played the stoic in court, her face as frozen as her mug shot. A contrary perception derived from Puentes strong ties to Hispanic residents living in downtown and midtown. Explaining away the corpses in her yard, she says, Not one person who worked for me saw me doing anything wrong. At age 16, she drifted off on her own to Olympia, Wash. Comely and flaxen-haired, with soft blue eyes and a beguiling smile, she worked as a prostitute to earn money and caught the attention of Fred McFaul. They had a turbulent marriage; Gray took advantage of Johansson's frequent trips to sea by inviting men to their home and gambling away his money. Ive given up hope of getting out, she says. Get Sactown's top stories in your inbox by signing up for our weekly newsletter. An officer dispatched to the house that morning interviewed Puente and one of her tenants, John Sharp. She never blinked, never broke a sweat. After the interview, he allowed her to return to the house, where a patrolman stood sentinel outside through the night. It was too humiliating, too shameful for her to admit responsibility for these crimes. His head cocked to the side, he looks back at her, preparing to usher her past the crowd that looms outside the frame. Time has deepened the creases between her potato-like nose and dumpling cheeks, and her blanched skin has slackened at the neck. Puente was acquitted in the poisoning death of his mother, Ruth Munroe, and Clausen, who testified at trial, regards the convicted killers every living day as a denigration of his mothers memory. Aug. 27, 1993 12 AM PT. When we later part, Puente disappears through the gray metal door at the back of the hall. He claims to have had a regular relationship with her, The Founder of MurderAuction, a website that sells serial killer memorabilia, Harder says he sees his grandmother as human, despite her crimes (pictured: Harder with cult leader Charles Manson). She does not once voice sadness over the deaths of her boarders, as if fearful that merely referring to them would imply her guilt. The authorities left the cause of death as undetermined, since there was such an excessive amount of both these drugs, and she was bedridden at the time. James Gallop, 62, (continued left to right) Dorothy Miller, 64. 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. She lost her life in a motorcycle wreck the same year, orphaning Dorothea before she turned 10. Well regarded for taking in substance abusers and the homeless, she had earned respect in political circles for her charity work. As police exhumed corpse after corpse, TV crews jammed F Street while gawkers scaled trees to peer into the yard. 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. After I cleared the prisons background check, we arranged a date in mid-October; an early riser, she told me she preferred to meet in the morning. Dorothea Helen Puente (nascido Gray; 9 de janeiro de 1929 - 27 de maro de 2011) foi uma assassina em srie americana.Na dcada de 1980, Puente mandava numa hospedaria em Sacramento, Califrnia, e assassinou vrios idosos e pensionistas com deficincia mental antes de descontar seus cheques de seguridade social. Puentes neighbors and acquaintances murmured disbelief that the white-haired landlady who handed out homemade tamales and fussed over her rose beds and vegetable garden could be a mass murderer. She is a California native, born in Redlands, Calif. 2. 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. See that one? she asks, nodding toward a gaunt, gray-haired woman with stooped posture. Inmates enter one at a time at irregular intervals through a gray metal door along the rear wall. Orphaned, Puente and her siblings splintered off in different directions, bouncing between foster care and relatives homes. She inflated her age by 10 to 15 years to further disarm her elderly clients, whom she set about exploiting under the guise of ministering to them. Dorothea Puente, born Dorothea Helen Gray was born on January 9, 1929 in San Bernardino County, California. The couple moved to Sacramento a short time later and lived in the city off and on for the next decade. A lot of people saw your running away as a sign of guilt. She attends services held at the prisons chapel, but avoids joining inmate worship groups. Owen Brewer/Sacramento Bee/Tribune News Service via Getty ImagesDorothea Puente awaiting arraignment in Sacramento, California on November 17, 1988. Dorothea Puente is an American chronic executioner. Shed give advice to all these young Mexican women who came to her when they were trying to get divorced., Puente poses next to California Gov. One was missing its head, hands and feet. In his sessions with her, Vicary had inched up to the subject of guilt, knowing that she would withdraw if he asked directly whether she had killed people. The lone drug present in all of them was Dalmane, a sedative for which Puente had obtained more than three dozen prescriptions of 30 pills each between October 1985 and November 1988, according to court records. (To the question of which verse most resonates with her, she shrugs and replies, All of em.) She then quietly gathers the clothing of her slumbering roomies to wash later in the morning, when prisoners are allowed out of their cells. John OMara, the prosecutor, called over 130 witnesses to the stand. 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. Officers rushed to the hotel to arrest Puente, but by then, she had bolted. A prison official describes her as very low-key, very quiet. If discreet, however, Puente, who stands 5-foot-3, bears an outsized notoriety. After learning about the murders inside Dorothea Puentes house, read about the serial killer known as the Angel of Death. Its like she was watching a movie she wasnt particularly interested in., Jury deliberations commenced in July 1993 and soon stalled. Their relationship developed quickly, and the couple was soon making wedding plans. That was my tomcat. She got in serious trouble for the first time in her life after bouncing a check in San Bernadino and spent four months in jail. April 27, 2019 1:12pm. Puente told them that they were welcome to do so, and even provided an extra shovel. [citation needed], On November 11, 1988, police inquired after the disappearance of tenant Alvaro "Bert" Montoya, a developmentally disabled man with schizophrenia, who had been reported missing by his social worker. Her lawyers argued that she might be a thief, but not a murderer. Intense news coverage led to Puentes trial moving to Monterey. So when I wrote to Puente last summer, nearly 20 years after the discovery of her victims, I had little expectation she would respond, let alone agree to talk. Hard living had stolen much of Dorotheas youthful beauty by the time she landed her third husband in 1968 and settled in Sacramento. Despite this, their marriage lasted until 1966. That I can die peacefully in my sleep without being sick or being a cripple. Working in my yard.. Clymo concluded his closing argument by showing a picture commonly used in psychology that can be viewed in different ways and saying "Keep in mind things are not always as they seem." The three men carried shovels as they fanned out across the backyard of the two-story Victorian at 1426 F Street. She responds with a burst of words, scanning the room as she talks. As far as theyre concerned, Im dead.. She steams the tamales in plastic bags placed in a pan of water warmed with two electric immersion coils. I have arrived seeking to somehow pierce Puentes carapace of denial, to find a crack or contradiction in her answers that might expose her deceit. Then working as an in-home caregiver, Puente displayed an odd obsession with her own health, lamenting to clients and caseworkers alike that she suffered from cancer. The next spring, with her husband hospitalized by terminal cancer, the 61-year-old Munroe moved in with Puente to save money. Newspapers dubbed Puente the "Death House Landlady". Bogle Family Vineyards Ryan, Jody & Warren Bogle Thank goodness the potato crop failed. Her statement hangs between us. Hes the brother of Ingemar Johansson, you know, she says, referring to the late heavyweight boxing champ. She was tough. . When Puente offered to perform a sex act on an undercover cop at a house of ill-repute, her husband sent her to a psychiatric ward. Cabrera, lead detective on the Puente case, stands with the shovel that she lent to law officers to dig in her backyard on Nov. 11, 1988. However, it would be three more years before authorities could identify the body as one of the tenants in Dorothea Puentes house. Dorothea Montalvo Puente might seem like "a grandmotherly figure," says prosecutor John O'Mara. Someone reached across the table at one point and almost got into a fistfight with him, says Hewlett, who now lives in Oregon. 104-107. After noticing disturbed soil on the property, they uncovered the body of tenant Leona Carpenter, 78. Published: 17:09 EST, 21 January 2019 | Updated: 17:42 EST, 21 January 2019, Dorothea Puente was arrested in 1988 after the dismembered bodies of seven residents were found in the garden of her home in Sacramento, California. Old bones sometimes turned up in downtown and midtown yards, vestiges of the early 20th century, when families unable to afford a cemetery plot interred loved ones on their property. One girl was placed in the care of relatives, the other put up for adoption. She gasped at sight of the remains, hands bracketing her cheeks. ', Puente died in 2011 aged 82 in her prison cell at the Central California Facility, in Chowchilla. In her note, written on plain lined paper in a grade-schoolers swirling cursive, she invited me to visit. Still, prison has changed Puente in one profound aspect, reforming her into an obedient citizen. The two talked through the afternoon, with Willgues both attracted to and wary of the well-dressed stranger who sipped screwdrivers. Murdaugh is heckled as he leaves court, Ken Bruce finishes his 30-year tenure as host of BBC Radio 2, Ukrainian soldier takes out five tanks with Javelin missiles, Family of a 10-month-old baby filmed vaping open up, Missing hiker buried under snow forces arm out to wave to helicopter, Hershey's Canada releases HER for SHE bars featuring a trans activist, Moment teenager crashes into back of lorry after 100mph police race, This Guy Collects Artwork From Serial Killers - VICE. On a later visit, she brags that she won $10,000 on a 1950s game show on NBC called Feather Your Nest; another time, that she played a few tournaments on the fledgling LPGA tour in the 50s. How Did Dorothea Puente Kill Her Victims? Her rapid decline perplexed her loved ones until they read the coroners report: the death was labeled a suicide caused by an overdose of codeine and acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. She settled her nerves not with coffee but a few vodkas with orange juice while he drank beer. I have listened to the lingering grief and anger of a man whose mother died mysteriously while in her care. In her telling, after showering and dressing, she prays, recites the rosary and reads a few pages of the Bible, favoring Proverbs and Romans. The erstwhile prostitute had turned a new trick. As jury foreman Mike Esplin recalls, the man simply said, Thats all Im going to give. Puentes composure cracked after the last verdict was read. She was given five years' probation and ordered to pay $4,000 in restitution. has sold out to audiences at the California Stage, Wilkerson Theatre, UC Davis, and in January 2023 at Saramento Theatre Company. Her father died of tuberculosis when Dorothea was 8; her mother, an alcoholic who alternated between abusing and deserting her children, lost custody of them in 1938. In 1961, Johansson had Gray briefly committed to DeWitt State Hospital after a binge of drinking, lying, criminal behavior, and suicide attempts. It wasn't until the first body was found in her backyard that authorities realized Dorothea was not the sweet old woman she first appeared to be. Her shoulders shake as she laughs, her open mouth exposing a white flash of dentures. One-time hitman Julio Santana (right) stopped counting after he reached 492 kills. Setting his feet, he grabbed hold of the object and, with a violent jerk, loosed it from the earths grip. She does not smile, laugh or joke much in my presence, but nor does she betray malevolence. I get pushed in a wheelchair. She speaks in clipped sentences, her voice, so rarely shared with journalists, scratchy but strong. Soon after, Monroe died from an overdose of codeine and acetaminophen. 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. A dark thought arrived. Several were swaddled in bed sheets that matched linens found in the house. Shes got everything she needs, her life is taken care of. Sometimes she includes small handmade gifts. And then theres the contradiction: beneath this house there are all these bodies. Between 1982 and 1988, she killed nine people, all of whom were renting rooms at her boarding house. But in the 1980s, their residence was a boarding house owned by Dorothea Puente, who killed her elderly and disabled tenants to steal their Social Security checks. Florez agreed, and Puente assisted him. Then you will understand why these people believe Dorothea's life is worth saving. It is a stifling backdrop in which to live out the years. She seems entirely harmless. 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. She was ultimately convicted in three of the. The conversation soon veers toward why I want to interview her, and before I finish explaining, she interrupts. The police returned and searched the house. If she had been held accountable for murdering my mother, Clausen says, then maybe there wouldnt have been any other victims.. He pieced the puzzle together a couple of hours after they parted, and later that night, police converged on room No. I now see them as tokens of loneliness, trifles to mark the time. cold and calculating female killers the country had ever seen., serial killer known as the Angel of Death, Aileen Wuornos, historys most terrifying female serial killer. Artifacts from the Dorothea Puente case splay out before him: a faded article published in a local Spanish newspaper with a black and white photo of a younger Puente; a pair of her mug shots, blue eyes dimmed and weary in both; a prescription label in her name for diazepam, a tranquilizer sold as Valium; the original wanted bulletin from Nov. 12, 1988, the day she went on the lam. Two decades after he yanked the leg bone from the ground behind the boardinghouse, his dark hair has shaded silver and he has shaved off his boomerang-curved mustache. 'We had a real connection,' Harder told VICE. 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). Speaking softly, she asked, Am I under arrest? When the detective told her no, she explained that the police presence and the growing mob of onlookers had her on edge. She had a terrible adolescence after being . Since Ive been in here, she says, its like all of that never happened.. Know Her Death House Now She was found guilty in three cases and one juror held out on the other four. For his labor and $800, Puente gave him the red Ford pickup, which she stated belonged to her boyfriend in Los Angeles, who no longer needed it. The 1991 film Evil Spirits, starring Karen Black and Arte Johnson, is loosely based on the Puente murders. Con su simpata lograba escapar de la. MONTEREY . [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. The police bulletin sent out after Puentes escape (Courtesy of John Cabrera), Throughout our meetings, Puente furtively points out inmates and comments on their crimes. She eventually met and married Pedro Angel Montalvo, though Montalvo abruptly left the relationship a week after their marriage. Dorothea was convicted of three out of nine murder counts and sentenced to life in prison in August of 1993. I just did, she says. Back in Sacramento, police were digging up five more bodies, including Bert Montoyas. Rene C. Byer Sacramento Bee file. This woman is a disturbed woman who does not appear to have remorse or regret for what she has done, he wrote. I wonder if she ever wishes she had received the death penalty. Puente was convicted in. I could see the joint., A vial of flurazepam found in Puentes home (Courtesy of The Sacramento Archives). A couple who braved the stigma of the house's curse purchased the home, fully aware of the history. 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. Her upstanding reputation concealed a habit of forging the signatures of tenants on their benefits checks before signing them over to herself. She was paralyzed. (The Rockettes alumni association has no record of someone named either Sharon Neyaarda or Dorothea McFaul performing with the company, nor of two dancers tumbling into an orchestra pit. But to the end of her life, Dorothea Puente insisted that she was innocent and that she had been taking good care of the people under her charge. (Courtesy of The Sacramento Archives), Dorfman drew up Puentes will years agoI dont know if its any good anymore; shes probably given away stuff she doesnt [even] ownand still receives Christmas cards from her. But while digging a second hole, Wilson heard a muted thud as his blade struck something hard three feet down. But in reality, he contends, she is the nation's most prolific female serial murderer ever . Serial killer Dorothea Puente poisoned seven people in her boarding house and buried them in the backyard. Clausen checked on her in April 1982 and saw his pallid, suddenly enfeebled mother, who rarely drank alcohol, sipping crme de menthe. The detective had yet to realize that, in the 59-year-old Puente, he had another serial killer on his hands. Moise alerted police, who went to the boarding house. Her father died of tuberculosis in 1937; her mother, who worked as a sex worker, lost custody of her children in 1938 and died in a motorcycle accident by the end of the year. Dorothea Puente, ne Dorothea Helen Gray, was born on January 9, 1929, in Redlands, California. They first spoke with Dorothea Puente, who ran the clean, cozy home as a boardinghouse for low-income tenants. Didnt know that at the time., The detective walked about halfway to the Clarion with Puente and her boarder, John McCauley. In the spring of 1948, Gray was arrested for purchasing women's accessories using forged checks in Riverside. Its sick., Clausen knows Puentes appeals ran out last year. Season 1 Episode 2 - Videos 1:11 Preview Dorothea Puente Runs From Police Now Playing Preview Granddaughter of Dorothea Puente Victim Talks About Her Disappearance Common sense says that if youve got [seven] people who have died in your house, somethings gone wrong, says Vlautin, who retired from the Sacramento Public Defenders Office in 2005. After their deaths she continued to draw their social security cheques. He called over Cabrera and Brown, and after he scooped away more soil, they saw what resembled a tree root. Ringed by four chairs, each serves as the setting of a reunion between a prisoner and those she knows from the outside. Charged with a total of nine murders, Puente was flown back to Sacramento. We both fell into the orchestra pit and I broke my leg. The other dancer? Cops hauling away body bags. 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. 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. When police arrived at 1426 F Street in Sacramento, they noticed some disturbed soil in a vegetable patch, but not thinking Puente to be a suspect they allowed the grandmother to flee the scene, In her absence, the officers dug-up the entire garden (left) where they discovered seven bodies. Unchanged are his lean, square-shouldered build and animated manner, his eyebrows spiking and hands windmilling as he recounts the investigation. She wants me to buy dozens of food and beauty care items for her from a prison-approved vendor that will mail the goods to her. The unreliable narrator breaks the hush. There, she quickly got back to her old tricks. A year later her mother died in a motorcycle accident. Puente was convicted of three of the murders, although the jury could not agree on the other six. 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. I ask why the cops targeted her. She changed her public image to that of a respectable older matron by putting on vintage clothing, wearing large granny glasses, and letting her hair turn gray. 3 min read. Not yet considering the sweet lady to be a suspect, the officers obliged at the 59-year-old's request to go down the street to buy a cup of coffee - but she had no intention of returning. 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. Dorothea Puente was a convicted serial killer who ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California in the 1980s. & Brucato, Gary, Ph.D., The New Evil: Understanding the Emergence of Modern Violent Crime (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books), pp. Then, she asked if it would be ok if she went to buy a coffee. I made them change their clothes every day, take a bath every day and eat three meals a day. Dismembering their corpses, she threw their remains into a mass grave in her garden, telling neighbors the foul smell emanating from the ground was sewage and dead rats, rather than dead residents. I rise as she approaches and shake a hand that feels skeletal and small. The comments below have not been moderated. Going to church every day. If Im thinking about getting away, you think Im going to ask permission?, Police escort Puente after apprehending her in L.A.; Cabrera walks behind her. Tests revealed high levels of unprescribed drugs in their systems, and in time, the physicians fingered her as the culprit. Unbeknownst to Puente, the pensioner recognized her as the woman he saw on television news reports. Through her early teen years, young Dorothea found herself handed off to a series of relatives and foster homes, bouncing between Napa and Los Angeles, court records reveal. and other board games that the prison makes available to visitors. Finally, four days after she skipped town, authorities traced her to a tumbledown motel in Los Angeles. I just dont believe that strongly in coincidence. At the time, she owned a solid reputation among Sacramentos social workers, who referred clients to her that other boardinghouses turned away: the mentally ill, recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, those with chronic physical maladies who had no one to care for them. But Puente has lodged in his psyche as the rarest predator he confronted: in age, gender and disposition, she inhabits an extremely narrow strata of serial killers. Several were referred there by social workers who viewed the home as a last-resort refuge for their ailing or most erratic clients. As it happened, her shovel was used to dig the hole that yielded a human leg bone, a decomposed foot inside a dark dress shoe and what looked like pieces of tattered fabric that in fact were rotting flesh. Then there was the riddle of Puente. The silence here feels powerful enough to swallow space. I think you can only truly understand why so many people testified and asked you to spare Dorothea's life only if you have ever fallen down and stumbled on the road of life and had someone pick you up, give you comfort, give you love, show you the way.