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. 104-107. Her time in prison was spent visiting the prison chapel, reading John Grisham books, and watching TV. Multiple murder suspect Dorothea Montalvo Puente, right, is brought back to Sacramento from the LA area in the early morning hours of November 17, 1988. [citation needed], Granting a change of venue motion filed by Puente's lawyers, Kevin Clymo and Peter Vlautin III, a judge transferred the trial to Monterey County. She was given five years' probation and ordered to pay $4,000 in restitution. The boarding house made infamous by Dorothea Puentes murders. She never flinched. In 1998, Puente began corresponding with Shane Bugbee. "She sat there so totally motionless and emotionless, one juror said of Puente's demeanor during the trial, the outlet reported. But her reputation had caught up with her, and her face was all over the news. Sactown Magazine reports that Puente "granted few interviews [after the trial], observing a self-imposed gag order," and she maintained her innocence to her death, claiming that all the residents had died of natural causes. Some of the remains were in a mummified state - bound in bed sheets, cloth and duct tape (above), Puente would lure her victims to their deaths by baking them cake laced with sleeping pills. Orphaned, Puente and her siblings splintered off in different directions, bouncing between foster care and relatives homes. The charges against her were largely circumstantial: There was her criminal past and of course, the corpses at her home. It was difficult to determine, though, whether she had poisoned the tenants or if they had taken the fatal overdoses themselves, according to Sactown Magazine. 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 relationship developed quickly, and the couple was soon making wedding plans. 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.. 'Executing Puente would be like executing your grandmother', one juror is reported to have said in response to the death sentence looming over the defendant at the time. Genaro Molina/Sacramento Bee/MCT/Getty Images. She created a fake persona, calling herself "Teya Singoalla Neyaarda", a Muslim woman of Egyptian and Israeli descent. She spent her teen years bouncing between foster homes and orphanages, and was allegedly sexually abused at one point, according to a 2011 . ", They added: "You can not judge a book by its cover and she had one heck of a cover.". 'Never judge a book by its cover,' said retired police officer John Cabrera in 2018, the lead investigator on the case. She even wrote a cookbook from behind bars: "Cooking with a Serial Killer.". Dorothea Puente looked like a sweet grandmother but looks can be deceiving. She was just pure evil, Mildred Ballenger, a social worker who knew her, told Sactown Magazine. Dorothea Puente was a California landlady who ran a boarding house in Sacramento during the 1980s. Some reports say that McFaul died of a heart attack, while others state that he left Puente, possibly after she had a miscarriage. That is the question. In the 1980s, she worked as a personal caretaker who drugged her clients and stole their valuables. Puente died in prison at Chowchilla on March 27, 2011, from natural causes; she was 82. She sent one child to live with relatives while another was put up for adoption. Dorothea often took in the elderly and homeless and placed them as her tenants. Axel Johansson was often at sea for months on end, and while he was away, Puente resumed working as a sex worker. In 1963, after Puente found it harder and harder to secure clients herself, she transitioned into becoming a madam who ran a brothel, which led to another arrest, though she avoided a pimping charge. 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? A manhunt ensued for the 59-year-old woman, and she was eventually foundfour days later at a California motel. 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! Investigators opened the box and found the badly decomposed and unidentifiable body of an elderly man inside. McFaul left her in late 1948.[5][6]. [citation needed]. During the initial investigation, Puente was not immediately a suspect, and she was allowed to leave the property, ostensibly to buy a cup of coffee at a nearby hotel. Gray-haired landlady, Dorothea Puente, made headlines as one of the most shocking serial killers in Sacramento history. Puente eventually died of natural causes at the age of 82 in 2011, The Los Angeles Times reported. [citation needed], O'Mara called over 130 witnesses; he argued to the jury that Puente had used sleeping pills to put her tenants to sleep, then suffocated them, and hired convicts to dig the holes in her yard. 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. When she was released in 1985, they moved in together, but he abruptly disappeared. Puente agreed even providing an extra shovel for them to do so. 1:29. Dorothea Puente was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole in December 1993. Puente, who took in people who were older, disabled, or otherwise ailing, would steal their Social Security and benefits checks and poison them by lacing their food with prescription medicine, according to The Los Angeles Times. But after installing a concrete slab in the boarding house basement and one over the foundation of the garage, "Chief" disappeared. Dorothea Puente fled to Los Angeles. "Sometimes [he] held a gun to his head and threatened to kill himself in front of his children," wrote the LA Times. Silver-haired, dressed in a long red coat and wearing large rounded glasses, the 59-year-old resembled just a regular grandmother - proving looks truly can be deceiving. Pathologists testified that they hadnt been able to fix the cause of death for any of the corpses. Soon after, Ruth died from an overdose of codeine and acetaminophen with police putting it down to suicide as Puente told officials shed been depressed after the death of her husband. She was released early in 1990, but not before a state psychiatrist evaluated her and diagnosedher with schizophrenia. Not everybody running them is being nefarious, but nefarious activity can crop up.. After she was released, he moved to be with her, The Los Angeles Times reported. In the 1980s, Puente ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California, killing nine of her elderly and mentally disabled boarders. Apparently, Puente's neighbors had been complaining about the smell and flies coming from Puente's backyard since May. Meanwhile, Puente's mother did sex work to support the family. Seven bodies were eventually found buried on the property belonging to the"Death House Landlady," and she was ultimately accused of killing nine people total. He says he's often inundated with requests from crazed fans and fellow murder enthusiasts who ask to buy his grandmother's ashes. She set about creating a more matronly image with her clothes and makeup, added years to her age, and became an in-home caretaker. If anyone had their suspicions, they didn't voice them. For years, the disappearances of these so-called shadow people who lived at the margins of society went unnoticed. After her conviction, Dorothea Puente started working as an in-home caregiver, and over the next four years, shekept coming up on people's radar. In 1948, she was convicted of forgery and sent to prison for four months, before working as a prostitute for years and then being arrested for running a brothel in 1960. The grandmother would then sneak into the rooms of her incapacitated prey and smother them to death with a pillow. Her boarding house provided the opportunityto siphon money from those less fortunate than her and poisonthem with drugs. For the rest of her life, she maintained her innocence, insisting that all of her boarders had died of "natural causes". 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. All the tenants had died from a cocktail of drugs, including the sedativeDalmane, which Puente obtained dozens of prescriptions for, claiming it was to help her boarders sleep. After leaving Roberto, Puente married Pedro Angel Montalvo, but the marriage only lasted a week. Gillmouth lived in Oregon, and when Puente was released after serving three of her five years, he drove out to pick her up at her halfway house in Fresno. Preview. Victims included Puente's boyfriend Everson Gillmouth, 77, and eight tenants who lived at the . Benjamin Fink, 55. She denied killing anybody. She had vanished, according to "Murders At The Boarding House.". She and Gillmouth moved into 1426 F Street, where Puente opened up a boarding house again. Stone, Michael H., M.D. Amanda Sedlak-Hevener. According to Female Serial Killers, Monroe didn't know a thing about Puente's legal troubles and had simply agreed to start a catering business with her, since Puente's cooking skills were well-regarded. Some social workers and doctors, aware of the problem, steered their clients and patients away from Dorothea, but officially absolutely nothing was done.". Puente was accused of murdering nine people between 1982 and 1988 and cashing their government support checks. In Female Serial Killers, Vronsky writes how Puente's patients often ended up in the hospital, and Puente's name kept coming up to the same doctor who treated the patients. Around this time, Dorothea Puente became business partners with Ruth Monroe, a 61-year-old woman. Dick Schmidt/Sacramento Bee/Tribune News Service via Getty Images. Meanwhile, another six bodies had been found in Puentes back garden, including those of 51-year-old Alberto Montoya, 64-year-old Dorothy Miller, 55-year-old Benjamin Fink, 62-year-old James Gallop, 64-year-old Vera Faye Martin and 78-year-old Betty Palmer. I dont know that she ever did anything good without a bad motive.. 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. Between 1982 and 1989, Puente would take in the vulnerable and homeless people. Puente's first victimmay not have been one of her boarders, though. The prosecutor, John O'Mara, was the homicide supervisor in the Sacramento County District Attorney's office. During the preliminary hearing, she was even re-arrested for another set of check forgery charges from an additional victim. virtual villagers 5 events; carter middle school yearbook; Offre. 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. In the 1980s, she worked as a personal caretaker who drugged her clients and stole their valuables. Know Her Death House Now Murderpedia . But, behind the scenes, Puente had embarked on a path that would lead her to murder. But unfortunately, "living on the fringes, in and out of police custody for heroin and [sex work], Brenda wasn't taken seriously.". Dorothea Puente was captured in 1988 after killing seven residents and burying their dismembered bodies his her backyard, in Sacramento, California The seemingly sweet old lady proves looks can. Alvaro "Bert" Montoya, 51. Its like she was watching a movie she wasnt particularly interested in., Ultimately, Puente was convicted of just three murders and sentenced to life in prison. Even when someone disappeared from the boarding house, Puente was ready with an excuse. I am led to believe if there is any reason for us to be living here on this Earth, it is to somehow enhance one another's humanity, to love, to touch each other with kindness, to know that you have made just one person breathe easier because you have lived. Puente had become interested in him after learning he received disability checks, The Los Angeles Times reported. Bloodsoaked mum screamed 'my baby, my baby' after her daughter, 1, fell from second-floor window of London home, Similac PM baby formula recalled after second tot dies from bacteria infection, Boy, 9, stows away alone on 1,600-mile flight while his parents are asleep after Googling how to sneak onto a plane, Russia issues chilling warning for Ukrainians to flee parts of Kyiv NOW as Putin blitzes Holocaust memorial, Ukrainian TikToker teaches how to drive captured Russian TANKS as guide shows best way to attack with Molotov cocktails. The 59-year-old looked like an ordinary grandmother when she was arrested after a five day hunt across California. Dorothea Puente was a convicted serial killer who ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California in the 1980s. Johansson wasn't pleased to find this out when he returned, so they would frequently argue as a result, often about Puente's gambling and drinking as well. letter to change from full time to prn; bstrong charity rating; Application. Dorothea Puente is an American serial killer. . Dorothy Miller was a 64-year-old woman who was last seen alive in October 1987, The Los Angeles Times reported in 1993. In 1982, Puente picked up a man in a bar, and they went back to his apartment together. Ultimately, Puente was never convicted in relation to Monroe's death. Despite the seven bodies found in her yard (and the two other murders she was accused of), Puente pled not guilty to the nine charges against her. However, "it's unlikely Dorothea received any psychological counseling," and there's no record of a clear diagnosis from the facility. According to All That's Interesting, Puente "told them that they were welcome to do so, and even provided an extra shovel.". [2], Puente was born Dorothea Helen Gray on January 9, 1929, in Redlands, California, to Trudy Mae (ne Yates) and Jesse James Gray. I made them change their clothes every day, take a bath every day and eat three meals a day. In fact, by that point, Dorothea had been arrested and released on bail four times. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group. 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. Puente was charged for seven murders, but her trial wouldn't begin for another four years. [1] Puente's total count reached nine murders; she was convicted of three and the jury hung on the other six. According to Radford University, both of Puente's parents suffered from alcoholism, and Puente experienced physical abuse while they were alive and was often underfed. But volatility seemed to follow Puente wherever she went and the new couple argued frequently about Puentes drinking and gambling. She also suffered a miscarriage. Would you want that to happen to your children? 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. In her absence, investigators dug up the whole yard and discovered the body of 78-year-old Leona Carpenter. Her lawyers argued that she might be a thief, but not a murderer. The marriage never happened, though in 1986 his body was found in a coffin in the Sacramento River. Charged with a total of nine murders, Puente was flown back to Sacramento. This wasn't the first time she had drugged and robbed someone. According to the Los Angeles Times, Puente was an . When they came to me, they were so sick, they weren't expected to live.". 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. To many, Dorothea Puente seemed like an angel. 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. But God always puts obstacles in peoples way.". She eventually gave one child to relatives and put the other up for adoption, according to Sactown Magazine. 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 . 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. Puente cashed in the Social Security checks of the elderly and disabled boarders living in her house. When she was just 16, she started engaging in sex work, although she eventually met and married a World War IIveteran. [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. The prosecution stated that Puente used sleeping pills to drug her tenants, suffocated them, and then hired convicts to bury them in the yard. Kara Goldfarb is a writer living in New York City. She was the sixth of seven children but didnt grow up in a stable family environment. In April of 1982, a 61-year-old woman named Ruth Monroe moved into Dorothea Puentes house. Although Puente was eventually charged with the murder of nine individuals, it's likely that there were more victims. In 1993, many residents of Sacramento were shocked when they realized that an old woman was behind a series of murders in her own boarding house. The Monstrous Crimes Of The Dorothea Puente, The Death House Landlady. "You have heard of the despair which was the foundation of her life, the anger and resentmentIf anyone in the jury room tells you it was not that bad, ask them would you want that to happen to yourself? Puente took in so-called shadow people people who were marginally homeless without close family or friends. Together, they moved back to Sacramento. But on the way to the storage facility, Puente abruptly asked Florez to pull over near a riverbank and just push the box into the water. After an autopsy was done, medical examiners found a large amount of codeine in her system, and although her death was labeled "undetermined cause," it was believed to be a suicide. We've received your submission. On April 28, Monroe was dead. Dorothea followed up the drugging by carrying out the . She was notoriously known as the "Death House Land Lady" after committing nine murders. Dorothea Helen Puente (ne Gray; January 9, 1929 March 27, 2011) was an American convicted serial killer. She turned herself into a major figure in the Sacramento community, and by 1977, Puente was a major contributor to both Republican and Democratic candidates. Although Monroe's family told the district attorney of their suspicions, the DA decided that since the death looked like a suicide and Puente was already jailed, there was no point in pursuing a conviction. She once stated, "The only time they were in good health was when they stayed at my home. Gillmouth's body remained unidentified for three years. They had two daughters between 1946 and 1948; Gray sent one child to live with relatives in Sacramento, and placed the other for adoption. Dalmane, which is a drug used for insomnia, was found in all seven of the exhumed bodies. Using the name Donna Johnson, she approached Charles Willgraves at a bar, but once Willgraves realized why "Donna" looked familiar, he called the police. Does she have to be killed?" "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. She immediately began doing both of those things." She was incarcerated at Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla, California. A few days later, police returned with a warrant and asked Puente if they could dig in the backyard, where they saw recently disturbed soil. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, I told my wife she should get a nose job and now she might leave me, I used to get allergies and congested at night why you should ALWAYS sleep in socks if you want a good nights rest, My neighbors X-rated dog name is offensive, Expert reveals the common duvet mistake were all making and its ruining your nights sleep. Then, she asked if it would be ok if she went to buy a coffee. She also established herself as a respected member in Sacramento's Hispanic community, funding charities, scholarships, and radio programs. [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. By 1937, Puente's father had passed away, and her mother lost custody of the children. 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. She was given five years probation and ordered to pay $4,000 in restitution. Being escorted to a police car after her capture in 1988, serial killer Dorothea Puente told gathering reporters 'I used to be a very good person, at one time'. She took in vulnerable elderly tenants, many of whom struggled with addiction or mental illness, and targeted those "without strong social networks. Vera Faye Martin, 64. [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]. [6], In 1968, Gray married Roberto Jose Puente. Puente was sentenced to five years for "drugging elderly people and stealing their benefit checks" on August 19, 1982. Who is Senator Brian Schatz's wife Linda? I can't eat this any more! Puente told police that the woman was very depressed because her husband was terminally ill. "She is to be considered dangerous, and her living environment and/or employment should be closely monitored.". In November 1985, Dorothea Puente hired a handyman named Ismael Florez to install some wood paneling in her home. But in 1978, her house of cards started to falter. She then asked Florez to transport the filled, sealed box to a storage depot. 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