Does she have to be killed?" Dorothea Puente, born Dorothea Helen Gray was born on January 9, 1929 in San Bernardino County, California. A prison official describes her as very low-key, very quiet. If discreet, however, Puente, who stands 5-foot-3, bears an outsized notoriety. She gasped at sight of the remains, hands bracketing her cheeks. 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. Despite the guilty verdict of her . Several were swaddled in bed sheets that matched linens found in the house. Some of them began to disappear. In the 1970s, she opened her first boarding house in Sacramento. Shes been in for 12 years. She reveals as much when, unbidden, she yanks down her shirt collar, baring a white patch the size of a silver dollar stuck to ghostly blue-veined flesh. 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. She holed up in the Royal Viking Motel for the next three days, seldom leaving her room. Benjamin Fink, 55. She eventually met and married Pedro Angel Montalvo, though Montalvo abruptly left the relationship a week after their marriage. He neither explained his motive for capitulating nor discussed why he agreed to convict her of only three killings. During their initial meeting, he encountered a woman of utter ordinariness, one far removed from the media caricature that depicted her as the embodiment of evil. Hard living had stolen much of Dorotheas youthful beauty by the time she landed her third husband in 1968 and settled in Sacramento. We both fell into the orchestra pit and I broke my leg. The other dancer? We next met days before Thanksgiving, when the recent election of Barack Obama had boosted her hopes for the countrys future, and again in mid-December. . Dorothea Puente, also known as the Death House Landlady, was a little-old-lady serial killer who preyed on the elderly and drug-addicted men and women of Sacramento, CA in the 1980s. It was too humiliating, too shameful for her to admit responsibility for these crimes. Puente's deceptive appearance would later go on to confuse the jury presiding over her trial. The discovery prompted Cabrera to summon Puente to the backyard. After their deaths, Puente collected . Puente sah aus wie die Gromutter aus der Nachbarschaft, aber in Wirklichkeit war sie eine kaltbltige Mrderin. I want to know what stopped her from killing herself. [citation needed], A few weeks later, the police returned after Malcolm McKenzie, a 74-year-old pensioner (one of four elderly people Puente was accused of drugging), accused Puente of drugging and stealing from him. Their first series of holes dislodged only soft dirt and a vague sense of futility. The three men carried shovels as they fanned out across the backyard of the two-story Victorian at 1426 F Street. I now see them as tokens of loneliness, trifles to mark the time. Dorothea Puente Home - Part 1: Directed by Star Price. John Cabrera and Terry Brown, homicide detectives with the Sacramento Police Department, and Jim Wilson, a federal probation agent, had arrived at the house late on the morning of Nov. 11, 1988. Thats between me and my God., Until 2006, Puente rotated through assorted prison jobs, cleaning cells, giving haircuts, toiling on a landscaping crew. Throughout the trial, Dorothea Puente was portrayed as either a sweet grandma-like type or a manipulative criminal who preyed on the weak. Her body shapeless under a long-sleeve T-shirt and dungarees, she has pulled back her snowy plume of hair with a pink scrunchie. The grandmother would then sneak into the rooms of her incapacitated prey and smother them to death with a pillow. 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. Puente drugged three women with tranquilizers to steal checks, money and valuables from their homes in the early 80s, as recounted in court records. The advanced state of decay, meanwhile, suggested the person had died long before Montoyas presumed disappearance in August. 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.. She asked Florez to build a 6-by-3-by-2-foot box to store "books and other items". Puente has told me during previous meetings that her case still attracts worldwide attention, and that she recently spurned interview requests from a British newspaper and an Australian TV station. In 2004, she released a cookbook titled Cooking with a . 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. See how its bulging? In 2015, the Ghost Adventures crew investigated the house, due to reports of hauntings by the victims and Puente herself. Thats when the gray door clanks open once more. Her words return to me. It doesnt fit., At least three peopledefense attorneys Kevin Clymo and Peter Vlautin and their clientharbored scarce empathy for the prosecutor. Dorothea Montalvo Puente might seem like "a grandmotherly figure," says prosecutor John O'Mara. As the minutes pass, I prepare to join the long list of people she has duped. 4. Puentes vanishing ignited a manhunt that stretched to Mexico. 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. When we discuss her health or the books she reads, when she makes a rare inquiry about my job or background, the conversation tracks as normal, even mundane. Beyond that lurked the vexing conundrum of the accused herself. Many of them found dead and buried in the boarding house's yard. Its the same thing. Jodi Picoult mentions Puente's crimes and cookbook in her novel House Rules. 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. In 1961, Johansson had Gray briefly committed to DeWitt State Hospital after a binge of drinking, lying, criminal behavior, and suicide attempts. Ill be waiting for her.. [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. She steams the tamales in plastic bags placed in a pan of water warmed with two electric immersion coils. 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. That was my tomcat. The boarding house made infamous by Dorothea Puentes murders. Anyway, so she had six boarders! The two then separated, with McCauley returning downtown and Puente taking another cab to Stockton, where she hopped a bus to Los Angeles. I ask why the cops targeted her. Federal law shields inmate medical records from the public, leaving open the question of whether she has had three surgeries since entering prison. The psychiatrist diagnosed Puente as suffering from antisocial personality disorder, a condition marked by deceit and manipulation of others without remorse. Betty Palmer, 78. I think they needed somebody and I was the easiest one around., Yet the most illuminating aspect of talking with Puente in prison arises from her silence about the dead. 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. 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. It had about $2,500, $3,000 in it. Cabrera shakes his head. Not everybody running them is being nefarious, but nefarious activity can crop up.. Puente had already been convicted and executed in the media, and the attorneys understood the long odds of winning in court. Dorothea Puente was a convicted serial killer who ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California in the 1980s. One was missing its hands, head and feet. [citation needed], In November 1985, Puente hired a man named Ismael Florez to install some wood paneling in her apartment. Despite maintaining her innocence until the day she died, Puente has been immortalized as one of America's most notorious female serial killers. Inmates enter one at a time at irregular intervals through a gray metal door along the rear wall. Soon after, Monroe died from an overdose of codeine and acetaminophen. The noise inside the prisons visitors hall amplifies on Valentines Day. It wasnt until 1988 that suspicions first arose about Puente, after one of her tenants, 52-year old Alvaro Montoya, went missing. Amanda Sedlak-Hevener. As far as theyre concerned, Im dead.. I think she truly wanted to rehabilitate [her tenants] as she could not the people in her own family, Vicary says. I watch as she pushes away the empty plastic container of fried chicken strips and french fries that she finished eating earlier. She is a California native, born in Redlands, Calif. 2. Didnt know that at the time., The detective walked about halfway to the Clarion with Puente and her boarder, John McCauley. (Obituaries for Ingemar Johansson, who died earlier this year, list his sole surviving brother as Rolf.). Alcoholics dont stay in one place for long. By 1948, McFaul asked for a divorce and Puente drifted south to California. So after that, I was out in New York on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and then Id come back to California the rest of the week. Known at the time as Dorothea McFaul, the last name of her first husband, whom she had recently divorced, she performed on stage as Sharon Neyaarda. During this period, parole agents visited Puente at least fifteen times; though she had been ordered to keep away from the elderly and refrain from handling government checks, no violations were ever noted. Social workers in the 1970s looked upon Dorothea Puente and her boarding house with admiration. The erstwhile prostitute had turned a new trick. Here are 5 things you may not know about Dorothea Puente: 1. [6], Gray was arrested in 1960 for owning and operating a bookkeeping firm as a front for a brothel in Sacramento;[5] she was found guilty and was sentenced to ninety days in the Sacramento County Jail. Instead, Puente found a husband. Working in my yard.. Dorothea often took in the elderly and homeless and placed them as her tenants. For five days, Dorothea Puente was on the lam. So you knew she was a liar.. When she was eight her father died of tuberculosis. She resembles a wizened owl. While Puente was charged with the murders of nine people, she was convicted of only three of them in 1993: A jury could not decide on the other six deaths. (Courtesy of John Cabrera). 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. When they finished without noticing anything suspicious, Cabrera asked if they could dig in her 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. [6], In 1978, Gray was charged and convicted of illegally cashing thirty-four state and federal checks that belonged to her tenants. At the age of 64, Puente - who was born Dorothea Helen Gray - was tried in 1993 for the murders of nine people after police found seven bodies buried in the garden of her home and two more. 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. Her body shapeless under a long-sleeve T-shirt and dungarees, she has pulled back her snowy plume of hair with a pink scrunchie. Tempers spiked as the impasse stretched to its third week. 3.23. 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. 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. The wanted bulletin for, I think she truly wanted to rehabilitate [her tenants] as she could not the people in her own family, psychiatrist William Vicary says. Puente's total count reached nine murders; she was convicted of three and the jury hung on the other six. Shes making me lie for her.. She attends services held at the prisons chapel, but avoids joining inmate worship groups. A stream of people tour Dorothea Puente's former home on Sept. 15, 2013. 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. Dorothea Puente had several children with McFaul but didnt raise them. I was on stage when the girl next to me broke her heel and bumped into me. Then you will understand why these people believe Dorothea's life is worth saving. She was found guilty in three cases and one juror held out on the other four. She turns to look at me. (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. 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 truth about this notorious woman serial killer's spree finally emerged in October of 1954 after her fifth husband Samuel Doss died in a hospital in Oklahoma. 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. Dorothea was convicted of three out of nine murder counts and sentenced to life in prison in August of 1993. [citation needed]. WITH her chiffon dresses, thick-rimmed glasses, grey hair and litter of kittens, Dorothea Puente looked like a sweet old lady - even insisting to some, "Call me Grandma". 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. Suspect left her residence for a walk but never returned.. A human leg and a badly discomposed foot were dug up separately in another part of the yard. But the jury had a difficult time believe the matronly grandmother was capable of carrying out such menacing crimes. Puente surrendered quietly.

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