Dorothea followed up the drugging by carrying out the tenants' murder and burying them in her backyard and garden. Get an all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! However, she was arrested before she could board the plane, and this time, her lawyer wasn't able to argue that she wasn't a flight risk. [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. [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. 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." But John slipped them a message. Moise alerted police, who went to the boarding house. Then, in 1978, she was charged and convicted of illegally cashing 34 state and federal checks that belonged to her tenants. When she was released in 1985, they moved in together, but he abruptly disappeared. Apparently, "Most reviewers [say] the recipes are pretty basic, but tasty." 'I saw her as a human - despite her crimes.'. 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. Next, Dorothea Puente went to San Francisco, where she married her second husband, Axel Bren Johansson, in 1952. An outreach counselor withVolunteers of America had placed him at Puente's boarding houseand she was alarmed to learn he had seemingly vanished in October 1988, according to Sactown Magazine. 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. Dalmane, which is a drug used for insomnia, was found in all seven of the exhumed bodies. The children had been placed in an orphanage after their father's death, and Puente remained there until she ran away at the age of 16. 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. "Yet despite the fact that Dorothea was on everybody's radar, nothing was done. [citation needed]. Shes making me lie for her.. This piece follows what appears to be the most accepted timeline of Puente's life, but some things remain known only to Puente herself. When she was just 16, she started engaging in sex work, although she eventually met and married a World War IIveteran. But Puente presented herself as a harmless old woman who was given gifts, and the police let her out on bail. She pled guilty to two counts of forgery, serving four months in jail and three years' probation. It wasn't the first tip authorities had gotten about Puente, either. According to California Dreaming, Puente kept cashing his pension checks and writing to his family as though Gillmouth was alive. Montoya struggled with mental health issues and had been homeless for years. Sacramento Bee Two more murders She'd. In 1998, Puente began corresponding with Shane Bugbee. Investigators were initially searching for . She was incarcerated at Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla, California. The pensioner contacted local law enforcement who then quickly arrested Puente. Upon apprehension, she was charged with a total of nine murders. 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. Despite the guilty verdict of her . After a number of legal hurdles, Puente's trial eventually went ahead four years later. But, behind the scenes, Puente had embarked on a path that would lead her to murder. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Dorothea Puente was a convicted serial killer suspected of murdering nine people during the 1980s in Sacramento, California, in order to collect their social security checks. 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. She was eventually let go, although the next day investigators converged on the home to continue searching the backyard. But at one point, "a tenant named John Sharp quietly flashed a note to a detective," which read "She wants me to lie to you." James Gallop, 62, (continued left to right) Dorothy Miller, 64. Not everybody running them is being nefarious, but nefarious activity can crop up.. After drugging and robbing a former patient, Puente bought an airplane ticket to Mexico. Genaro Molina/Sacramento Bee/MCT/Getty Images. 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. Nevertheless, she would come back to this business model. At the time, the basement floor was covered with a concrete slab. The grandmother would then sneak into the rooms of her incapacitated prey and smother them to death with a pillow. To many, Dorothea Puente seemed like an angel. But the jury had a difficult time believe the matronly grandmother was capable of carrying out such menacing crimes. 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. The founder of MurderAuction - an auction house for serial killer memorabilia - Harder's macabre obsessions have also seen him befriend the likes of Charles Manson and Richard Ramirez. Eventually, the "Death House Landlady" would then drug her tenants to the point of rendering them incapacitated. 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. Dorothea Puente was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole in December 1993. 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. Puente passed away in 2011 from natural causes at the Central California Facility in Chowchilla, aged 82. Dorothea Montalvo Puente (hereinafter "Petitioner") petitions for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C 2254 challenging her 1993 conviction following a trial by jury. 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. Yes, Puente may haveappeared to be sweet older lady, but her demeanor hid her true identity: acold-blooded killer in pursuit of cash. After she was released, he moved to be with her, The Los Angeles Times reported. 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. Like us on Facebook atwww.facebook.com/TheSunUSand follow us from our main Twitter account at@TheSunUS, 2020 THE SUN, US, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED | TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY | YOUR AD CHOICES | SITEMAP, Dorothea Puente's 1993 trial was heavily covered by the media. Ultimately, Puente was never convicted in relation to Monroe's death. Mental health experts testified of Puente's abusive upbringing and how it motivated her to help the less fortunate. Finally, they found the body of78-year-old Leona Carpenter, and the police realized what they thought was beef jerky was actually human flesh. Instead, after buying the coffee, she fled immediately to Los Angeles, where she befriended an elderly male pensioner whom she had met in a bar. These entities fall through the cracks, said Kathleen Lammers, executive director of the California Law Center on Longterm Care, about boarding houses like Puentes. Betty Palmer, 78. ", They added: "You can not judge a book by its cover and she had one heck of a cover.". She lost her first boarding house after getting caught signing her own name to tenants benefit checks. The Monstrous Crimes Of The Dorothea Puente, The Death House Landlady. Dorothy Miller was a 64-year-old woman who was last seen alive in October 1987, The Los Angeles Times reported in 1993. 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 the 1980s, she worked as a personal caretaker who drugged her clients and stole their valuables. Culture Crossfire claims that parole officers made no fewer than 15 visits to Puente's home. LIFTING her apron over her head, Dorothea Puente beamed with pride at the freshly-baked cakes in front of her knowing her unsuspecting victims would be at her mercy moments after biting into The only time [the boarers] were in good health was when they stayed at my home, Puente insisted from prison. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. At one moment, he was said to be in Utah, while at another, she claimed that he went back to Mexico, despite the fact that he was from Costa Rica, writes LARB. seven years after the death of Puente, a man named William Harder had claimed to be her grandson. [1] Puente's total count reached nine murders; she was convicted of three and the jury hung on the other six. Known as the "Death House Landlady," Dorothea Puente targeted elderly and disabled people, especially those who were already houseless or didn't have a strong support system. 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. Between 1982 and 1989, Puente would take in the vulnerable and homeless poisoning and strangling some of her guests before burying them on her property and cashing their social security checks. The policeman who interrogated her reveals in the documentary: She was emotionless and she would look straight into my eyes and answer every question. Jodi Picoult mentions Puente's crimes and cookbook in her novel House Rules. Dorothea Puente was charged with the murders of the seven individuals whose bodies were found in her backyard, as well as the murders of Ruth Monroe and Everson Gillmouth, whose bodyremained unidentified until police connected itto Puente. He alerted the police to her presence and she was arrested. 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 unfortunately, "living on the fringes, in and out of police custody for heroin and [sex work], Brenda wasn't taken seriously.". Dorothea Puente (birth name Dorothea Gray) was born in 1929 in Redlands, California. Despite the guilty verdict of her trial, she maintained her innocence until her death. 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). 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 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.". Prosecutors would later allege she pulled in over $87,000 from her scam and spent some of the cash on a facelift, the outlet reported. She eventually met and married Pedro Angel Montalvo, though Montalvo abruptly left the relationship a week after their marriage. Soon after, Monroe died from an overdose of codeine and acetaminophen. [8], Puente told Florez to stop while they were on Garden Highway in Sutter County and dump the box of "junk" on the riverbank at an unofficial household junk dumping site. Dorothea Puente was a California landlady who ran a boarding house in Sacramento during the 1980s. Although their marriage lasted over ten years, most accounts agree that it was an unhappy and violent relationship. Newspapers dubbed Puente the "Death House Landlady". Unbeknownst to Puente, the pensioner recognized her as the woman he saw on television news reports. After their deaths, Puente collected . [citation needed], The defense called several witnesses, who showed Puente had a generous and caring side to her. Puente then married Pedro Angel Montalvo, but he left her only a week after they were wed. Due to there being no evidence to link her to the body, she was allowed to leave but managed to flee all the way to Los Angeles, where she was found five days later when a man in a bar recognized her from TV. Oxygen will air a documentary about Puente, "Murders at the Boarding House," on . [6], Gray and Johansson divorced in 1966, although she continued to use Johansson's name for some time following their separation. Victims . On November 29, 1987, Trujillo wrote a letter to the Social Security Administration detailing her suspicions that Puente was stealing her SSI checks. A human leg and a badly discomposed foot were dug up separately in another part of the yard. [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. This wasn't the first time she had drugged and robbed someone. The Story Of The Unsolved Delphi Murders And The Chilling Video Evidence Left Behind, Scaleless, Slimy, And Extremely Rare: Introducing The Deep-Sea Oarfish, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch, Owen Brewer/Sacramento Bee/Tribune News Service via Getty Images. Under the law, Puente received life without the possibility of parole. She had been drinking at a bar with a man who thought she was acting oddly,later realizingit was Puente, a wanted woman. Dorothea Helen Puente ( ne Gray; January 9, 1929 - March 27, 2011) was an American convicted serial killer. 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. Vera Martin, 64. 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. But once more, she was released on bail. She then drugged three elderly female patients and stole their money and valuables, a scam that landed her in prison in 1982for five years, according to "Murders At The Boarding House." Florez agreed, and Puente assisted him. She took it all Death is the only appropriate penalty. ', Puente died in 2011 aged 82 in her prison cell at the Central California Facility, in Chowchilla. While in prison, Dorothea Puente started corresponding with 77-year-old Everson Gillmouth through a pen pal exchange for imprisoned women. Another tenant, John Sharp, backed her up. Dorothea Puente died in prison of natural causes on March 27, 2011, at age 82. But volatility seemed to follow Puente wherever she went and the new couple argued frequently about Puentes drinking and gambling. 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. What followed was a string of marriagesand criminal convictions. They had two daughters between 1946 and 1948; Gray sent one child to live with relatives in Sacramento, and placed the other for adoption. 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. But soon, in the predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, Puente started going around as if she were a doctor, offering "vitamin" injections and medical advice to local residents. "In 1948, she stole some government checks and used them to buy clothes" in San Bernardino. [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. Puente's alleged grandson, William Harder (pictured), insists his grandmother wasn't all bad. In 1961, Johansson had Gray briefly committed to DeWitt State Hospital after a binge of drinking, lying, criminal behavior, and suicide attempts. Puente was convicted of three of the murders, although the jury could not agree on the other six. According to the Los Angeles Times, Puente was an . Dorothea Helen PUENTE . After they started digging, they found a human leg bone and a decomposing foot, according to Sactown Magazine, Puente was brought in for questioning anddenied having anything to do with a body in the yard. Some social workers and doctors, aware of the problem, steered their clients and patients away from Dorothea, but officially absolutely nothing was done.". 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.. This story originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced here with permission. Seven bodies were eventually found buried on the property.[10]. 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. Genaro Molina/Sacramento Bee/MCT/Getty ImagesThe boarding house made infamous by Dorothea Puentes murders. 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. Hed been referred to Dorothea Puentes house because of her sterling reputation welcoming people like him. Stone, Michael H., M.D. [2], Puente was born Dorothea Helen Gray on January 9, 1929, in Redlands, California, to Trudy Mae (ne Yates) and Jesse James Gray. 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. Petitioner raises several claims and a request for a federal evidentiary hearing. She eventually opened an unlicensed boarding house that she operated throughout the '70s, catering to disabled, elderly, and homeless people. For five days, Dorothea Puente was on the lam. She was a tenant of Puente's when she vanished. Alvaro had struggled with his mental health and been homeless for years, and Judy didnt buy Puentes explanation that hed left for a holiday in Mexico with his brother especially as she knew he didnt speak to his family. The Los Angeles Review of Bookswrites that "Puente was released in 1985, under the terms of parole that she not handle other people's social security checks or work with the elderly. She served four months in prison for writing a check under a false name, and spent another 90 days behind bars after being caught in a police raid at a brothel, according to Sactown Magazine. She denied killing anybody. Although lawyers showed that Puente had gotten dozens of prescriptions of the sedative Dalmane between 1985 and 1988 and that all of the bodies had Dalmane in their system, there was no concrete proof that Puente had been the one to administer the drugs. Puentes next two marriages would be short-lived. In the 1970s, she opened her first boarding house in Sacramento. Serial killer Dorothea Puente House Now- where she buried her victim is notably famous for paranormal activities. She denied everything.. 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.. "She is to be considered dangerous, and her living environment and/or employment should be closely monitored.". The comments below have not been moderated. 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. Does she have to be killed?" Dorothea Puente Runs From Police. Sacramento, California, serial killer Dorothea Puente. This is the disturbing story of Dorothea Puente, the Death House Landlady.. Who is Senator Brian Schatz's wife Linda? The Untold Truth Of Dorothea Puente, The Death House Landlady, drugging elderly people and stealing their benefit checks, remained unidentified until police connected it. 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. This page was last edited on 18 February 2023, at 18:08. Ultimately, Puente was convicted of just three murders and sentenced to life in prison. He and Puente struck up a pen pal relationship while she was in prison and he fell in love. Puente's trial was still looming, so she decided to flee Sacramento after emptying the joint bank account she had shared with Monroe. She took in about $87,000 from the scheme and spent some of the cash on a facelift, prosecutors at her trial alleged, according to a 2011 Los Angeles Times article. AboutPressCopyrightContact. That is the question. Puente died in prison at Chowchilla on March 27, 2011, from natural causes; she was 82. Puente then opened the business that would give her the nickname "The Death House Landlady": a boarding house at 1426 F Street in Sacramento. In 2015, the Ghost Adventures crew investigated the house, due to reports of hauntings by the victims and Puente herself. Shes making me lie for her.. In November 1985, Dorothea Puente hired a handyman named Ismael Florez to install some wood paneling in her home. While there, doctors diagnosed her as a pathological liar with an unstable personality. In fact, by that point, Dorothea had been arrested and released on bail four times. Puente's first victimmay not have been one of her boarders, though. Kara Goldfarb is a writer living in New York City. Dorothea Puente after her arrest in Los Angeles, en route back to Sacramento. Prosecutors said that Puente was one of the most cold and calculating female killers the country had ever seen. Puente eventually died of natural causes at the age of 82 in 2011, The Los Angeles Times reported. During that time, it appears that they had two children together, although one was sent to live with relatives and the other was put up for adoption. Finding nothing, they asked permission to dig up the yard. "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. 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.". Dalmane, which Puente obtained dozens of prescriptions for, claiming it was to help her boarders sleep. She immediately began doing both of those things." By 1982, Puente was sent to prison for her thefts. 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. Gray would continue to use the surname Puente for more than twenty years. [6], Following her divorce, Gray focused on running a boarding house located at 21st and F streets in Sacramento. Dorothea Puente, infamously known as the "Death House Lady," was responsible for the deaths of nine elderly and mentally disabled individuals, plus an additional unconfirmed six people (via Crime Museum).From April 1982 through November 1988, Puente ran a boarding house where she stole from her tenants to the tune of $5,000/month (via Murderpedia), before she would kill them with drug overdoses. It wasn't until Alvaro "Bert" Montoya disappeared that Dorothea Puente's house of death was finally addressed. Police, who went to San Francisco, where she buried her victim is notably for. By Dorothea Puentes house because of her boarders, though Montalvo abruptly left the relationship a week after their.! Writing to his family as though Gillmouth was alive signing her own name to tenants benefit.... Name to tenants benefit checks in jail and three years ' probation, Gray on. From an overdose of codeine and acetaminophen and a badly discomposed foot were up. 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