She gave them clothing, she gave them food. Hard living had stolen much of Dorotheas youthful beauty by the time she landed her third husband in 1968 and settled in Sacramento. I dont think anyone would pick this kind of life, she says, drying tears with a piece of coarse brown paper towel. The boarding house made infamous by Dorothea Puentes murders. Puente was convicted in. One of the bodies was missing its head, hands and feet, Body parts were also found scattered across the property. After Florez finished the job, Puente had one more request: to build her a six-foot-long box so she could fill it with books and a few other assorted items before the pair of them would bring the box to a storage facility. But as the police prepared to leave, Sharp slipped them a message. Then there was the riddle of Puente. She took it all Death is the only appropriate penalty. (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. 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. She sat there so totally motionless and emotionless, says Honey Hewlett, one of 12 jurors seated for the trial, who stopped buying Giorgio perfume after learning Puente also wore the scent. The only time they were in good health was when they stayed at my home. The hospitalization occurred a year after Sacramento police busted Dorothea in a raid on a residential house of ill fame on Fulton Avenue that had fronted as a bookkeeping service, according to court records. When we later part, Puente disappears through the gray metal door at the back of the hall. Dick Schmidt/Sacramento Bee/Tribune News Service via Getty ImagesDorothea Puente after her arrest in Los Angeles, en route back to Sacramento. Dorothea Puente right before she fled Sacramento. Behind them, a twentysomething blonde clutches the hands of a young man with a sun tattoo on his forearm. And then theres the contradiction: beneath this house there are all these bodies. When the police arrived, Puente told them that Monroe had been depressed due to her husbands terminal illness. Dorothea was convicted of three out of nine murder counts and sentenced to life in prison in August of 1993. The noise inside the prisons visitors hall amplifies on Valentines Day. It is a stifling backdrop in which to live out the years. 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. A year later her mother died in a motorcycle accident. Social workers in the 1970s looked upon Dorothea Puente and her boarding house with admiration. So you knew she was a liar.. Puente watched the images flicker across the TV screen in her Los Angeles motel room. A pen pal friendship developed, and when Puente was released in 1985 after serving three years of her five-year sentence, he met her outside the prison, driving a red 1980 Ford pickup. 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. SPECIAL TO THE TIMES. Puente was born Dorothea Helen Gray on January 9, 1929. Our visit winds down. She gasped at sight of the remains, hands bracketing her cheeks. Dorothea Puente died in prison of natural causes on March 27, 2011, at age 82. Sacramento landlady Dorothea Montalvo Puente was found guilty Thursday of murdering three of her tenants for their government benefit . (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. In late 1981, his mother, Ruth Munroe, went into business with Puente, leasing and running the restaurant side of the Round Corner Tavern in midtown. Once, when I asked if she ever hears from her surviving siblings or two daughters, she shook her head. Officers rushed to the hotel to arrest Puente, but by then, she had bolted. The home belonged to seemingly sweet Dorothea Puente, who was arrested in 1988 and later convicted as a serial murderer. He ferried Puente to police headquarters and grilled her for two hours. For the first time, her gaze squarely meets mine. She also mentions undergoing major cancer surgery in 1961 to remove her reproductive organs and part of her intestines and stomach. Instead, Puente found a husband. [1] Puente's total count reached nine murders; she was convicted of three and the jury hung on the other six. Cabreras superiors approved her request, deciding they held insufficient evidence to detain her. Know Her Death House Now 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. 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. Dorothea - Dorothea (also spelled Dorothe, Dorotea or other variants) is a female given name from Greek (Drotha) meaning "God's Gift". In October 1988, discovering he no longer lived at the house, Moise began to hound Puente about his departure. [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]. 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. [6], In 1978, Gray was charged and convicted of illegally cashing thirty-four state and federal checks that belonged to her tenants. Now, as I sit at table No. Inmates enter one at a time at irregular intervals through a gray metal door along the rear wall. With Bill Courage, John Cabrera, Bill Clausen, Judy Moises. One-time hitman Julio Santana (right) stopped counting after he reached 492 kills. 4. I inquire how she juggled the demands of professional golf with her Rockettes career while flying between San Francisco and New York every week. She got life for being with a guy when he killed another guy, Puente says. She parlayed its success by pumping money into political campaigns and charitable causes, contributions that bought her the appearance of legitimacy and access to elite circles. Puente cashed in the Social Security checks of the elderly and disabled boarders living in her house. Tempers spiked as the impasse stretched to its third week. 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. Dorothea Puente, a notorious, grandmotherly boarding house operator convicted in the 1990s of killing her tenants, has died in prison aged 82. 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. The serial killer shuffles into the room with a chickens hitched gait. I get pushed in a wheelchair. She speaks in clipped sentences, her voice, so rarely shared with journalists, scratchy but strong. She purchased the refills through a pair of doctors who, presumably oblivious to her past drugging of clients, trusted her stories that she simply wanted to help boarders sleep. Well regarded for taking in substance abusers and the homeless, she had earned respect in political circles for her charity work. The string of thefts led to her arrest, and in 1982, a Superior Court judge sentenced her to five years in prison at the California Institution for Women in Corona. 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. Con su simpata lograba escapar de la. Puente drugged three women with tranquilizers to steal checks, money and valuables from their homes in the early 80s, as recounted in court records. "Which is gross," Hayden said. Round-framed glasses too large for her face magnify a pair of pale blue eyes. Despite lacking formal dance training, she says, I went out there and they hired me. Judy Moise, an outreach counselor with Volunteers of America, became suspicious when Montoya vanished. Unlike many who passed through Puentes boarding house, however, someone had their eye on Montoya. The penalty phase of the prosecution was highlighted by her prior convictions introduced by O'Mara. Didnt know that at the time., The detective walked about halfway to the Clarion with Puente and her boarder, John McCauley. The Victorian on F Street. Puente's total count reached nine murders; she was convicted of three and the jury hung on the other six. I have talked to her attorneys, to the cop who unmasked her, to the prosecutor who tried her for murder, to jurors who found her guilty. I am not here to take part in a reunion; I have never so much as glimpsed the woman I am waiting to meet. It was a human leg bone, he recalls. They described a woman of contradictions. The house at 1426 F Street, now painted a shade of gingerbread, appears occupied on the first floor and empty on the second, where she used to sleep. [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. Nonetheless, with decades to mull what she might say about her case, she sounds as unpersuasive now as during her plane ride from Los Angeles. Her escape intensified interest in a lurid tale that for a time made Sacramento the center of the media universe. In 2004, she released a cookbook titled Cooking with a . '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. But volatility seemed to follow Puente wherever she went and the new couple argued frequently about Puentes drinking and gambling. Puente and her siblings were subsequently sent to an orphanage, where she was sexually abused. Im certain they were just dying of natural causes, and she started burying them so she could keep the checks coming. In June 2020, the house was featured in a ten-minute documentary with 60 Second Docs about the purchase and renovation of the house by the current owners. They share a gray cinderblock room furnished with eight metal lockers, four slender bunk beds, two sinks, a toilet and a shower. The family suspected Puente of poisoning her. I realize today will be our last conversation when Puente sits down at my table and makes a request. As we continue talking, the topic switches to her life before prison, and I ask what she misses most about Sacramento. James Gallop, 62, (continued left to right) Dorothy Miller, 64. Slight and demure, with her ivory-white hair and solicitous demeanor, the landlady resembled any other elderly woman with a kitchen full of pots and pans and a cat calendar hanging next to the stove. Discovery posts $217 MILLION loss in its streaming business after adding just 1.1M subscribers last quarter - despite HBO Max debuts like White Lotus and House of the Dragon, $113 BILLION on a war with no end in sight: DailyMail.com breaks down Joe Biden's enormous military package for Ukraine on the first anniversary of Vladimir Putin's brutal invasion, DAILY MAIL COMMENT:Make this Ukraine's last year of horror, 'Before the war, we saw Russians alive. The prosecutor, John O'Mara, was the homicide supervisor in the Sacramento County District Attorney's office. During a brief in-flight interview with reporter Mike Boyd, she said, I have not killed anyone. 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 did not strike me as a person who had a major mental illness. 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. Chief later dismantled a garage in the backyard and installed a fresh concrete slab there as well. Investigators opened the box and found the badly decomposed and unidentifiable body of an elderly man inside. She was notoriously known as the "Death House Land Lady" after committing nine murders. Seven bodies were eventually found buried on the property.[10]. If you lived in Sacramento in the late 80s, you recognize her name. 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. Joy the last person to have seen her alive. The pensioner contacted local law enforcement who then quickly arrested Puente. She would flee the city that morning. After Puente was released from her first spell in prison for three counts. I ask why shes here. Or about the white-haired woman who turned the yard into a mass grave. She attends services held at the prisons chapel, but avoids joining inmate worship groups. and other board games that the prison makes available to visitors. Her eyes would fill with tears, but she would never admit it, he says. They appealed to authorities to reexamine their mothers death, a probe that ended with investigators upholding the suicide ruling. On the other hand, when these people, as could be expected, would act upat that point, she snapped and decided to kill them., The Puente trial dragged on for five months, with more than 150 witnesses, thousands of pieces of evidence and unrelenting media scrutiny. Why would I waste all my time to get these people cleaned up, make sure they have no diseases, get all their affairs in order if I was going to kill them?. The jury deliberated over a month and eventually found Puente guilty of three murders. Wood earlier sent Puente to prison for drugging and robbing the elderly. Her passivity subdues suspicion. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. To soothe her anxiety, she wanted to walk to the nearby Clarion Hotel with one of her boarders to meet her nephew for a cup of coffee. Puente sah aus wie die Gromutter aus der Nachbarschaft, aber in Wirklichkeit war sie eine kaltbltige Mrderin. Her lawyers argued that she might be a thief, but not a murderer. Dorothea Puente ran a boarding house for down and outs. Newspapers dubbed Puente the "Death House Landlady". Rene C. Byer Sacramento Bee file. Jodi Picoult mentions Puente's crimes and cookbook in her novel House Rules. Even probation officers who stopped by accepted Puentes explanation that the people living at her house were guests or friends not boarders. In the 70s, while running her first boardinghouse at 21st and F streets, Puente cultivated a strong rapport with social workers. An undercover cop posing as a trucker arrested her after she offered to perform fellatio on him; she served 90 days in county lockup. Several were swaddled in bed sheets that matched linens found in the house. McFaul split from his young wife in 1948. I didnt know if anyone was going to look after him.. He returned to the house, grabbed a shovel and began to dig. 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She moves toward the front of the room, where a guard seated behind a metal desk tells her my table number. I pass through the check-in station, a process that requires visitors to pull pants pockets inside-out, remove their shoes and lift their stocking feet for inspection by guards. Ill be waiting for her.. Dorothea Puente spent much of the 1980's providing shelter for the elderly and infirm in her Sacramento boardinghouse. But eventually, police searching for a missing tenant spotted a patch of disturbed dirt near the boarding house and uncovered the first of several bodies. I felt like someone had pulled my insides out.. Beneath the rooms ashen lighting stand neat rows of small round tables, some 50 in all. [citation needed]. Puente took in so-called shadow people people who were marginally homeless without close family or friends. Under the law, Puente received life without the possibility of parole. Thats between me and my God., Until 2006, Puente rotated through assorted prison jobs, cleaning cells, giving haircuts, toiling on a landscaping crew. (Clymo died in 2006.) Familiar in name, she remained an enigma. An extensive five-day search for the elderly fugitive ended when a stranger she'd befriended in Los Angeles recognized her face from the news and turned her into police. Shes making me lie for her.. Once free of the throng, Cabrera stopped and watched the pair until they entered the hotel. 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. In the landladys presence, he corroborated her story about Montoya. Isabel Vincent. The seven tenants who had lived at 1426 F Street died with a variety of drugs in their bodies: anticonvulsants, antidepressants, antipsychotics, painkillers, tranquilizers. She steams the tamales in plastic bags placed in a pan of water warmed with two electric immersion coils. As the search expanded, cabin fever seized Puente. 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. At the time of her 1988 arrest on murder charges, photos of Puente with Jerry Brown, former California Gov. 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. A woman known as Dorothea Puente runs a boarding house for those less fortunate, but her seeming benevolence belies motives that are much darker. Some of the bodies were mummified in cloth, bed sheets and duct tape. 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. [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. Though born in Redlands, Puente, who speaks passable Spanish, claimed Mexico as her birthplace, a ruse she perpetuated by alternately using the surnames of her last two ex-husbands, Roberto Puente and Pedro Montalvo. However, in 1978, she was convicted of illegally cashing state and federal assistance checks that belonged to her tenants. I wondered if she maintained her innocence or felt bowed by remorse. For her and the others, one factor in particular undercut Puentes claim of innocence. Her statement hangs between us. I started working her, Cabrera says, but all along, she was working me. The higher volume results from the presence of more children, most of whom exhibit the happy symptoms of a sugar buzz. (Obituaries for Ingemar Johansson, who died earlier this year, list his sole surviving brother as Rolf.). More than 130 witnesses were called to the stand by the prosecution, and eventually the devilish landlady was convicted for three of the murderers and ordered to serve back-to-back life sentences. Some praised the soft-hearted landlady who cooked big meals for her low-income tenants, handed out vegetables from her garden to neighbors and adopted stray cats. On her fourth day as a fugitive, she dropped by a dive bar near the motel, introducing herself as Donna Johansson to a retired carpenter named Charles Willgues. She established her reputation as a caregiver, providing young women with a sanctuary from poverty and abuse without charge. 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. Then learn about Aileen Wuornos, historys most terrifying female serial killer. 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. 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. 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. Bodies were found buried in what is now the yard at left. Dorothea Puente war eine feste Gre in ihrer Gemeinde - sie kmmerte sich um ihre Nachbarn, spendete hufig fr wohlttige Zwecke und nahm diejenigen auf, die die Gesellschaft beiseite geschoben hatte. I was struck by how pleasant and socially intact and intelligent she was, says Vicary, who works in Los Angeles. They all know who I am, she says. Montoya struggled with mental health issues and had been homeless for years. He remains convinced of her innocence, arguing that her crimes were limited to filching the benefits checks of her tenants. There, the former prostitute turned back to a life of crime. In the narrative of her life that unfurled at her murder trial and in news reports and books about the case, she grew up poor, deprived in equal measure of material comforts and parental nurturing. Barring an unexpected transfer to another prison or a medical emergency, she will die inside this compound. Going to church every day. With Jeff Rechner, Joelle Uzyel, Mikel Welch. Others spoke of a calculating criminal who feigned altruism to mask her avariceand a homicidal bent. The two talked through the afternoon, with Willgues both attracted to and wary of the well-dressed stranger who sipped screwdrivers. She was the sixth of seven children but didn't grow up in a stable family environment. 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. Between 1982 and 1989, Puente would take in the vulnerable and homeless people.
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