She was tried for killing seven people by drugging them with Dalmane and alcohol. When she was eight her father died of tuberculosis. Finally, four days after she skipped town, authorities traced her to a tumbledown motel in Los Angeles. La historia de Dorothea Puente: la dulce abuela que mataba - Clarn On January 1, 1986, a fisherman spotted the suspicious looking coffin-like box near the river and called police. Watch 'The House is Innocent': Female Serial Killer Dorothea Puente's Some months earlier, another tenant, a longtime alcoholic on a bender, had vanished after Puente went to his room to make him feel better. The acrid stench of rotting flesh soon spread through the home and beyond, an odor she blamed on sewer problems and that drew complaints from neighbors. Around the same time, she slipped a heavy sedative into the drink of a 74-year-old man she met at the Zebra Club in midtown. The serial killer shuffles into the room with a chickens hitched gait. Eleven jurors were convinced of Puentes guilt in killing the seven boarders found in her yard; one juror disagreed. [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. Forensic testing had failed to determine a definitive cause of death in any of the victims. There, she quickly got back to her old tricks. They wanted to question her about Bert Montoya, her onetime tenant who had been reported missing. 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. Dorothea Puente died in prison of natural causes on March 27, 2011, at age 82. She asked Florez to build a 6-by-3-by-2-foot box to store "books and other items". They were met by Dorothea Puente, an elderly woman with big glasses, who repeated her story that Montoya was simply on vacation. Julio Santana dropped to his left knee and propped his right elbow on his . A year later her mother died in a motorcycle accident. EXCLUSIVE: 'I killed JonBent Ramsey! Convicted pedophile Rose West's son breaks silenceto tell how his killer mother Isabel Oakeshott receives 'menacing' message from Matt Hancock, Insane moment river of rocks falls onto Malibu Canyon in CA, Mom who lost both sons to fentanyl blasts laughing Biden, Pavement where disabled woman gestured at cyclist before fatal crash, Pro-Ukrainian drone lands on Russian spy planes exposing location, 'Buster is next!' There are so many sad stories in here. It is a flame of humanity that has burned inside Dorothea since she was young That is reason to give Dorothea Puente life without the possibility of parole. ), Thanks to her ties to Reagan, Puente tells me, she met Vice President Spiro Agnew and U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston, and in the mid-70s, she ate dinner with longtime Republican booster Clint Eastwood when he visited town. When attempts to extract it with a shovel failed, Cabrera climbed into the hole. A stream of people tour Dorothea Puente's former home on Sept. 15, 2013. With Bill Courage, John Cabrera, Bill Clausen, Judy Moises. She tells me they appreciate the advice she provides them, whether informal legal counsel on their cases or how to traverse the social services network after their release. 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". Puentes next two marriages would be short-lived. A few days later I drive to Chowchilla for my final visit with her. [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. Puente watched the images flicker across the TV screen in her Los Angeles motel room. Tours, documentary focus on Sacramento house of murderer Dorothea Puente 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. A gentle bear of a man, the 52-year-old Montoya suffered from untreated psychosis, a condition that for years had consigned him to the streets and homeless shelters. Kara Goldfarb is a writer living in New York City. The discovery prompted Cabrera to summon Puente to the backyard. The Montoya file landed on Cabreras desk within a day. McFaul split from his young wife in 1948. Hard living had stolen much of Dorotheas youthful beauty by the time she landed her third husband in 1968 and settled in Sacramento. 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. 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. Cabreras superiors approved her request, deciding they held insufficient evidence to detain her. Once free of the throng, Cabrera stopped and watched the pair until they entered the hotel. Alcoholics dont stay in one place for long. Stone, Michael H., M.D. 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. After noticing disturbed soil on the property, they uncovered the body of tenant Leona Carpenter, 78. Theyve never talked to me. On another occasion, she casts her circumstance in a biblical light. But while digging a second hole, Wilson heard a muted thud as his blade struck something hard three feet down. I dont know that she ever did anything good without a bad motive.. 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. My oldest grandson is 15 and wanted to do this attraction. SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KTXL) Throughout the 1980s, as many as nine deaths in Sacramento were investigated as being connected to Dorothea Puente. He was good to me. (Johansson did not respond to interview requests.). She answers with a look of mild reproach that pulls taut her soft fist of a face. She professed her innocence until she died. Years later, her granddaughter visits the spot. Some might interpret that as a kind of confession, I finally say. 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. Released after three for good behavior, she returned to Sacramento, with her federal probation extended to 1990 due to the state conviction. She parried, unwavering in her account of Montoyas departure, her voice calm as the detective pressed her. 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. Inside Dorothea Puente's Tragic Childhood - Grunge 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. Dorothea Helen Puente (ne Gray; January 9, 1929 - March 27, 2011) was an American convicted serial killer.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. Her warmth for him appears unrequitedshe hasnt heard from him for awhile nowand reflects rose-tinted nostalgia for a marriage that, despite near constant turmoil, lasted longer than her other three combined. As the minutes pass, I prepare to join the long list of people she has duped. She was the sixth of seven children but didn't grow up in a stable family environment. [citation needed], The defense called several witnesses, who showed Puente had a generous and caring side to her. Next, Dorothea Puente went to San Francisco, where she married her second husband, Axel Bren Johansson, in 1952. The inmates know who she is, the official says. People viewed Puente as a sweet grandmother committed to giving back to society: she housed the old and homeless, attended political events, and donated money to charitable causes. They first spoke with Dorothea Puente, who ran the clean, cozy home as a boardinghouse for low-income tenants. 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. 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. He escorted her out of the propertys wrought-iron front gate, a moment captured in a photo lying on the conference table. When we later part, Puente disappears through the gray metal door at the back of the hall. Puente's alleged grandson, William Harder (pictured), insists his grandmother wasn't all bad. Is Dorothea Puente From 'Worst Roommate Ever' Still Alive? - Distractify 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. Marathon Man 63m A person like her, he says, theres no forgetting.. (A charity she declines to name sends her $15 a month, her sole source of money.) Barring an unexpected transfer to another prison or a medical emergency, she will die inside this compound. 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. While there, doctors diagnosed her as a pathological liar with an unstable personality. 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. Some touch her shoulder. [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]. Meet Julio Santana, the world's deadliest hitman with 500 kills Before leaving, I decide to return to the subject of Los Angeles, to the despair that descended as she watched the news in her motel room. Chief later dismantled a garage in the backyard and installed a fresh concrete slab there as well. How to pronounce Dorothea | HowToPronounce.com The advanced state of decay, meanwhile, suggested the person had died long before Montoyas presumed disappearance in August. For William Clausen, by contrast, the bodies buried in Puentes yard confirmed what he already considered fact: she killed for profit. [3] Her parents were both alcoholics and her father repeatedly threatened to commit suicide in front of his children. The prosecutor, John O'Mara, was the homicide supervisor in the Sacramento County District Attorney's office. A lot of people get old in here really quickly cause they just kind of stop doing anything., Ruth Munroe, believed by authorities to be Puentes first victim (Courtesy of The Sacramento Archives). Puente had a reputation for taking in people considered tough cases recovering alcoholics, drug addicts, the mentally ill, and the elderly. Im not that kind of person. I prod for more, to no avail. Puente was found guilty of the murders of 64-year-old Dorothy Miller, 55-year-old Benjamin Fink, and 78-year-old Leona Carpenter. Ringed by four chairs, each serves as the setting of a reunion between a prisoner and those she knows from the outside. 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. Their dismembered bodies were then placed in holes in the garden she'd paid ex-convicts to dig. Her past crimes belied her pose of pure benevolence, yet she had submitted to the house and yard searches without protest. Shes making me lie for her.. 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. That is the question. Ballenger began to suspect Puente of more nefarious behavior after learning that two elderly women in her care had suffered recurring spells of illness that baffled doctors. 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.. The 1991 film Evil Spirits, starring Karen Black and Arte Johnson, is loosely based on the Puente murders. After the notorious female serial killer Dorothea Puente died in prison at the age of 82, the filmmaker Nick Coles stumbled upon her obituary. 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. I could see the joint., A vial of flurazepam found in Puentes home (Courtesy of The Sacramento Archives). As we continue talking, the topic switches to her life before prison, and I ask what she misses most about Sacramento. Her passivity subdues suspicion. 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. Intense news coverage led to Puentes trial moving to Monterey. Court files indicate Johansson had his wife committed to a psychiatric ward in 1961, and doctors placed her on antipsychotics. He pieced the puzzle together a couple of hours after they parted, and later that night, police converged on room No. Again and again, it is not her. He returned to the house, grabbed a shovel and began to dig. The reality, in fact, was that across a period of 10 years, Puente had meticulously murdered at least seven tenants at the boarding lodge she ran in Sacramento, California. Serial killer Dorothea Puente poisoned seven people in her boarding house and buried them in the backyard. 3 min read. 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 Puente had stayed poised a day earlier when Cabrera showed up with a fellow homicide detective and a federal probation agent. The next spring, with her husband hospitalized by terminal cancer, the 61-year-old Munroe moved in with Puente to save money. In 1952, Gray married merchant seaman Axel Bren Johansson in San Francisco. When they returned to his apartment, he watched in a stupor as Puente helped herself to his checks and cash; before leaving, she slipped a diamond ring off his pinky.
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