There, the former prostitute turned back to a life of crime. She also established herself as a respected member in Sacramento's Hispanic community, funding charities, scholarships, and radio programs. [2], Puente was born Dorothea Helen Gray on January 9, 1929, in Redlands, California, to Trudy Mae (ne Yates) and Jesse James Gray. "Yet despite the fact that Dorothea was on everybody's radar, nothing was done. Puente struck out on her own when she was 16. Everson Gillmouth, 77. Dorothea Puente looked like a sweet grandmother but looks can be deceiving. On April 11, 1982, Monroe also moved in with Punente, ostensibly to "save on expenses" since Monroe's husband had entered into hospice care. Shed also been linked to another two previous deaths that were now seen as too similar to ignore. She took it all Death is the only appropriate penalty. Serial Killers and Female Criminals notes thatin 1961, after Puente was discovered by an undercover police officer, Johansson had her committed to DeWitt State Hospital. She and Gillmouth moved into 1426 F Street, where Puente opened up a boarding house again. We were just digging and digging, he says. She then asked Florez to transport the filled, sealed box to a storage depot. Manager at radical French publisher is arrested at London St Pancras by British counter-terror police after Labour plans to give young asylum-seekers in Wales 1,600 a MONTH and taxpayers' cash to fight deportation. They agreed to let her go. [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. At one point, she tried to earn a living as a sex worker in Washington state. In fact, Puente was a serial killer who committed at least nine murders inside her boarding house in Sacramento, California throughout the 1980s. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. ', Puente died in 2011 aged 82 in her prison cell at the Central California Facility, in Chowchilla. Puente cashed in the Social Security checks of the elderly and disabled boarders living in her house. Dorothea Helen Puente (ne Gray; January 9, 1929 March 27, 2011) was an American convicted serial killer. On November 29, 1987, Trujillo wrote a letter to the Social Security Administration detailing her suspicions that Puente was stealing her SSI checks. She professed her innocence until she died. Their relationship developed quickly, and the couple was soon making wedding plans. 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. Some of them began to disappear. [6], In 1978, Gray was charged and convicted of illegally cashing thirty-four state and federal checks that belonged to her tenants. [1] Puente's total count reached nine murders; she was convicted of three and the jury hung on the other six. [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. Chief later dismantled a garage in the backyard and installed a fresh concrete slab there as well. Hed been referred to Dorothea Puentes house because of her sterling reputation welcoming people like him. A manhunt ensued for the 59-year-old woman, and she was eventually foundfour days later at a California motel. McFaul left her in late 1948.[5][6]. Thanks for contacting us. AboutPressCopyrightContact. Soon after, Monroe died from an overdose of codeine and acetaminophen. 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." The comments below have not been moderated. Everson Gillmouth is believed to be her next victim. I made them change their clothes every day, take a bath every day and eat three meals a day. She asked Florez to build a 6-by-3-by-2-foot box to store "books and other items". She never flinched. The boarding house at 1426 F Street in Sacramento was included in the 2013 home tour held by the Sacramento Old City Association. That is the question. 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. 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. While in prison, Dorothea Puente started corresponding with 77-year-old Everson Gillmouth through a pen pal exchange for imprisoned women. Puente was undaunted. Between 1982 and 1988, she killed nine people, all of whom were renting rooms at her boarding house. After their deaths, Puente would collect . 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. Does she have to be killed?" Under the law, Puente received life without the possibility of parole. Granddaughter of Dorothea Puente Victim Talks About Her Disappearance. When they came to me, they were so sick, they weren't expected to live.". 'We had a real connection,' Harder told VICE. 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. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Dorothea Puente believed herself to be an able caretaker. However, according to the Los Angeles Times, there are conflicting reports about Puente's early life, with some accounts claiming that she was one out of 18 children. How Did Dorothea Puente Kill Her Victims? Dorothea Puente (birth name Dorothea Gray) was born in 1929 in Redlands, California. Genaro Molina/Sacramento Bee/MCT/Getty Images. 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. Theyve never talked to me. One of the bodies was missing its head, hands and feet, Body parts were also found scattered across the property. Despite the guilty verdict of her trial, she maintained her innocence until her death. Amanda Sedlak-Hevener. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group. She never said anything. 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. according to a 2011 Los Angeles Times article. Between 1982 and 1988, the elderly and disabled people living in Dorothea Puentes house had no idea that was she was poisoning and strangling some of her guests before burying them on her property and cashing their Social Security checks. Her lawyers argued that she might be a thief, but not a murderer. She got in serious trouble for the first time in her life after bouncing a check in San Bernadino and spent four months in jail. Moise initially asked Puente where Montoya was, but Puente gave conflicting stories. Upon apprehension, she was charged with a total of nine murders. Dorothea was convicted of three out of nine murder counts and sentenced to life in prison in August of 1993. In 1988, seven bodies were found buried in the backyard of the boarding house she ran for the indigent and elderly. This story has been shared 102,612 times. A human leg and a badly discomposed foot were dug up separately in another part of the yard. The grandmother would then sneak into the rooms of her incapacitated prey and smother them to death with a pillow. A well-researched play by Mark Loewenstern entitled "Dorothea Puente Tells All!" Genaro Molina/Sacramento Bee/MCT/Getty ImagesThe boarding house made infamous by Dorothea Puentes murders. Puente had a reputation for taking in people considered tough cases recovering alcoholics, drug addicts, the mentally ill, and the elderly. On New Years Day, a fisherman spotted the box, noticed that it looked suspiciously like a coffin, and informed the police. One of these was of a 61-year-old woman named Ruth Monroe, who Puente persuaded to move into her house in April 1982, when her husband died. 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. After she was released, he moved to be with her, The Los Angeles Times reported. [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. EXCLUSIVE: Grandmother, 86, who arranged for her daughter-in-law, 27, to be lured to India and murdered in Could WhatsApp be BANNED in Britain? As soon as he regained the ability to move, he called the police, and Puente was arrested. The union lasted just two years. They dont have all the facts, she told Sactown Magazine in 2009. 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. And I could see Dorothea staring out the window at us, above.. Dorothea Puente, ne Dorothea Helen Gray, was born on January 9, 1929, in Redlands, California. She pled guilty to two counts of forgery, serving four months in jail and three years' probation. Vera Faye Martin, 64. Dorothea Puente Runs From Police. In total, seven bodies were found in Puente's yard. 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. 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. She spent her teen years bouncing between foster homes and orphanages, and was allegedly sexually abused at one point, according to a 2011 Los Angeles Times article. John OMara, the prosecutor, called over 130 witnesses to the stand. 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. ", They added: "You can not judge a book by its cover and she had one heck of a cover.". Dalmane, which is a drug used for insomnia, was found in all seven of the exhumed bodies. To many, Dorothea Puente seemed like an angel. [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. Clymo responded by evoking Dorothea the child and caregiver. Kara Goldfarb is a writer living in New York City. Puente then married Pedro Angel Montalvo, but he left her only a week after they were wed. The tenant backed Puente up but then slipped the cop a note saying thatPuente was forcing him to lie, the magazine reported. Around this time, Dorothea Puente became business partners with Ruth Monroe, a 61-year-old woman. The penalty phase of the prosecution was highlighted by her prior convictions introduced by O'Mara. 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. I dont know that she ever did anything good without a bad motive.. If anyone had their suspicions, they didn't voice them. 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. She was given five years of probation, which included the stipulation that she was forbidden from running a boarding house. Puente was convicted of three of the murders, although the jury could not agree on the other six. Dorothea Puente awaiting arraignment in Sacramento, California on November 17, 1988. In Olympia, Washington, she tried to make a living as a prostitute. When she was released in 1985, they moved in together, but he abruptly disappeared. This wasn't the first time she had drugged and robbed someone. Many of her victims had traces of the drug in them (via The Los Angeles Times ). She had been drinking at a bar with a man who thought she was acting oddly,later realizingit was Puente, a wanted woman. The Untold Truth Of Dorothea Puente, The Death House Landlady, drugging elderly people and stealing their benefit checks, remained unidentified until police connected it. It wasn't the first tip authorities had gotten about Puente, either. Dorothea Puente died in prison of natural causes on March 27, 2011, at age 82. After sixteen months, the couple separated, with Gray citing domestic abuse. It wasnt until 1988 that suspicions first arose about Puente, after one of her tenants, 52-year old Alvaro Montoya, went missing. has sold out to audiences at the California Stage, Wilkerson Theatre, UC Davis, and in January 2023 at Saramento Theatre Company. The 1991 film Evil Spirits, starring Karen Black and Arte Johnson, is loosely based on the Puente murders. Puente then opened the business that would give her the nickname "The Death House Landlady": a boarding house at 1426 F Street in Sacramento. Season 1 Episode 2 - Videos. Boy, 14, accused of murdering Logan Mwangi, 5, 'seen playing Call of Duty hours after body pulled from river'. 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. Preview. But the jury had a difficult time believe the matronly grandmother was capable of carrying out such menacing crimes. 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. Get an all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! Some of the bodies were mummified in cloth, bed sheets and duct tape. The disappearances of these so-called shadow people went unnoticed for years, until eventually a social worker Judy Moise who speaks in newNetflixdocumentary Worst Roommate Ever reported a tenant missing. [9], Puente continued to accept elderly boarders and was popular with local social workers because she accepted referrals of the "tough cases", including drug addicts and abusive tenants. Would you want that to happen to your children? Dorothea often took in the elderly and homeless and placed them as her tenants. However, it would be three more years before authorities could identify the body as one of the tenants in Dorothea Puentes house. [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. This piece follows what appears to be the most accepted timeline of Puente's life, but some things remain known only to Puente herself. Worst Roommate Ever is a documentary series that premiered on Netflix on March 1, 2022. During her trial, a witness also testified that Puente was sexually abused during her time at the orphanage. 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. By 1982, Puente was sent to prison for her thefts. She lost her first boarding house after getting caught signing her own name to tenants benefit checks. She was notoriously known as the "Death House Land Lady" after committing nine murders. Police returned to search the home and check out the backyard on Nov.11, 1988. Betty Palmer, 78. Puentes next two marriages would be short-lived. Then you will understand why these people believe Dorothea's life is worth saving. Moise alerted police, who went to the boarding house. She collected tenants' monthly mail before they saw it and paid them stipends, pocketing the rest for "expenses". And she didnt buy Puentes explanation that hed left on vacation. However, even though she was supposed to stick around town to serve her probation, Puente promptly packed up and fled. After noticing disturbed soil on the property, they uncovered the body of tenant Leona Carpenter, 78. Puente was sentenced to five years for "drugging elderly people and stealing their benefit checks" on August 19, 1982. In the 1980s, she worked as a personal caretaker who drugged her clients and stole their valuables. On January 1, 1986, a fisherman spotted the suspicious looking coffin-like box near the river and called police. 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. 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. Puente's deceptive appearance would later go on to confuse the jury presiding over her trial. The Center for Sacramento History writes that although the preliminary hearings took place in Sacramento, Puente's trial was eventually moved to Monterey after a judge determined that a fair trial in Sacramento wasn't possible due to the media coverage. 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. She was given five years' probation and ordered to pay $4,000 in restitution. Dorothea Puente fled to Los Angeles. While there, doctors diagnosed her as a pathological liar with an unstable personality. He claims to have had a regular relationship with her, The Founder of MurderAuction, a website that sells serial killer memorabilia, Harder says he sees his grandmother as human, despite her crimes (pictured: Harder with cult leader Charles Manson). Since she wasn't a suspect at the time, police said yes, at which point Puente promptly left the house and fled to Los Angeles. She created a fake persona, calling herself "Teya Singoalla Neyaarda", a Muslim woman of Egyptian and Israeli descent. This story has been shared 122,375 times. Published: 22:09 BST, 21 January 2019 | Updated: 22:42 BST, 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. Their suspicions, they were n't expected to live. `` all whom! Serial killer late 1948. [ 5 ] [ 6 ] a difficult believe... That to happen to your children were so sick, they were so sick, they the! Who drugged her clients and stole their valuables Gillmouth through a pen pal exchange for imprisoned women age 82 check..., Monroe died from an overdose of codeine and acetaminophen dont know that she ever did anything good without bad! 2011 aged 82 in her prison cell at the California Stage, Theatre... That Puente was arrested was on everybody 's radar, nothing was done couple soon! 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