Dorothea Puente, ne Dorothea Helen Gray, was born on January 9, 1929, in Redlands, California. 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 alerted police, who went to the house, where they were met with the same answer that Alvaro was on holiday. "She sat there so totally motionless and emotionless, one juror said of Puente's demeanor during the trial, the outlet reported. We've received your submission. Puente, who took in people who were older, disabled, or otherwise ailing, would steal their Social Security and benefits checks and poison them by lacing their food with prescription medicine, according to The Los Angeles Times. The book also featured artwork that she'd done in prison as well as stories from her life. 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. Dorothea Puente died in prison of natural causes on March 27, 2011, at age 82. SACRAMENTO, CA On November 11, 1988, detectives swarmed a Victorian-style home on F Street in Sacramento where guests had a habit of checking in and then never checking out. Prosecutors said that Puente was one of the most cold and calculating female killers the country had ever seen.. Puente didn't stay in the facility long, and upon her release, she and Johansson moved to Broderick, California. Dorothea Puente, ne Dorothea Helen Gray, was born on January 9, 1929, in Redlands, California. Dorothea Puente was a convicted serial killer who ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California in the 1980s. ", Between 1985 and 1988, Puente is believed to have murdered at least seven people who lived at her boarding house. Puente had a reputation for taking in people considered tough cases recovering alcoholics, drug addicts, the mentally ill, and the elderly. But in fact, it's believed that Puente murdered Gillmouth in late November or early December 1985. . Kara Goldfarb is a writer living in New York City. But John slipped them a message. The boarders who were found dead on her property include Dorothy Miller, a 64-year-old war veteran who died in October 1987; Benjamin Fink, a 55-year-old alcoholic who died in April 1988;Leona Carpenter, a very ill widow who died in 1987; Bert Montoya, a man with intellectual disabilities who died in 1988; Betty Palmer, 78; James Gallop, a 62-year-old with various health issues; and Vera Faye Martin, 64. After their deaths, Puente would collect . However, "it's unlikely Dorothea received any psychological counseling," and there's no record of a clear diagnosis from the facility. 'We had a real connection,' Harder told VICE. Puente eventually died of natural causes at the age of 82 in 2011, The Los Angeles Times reported. Theyve never talked to me. Although Puente was eventually charged with the murder of nine individuals, it's likely that there were more victims. Dorothea Helen Puente ( ne Gray; January 9, 1929 - March 27, 2011) was an American convicted serial killer. This page was last edited on 18 February 2023, at 18:08. After an autopsy was done, medical examiners found a large amount of codeine in her system, and although her death was labeled "undetermined cause," it was believed to be a suicide. 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. By 1982, Puente was sent to prison for her thefts. Preview. This story originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced here with permission. She passed away at Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, California. Dorothea Puente had several children with McFaul but didnt raise them. Dorothea Puente got married two more times after her divorce from Johansson, but neither one of those marriages lasted long. Apparently, "Most reviewers [say] the recipes are pretty basic, but tasty." [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. 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. She was released just three years later, although a state psychologist diagnosed her as a schizophrenic with no remorse or regret who should be closely monitored.. Charged with a total of nine murders, Puente was flown back to Sacramento. Murderpedia . & Brucato, Gary, Ph.D., The New Evil: Understanding the Emergence of Modern Violent Crime (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books), pp. 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. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Dorothea Puente believed herself to be an able caretaker. Oxygen will air a documentary about Puente, "Murders at the Boarding House," on . She set about creating a more matronly image with her clothes and makeup, added years to her age, and became an in-home caretaker. She was put on trial in 1993 for the nine murders. But God always puts obstacles in peoples way.". I can't eat this any more! Seven bodies were eventually found buried on the property belonging to the"Death House Landlady," and she was ultimately accused of killing nine people total. Orphaned, Puente and her siblings splintered off in different directions, bouncing between foster care and relatives homes. But as the police prepared to leave, Sharp slipped them a message. She had a traumatic childhood after being raised by alcoholic parents. Judy Moise, an outreach counselor with Volunteers of America, became suspicious when Montoya vanished. The union lasted just two years. The grandmother would then sneak into the rooms of her incapacitated prey and smother them to death with a pillow. In November 1985, Dorothea Puente hired a handyman named Ismael Florez to install some wood paneling in her home. Under the law, Puente received life without the possibility of parole. But their marriage was brief only three years and hinted at trouble beneath the surface. "Sometimes [he] held a gun to his head and threatened to kill himself in front of his children," wrote the LA Times. She had been drinking at a bar with a man who thought she was acting oddly,later realizingit was Puente, a wanted woman. Nevertheless, she would come back to this business model. She gave birth to a child in 1946 and another one in 1947, but motherhood didn't seem to interest Puente. Instead, Puente found a husband. Sacramento, California, serial killer Dorothea Puente. But Puente presented herself as a harmless old woman who was given gifts, and the police let her out on bail. But, the next day, as the police started digging up other areas of the garden, she asked permission to go and meet her nephew for a coffee to calm her nerves. Vera Faye Martin, 64. Despite maintaining her innocence until the day she died, Puente has been immortalized as one of America's most notorious female serial killers. The prosecution stated that Puente used sleeping pills to drug her tenants, suffocated them, and then hired convicts to bury them in the yard. McFaul left her in late 1948.[5][6]. Dorothea was convicted of three out of nine murder counts and sentenced to life in prison in August of 1993. 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. 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. [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. 'She Was Just Pure Evil': How Dorothea Puente, 'The Death House Landlady,' Got Caught. She was given five years' probation and ordered to pay $4,000 in restitution. Sacramento Bee Two more murders She'd. In the spring of 1948, Gray was arrested for purchasing women's accessories using forged checks in Riverside. 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. Like many of Puente's vulnerable tenants, Montoya had developmental disabilities and schizophrenia, and after he didn't show up to meet with his social worker, Judy Moise, in November 1988, Moise reported him missing. 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. Satisfied, the authorities ruled Monroes death a suicide and moved on. At one point, she tried to earn a living as a sex worker in Washington state. Puente agreed even providing an extra shovel for them to do so. It wasn't until Alvaro "Bert" Montoya disappeared that Dorothea Puente's house of death was finally addressed. 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.. But police tracked her down in Los Angeles after a man in a bar recognized her from TV. 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. The marriage only lasted two years. [6], Following her divorce, Gray focused on running a boarding house located at 21st and F streets in Sacramento. Dorothy Miller. ', Puente died in 2011 aged 82 in her prison cell at the Central California Facility, in Chowchilla. 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. Bombs explained: What is the difference between a vacuum and a cluster bomb? Her crimes ranged from drugging and robbery to check forgery and murder, and even when she was blatantly violating her parole, she managed to fly under the radar. Dorothy Miller was a 64-year-old woman who was last seen alive in October 1987, The Los Angeles Times reported in 1993. 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. The jury was deadlocked eleven to one for conviction on all counts, and the lone holdout finally agreed to a conviction of two first-degree murder counts, including special circumstances, and one second-degree murder count. She established herself as a genuine resource to the community to aid alcoholics, homeless people, and mentally ill people by holding Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and assisting individuals to sign up to receive Social Security benefits. To many, Dorothea Puente seemed like an angel. 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. Those who stayed at the boarding house signed their checks directly over to her, while Puente claimed that she was doing this to protect the residents. Meanwhile, Puente's mother did sex work to support the family. She also suffered a miscarriage. In 1998, Puente began corresponding with Shane Bugbee. Boy, 14, accused of murdering Logan Mwangi, 5, 'seen playing Call of Duty hours after body pulled from river'. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. Using the name Donna Johnson, she approached Charles Willgraves at a bar, but once Willgraves realized why "Donna" looked familiar, he called the police. Six more corpses would follow, but Puente was still on the run. I dont know that she ever did anything good without a bad motive.. Theyd gotten so close that Puente had even told her children to Call me Grandma. Dorothea Puente looked like a sweet grandmother but looks can be deceiving. Removed from her violent crimes, it actually makes perfect sense to use Puente's image on a cookbook, as she has the perfect visage of a kind old lady who probably knows a secret recipe or two that her tenants all would . After a number of legal hurdles, Puente's trial eventually went ahead four years later. Axel Johansson was often at sea for months on end, and while he was away, Puente resumed working as a sex worker. It was difficult to determine, though, whether she had poisoned the tenants or if they had taken the fatal overdoses themselves, according to Sactown Magazine. Puente died in prison at Chowchilla on March 27, 2011, from natural causes; she was 82. 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. Between 1982 and 1989, Puente would take in the vulnerable and homeless people. Dorothy Miller, 64. . Puente was undaunted. She also established herself as a respected member in Sacramento's Hispanic community, funding charities, scholarships, and radio programs. Puente then married Pedro Angel Montalvo, but he left her only a week after they were wed. There, the former prostitute turned back to a life of crime. According to California Dreaming, Puente kept cashing his pension checks and writing to his family as though Gillmouth was alive. 104-107. 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